by Kirye and Pierre Gosselin
Winters across the United Kingdom of Britain appear to have worsened over the past two decades, contradicting earlier warnings they would warm and snow would become rare.
Source: Getty Images
Due to its geographic location in the the northeast Atlantic, temperature trends in Great Britain have significance. They provide information about how the Atlantic acts on Europe’s climate, like a barometer.
February 2021 temperature data for the UK are available from the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA), which means we can plot the latest DJF winter mean temperature data point.
UK February hasn’t warmed since 1992
First we begin by plotting the latest February mean temperatures for the stations with sufficient JMA data:
Data: JMA.
Most stations have seen February trending cooler, or almost flat. Believing that late winter has been warming in the UK is wishful thinking.
But February is only one month. What about winters in general? Global warming would suggest that winters in the UK ought to be warming, with snow becoming increasingly rare and “a thing of the past”.
No warming since long before Greta was born
What follows are the mean DJF winter temperatures for the 14 stations plotted above, since 1998:
Data source: JMA.
Eight of 14 stations in the UK have had a cooling trend for winter since 1998, i.e. long before Greta and British teenagers were born. They don’t know what warming winters are because they have yet to it.
Little annual warming
The annual mean temperature for Central England has in fact barely rose over the past 3 decades, WUWT here reports:
Source: WUWT.
WUWT writes: “Currently the 10-year average on CET is 10.40C, which is barely above the 1991-2020 average of 10.25C. The difference is well within any margin of natural variation.”
So our message to all the climate Chicken Littles out there: “The sky is not falling at all, and Britain is barely warming any more.”
