Issue 51  |  9 August 2023

Spotlight on 'State of the UK Climate 2022'

On 27 July the Met Office published the State of the UK Climate 2022 Report, which examined the weather experienced in 2022 in the context of long-term climate records.

Mike Kendon from the Met Office’s National Climate Information Centre said: “In terms of weather and climate, 2022 was an extraordinary year for the UK. It was the warmest year for the UK in our long-running record national series back to 1884, and for Central England in a series of more than three centuries. We also had an unprecedented heatwave, with 40°C recorded in the UK for the first time, marking a moment of climate history.

“However, we should not necessarily be surprised by these events: studies have shown that both the record warm year and July heatwave were both made much more likely by climate change. The observations show that extremes of temperature are changing faster than the average, and as our climate warms, we expect far more high temperature records to be broken, potentially by wide margins, and far fewer low temperature records.”

In the news

Wettest July on record for Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland had its wettest July on record in a series which dates back to 1836, according to provisional Met Office statistics released on 1 August. Although Northern Ireland led the way in terms of rainfall, the UK also had its sixth wettest July on record, and its wettest since 2009, with 140.1mm of rain (170% of average).

What's coming up

Are you confident analysing climate data?

The importance of utilising climate data to inform climate reporting and decision-making continues to grow. Our online course ‘Assessing your climate risk’ is designed for consultants, analysts, or those in similar roles, who wish to be able to confidently use climate data to carry out climate change risk assessments, limit exposure or protect infrastructure & operations.

Our next course is running in September and some of the areas it can help you understand are:

• How to identify climate hazards and the associated organisational impacts, risks and opportunities
• Where to find easily accessible climate data
• Key factors to effectively communicate climate data and uncertainty.

You can find more, including dates, on our website and there is still time to register your place for our September course.

ASPECT - Get involved

Is your organisation affected by changes in weather, the seasons or extreme events such as storms and drought? Are you concerned about experiencing more extreme weather under future climate change? If so, you’ll be interested in a new Horizon Europe funded project called ‘ASPECT’.

The ASPECT project is developing new climate prediction systems for Europe and over the next three years is aiming to provide seamless climate information for up to 30 years ahead for different sectors of society. The ASPECT project currently includes three Super Users (organisations working closely with our scientists) from the agriculture, finance and governance sectors. Scientists and Super Users are co-developing state-of-the-art climate services to help with decision making around extreme events and climate change.

The ASPECT project has recently launched an opportunity for two more organisations operating in societally important sectors in Europe to engage with the ASPECT project and become Super Users. Becoming an ASPECT Super User is a unique opportunity to become an integral part of the project over the next three years. The two Super Users will be selected in an open competition, giving them the chance to test and access the novel services developed in ASPECT. Among other benefits, becoming a Super User will enable you to:

• Make better informed decisions for resilience to climate change and extreme weather.

• Develop your understanding on extreme weather and climate risks, working directly with world-leading experts from the Barcelona Supercomputing Center and the Met Office.
• Help co-produce useful and usable state-of-the-art climate services that will benefit many other organisations.

You can find out more on the project website, and start the application process here. Applications close on 9 October 2023. 

We encourage all organisations to get involved in ASPECT by signing up to the ASPECT mailing list which will also enable you to join our annual multi-sector User Forum events.

Please do get in touch with the ASPECT project via hello.aspect@bsc.es if you have any further questions.

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