As Spaniards summer at Barcelona's beaches, some worry about the erosion of coastline
Storms and sea level rise driven by climate change are eroding the man-made beaches in metropolitan Barcelona, with the sea swallowing swathes of coastline every year, authorities say. Compared to natural coastlines, man-made beaches erode faster. Montgat's coastline has eroded especially fast, locals and authorities say.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
4 hours ago
- Yahoo
Extreme heat is back — here's where it will be the worst
The United States has entered the peak of summer and a new heat dome — sealing in all that hot, humid air — is about to make millions of people feel every bit of it. Some cities could notch their highest temperatures of the year as heat builds from the South to the Midwest this week while humidity drives the heat index, or how hot it will actually feel, well into the triple digits. Sizzling conditions began to set up from the Gulf Coast to the Plains on Tuesday, with more than 60 million people under heat alerts from Florida to South Dakota. Cities across these regions, including Memphis, Atlanta and St. Louis, saw temperatures climb into the 90s Tuesday afternoon. Heat remains the deadliest form of extreme weather in the US. Globally, heat waves are becoming more frequent, more severe and lasting longer as the world warms due to fossil fuel-driven climate change. The heat will ramp up in intensity and expand to the Midwest on Wednesday. Brutal temperatures will stretch from the South through the Midwest on Thursday and also start to push into the East. Wednesday and Thursday could be the new hottest days of the year in cities like Chicago, St. Louis and Memphis: Chicago and St. Louis are expected to soar into the upper 90s both days while Memphis could flirt with the triple digit mark. Unlike the intense heat wave earlier this summer, this bout of stifling heat isn't likely to topple hundreds of records. But records don't need to fall for heat to be incredibly dangerous: A Level 3 of 4 heat risk stretches from the Gulf Coast to Michigan's Upper Peninsula on Wednesday, and pockets along the Mississippi Valley and Gulf Coast are under a Level 4 of 4 'extreme' risk that will linger through Thursday. Heat this severe impacts anyone without access to effective cooling or proper hydration, not just vulnerable populations, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. And for those without air conditioning, staying indoors can become deadly during the hottest parts of the day, the agency warns. For those under the highest risk level, the heat dangers are heightened because there will be little to no overnight relief. The heat index — also known as the apparent temperature — will soar to dangerous levels for tens of millions this week. Heat indices soared into the triple digits across the South and parts of the Central Plains on Tuesday. Temperatures felt as high as 110 degrees along coastal Georgia and South Carolina in the afternoon. By Wednesday, some parts of the Mississippi Valley, including Memphis, could have a heat index of between 110 and 115 degrees. Humid conditions will also prevent temperatures from cooling significantly overnight. It could still be close to 80 degrees in St. Louis by sunrise Thursday — nearly 10 degrees higher than a typical low for July. Chicago is expected to see low temperatures in the upper 70s Thursday morning, a departure from the typical lows in the 60s for this time of year. When overnight temperatures don't cool down enough to offer relief for overheated bodies, people are at greater risk for heat-related illnesses. Nighttime temperatures are taking the hardest hit from climate change, warming faster than daytime highs. The heat will ramp up considerably Thursday in parts of the Ohio Valley and start to reach into the Northeast. Detroit, Cleveland and Cincinnati could come within a degree of or match their hottest day of the year so far, with expected highs in the 90s. These highs are about 10 degrees hotter than what's typical even in this hottest month of the year. The most intense heat for the East Coast will arrive by Friday, with high temperatures in the middle to upper 90s and a heat index of 100 degrees or more possible for Washington, DC, Philadelphia, New York City and Boston. High temperatures in this range are also up to 10 degrees hotter than typical for these cities. Climate change is making this week's heat wave at least three times more likely for nearly 160 million people, almost half the US population, when compared with a world without fossil fuel emissions, according to an analysis from the climate research nonprofit Climate Central. The heat dome will ease by Saturday for many, replaced by more typical, though still very toasty, late July temperatures. Here's how hot this summer has been so far For many in the contiguous US, it's been sweltering since meteorological summer — June through August — began. The bulk of the heat has been focused on the East, where dozens of locations are so far on track for their hottest summer to date. Many more locales are currently experiencing at least one of their 10-hottest summers to date. The Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, Ohio Valley and Midwest have all been literal hotspots. Rather than searing daytime temperatures driving the above-average heat in these locations, it's been many, many instances of too-warm overnight lows making the biggest impact, according to a CNN analysis of data from NOAA's National Climatic Data Center. The Plains have so far dodged this really hot summer. Much of the West has too, with a few exceptions: Seattle is having its fifth-warmest summer to date while Portland is hovering around seventh-highest. Tiny pockets of cooler-than-normal summers are few and far between in the US, but the San Francisco Bay Area in California is one of them. Parts of the Bay Area — including Oakland and Fremont — are experiencing one of their coolest summers to date. August will likely be another hot month for much of the country, according to the Climate Prediction Center's latest forecast. Cities that are already baking could continue their hot streak while other places that have escaped the worst could still warm up a bit in the latter part of summer. CNN's Luke Snyder contributed to this report. Solve the daily Crossword
Wall Street Journal
8 hours ago
- Wall Street Journal
The New Hot Topic in European Politics Is Air Conditioning
PARIS—Rising summer temperatures have softened Europe's resistance to air conditioning and touched off a new political fight about the wisdom of installing the technology everywhere, U.S.-style. A heat wave that hit Western Europe in June and July spurred a run on air conditioners in appliance stores across the region. The scorching temperatures came unusually early, before many Europeans had a chance to decamp to the beach for summer vacation, exposing vulnerabilities in the cities where most people live. More than 1,000 French schools closed partially or completely because they lacked air conditioning.
