Comment on record UK winter temperature

Bob Ward, policy and communications director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics and Political Science, said: “Today’s record for the UK’s winter temperature is consistent with the clear climate change signal that we are seeing in the UK. Our climate is transforming towards warmer and wetter winters and hotter and drier summers. From 2000 onwards, the UK has experienced its 10 warmest years on record and six of its seven wettest years. According to the Met Office, the average UK temperature over the past decade was about 0.8 Celsius degrees warmer than the 30-year reference period between 1961 and 1990. This is having widespread impacts on British wildlife, with spring temperatures now arriving earlier in the year on average. While warmer winters might seem pleasant for many people, it is worth remembering that this is the result of a climate change trend that is also making heatwaves and heavy rainfall more frequent, as well as coastal flooding due to sea level rise. Last summer was the hottest on record in England and, according to the Office for National Statistics, the heatwave conditions were linked to hundreds of additional deaths across the UK.”