Climate references of the 2020 seasons in the Southern coast of the Crimea

Abstract

An agrometeorological review of the 2020 climate seasons on the Southern coast of the Crimea was performed based on observations from the Nikitsky garden agrometeorological station. A distinctive feature of the growing season from previous years was revealed - an abnormally high temperature regime and aridity of the early spring period, a hot dry-arid second half of summer, a long, unusually warm and arid autumn. Significant precipitation was falling only in January 2021 after the end of the growing period. Its distinctive feature was also that extremely dry vegetation conditions were observed for the second year in a row after a severe long summer-autumn drought in 2019. For the period from 1930 to 2020 similar difficult and unfavorable weather conditions on the Southern coast of the Crimean were observed for two consecutive years only in 1993-1994. A very long and severe air-soil drought had a depressing effect on all cultivated and wild plants, causing injury from severe hydrothermal stress even in native drought-resistant species, especially those growing on the slopes of the southern exposure with high steepness. At the beginning of the growing season in spring, the development of plants was ahead of the average long-term period from 1-2 weeks to one month. The predominance of cool weather in April-May and early June slowed down their development, but since the second half of June, the growth has intensified. In the future, under the influence of the hot and dry weather of July-August, the maturation of some plant species and cultivars accelerated by 2-3 weeks. Due to the abnormally warm weather in autumn, the end of the plants growing season in the Southern coast of the Crimea was delayed for 2-4 weeks. Heat availability in 2020 was significantly higher than the long-term average and higher than last year.