Wednesday July 31st… Dear Diary. The main purpose of this ongoing blog will be to track United States extreme or record temperatures related to climate change. Any reports I see of ETs will be listed below the main topic of the day. I’ll refer to extreme or record temperatures as ETs (not extraterrestrials).😉
Focus On Britain…Top Ten UK’s Years All Since 2002
Many of my friends know that I have a special affinity for Britain since I have an English surname with both Scottish and Irish heritage. I truly care for what happens to the “mother country.” Despite Brexit consternation, from all I can gather just like in the United States, Britain is experiencing a fairly prosperous period in history. I’d like to see this situation improve upon any baseline that we see now and not deteriorate from a hotter climate. A much warmer world would actually sink London and much of the British Isles with it…literally both financially and from rising water. Let’s all work to keep Britain as well as the rest of the planet out of hot water.
Warning signs are blinking, though. It comes as no surprise to me, Dear Diary, that we see as of 7/31/2019 that a new report from the British Met Office indicates that recent years have been the hottest since 2002 with none colder than baseline average since 1963, about the time I was just a toddler. Here is a reprint of that report via Desdemona Despair:
Top ten UK’s hottest years all since 2002
Author: Press Office
06:55 (UTC+1) on Wed 31 Jul 2019
An updated analysis of the annual UK temperature records from the Met Office shows that since 1884 all of the UK’s ten warmest years have occurred since 2002; whereas none of the ten coldest years have occurred since 1963.
These figures are further indications of a changing climate, says the Met Office.
In the latest annual State of the UK Climate report, the Met Office temperature series for the UK has now been extended by 26 years back to 1884. The data has been added as part of ongoing projects to digitise historic weather records.
Dr Mark McCarthy is the head of the Met Office’s National Climate Information Centre. Commenting on the extension of the temperature series, he said: “Looking back further into the UK’s weather reveals a very interesting timeline with the top ten warmest years at the most recent end, since 2002. Extending the record back by 26 years from 1910 to 1884 didn’t bring in any new warm years, but it did bring in a number of new cold years, including several that are now within the top ten coldest years.
“Notably, 1892 is the coldest year in the series, when the average temperature was just over seven degrees. By contrast 2014, which was the warmest year in the series, saw an average temperature approaching ten degrees Celsius.”
- Beginning with the hottest, the top ten warmest years in sequence are: 2014; 2006; 2011; 2007; 2017; 2003; 2018; 2004; 2002; and 2005.
- Beginning with the coldest, the top ten coolest years in sequence are: 1892 1888; 1885; 1963; 1919; 1886; 1917; 1909; 1887; and 1962
2018 contained some notable weather events, including the summer heatwave and the Beast from the East, when a record low daily maximum temperature was recorded on 1 March. Despite this particular cold snap, 2018 was on balance a warm year and joins the top ten warmest years at number seven. 2018 was the equal-warmest summer for the UK (along with 2006).
Key findings from the State of the UK Climate report:
- 2018 was the third sunniest year in a UK series starting in 1929
- In 2018 the UK received the most significant snowfall since 2010. UK snow events have generally declined since the 1960s
- Over the last decade, summers have been 13% wetter, and winters have been 12% wetter than the period 1961-1990
- Six of the ten wettest years have occurred since 1998 in a UK series stretching back to 1862
- Eight of the ten warmest years for near-coast UK sea-surface temperatures have occurred this century
- Ten named storms affected the UK during 2018
- In 2018, average sea level around the UK was equal highest (with 2015) on record in a series starting in 1901
The State of the UK Climate 2018 report, which is the fifth in a series of annual publications, provides the latest assessment of UK climate trends, variations and extremes. It has been published by Royal Meteorological Society and Wiley in the International Journal of Climatology: a peer-reviewed journal. The dataset on which the report is based makes use of over 100 million historical UK station observations, and is freely available on the CEDA (Centre for Environment Data Analysis) website.
The State of the UK Climate report was supported by the Met Office Hadley Centre Climate Programme, funded by BEIS and Defra.
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Well, good luck and good fortune to all of the people working to reign in this warming trend across Britain and Ireland, including those in association with Extinction Rebellion. From time to time I will be posting social media climate messages from Britain, which you can look for in the following news section everyday on this site.
Here is more climate and weather news from Wednesday:
(As usual, this will be a fluid post in which more information gets added during the day as it crosses my radar, crediting all who have put it on-line. Items will be archived on this site for posterity. In most instances click on the pictures of each tweet to see each article.)
Here is more on Greenland, which I covered yesterday:
Other news:
Here are some “ETs” from South Africa set yesterday:
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Guy Walton- “The Climate Guy”