Met Office finds UK weather is more extreme due to climate change
A new report by the Met Office has found that UK weather has become more extreme due to climate change.
A new report by the Met Office has found that UK weather has become more extreme due to climate change.
The team, made up of experts from the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) and World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), have outlined how the UK’s climate has changed since 1960.
To do this, they documented temperature and rainfall climate extremes, including periods of warmth, cold and spells of wet or dry weather.
The report found that the average hottest day of the year has increased by 0.8 degrees Celsius. Warm spells have more than doubles in length, increasing from an average of 5.3 days in 1961-90 to 13.2 days in 2008-17.
The UK’s cold weather has also got milder. The average coldest day of the year has become 1.7 degrees Celsius milder and the number of days where max temperatures do not rise above 0 degrees Celsius has been decreasing.
Dr Mark McCarthy, head of the Met Office’s National Climate Information Centre, the team which produced the report, said: “Monthly, seasonal and annual climate data provide a valuable record of the changing climate in the UK. However, these average figures have a tendency to mask extreme weather and climate events. So in our latest report we have focussed on those measures which record weather extremes – complementing our recently published State of the UK climate 2017 report – which shows how the UK’s climate is changing.”
This report follows the shocking IPCC report which outlined the stark effects if global average temperature rise goes above 1.5 degrees Celsius.
Find the full report here.
