This month’s theme is climate and nature. Climate change poses a fundamental threat to wildlife and vegetation, placing some species at an increased risk of extinction. It is one of the key instigators of nature-loss around the world. The specific impacts include damage to marine ecosystems, loss of biodiversity, and a wider habitable region for pests. 

Working with nature, rather than against it, brings multiple benefits to us. By conserving nature and restoring ecosystems, we can reduce vulnerability and increase resilience, which can in turn help us to tackle climate change.   

The Met Office has a long-standing partnership with The Wildlife Trusts. This links to our 'force for good' value, and the charity has many clear links to the Met Office in terms of our sustainability and biodiversity aims. Since 2011, we have held The Wildlife Trusts’ Biodiversity Benchmark Award for our head office site in Exeter (PDF file). The accolade reflects our ongoing commitment to increase biodiversity at our frontline sites, while also reducing our overall environmental impact. The Wildlife Trusts is also our corporate charity, meaning we partner with them on projects and support their research and campaigns. 

Get the latest on this theme by following our Science page on X (formerly Twitter). 

A new paper has been published on the progress of the Tea-CUP project, which is changing how climate services are delivered by developing actionable information to address the challenges of climate change within the tea industry. 

Tea is one of the world’s most widely consumed drinks, second only to water, with China being the world’s largest tea-producing country. The Tea-CUP project is part of the Climate Science for Service Partnership China (CSSP China), and Dr Stacey New, an applied climate scientist at the Met Office, is lead author on the paper.  

On 21 October, a new international study was published revealing that climate change is contributing to an increase in wildfires worldwide, despite human interventions trying to temper this trend. The study - led by a team of scientists from the Met Office and Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) - compares wildfire models with and without the effects of climate change. 

Seppe Lampe - climate scientist at the VUB and one of the two lead authors of the study – said: “We quantify, for the first time ever, the amount of burnt area that is directly attributable to climate change. We found there are more fires in many regions due to climate change”.