Climate in Cyprus is changing. Is it?

Kouris dam at the district of Limassol 2006

Cyprus has 107 dams

Kouris Dam Jan 2007.The larger dam of Cyprus

In all hotels Guest rooms of Cyprus, a Visitor will see this logo of the Water Board of Cyprus.

The water problem is so big in Cyprus that we have water cuts all over Cyprus and all over the year. Some summers the water flow may come to our premises for 1 or 2 times a week and only for a period of 12 hours

This is essential because during the last decadeCyprus is suffering from water insufficiency.

Last year was the worst year concerning the water. Their was no rain at all.

Most of our 107 dams were dry without a Single drop of water

Our 2 desalination units didn’t produce enoughWater for our needs.

Hopefully by the end of 2011 2 more desalinationUnits will be build that will cover the water needsOf the Island.

From May 2008 and for six monthsin order to cover our water needswe IMPORT water from Greecewith tankers

Import water from Greece

Climate in Cyprus is chaning. Is it?Most people and some studies says that ,yes Climate in Cyprusis changing.

We don’t know if the above statement is true of false. What we do know, we the people of Cyprus, is the fact that in the resent years we are experiencing many strange phenomena :

I remember that at Troodos mountain with a almost 2000m ( actual 1951m) altitude, at 80’s the snow in winter was 2 to 2.5m.

Cyprus at 80’s was a popular sky center.

As you can seen at that time, Cyprus evenpost stamps with the related topic.

Last year barely show.

Phenomenon #1

Phenomenon #2

Is a common phenomenon to have dust comes from Sahara desert 2 to 4 times every Spring lasting 2 to 3 days every time

This year, 2009-2010 we had dust even at the winter.We all ready had 4 visits of dust from North Africa even from Middle East and Syria, at January and February . The duration of the dust was 4-6 days.

This January we also experience another strange phenomenon. We had dust and rains at the some time.

Phenomenon #3

At 18th of last September (2009) we experience another strange phenomenon. A tornado terrorized parts of Nicosia, uprooting trees, smashing windows, overturning cars and knocking down anything in its path

Tornadoes

We do have tornadoes in Cyprus in winder but not at September.

Long Term Temperatures for Nicosia of Cyprus from 1901 until today Cyprus mean annual precipitation (mm) from 1901 until 2009Mean annual max Temperature and precipitation of Limassol of the last three decade.

For our European School Project “Protect don’t Neglect” we take and analyzed the following data :

Nicosia mean Annual Temperature oC from 1901 until today

It is clear when we analyzed the Nicosia mean annual temperature from 1901 until 2008 that there is a tent of the temperature to increase. As we can seen from the chart especially for the recent years the annual temperature  is increasing,  indicates that in our dates the weather is getting warmer.

Because we didn’t have data for Limassol from 1901 until today we used the above graph which had been taken from Price et al April 1999 on his study “Long term Change in diurnal temperature range in Cyprus|

As we can seen from the graph the mean annual temperature in Cyprus is 1.3 oC higher since 1900.

Below we analyzed data taken from Limassol since 1976

It is obvious from the graph that the mean Annual temperature in Limassol year by year is increasing.

Comparing the mean annual temperature of this decade with the previous decades we can see that the temperatures are higher

As we can see from the Precipitation graph of Limassol the rainfall in Limassol in the last decade is less compare w ith the previous decades

Precipitation of Cyprus from 1901 until today

It is clear that the precipitation in the Island of Cyprus is year by year less

General ConclutionsAs we analyzed our data we found:1. The mean annual temperatures of Limassol

(but also Nicosia) are increasing.

2 As the temperature increase it seems that there is a correlation with the precipitation. As we see when temperature increasing the rain in Limassol and in Cyprus in general is decreasing.