Forbes
18 hours ago
- Forbes
Spanish Catastrophe Insurance Is World-Leading. How Will It Deal With Escalating Climate Change?
A resident of Chiva, Spain cleans the outside of her home after flooding in November 2024. ... More (Photographer: Angel Garcia) When Andriy Drohorub, his wife, and their two daughters left Ukraine for Spain in June 2024, they were seeking a safer life. Two months later Drohorub bought a ground-floor apartment in the village of Alfafara. There was so much to do—learning Spanish, trying to get his medical credentials recognized, looking for online work in the meantime—that he didn't have time to buy insurance. Because he didn't need a mortgage, he wasn't required to take out home insurance. The family had only been in their new home for four months when, in late October, intense rainfall led to flooding in southern and eastern Spain. The violence of the gushing water was intense. Windows blew out, chunks of the walls peeled off, and furniture was knocked over. Mud and debris accumulated everywhere. 'The house was completely destroyed,' Drohorub reports. It could have been even worse. An elderly neighbor died, one of at least 232 people to die in the floods caused by the weather phenomenon known as DANA (Depresión Aislada en Niveles Altos). Emergency alerts came too late for many. In the aftermath, as the family sought to rebuild their lives again, Drohorub wasn't able to obtain government help. He had to take out a loan to make repairs. He's grateful to rescuers, police, and volunteers who helped the family with furniture and appliances. 'The people here are very friendly and close-knit, but the state has a lot of bureaucracy and everything is very slow,' Drohorub feels. Though the apartment isn't back to 100%, it's now liveable again. One question is whether insurance could have helped the family get back on its feet earlier, and without turning to debt. How Spanish Catastrophe Insurance Works The Consorcio de Compensación de Seguros (CCS – Insurance Compensation Consortium) is the Spanish system for protecting insured people from extraordinary risks. It was set up in 1941, after the turmoil of the Spanish Civil War. CCS is a public company run by government officials and representatives of private insurance companies. Anyone with life, accident, property, or business interruption insurance is covered under CCS. This encompasses 140 million policies. The consortium is funded by a 0.15% charge on the gross premiums, which insurers are required to collect. For a car owner, this amounts to about €2 a year. For the owner of a €200,000 home, this would be €14. Though small, this surcharge embeds a kind of solidarity among all insurance policyholders in Spain, believes Francisco Espejo Gil, the assistant director for research and international relations at CCS. Whether they're in a flood-prone part of Spain or not, everyone pays the same. He refers to this as 'a community insurance at a national scale.' In Espejo's view, everybody wins: insurers have a secure market (albeit with less flexibility). Individuals have guaranteed coverage for extraordinary events (as long as they're covered for ordinary ones). And public emergency budgets are kept in check by an insurance system that most people opt into (about 80% of residential properties are covered, according to Espejo). This isn't a system just for the rich or just for the poor—most groups are covered. However, it's not a perfect system. Some home and car owners are disappointed and confused by low appraisals of their damaged property. Some are angry at delays in processing claims. Espejo says that CCS aims to pay about 80% of the total losses in the first four months of an extraordinary event. According to him, that target is normally achieved for small to medium events. Of course, the Valencia flooding was a very large and devastating event. CCS has now paid out almost all of the home and car claims, but the processing rates are lower for industrial and civil infrastructure, which involves more complex assessments. Cascading Climate Risks Then there's the threat multiplier of climate change. DANA has been the costliest event in CCS' 70-year history. CCS paid out more in DANA claims than in the next 10 most expensive events combined. 'This was a very serious outlier in terms of frequency and intensity. Truly we are witnessing an intensification in both hazard and exposure,' Espejo says somberly. The flooding didn't break CCS, but with losses amounting to €4.5 billion, it came close to the probable maximum loss of over €5 billion. A man sits behind a pile of mud in Paiporta, Spain, following flooding in November 2024. ... More (Photographer: Jose Jordan) Espejo, a meteorologist, explains, 'The Mediterranean Sea is reaching sea surface temperature of nearly or above 30° in the summer, and that's a weather bomb. For each degree that the temperature of the air rises, the capacity of the atmosphere to hold water vapor rises by 7%.' A hotter sea and a more humid atmosphere mean a greater capacity for heavy rain, flash floods, and widespread damage. 