Inquiry on the perception of climatic changes
The answers below concern the majority of students and families from classes 2E and 2G but we got divergent answers to many questions, which testifies that the perception of climate is often subjective.
Nevertheless, if we compare the answers of the majority of students and families to the actual data, we see that the perceptions correspond with the historical data.
Climatic variations in summer |
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Temperature |
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| Can you remember really hot summers in the last years (many days with high temperature)? | All students remember that the summer 2003 was particularly hot. | |
Do you think summer 2008 was particularly hot? |
Most students think summer 2008 wasn’t so hot, but many of them say it was. | |
Annual rainfall |
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Have there been really dry periods in the last years? If there have been, when? |
Yes, summers 2003- 2005 were really dry. Drought caused fires, especially in the south and problems to agriculture.
"hail in summer" |
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Climatic variations in winter |
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Temperature |
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Do you think this winter is particularly cold? |
No, I think it isn’t particularly cold. | |
Can you remember really cold winters in the last years? |
In the last years winters haven’t been so cold. | |
Do you think the average winter temperature has always been the same, is it increasing or decreasing? |
I think the average temperature is increasing. | |
Annual rainfall |
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Which do you think have been the wettest seasons this year? |
This year the wettest seasons have been spring, autumn and winter. |
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When did it rain harder in 2007 or in 2008, or didn’t you notice any differences? |
2008 was, no doubt wetter, especially in spring, autumn and winter. |
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Looking back at the past, have you noticed any change in the intensity of rains? |
Yes, rain has often been very hard recently, which was less frequent in the past. |
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Have catastrophic events due to hard rains occurred in Italy in the last years? |
In the last years torrential rains have caused lots of landslides especially in the south and flooding due to the overflowing of rivers. |
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Snow
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Can you remember particularly snowy winters in the last years? |
In the last years it hasn’t snowed much, while this winter (2008-2009) has been really snowy. |
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Fog |
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Do you think that foggy days are more frequent or less frequent than in the past? |
In our opinion in the last years there have been fewer foggy days than in the past. |
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