LONDON: Extremes in temperature and rainfall in the UK are becoming increasingly frequent, the nation’s meteorological service said Monday in a report on Britain’s changing climate.
England and Wales endured the wettest winter in 250 years in from from October 2023 to March 2024, with six of the 10 wettest winters occurring in the 21st century.
The report also found that last year was the UK’s fourth warmest since 1884 with the last three years all in the top five warmest on record.
Records were now being broken “very frequently”, said Mike Kendon, Met Office climate scientist and lead author of the Met Office’s State of the UK Climate report.
“It’s the extremes of temperature and rainfall that is changing the most, and that’s of profound concern, and that’s going to continue in the future,“ he said.
Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said the findings showed Britain’s way of life was “under threat”.
“Whether it is extreme heat, droughts, flooding, we can see it actually with our own eyes, that it’s already happening, and we need to act,“ he said.
In 2024, experts recorded the warmest spring, the second warmest February and the fifth warmest winter on record.
Rising sea levels surrounding the UK were speeding up, with two-thirds of the rise recorded since 1900 taking place in the last 30 years, the report said.
“Every year that goes by is another upward step on the warming trajectory our climate is on,“ Kendon said.
“Observations show that our climate in the UK is now notably different to what it was just a few decades ago,“ he added.
– ‘Clear signs’ –
Changes to the seasons were evident, according to a volunteer-fed database drawn upon by the Met Office researchers.
Out of 13 spring events monitored in 2024, 12 occurred earlier than average.
The report reinforced the “clear and urgent signals of our changing climate”, added Liz Bentley, chief executive of the Royal Meteorological Society.
The research, however, did not find any evidence that the UK’s climate was becoming more windy or stormy.
Last month, a group of experts tasked with advising the government said the UK had cut its carbon emissions by 50.4 percent since 1990 levels.
Much of the drop in emissions of planet-heating greenhouse gases — blamed for triggering climate change — was due to the closure of the UK’s coal-fired power generation plants, the Climate Change Committee (CCC) said in its report to parliament.
The progress could largely be attributed to the policies of the previous Conservative government, the report said, while crediting the new government of Labour Prime Minister Keir with “bold policy decisions this year”.
Starmer, elected just over a year ago, has pledged to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 81 percent on 1990 levels by 2035, strengthening the UK government’s ambitions to help curb climate change. – AFP