'Very likely this is going to be the future not only for Spain, for all of us in central and southern Europe.' María José Sanz Sánchez, the scientific director of the Basque Centre for Climate Change (BC3) in Bilbao, warns that 'even the best insurance schemes in the world, like the Spanish one,' may struggle as extreme climate-linked events increase. Along with the intensity and frequency, the unpredictability of extreme events is growing. Cathal Carr, founder of the reinsurance company OAK Re, says that companies like his would generally look at the previous 50–100 years' worth of data to model risks. This is no longer sufficient. CCS may also need to change course. It covers agricultural insurance and catastrophic risk insurance. The aim of the latter is to provide a buffer against catastrophes both natural (earthquakes) and human (terrorism). Increasingly, the division between a 'natural' disaster and one caused by humans is becoming blurrier. Over CCS' existence, extreme daily rainfall in September–December in central and southeastern Spain has become twice as likely, and 12% more intense, due to human-caused climate change. Most CCS claims have been related to floods. CCS stopped covering hail in the 1980s, though it continues to be a threat. A hailstorm affected Valencia around the same time as the floods last autumn. So far, wildfires are not yet included, but could be part of CCS coverage in the future if the damages increase. When determining what to cover, CCS distinguishes between climate hazards (for example, it does not cover heatwaves) and hydrometeorological hazards (for example, it does cover drought). The consortium's perspective is that these have different implications for insurance. In practice, however, the effects are interlinked, particularly as climate variability intensifies. Espejo likes to explain the distinction by specifying that private companies 'cover water damages when the water comes from the roof and we cover water damages when the water comes by the door.' In other words, hail damage is covered by the private market, which is free to apply risk-reflective premiums. Crop insurance for droughts falls under CCS' purview. The 0.15% surcharge will probably need to be raised if extraordinary events increase, Espejo acknowledges. This would mark a change. In the 21st century, the charge has only been lowered (in view of the health of the insurance market). An even more complex question is whether having a reliable catastrophe insurer discourages individuals and communities from reducing risk in the first place. 'We have to make a choice,' Espejo responds. 'And our choice is to favor the availability and the existence of insurance,' rather than leaving people vulnerable through less affordable or accessible insurance. Global Fragmentation While climate-related disasters have led to insurer pullouts in vulnerable areas like California, CCS has ensured a stable base for insurance companies, which continue to be profitable in Spain in spite of its climate exposure. Compared to other European countries, the combined ratio of Spanish insurance is generally much lower (more profitable) and more stable, says Ekaterina Ishchenko, a director at Fitch Ratings, a credit rating agency, in Madrid. 'I think in general it's quite positive for particular countries' insurance sectors to have a scheme like that, but that's of course based on the political will,' Ishchenko comments. In Spain, 'I think that it has demonstrated that it works really well for the sector and for the country.' France has a similar system, but Germany does not. 'I think Germany is a bit behind on this front,' comments Alberto Messina, a senior director at Fitch Ratings in Frankfurt. 'There's been political discussions again, which obviously usually intensify right after an event occurs, and then perhaps fade away a bit after that.' Overall, Messina believes, 'The direction of travel is towards the Spain model. And I think the spirit based on which other countries are moving is essentially not to do a favor to the insurers, but to protect businesses and customers, in the sense that it's just cheaper and safer to prevent as opposed to wait for the event to occur and then rebuild from scratch. So I think that's what they're trying to achieve now, in order to build resilience and business continuity and avoid disruptions.' There are both logistical and ideological reasons that not all countries will adopt a Spain-style model for catastrophe insurance. In some places, people living outside of flood risk zones, for instance, might balk at the idea of paying the same insurance surcharge as people in more vulnerable areas. Though it may not be palatable everywhere, this goes back to that idea of solidarity that animates CCS. Sanz, the Valencia-born climate scientist, believes that the general principle behind CCS is very much needed in an era of spiralling climate impacts. That is, everyone has to contribute and share the for this story was supported in part by a press trip organized by the Provincial Council of Bizkaia.
