The myth of four mild summers

Four mild summers don't cancel the climate trend

The argument resurfaces every August: "We've had three or four summers where it was barely hot for a week; now that a strong one comes along, everyone tears their clothes." Those who defend it offer memory, not data. Official records from AEMET and MITECO paint a different picture. And the 2003 heatwave in France, one of Europe's most remembered episodes, shows the problem isn't new, but it's not a modern invention either.

The debate gets tangled in two dimensions. Those who claim we've had four "mild" summers use personal experience as data. Those who refute it rely on statistics and regional differences: Seville proge up to 31 degrees and a downpour in August, while Central Europe and England were drying out. Climate change isn't neighborhood-specific, but summer is.

There's a psychological clue running through the exchange: air conditioning has changed the comfort threshold. A traveler on a medium-distance train complains that people feel cold in the carriage and that, once outside, 27 degrees already seems like hell. Heat tolerance drops when cooling is normalized, and that clouds memory.

The conversation ends in politics: Agenda 2030, it's accused from one side, would be a plan to "regress" and make life more expensive. There's no data to prove it, but the suspicion is already planted. Are four mild summers enough to close the debate? With the thermometer smoking, the question remains open.