From Climate Scepticism

By MARK HODGSON

It’s climate change!

In Could Do Better I made reference to the series of reports on the state of the UK climate, eight to that point in time, but now nine, following the recent publication of the report for 2022. A study of the reports reveals, over a period of nine years, UK weather varying from year to year. However, it doesn’t seem to matter what the weather was in any given year, it is always consistent with “climate change”, that short-hand for the climate going to hell in a hand-cart, and it all being our fault.

The report for 2014 offers us an Executive Summary, the main points of which are as follows:

The warmest year on record, in the UK, England, Wales and Scotland since 1910, and for Central England since 1659, as documented by the Central England Temperature series (CET). Pretty dramatic stuff.

Not surprisingly, the fewest air and ground frosts on record in the UK, in a series going back to 1961.

The second highest growing degree days in the UK in a series going back to 1960.

The fourth wettest year in the UK in records going back to 1910.

2013/14 winter was the wettest in England and Wales in a series going back to 1766.

2014 was not a snowy year for the UK as a whole.

2014 was marginally sunnier than average for England and Wales, but duller for Scotland.

It’s perhaps worth looking at the rainfall data in a little more detail:

A large contribution to the annual rainfall total came from the very wet weather during winter storms in January and February. Winter 2013/14 was exceptionally wet and stormy and this was easily the wettest winter in both the UK series from 1910 and the longer running England and Wales Precipitation series from 1766. For much of Scotland and south-east England rainfall totals were double the long-term average, and some locations in the south-east received 75% of a years’ rainfall in just 2 months. The winter storms brought the most significant flooding of the calendar year in January and February, with the Somerset Levels and Thames valley worst affected. In general it was the persistence of the storms rather than the intensity of any individual event which led to the prolonged flooding in these areas. In comparison, with only a few notable exceptions the weather during the rest of the year was relatively benign. May, October and November were rather wetter than average and August especially so across Northern Scotland. It was the wettest August in Northern Scotland from 1910, largely as a result of rainfall from ex-hurricane Bertha which brought extensive flooding across parts of north-east Scotland from 10th to 12th August. Heavy thunderstorms at times during the summer also caused some localised flash-flooding, for example across East Anglia in July. However, in contrast high pressure dominated during most of September and large swathes of the country received less than 20% of the monthly average rainfall; it was the driest September in the UK series.

Just as with the summer of 1976, which sticks in the memory because it was so unusual, I also remember the very wet winter of 2013/14 and the fact that it was very mild, both of which also struck me at the time as being unusual.

So far so good. One might say that the first in the series of nine (to date) annual reports on the state of the UK climate perfectly illustrates the impact of man-made climate change. A very warm year overall, a very wet and stormy winter, an unusually intense storm in August, very little snow and the fewest recorded frosts. No surprise to read this in the Guardian:

Bob Ward, policy and communications director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, London School of Economics (LSE), said the record temperatures in 2014 were “part of a pattern”, with most of the hottest and wettest years occurring since 2000.

“This is clear evidence of the impact of man-made climate change on the UK,” he said.

2015’s report, however, doesn’t play ball (except in respect of rainfall). Whereas 2014 was the warmest year on record, the year that followed was only the 16^th warmest in the UK since 1910, and only the 25^th warmest in the CET series. Air and ground frosts were below average, but “not exceptionally so for the year overall”. While 2014 saw the second highest growing degree days, 2015 was “near average”. It was the seventh wettest year, but with Storm Desmond in December, that isn’t surprising. Thanks to it, December 2015 was the wettest calendar month on record for the UK, and records were set during the storm for the highest 24 hour and 2-day rainfall totals. There was more snow than in 2014, though again it wasn’t a particularly snowy year. Winter and April were the sunniest on record (in a series going back to 1919), but November was the dullest on record. Despite Storm Desmond, the number of storms weren’t unusual, which was consistent with a lack of any trend over the previous four decades to any increase in storminess.

There is no doubt that Storm Desmond brought terrific amounts of rainfall. It’s worth commenting that as regards the records set, I remember that there was controversy in this regard, because the record was claimed by a rainfall gauge at Honister, which was relatively recently in situ. That fact alone rendered less significant (in the eyes of critics) the claim that it was a record in a rainfall data series going back to 1910.

