It was a very difficult choice. Everyone deserved to win, but the competition was great due to the high quality and evocative nature of the photos sent to us.
The bronze medal for our Photo Contest 2024 goes to Mr. Antonio V., who manage to capture an impressive picture of a prickly pear that unfortunately did not survive.
The photo was taken on 14 August 2011 at an abandoned farm, Casa de los Munuera, near Mount Columbares in Murcia, southeast Spain.
The prickly pear is a succulent plant and, as such, has evolved to grow in very dry, if not almost desert-like environments. Therefore, too much moisture over time leads to root rot, which prevents the roots from absorbing nutrients and water from the soil.
It cannot be said for sure what caused the death of the prickly pear. However, if it was able to grow and thrive in that location, it means that for quite a long time the environmental conditions (including weather conditions) allowed it to do so.
However, the Climate (modelled) function provides monthly values of average temperature, precipitation and wind based on 30 years of historical weather data for the location where the photo was taken.
These average values were then compared with data from 2010 and 2011 in our historical data archive. This allowed us to observe anomalies in the amount of precipitation.
As can be seen from the graph (2011) from our weather archive, the amount of rainfall in March and May is far higher than the average rainfall for the same months over the past 30 years. The same trend can be observed for 2010, with the addition of a high peak in December.
This might provide some idea of the history of the unfortunate cactus in the photo.
We would like to thank Mr. Antonio V. for his participation in our Photo Contest 2024 "Capturing Climate Change".
Stay tuned in the coming days to find out which are the stunning second and first place winning photos!
