From NOT MANY PEOPLE KNOW THAT
By Paul Homewood
As promised, I’m back to the Met Office’s UK Climate Report:
The press release stated the following:
Climate change is causing a significant increase in the frequency of extreme heat events and the number of record heat events the UK is experiencing.
New analysis of observations shows that extreme temperatures in the UK are being most affected by human-caused climate change. This means the UK is seeing hot weather more often, causing challenges for infrastructure, health and wellbeing.
Using the example of 28°C, the frequency of days reaching this threshold has increased almost everywhere across the UK. While in the 1961–1990 average only London and Hampshire recorded six or more days above 28°C, by the most recent decade (2014–2023) this has spread across England and Wales, with the frequency in the south-east increasing to more than 12 days per year in many counties.
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The method of calculating when a temperature of 28 degrees Celsius was recorded somewhere is statistically meaningless, because the locations are always changing. We know that they have put in dozens of weather stations in the wrong places in recent years, which regularly have daily record highs that are often two or three degrees higher than nearby locations. We also know how much the UHI has inflated its temperature readings in recent years.
For this method to be reliable, it needs to be based on a fixed set of stations. So I analysed temperatures at the Radcliffe Observatory in Oxford. The chart below counts the number of days above 28C:
https://climexp.knmi.nl/data/xgdcnUK000056225.dat
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On the surface, I see nothing to worry about.
Summer 2018 lasted 23 days, the same number of days as 1911 and 1995. 1976 also had 21 days.
During most summers, we can expect about five days of hot weather; why is this alarming?
Furthermore, Oxford is hotter than it was a century ago because of the UHI. I can’t provide any scientific basis for the following, but if we count the number of days >27C in the years up to 1970, then add the number of days >28C since 1970, we get:
Of course, this assumes that the temperature in Oxford has increased by 1 degree Celsius since 1970 because of the UHI. This is an extremely simplistic assumption!! But I don’t think it is an unreasonable assumption in principle. I would guess that the UHI effect since 1911 is probably much larger than 1 degree Celsius.
The chart shows no trend in hot days, especially since the mid-19th century.
The year 1911 appears at the top of the list, demonstrating that news reports of the time vividly described the severity of the heatwave that lasted throughout the summer, not only in Britain but also in France.
But other years in the past also stand out, such as 1826 and 1868.
But even without the UHI in Oxford, which would be an absurd claim, the worst that is happening is that we will have days where it is 28C, whereas 150 years ago it might have been 27C.
And certainly not. poses challenges to infrastructure, health and welfare.
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