In any event, undaunted by the lack of the warmth that we were told would be the result of climate change, the weather for 2015 was linked (albeit with a minor caveat) to climate change anyway, thanks to Storm Desmond:

Professor Dame Julia Slingo, Met Office Chief Scientist, says “It’s too early to say definitively whether climate change has made a contribution to the exceptional rainfall. We anticipated a wet, stormy start to winter in our three-month outlooks, associated with the strong El Niño and other factors.

“However, just as with the stormy winter of two years ago, all the evidence from fundamental physics, and our understanding of our weather systems, suggests there may be a link between climate change and record-breaking winter rainfall. Last month, we published a paper showing that for the same weather pattern, an extended period of extreme UK winter rainfall is now seven times more likely than in a world without human emissions of greenhouse gases.”

2016 also refused to warm up. For the UK as a whole it was the 13^th warmest year since 1910, and the 22^nd warmest in the CET series. Air and ground frosts were below average, but not exceptionally so. Growing degree days were described only as being “slightly above average”. Rainfall was slightly below average, though by something of a sleight of hand (referring to the winter of December 2015 – February 2016, which of course included Storm Desmond, which featured so prominently in the previous year’s report) the report managed to claim a second wettest winter since 1910. By contrast, October and December 2016 were “notably dry”. There were some snowfalls, but it wasn’t a particularly snowy year. It was slightly sunnier than average (104% of the 1981-2010 average), and the number and severity of storms were not unusual.

The reality is that it’s a struggle to link a year of largely normal weather to climate. It’s a good job that Storm Desmond can be counted as part of the 2015-16 winter, thus enabling the 2016 weather to be linked to climate change. In November 2018 an Environment Agency document titled “Climate change impacts and adaptation” managed to make the putative link:

England has recently experienced several extreme weather events. Heavy, prolonged rainfall, leading to significant floods in winter 2013 to 2014 and again in 2015 to 2016.

Back in 2018, statements about climate change tended to include caveats that I’m not sure we’ll see much if at all going forward, if this summer’s hysteria in the media is anything to go by. In November 2018, however, the Environment Agency put it like this:

It is not possible to say that human-induced climate change has caused these events, but they are consistent with the weather expected with a warming climate.

2017 saw a return of warmer weather. It was the 5^th warmest in the UK (since 1910) and the 8^th warmest in the long-running CET series. Air frosts were below average, and ground frosts were the fourth lowest in a series going back to 1961. Growing days were the fifth-equal highest (since 1960). Rainfall for the UK overall was 97% of the 1981–2010 average and 102% of the 1961–1990 average, so pretty average overall. However, June was the second-wettest June in Scotland since 1910.

Wales and lowland England saw significant snowfall on 10^th December (the heaviest in over four years), but in a long-term context, it wasn’t a particularly snowy year. Sunshine for the UK overall was exactly 100% of the 1981–2010 average and 103% of the 1961–1990 average. There were seven named storms, but their number and severity weren’t unusual compared to recent decades.

In short, 2017 was a pretty average and undramatic year, with nothing – one might have thought – for people of alarm to be alarmed about.

And yet, despite the report saying categorically that “[t]here are no compelling trends in storminess as determined by maximum gust speeds from the UK wind network over the last four decades”, the Guardian still picked up on a report in 2017 commissioned by the Association of British Insurers, as a result of which it earnestly assured us:

The UK is set to reap the whirlwind of climate change with the huge damage caused by wind storms expected to increase sharply, according to new analysis.

Even the minimum global warming now expected – just 1.5C – is projected to raise the cost of windstorm destruction by more than a third in parts of the country. If climate change heats the world even further, broken roofs and damaged buildings are likely to increase by over 50% across a swathe of the nation.

The research shows all of the UK is on track to see rises in high winds except the south and south-west, with the greatest impact across the Midlands, Yorkshire and Northern Ireland. This is because the main storms that barrel in off the Atlantic are expected to move their track northwards as the planet warms, a phenomenon linked to the rapid melting being seen in the Arctic.

Never mind four decades of data, trust the models!

2018 was a bit less anodyne, it has to be said. It was the 7^th warmest year in the UK since 1884, and the fourth warmest in the CET series. The summer was the UK’s equal-warmest and the warmest in the CET. Summer seems to have distorted the average for the year upwards, because winter wasn’t so warm. The number of air frosts were only slightly below average, and the number of ground frosts was only 11th-equal lowest (since 1961), and growing degree days were third-highest since 1960.

