The climate in Italy is heating up at a faster rate than the rest of the planet, according to a new report from the National Research Council (CNR).
Looking at the period between 1865 and 2003, CNR said average temperatures in Italy rose by one degree centigrade every 100 years compared to an average of 0.74 degrees for the whole world.
The CNR report was drawn up ahead of an upcoming conference in Rome on climate change.
According to the president of the Italian Meteorological Society (SMI), Luca Mercalli, the first eight months of 2007 have been the hottest in the past 250 years.
"Based on the preliminary data we have collected, the first eight months of 2007 in Italy have been the hottest since temperatures began to be recorded," he said.
"The previous record highs, set in 2003, were surpassed by 0.3 to 0.5 degrees," Mercalli added.
A recent SMI study found that wind was a factor in this year's high temperatures.
An example of this was on January 19 when the dry, warm Foehn Alpine wind brought temperatures as high as 25 and 27 degrees on the Piedmont side of the Po River Valley.
Another example cited by the SMI was on June 25 when the southeast sirocco wind blew in Palermo at 70kph, keeping nighttime temperatures there at 36.7 degrees and making it the hottest night since 1974.
Data from the society also showed that between January and August rainfall in central and northern Italy fell by between 10% and 40%, over the same period in 2006, while in the south rainfall was above average, up 29% in Palermo due to a particularly rainy March.
Another sign that Italy was heating up, SMI said, was the modest amount of snow which fell in the Alps this past winter.
Between October 2006 and June 2007, SMI said, the Grand Paradiso received only half of the snow it usually sees, 337cm at 2,275m instead of 655cm.
Grand Paradiso is the highest mountain in Italy's northwest Alps.
