|
On 14 July, the Met Office published the annual State of the UK Climate report, looking back at 2024. This latest assessment of the UK’s climate shows how baselines are shifting, records are becoming more frequent, and that temperature and rainfall extremes are becoming the norm.
Met Office Climate Scientist and Lead Author of the State of the UK Climate report, Mike Kendon, said: “Every year that goes by is another upward step on the warming trajectory our climate is on. Observations show that our climate in the UK is now notably different to what it was just a few decades ago. We are now seeing records being broken very frequently as we see temperature and rainfall extremes being the most affected by our changing climate.
“This pace of change and clustering of consecutive records is not a natural variation in our climate. Numerous studies have shown how human emissions of greenhouse gasses are warming the atmosphere and changing the weather we experience on the ground. Our climate in the UK is now different to what it was just a few decades ago, this is clear from our observations.”
 The report is based on observations from a network of several hundred weather stations, with temperature and rainfall data from these extending back to the 19th Century providing long term context. These data tell us how our climate has already changed here in the UK.
Chief Executive of the Royal Meteorological Society, Professor Liz Bentley, said: “This latest edition of the State of the UK Climate report reinforces the clear and urgent signals of our changing climate, rooted in robust observational science. It documents changes in temperature, rainfall, sea level, and weather extremes that are affecting lives, infrastructure, and ecosystems across the UK.
“The report draws particular attention to the last decade that clearly shows how quickly our climate is evolving to inform policy, resilience planning, and adaptation. Perhaps most striking is the growing impact of extremes. While long-term averages are shifting, it is the extreme heat, intense rainfall and droughts that are having the most immediate and dramatic effects on people and nature. This report is not just a record of change, but a call to action.”
The State of the UK Climate report is published by Wiley in the Royal Meteorological Society’s ‘International Journal of Climatology’.
|