Rainfall for the UK overall was 92% of the 1981–2010 average and 96% of the 1961–1990 average. Whereas the summer of 2017 was wetter than usual, and especially so in Scotland in June, 2018 turned that on its head, with June 2018 being the driest in England since 1925.

2018, of course, was the year of the Beast From the East, and:

From late February to early March the UK experienced the most significant spell of widespread snow since December 2010.

I remember it well – it was horrendous. But we are told that although “2018 was a relatively snowy year in the context of the last two decades, [it was] near average compared to the last 60- years.”

2018 seemed determined to prove that climate change does not equate to consistent trends. What the UK weather did last year is no guide to what this year’s weather will be. Thus, 2018’s sunshine was 114% of average, making it the third sunniest year since 1929, while the three months from May to July represented the sunniest three months period for the UK on record.

There were ten named storms, but again they weren’t unusual in either their number or severity. And whatever the ABI and weather models said in 2017, we were again assured that “[t]here are no compelling trends in storminess as determined by maximum gust speeds from the UK wind network over the last five decades.”

Despite some climate scientists urging caution when discussing the polar vortex and the causes of the Beast From the East, the Guardian did its best to blame climate change:

Q: Snow in winter. That feels reassuringly normal. Does this mean the climate has fixed itself?

A: Unfortunately not. In fact, many scientists are concerned this is a prelude to more extreme and less predictable weather.

Q: What are they worried about?

A: In the past couple of weeks, there has been a heatwave in the sunless Arctic even though the northern polar region has not had any sunlight since October. At times it has been warmer than London, Paris or New York.

Q: What is so unusual about that? We have known for some time that the Arctic is warming.

A: Yes, but even veteran climatologists have been shocked by the recent temperature spike. Instead of the gradual year-by-year rise that they were expecting, there has been jolt upwards that experts have described as “crazy”, “weird”, “shocking” and “worrying”.

So the cold period in late winter and early spring was down to climate change, but so was the hot summer. Three years later an article appeared at the Met Office website which stated that “Research has shown climate change made the 2018 record-breaking UK summer temperatures about 30 times more likely than it would be naturally.”

2019 must have come as a disappointment to people of an alarmed persuasion, after the hot summer of 2018. In fact 2019 was only the 12^th warmest year since 1884 and the 24^th warmest in the CET series. But wait a minute, not so disappointing! If you can’t have a particularly hot year, at least there are some new records to be broken:

Four national UK high temperature records were set in 2019: a new all-time record (38.7°C), a new winter record (21.2°C), a new December record (18.7°C) and a new February minimum temperature record (13.9°C). No national low temperature records were set.

February 2019 was the second warmest February in the series from 1884 and the warmest February for daily maximum temperature.

2019 was also the sixth consecutive year when the number of air and ground frosts was below average, while ground frosts were the 10^th lowest since 1961. Growing degree days were above average, but not exceptionally so.

Rainfall for the UK overall was 107% of the 1981–2010 average and 112% of the 1961–1990 average. England and Wales saw their fifth wettest autumn since 1766, though it was nothing like as wet as 2000, which remained the wettest autumn in the series.

Snow fell fairly wildly at the end of January and at the beginning of February, but (we are solemnly advised) “this was not unusual for the time of year.” Snow in winter, and it’s not unusual. At least climate change hasn’t messed with that yet!

Despite higher than average rainfall, sunshine for the UK overall was 105% of the 1981–2010 average and 109% of 1961–1990 average. There were six named storms, but it wasn’t a stormy year, and the lack of any trend towards increased storminess continued.

Nevertheless, some areas experienced flooding in June and some flash flooding in July. There was severe flooding in November (this was the year of the Fishlake floods). Despite that, northern and western Scotland were much drier than average.

Matt McGrath reported on the Fishlake floods for the BBC, and it was a very balanced article, pointing to the many factors behind the flooding, including not least the fact that it was built on a boggy fenland drained many years ago. Still the article ended inevitably like this:

Is what we’ve seen in Yorkshire a vision of the future?

“Yes it is a foretaste of the future,” said Dr Liz Sharp.

“It will happen in different places, we need to be expecting this to happen more often.”

