A new analysis from the Met Office claims that the top 10 warmest years on record in the UK have all occurred in the last 17 years.
Its State of the UK Climate report shows that 2014 remains the warmest year in a temperature sequence now dating back to 1884. Despite last summer’s blistering heat, 2018 only places as the seventh warmest year on record, as the statistic is based on temperatures all year round. The most recent year in the top 10 coldest was back in 1963.
The patterns of warm and cold years in Britain are a clear signal of climate change according to scientists.
It comes after the Met Office confirmed this week that the UK’s hottest temperature ever was recorded on Thursday in Cambridge, a war, 38.7 degrees Celsius.
Beach at Cornwall, England.
The Met Office scientist who compiled the new analysis says that the clustering of all the warmest years in the first two decades of the 21st Century is what would be expected in a changing climate.
“It’s certainly what we’d expect to see. Our climate in the UK has warmed at a very similar amount to the global temperature rise, so just under 1C for the UK,” said Dr Mark McCarthy.
“Under that warming climate, we would expect that the hot extremes would tend to cluster in more recent times and the colder extremes are further back in time. Although we do still experience colder extremes like ‘the beast from the east’ last spring, generally speaking the story we have is that overall it’s the warmer events and these higher temperatures that are dominating.”
Despite the UK breaking the record for its warmest day last week, the Met Office researchers are reluctant to speculate on where 2019 might end up in the hottest years list.
“It’s been something of a mixed bag so far this year. On balance, its too early to say where we will end up in 2019 because just a few extreme months can make a significant difference,” said Dr McCarthy.
