Met Office warns of climate impact
The UK set four high temperature records last year as climate change continued to have an clear impact on the country's weather, according to the Met Office.
Its sixth State of the UK Climate report outlines how an all-time record of 38.7° C was set last July, along with a winter high of 21.2°C in February, and temperatures of 18.7°C and 13.9°C in December and February respectively. No national low-temperature records were set during 2019, which the Met Office said was the twelfth warmest year since 1884, and one of the least snowy. Most of the UK received above average rainfall.
“Climate change is exerting an increasing impact on the UK's climate,“ said report lead author Mike Kendon. “Since 2002 we have seen the warmest 10 years. By contrast, to find a year in the coldest 10, we have to go back to 1963, over 50 years ago.“
The report also reveals that 2010-2019 has been, on average, 0.9°C warmer across the UK than the period 1961-1990, with last year being 1.1° C above the 1961-1990 long-term average. The most recent decade also had 6% fewer days of air frost and 10% fewer days of ground frost than the 1981-2010 average.
Image credit: Getty
Transform articles
Interview with Ian Goldin: Warnings from history
COVID-19 offers the world a huge chance to beat a path to sustainability, says Oxford University professor Ian Goldin – but we must learn from past crises, he tells Huw Morris
In 2021, the World Economic Forum identified extreme weather, climate action failure and human-led environmental damage as being among the most likely risks of the next 10 years.
None of England’s water and sewerage companies achieved all environmental expectations for the period 2015 to 2020, the Environment Agency has revealed. These targets included the reduction of total pollution incidents by at least one-third compared with 2012, and for incident self-reporting to be at least 75%.
Billions of people worldwide have been unable to access safe drinking water and sanitation in their homes during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a progress report from the World Health Organisation focusing on the UN’s sixth Sustainable Development Goal (SDG 6) – to “ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all by 2030”.
Hello and welcome to another edition of Transform magazine. I hope you are staying safe and well, wherever you are in the world.
The UK's largest defined benefit (DB) pension schemes have received a letter from the Make My Money Matter campaign urging them to set net-zero emission targets ahead of the COP26 climate summit later this year.
The oil and gas industry is set to burn through its allocated carbon budget 13 years early unless decisive action is taken immediately, new analysis has found.
The sale of new diesel and petrol heavy goods vehicles (HGVs) will be banned in the UK by 2040 under proposals unveiled in the government's transport decarbonisation plan yesterday.
A coalition of investors representing over $6.6trn (£4.8trn) in assets have called for the EU's carbon price to treble by the end of this decade.