Other experts agree that the future environment will be a challenge.

“We’re running behind with climate change – we need to really speed up if we are going to keep on top of the problems that are being exacerbated by the change in the climate,” said Prof Cloke.

And the February heat was duly reported with similar predictability by the Guardian:

Grahame Madge, a spokesman for the Met Office, said: “For a lot of people an opportunity to enjoy a nice day but for many others it was shocking to see values above 20C. Clearly having that warm weather record broken is, we think, largely to do with climate change, amplifying those warm events. That was widely recognised by the public.”

Previous Met Office studies show the man-made carbon emissions in the atmosphere made last summer’s heatwave 30 times more likely, and extremes of heat are now being recorded 10 times more often than extremes of cold.

2020 saw the Executive Summary commence with a hard-hitting opening statement:

The UK’s climate is changing. Recent decades have been warmer, wetter and sunnier than the 20th century.

2020 was third warmest, fifth wettest and eight sunniest on record for the UK. Air and ground frosts were the fourth lowest in the series. Growing degree days were the 8^th highest since 1960.

It was also a wet year – “2020 was the UK’s fifth wettest year in a series from 1862, with 116% of the 1981–2010 average and 122% of the 1961–1990 average rainfall.” And yet, despite having the wettest February and the fifth wettest winter, it also had the fifth driest spring and the driest May on record in England (as I remember all too painfully while the Government imposed a covid lockdown on us). But the dry spring didn’t last:

3 October 2020 was one of the UK’s wettest days on record in a daily series from 1891, with storms Ciara and Dennis on 8th/15th February and storm Bella on 26th December also in the UK’s top 40 wettest days.

Snow was limited to upland and northern areas, and 2020 was one of the least snowy years on record.

2020 was the eighth sunniest year for the UK in a series from 1919, with 109% of the 1981–2010 average and 113% of 1961–1990 average sunshine hours. In particular, it was also the sunniest UK spring on record, with summer being sunnier than usual.

There were ten named storms, and despite heavy precipitation associated with some of them, it was still “a fairly typical year for storminess” and there was still no long-term trend towards more storminess.

This time the report itself starts talking about attributing events to climate change:

February 2020 was the UK’s fifth wettest calendar month on record, but in addition, with 242% of the 1981–2010 long-term average this was the highest rainfall anomaly of any calendar month in the UK series from 1862. Four out of the top-10 wettest months in both lists (actuals and anomalies) have occurred since 2000—with five of the top-10 wettest months by anomaly falling in February. Davies et al.,2021, describes winter 2019/2020—including February 2020—in more detail, including meteorological drivers, predictability and attribution to climate change.

Despite that, 2021 seems in many ways to have been unexceptional. I wrote about it in more detail in Could Do Better. It was only the 18^th warmest year in the UK series since 1884. Winter and spring were colder than the 1991–2020 average. However, 2021 included the UK’s ninth warmest summer and equal-third warmest autumn on record in a series from 1884.

Rainfall was broadly average – 2021 rainfall was 95% of the 1991–2020 average and 102% of the 1961–1990 average – but with swings from month to month. 2021 saw the UK’s fifth driest April and second wettest May in a monthly series from 1836.

The numbers of air and ground frosts in 2021 were above the 1991–2020 average. The numbers of air frosts and ground frosts in April 2021 were the highest on record for the UK in a series from 1960. There was also widespread and significant snowfall in early February.

It was this which prompted me to write Global Cooling on 20^th May 2021. At such a late stage in the year, I commenced it as follows:

The year 2021 has seen the coldest start to a year that I can remember in the north of England (my memory realistically goes back to the mid-late 1960s). That’s not to say that it has been the coldest start to the year here, since memory is a fickle thing. And of course, weather in one small part of the world does not represent weather globally, nor can a few months of weather be said to be representative of climatic trends.

That said, is there any significant global cooling going on? I mean, I know it’s cold here – crossing the Pennines the other day, according to my car thermometer, a drop of another 2 or 3C and it could have started snowing. We still have daffodils in full bloom in the second half of May. The trees round here have only really started showing leafage in the last week or so.

The UK 2021 annual sunshine total was 99% of the 1991–2020 average, and April 2021 was the UK’s equal-sunniest April on record in a series from 1919, shared with April 2020, and also the sunniest calendar month of the year.

