Why is it so hot?

The main causes: from the climate crisis to increasingly intense heat waves, up to the Charon anticyclone and the El Niño climate phenomenon.

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record heat

Nowadays only a few stupid or bad-faith deniers are unaware of what we all observe every day, and science confirms with timely and up-to-date research: it's getting hotter and hotter. But why? And what should we expect for the near future?

  • The climate crisis It is certainly at the basis of the phenomenon. Global warming is caused by the increase in gases greenhouse gases (such as CO2 and methane) into the atmosphere, which in turn trap heat, causing the planet's average temperature to rise.
  • Current warming has become extremely rapid, and temperature variations that once occurred over the course of millennia now occur in just a few decades.
  • The North Atlantic winds have become stronger than usual.
  • Heat waves have become much more frequent than in the past.
  • The increase inhumidity and atmospheric subsidence. That is, when the mass of warm air at the highest levels of the atmosphere sinks to the lower levels and causes temperatures to soar.
  • The strengthening of the Charon anticyclone, which comes from the Sahara and then moves towards the countries of North Africa and the area of Mediterranean.
  • The meteorological phenomenon, known as El Niño, which warms the Pacific, has regained strength, after a period of attenuation.
  • The warmest winters in Antartide have caused the extension of the ice shelves (the surface of floating ice) to reach historic lows.
  • Heat islands in cities: The heat is amplified because concrete and asphalt absorb heat, vegetation is usually less abundant, and some typically urban factors (the use of air conditioning, car traffic, and manufacturing and commercial activities) produce further heat waves.

The abnormal temperatures

Professor Massimiliano Fazzini, climatologist and geologist of the Italian Society of Environmental Geology (Sigea), He gave the website Fanpage.it a clear and concise explanation of the temperature trend in relation to the Great Heat:What we are experiencing is an anomalous heat both in terms of real temperatures,that is, those that we measure with the thermometer, both from the point of view of perceived temperatures, that is, those that our body on average feels. As for actual temperatures, we are on average 5°C to 8°C above average. As for the perceived ones, we are already in a situation that is defined as severe suffering or medium suffering (based on the classifications adopted) for the human body.

Italy is now a tropical country

According to data from ISPRA (the Italian National Institute for Environmental Protection and Research), covering the period between 1961 and 2024, it is clear that all indicators of temperature extremes are showing rapid and intense warming in our country, leading to a true tropicalization of the Italian climate.

Heat-related deaths in Italy

According to ISTAT data published in October 2024, between July and August 2024, 5,000 deaths were recorded in Italy respectively 52.681 e 54.670 deaths, with an estimated excess of approximately 870 more deaths in July (+2%) e 3.629 more in August (+7%) compared to the pre-pandemic average (2015–2019).

An analysis conducted byImperial College London and London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, focused on the heat wave between the June 23 and July 2, 2025, esteem:

  • In 12 European cities, about 1.500 deaths linked to the heat wave;
  • In Italyalmost 500 victims in Milan (about 306) e Rome (about 164) are attributed to excess mortality related to heat

What will happen in the near future

Considering the causes of the Great Heat we have seen, there are truly many variables through which to predict what will happen in the near future. Will we be able to reduce emissions, as all the world's governments say they want to do? How will the anticyclones evolve?
Furthermore, not only greenhouse gas emissions play an important role in the evolution of temperatures, but also, to name just a few examples, land use, construction, and the clearing of forests. And again, the phenomenon of ocean warming, That they have warmed significantly and for a long time implies that sooner or later this heat will have to be released again. Scientists argue that even if, absurdly, we shut down all sources of greenhouse gas emissions or heat today, the Earth would continue to warm for another eight or nine years because the ocean is so hot that it will gradually have to release that heat, and the energy balance would continue to be positive.
In the face of so many unknowns, But we have one certainty: we can all do something to reduce global warming, And this can be crucial. As the great Totò used to say, with what might seem like a comedian's quip: it's the sum that makes the total. And the sum of many small behaviors can make a significant total, even for the purposes of reducing global warming. 

 

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