Temperature Variation Becoming Less Extreme In England

By Paul Homewood 

 

A recent paper by Kodra & Ganguly predicts that we will see a wider range of temperature extremes in the future. In other words, although each year’s average hottest and coldest tem­per­a­tures will likely rise, those aver­ages will also tend to fall within a wider range of poten­tial high and low tem­perate extremes than are cur­rently being observed.

I have already shown that the opposite has been occurring in the United States in recent years, but what about the UK?

Using the Central England Temperature Series, I have compared each year’s summer temperature with the previous winter. The results are shown below.

 

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/data/download.html

 

As can be seen, what trend there is suggests that intra-annual variability is declining, just as it is in the US.

The biggest variation occurred in 1684, when the coldest winter on record was followed by a slightly warmer than average summer. The most recent extreme year was 1963, the year of the big freeze. This year, however, was not as extreme as 1947, when another bitter winter was followed by one of the hottest summers on record.

 

Of course, what has happened in the past and what might occur in the future are two different things. However, as the Kodra/Ganguly is only based on models and reanalysis, one would have thought they might have checked their findings against what the historical data says first, to give some independent corroboration.

But, there again, this is climate science we are talking about.