Interestingly, with the notable exception of storm Arwen, the year was less stormy than most other years in recent decades. That ABI report and the models predicting greater storminess continued to be undermined by reality:

There have been fewer occurrences of max gust speeds exceeding 40/50/60 Kt for the last two decades compared to the 1980s and 1990s.

The UK annual mean wind speed for 2021 was second lowest in a series from 1969.

The UK annual mean wind speed from 1969 to 2021 shows a downward trend, consistent with that observed globally. However, this series must be interpreted with some caution.

Looking back on the year from July 2022 the Met Office managed to pull off the trick of acknowledging that the year “was in some regards a relatively unremarkable year in the UK’s recent climatology” and yet also claiming “[i]n a changing climate we expect variability from year-to-year.

2022 saw that infamous record temperature (even if a record set at an airfield when three jets are landing is a bit dodgy) so this is no surprise:

The UK’s record warm year of 2022 and unprecedented July heatwave were both made more likely by climate change.

2022 was the warmest year in the UK series from 1884, 0.9°C above the 1991–2020 average. It was the first year to record a UK annual mean temperature above 10°C.

40°C was recorded in the UK for the first time during a heatwave which exceeded previous records by a large margin.

Given those dramatic statistics, it is then a little surprising that no season during the year set a record, the most that could be said being that they were all in the “top ten”. Similarly, although air and ground frosts were below average, neither were exceptionally low (though growing degree days were the highest in the series). Despite the summer drought, it was only the driest summer since 1995, and rainfall was 94% of the 1991–2020 average over the year as a whole. The year also saw the 8^th wettest February on record, though January, March and April were drier than usual. In fact we are told that there has been a slight increase in heavy rainfall across the UK in recent decades, which doesn’t seem particularly worrying. Not surprisingly, it was one of the least snowy years on record.

While England had its equal sunniest year, it was only the 7^th sunniest year over the UK as a whole. But January was the sunniest January in the series in England, while March was the sunniest in the series for Scotland and Northern Ireland. Interestingly, winter and spring are showing a recent trend towards greater sunniness, which doesn’t seem like a bad thing. 2022 was comparable in storminess with other years in recent decades, although the five named storms were all in January and February, which was unusual.

For those of us who remember 1976 this is interesting:

The period January–August was the driest across England and Wales since 1976, with drought status declared across parts of England and all of Wales. [My emphasis].

This is also interesting. Despite it being a warm year overall:

That’s recent history, and I remember it all too painfully – quite a few of our garden shrubs of long-standing failed to make it through the bitter cold of last winter.

Never mind the cold, though, it’s the heat that we have to remember. The Met Office has just announced “Record breaking 2022 indicative of future UK climate”:

Met Office studies found both the record warm year and July heatwave were made more likely by human induced climate change.

It’s much too early, at just seven months in, to know what the report on the UK’s climate in 2023 will look like. My personal observation is that it was a cold winter with some vicious cold snaps; spring was delayed; we had a hot dry June in some areas (though I am convinced it wasn’t as hot as the Met Office would have us believe, nor consistently hot across the entire country); and July was cool and damp, with more of the same in view in August. So bad has been the later part of the summer, that the BBC yesterday had an article headed “UK weather: When will it stop raining and the summer improve?”. The article acknowledged that “[f]or weeks now, the UK’s weather has been unsettled – with widespread rain, cooler temperatures and an autumnal feel”, and that it looks as though the unsettled weather will continue through much of August. That doesn’t stop it making the link with climate change:

Is this year’s damp summer linked to climate change? The change in jet position does happen sometimes – but the extreme heat in the south is more than likely why it’s out of place this time, says BBC Weather’s Paul Goddard. Climate change makes extreme heat worse, scientists say.

“The atmosphere is one big balancing act. Just because it is raining here doesn’t mean to say it isn’t a product of climate change,” says Paul.

There is a nursery rhyme that goes like this:

Whether the weather be fine, or whether the weather be not,

Whether the weather be cold, or whether the weather be hot,

We’ll weather the weather, whatever the weather,

Whether we like it or not.

I think it’s time to update it:

Whether the weather be fine, or whether the weather be not,
Whether the weather be cold, or whether the weather be hot,
They’ll tell us the weather, whatever the weather,
Is consistent with man-made climate change

Whether we like it or not.