How will weather be in my French town in 2050? New tool helps find out

Global warming is and will be the cause of major upheavals throughout France in the decades to come, affecting everything from agriculture to health to tourism.

The risks will not be the same from one commune in France to another. To find out what climate changes cities will have to adapt to in 2050, Météo-France has recently launched a tool called ‘Climadiag commune’.

The issue is not just how much average temperatures will rise in a given community by mid-century.

"Over the next two decades, climate change will be driven by emissions that have already occurred. These changes are inevitable, so we have to adapt to them," Patrick Josse, head of the climatology and climate services department at Météo-France told Le Journal de Saône-et-Loire.

"In most cases, these adaptation actions must be taken at the local level: the municipality, the community of municipalities, the department," Patrick Josse said.

"Whether in coastal areas, cities or mountainous areas, the impacts will not be the same and the activities affected will be different. So we wanted to address all the local elected officials because they will all have to make choices about adapting to the situation," he continued.

15 different indicators of global warming

To find out what the weather will look like in your commune in 2050, type the place name into the search bar. About 15 indicators are available, classified in five major categories on which global warming will have significant impacts: climate, natural hazards, health, agriculture and tourism.

In particular, Climadiag makes it possible to know how many days in the year a municipality will be exposed to heat waves or hot nights in 2050. This is an essential public health issue, particularly in cities that will be confronted with dozens of heatwave days, putting the most vulnerable people at risk.

"The climate emergency is here. In order to act, it is essential to know precisely the climatic evolutions to which we must adapt", explains Météo-France.

As stated above, the Climadiag Commune is based on five families of indicators, calculated from climate projections. They target the evolution by mid-century in a median greenhouse gas emission scenario:

Climate: four general meteorological indicators likely to be of interest to all municipalities (average temperature, days of frost, cumulative rainfall, days with rain);

Natural hazards: five indicators concerning natural hazards related to intense events (days with intense rainfall, exceptional rainfall, soil drought, risk of forest fire, sea level);

Health: four indicators concerning specific health risks (very hot days, hot nights, heat waves, cold waves);

Agriculture: four indicators concerning agriculture (consecutive days without rain, vegetation recovery, thermal availability for wheat, scalding days);

Tourism: four tourism indicators (summer days, low altitude snow cover, high altitude snow cover).

The tools suggests that in 2050 it could be 24.3 degrees on average in summer in Marseille, compared to 22.5 currently; that the number of annual days of frost in Toulouse could drop from 24 to 14.

In addition, the number of days with precipitation in summer in Quimper could drop from 27 to 23, and the annual number of nights with more than 20 degrees in Strasbourg could rise to 16, compared to 4 at present

Take the test for your town by clicking here, by typing its name in the search bar at the top right.

Related articles

Climate activists deflate tyres of 90 SUVs in Toulouse

Rising sea levels provoke exodus from northern French coastline

‘Coldest town in France’ sees first-ever October with no sub-zero days