Climate normals, what for?
Climate normals are used in different sectors, such as agriculture or energy, and also allow the comparison of climatic conditions between different places. Or, to make comparisons on the evolutions of the climate in the long term.
However, several parameters can cause differences between the reference periods: changes in the measurement conditions of a weather station, evolution of the fleet of stations used to calculate an aggregate indicator, evolution of WMO directives.
“The explanation that we all want to have in mind is of course the evolution of the climate in this context of climate change, which is still quite significant. The difficulty we have is that all these effects are combined and, unfortunately, difficult to dissociate,” adds Matthieu Sorel. “You have to take a lot of tweezers when studying the differences with previous normals, you cannot directly attribute a difference to the evolution of climate change, even if you would still like to do so, especially since the results that we still pleaded in favor of that, ”he adds.