Warmth, Wildfires and Weather Anomalies
RSGS Chief Executive Mike Robinson reflects on the latest Met Office report, showing that weather records and extremes are the new norm for the UK.
Anyone still questioning the science of climate change clearly doesn’t read the science of climate change. This week’s Met Office report – the latest of its annual UK climate stocktakes, shows that weather records and extremes are the new norm for the UK. I doubt that will be a surprise to anyone who does understand the science and it is entirely consistent with thousands of other scientific reports and observations. So perhaps the questions alongside what the latest findings reveal, are really about whether we should be concerned, if so whether we can do anything about it, and perhaps whether we already are taking sufficient action.
This latest assessment of the UK’s climate shows how baselines are shifting, records are becoming more frequent, and that temperature and rainfall extremes are becoming the norm. The latest State of the UK Climate report, published in the Royal Meteorological Society’s ‘International Journal of Climatology’, provides insight into the UK’s changing climate. The report highlights how the UK’s climate has warmed steadily from the 1980s onwards, albeit with individual cooler years, with the greatest implications from the increasing frequency and intensity of daily temperature extremes.
It’s main other findings include:
· Air and ground frosts have steadily declined from the 1980s on-wards, reducing by around a quarter
· The UK’s climate has become steadily wetter since the 1980s, due to an increase in winter ‘half-year’ rainfall
· The most recent decade (2015–2024) has been on average 0.3°C warmer than the 1991–2020 average and 0.9°Cwarmer than 1961–1990 for UK near-coast SST.
· Five of the 10 warmest years for UK near-coast SST have occurred in the most recent decade 2015–2024, with 2024ranked sixth warmest.
· The number and severity of snow events in the UK have declined since the 1960s
· UK near coastal waters have warmed steadily from the 1980s on-wards at a rate slightly lower than the warming rate over UK land
· The UK’s climate has become sunnier since the 1980s, primarily driven by increases in winter and spring sunshine
· Observations do not currently suggest that the UK’s climate is be-coming windier or stormier
· Observations show that extreme weather events are to be expected each year as an integral part of the UK’s climate. As has been fairly typical in recent years, floods and storms brought the worst impacts in 2024
New analysis in the report examines the shifting frequency and intensity of heat and rainfall extremes. Understanding how these extremes are changing is particularly important because these tend to cause the greatest impacts, such as heatwaves or floods.
The number of days with temperatures 5°C above the 1961-1990 average has doubled for the most recent decade 2015-2024 compared to 1961-1990. For 8°C above average the number has trebled and for 10°C it has quadrupled. This shows how the hottest days we experience in the UK have increased in frequency dramatically in just a few decades.
As the UK’s climate warms, it is also becoming wetter, with this report showing that the increase in rainfall is entirely due to an upward trend in the winter half-year (October to March). For 2015-2024 the winter half-year is now 16% wetter than 1961-1990 for the UK.
So should we be concerned? Well again for those familiar with the science, the answer is yes. Met Office Climate Scientist and Lead Author of the State of the UK Climate report, Mike Kendon, said: “Every year that goes by is another upward step on the warming trajectory our climate is on. Observations show that our climate in the UK is now notably different to what it was just a few decades ago. We are now seeing records being broken very frequently as we see temperature and rainfall extremes being the most affected by our changing climate. This pace of change and clustering of consecutive records is not a natural variation in our climate. Numerous studies have shown how human emissions of greenhouse gasses are warming the atmosphere and changing the weather we experience on the ground. Our climate in the UK is now different to what it was just a few decades ago, this is clear from our observations.”
As in recent years, floods and storms brought the worst severe weather impacts to the UK in 2024. There was widespread flooding in early January associated with the run of named storms from the Autumn of 2023 including storms Babet, Ciarán, Debi, Elin, Fergus, Gerrit, Henk, Isha and Jocelyn. October 2023 to March 2024 was the wettest winter half-year on record for England and Wales in over 250 years with areas affected by flooding including eastern Scotland, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and the West Midlands.
Met Office Chief Scientist, Prof Stephen Belcher, said: “We are experiencing more severe weather events in the UK due to climate change. They are a potent reminder of our responsibility to citizens now, and to future generations, to accelerate efforts to adapt our society and infrastructure to cope with these weather extremes. The climate is likely to continue to change, and so we need to prepare for the impacts that will have on the weather we experience on the ground.”
Chief Executive of the Royal Meteorological Society, Professor Liz Bentley, said: “The report draws particular attention to the last decade that clearly shows how quickly our climate is evolving to inform policy, resilience planning, and adaptation. Perhaps most striking is the growing impact of extremes. While long-term averages are shifting, it is the extreme heat, intense rainfall and droughts that are having the most immediate and dramatic effects on people and nature. This report is not just a record of change, but a call to action.”
We know there are actions we can take both to reduce emissions, and to protect communities from the worst impacts. So the final question relates to whether we are doing enough, and unfortunately all the signs are currently that we are not. Government at European, UK and Scottish levels are back pedalling on a number of commitments and have actually enacted very little by the way of climate, reacting to a hostile Whitehouse, and a co-ordinated push back from a well-funded anti-science agenda. Many of the more extreme right-wing populist parties across Europe from the AfD in Germany, to Rassemblement National (the old national front) in France, to Reform in the UK have also clearly set out similar anti-science and anti-net zero agendas. They only represent minority opinions of course, but they are well-funded, and seeming to dominate the ageing media, and certainly their growing popularity is unnerving the more moderate parties. But even those parties who have previously championed climate action have largely reined in those commitments, in part in response, but also as a consequence of on-going austerity. Here in Scotland, previously a leading nation on climate, very little action or legislation has been enacted in the past five years and many Government commitments have either been watered down or delayed or both.
Once again, as this Met Office report reinforces, science is sounding the alarm. We know there are clear and present risks to our livelihoods and homes. We know the economic case is for early action. Growing inequality, which will be exacerbated by climate impacts, also favours early action. And the majority of public opinion is for more action. What we seem to be lacking is leadership.
