UK’s Ten Warmest Years–What The BBC Forgot To Tell You!
By Paul Homewood
h/t Robin Guenier/Philip Bratby
Matt McGrath’s ten warmest years (complete with gratuitous image of sunbathers and reference to Cambridge’s record temperature):
The top 10 warmest years on record in the UK have all occurred since 2002, a new analysis from the Met Office says.
Its State of the UK Climate report shows that 2014 remains the warmest year in a temperature sequence now dating back to 1884.
Despite last summer’s blistering heat, 2018 only places as the seventh warmest year on record – as the statistic is based on temperatures all year round.
When it comes to the coldest years, the most recent in the top 10 was in 1963.
The patterns of warm and cold years in Britain are a clear signal of climate change, say scientists.
It comes after the Met Office confirmed this week that the UK’s hottest temperature ever – 38.7C (101.7F) – was recorded on Thursday in Cambridge.
The Met Office scientist who compiled the new analysis says that the clustering of all the warmest years in the first two decades of the 21st Century is what would be expected in a changing climate.
"It’s certainly what we’d expect to see. Our climate in the UK has warmed at a very similar amount to the global temperature rise, so just under 1C for the UK," said Dr Mark McCarthy.
"Under that warming climate, we would expect that the hot extremes would tend to cluster in more recent times and the colder extremes are further back in time….
When it comes to rain, six of the 10 wettest years in the UK have occurred since 1998.
Over the last decade, our hot and cold seasons have been getting wetter than the long-term average with the summers seeing 13% more rain while the winters going up by 12%.
"It is also interesting that a high number of the wettest years in the UK occurred recently, showing that climate change starts to show up even in highly variable aspects of weather such as rainfall," said Prof Gabi Hegerl from the University of Edinburgh who wasn’t involved with the study.
"Climate change already matters to the UK and makes a difference."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-49167797
I’m not quite sure why this is news to the BBC, because I reported it all back in January!
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2019/01/04/uk-climate-trends-2018/
And I correctly predicted that the Met Office would make a big thing about the “ten warmest years, blah blah”.
For some reason, the Met Office and BBC are extremely reluctant to simply publish the graphs, and let people make their minds up.
If they were to do so, people would realise that the UK stopped warming up a decade or more ago:
Mark McCarthy claims that this is consistent with climate change:
"It’s certainly what we’d expect to see. Our climate in the UK has warmed at a very similar amount to the global temperature rise, so just under 1C for the UK," said Dr Mark McCarthy.
"Under that warming climate, we would expect that the hot extremes would tend to cluster in more recent times and the colder extremes are further back in time.
And Shukman is in no doubt:
But it simply is not true. Climate change theory implies that the climate is continuing to get warmer. Instead, what we see is a step change mainly in the 1990s, and a flat trend since.
Understandably, neither the Met Office or BBC want to admit this!
Indeed the evidence from last year adds further weight to that flat trend. It was the 7th hottest since 2003, a period of 16 years, so slightly below the median.
Put simply, the UK temperature record offers no evidence that temperatures will significantly rise in years to come.
The claims about rainfall are also grossly misleading:
In reality, the extra rainfall mentioned is confined to Scotland, but in the rest of the UK there is little evidence of any significant trends.
While a wetter climate in Scotland may be due to climate change, it is dishonest of Hegerl to pretend that this is affecting the UK as a whole:
But worse still, the Met Office have the much longer England & Wales Precipitation Series, dating back to 1766, which shows a completely different picture.
We can see from this that the climate is no wetter than some other earlier periods. Notably, the 1870s were the wettest decade overall:
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadukp/
I am, by the way, amused at their claim that wetter summers are the result of climate change. For years, the Met Office have been claiming that global warming would make our summers drier.
Perhaps somebody should tell the Environment Agency, who only a few weeks ago were warning of water shortages!
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
“I’m not quite sure why this is news to the BBC, because I reported it all back in January!”
Did you expect a ‘h/t’ from McGrath? 😉
They have got to keep the scare going lest the unwashed masses start wondering why it is cold and their heating bills are so high.
Reblogged this on Climate- Science.
We have to give the Environment Agency (EA) a bit of a break Paul – After all as you said last year they must be pretty confused by now.
I always remember this from 2012 from Charlie Flindt
https://www.fwi.co.uk/farm-life/climate-change-predictions-are-drying-up
The EA are not the only ones confused. I believe it is called making it up as you go along – BUT then Malthusians and climate alarmists have been doing that for decades.
Also Gardeners’ World (GW) don’t seem to get all the memos from alarmism central at the BBC – they do seem stuck with the idea that we are all going to need drought resistant plants. I hope you didn’t plant some last week up your way Paul? They would have reached the sea by now.
Last year the RHS’s climate scientist (yes they have one) told GW viewers that ‘soon’ we would be able to grow tender plants right through the year !!!!!! Even Monty Don attempted to dial that back a bit.
It comes back again to the assumption of knowledge being the biggest block to progress.
Yep. The PC crud is ruining GW. The only reason I still watch Al Beeb.
“For some reason, the Met Office and BBC are extremely reluctant to simply publish the graphs, and let people make their minds up. If they were to do so, people would realise that the UK stopped warming up a decade or more ago.”
But, don’t you understand?? Their point is to send us into social and economic bankruptcy by their attempts to control the climate with CO2 mitigation… the capture and storing billions of tons of compressed CO2 by injection somewhere. This obviously “simple” procedure will save the polar bears, the Great Barrier Reef, the glaciers, the cities at sea level… and the “green” politicians who have bought into all that stuff. And, Wow! It can all be done by 2050 if we “Act Now!” So…Fork over the money!
That would be reporting, not opinionating. So yesterday!
Bet the BBC won’t mention NASA’s SABER instrument showing atmospheric cooling starting last year.
Wash your mouth out with soap, Ian. We won’t have that sort of talk in this corporation.
Shhhhh! We don’t want any of your stinking facts! The science is settled!
Times pg 11: Greenland faces ice melt disaster
(I’m scared Mummy)
Shukman at his very worst – “evidence of rising temperatures …. driven by the gases given off by human activity”. It doesn’t prove any such driving mechanism.
Neither sophistrist Matt McGrath nor analist David Shukman seem to recognize that as the cool period of the LIA is left behind then the climate should warm-up.
The fact that the first 60-70 year (since 1850) were a quite slow at warming, then from about 1910 to 1940 it put on a spurt (as rapid as today’s), dipped again into cooler times from about 1955 to 1974, and since then it’s buck-up a bit, seems to be lost on these two cAGW nit-wits. Overall it certainly is not very rapid or alarming as the ‘warming’ has average been about 1°C since 1850 to now. Neither of them appear to understand that rainfall tends to follow the sea surface temperatures. And certainly the idea that as the planet warm then CO2 should naturally rise is completely lost on them, as is understanding that a planet slightly warmer, with a more active water and carbon cycles supports so much more plant and animal life.
But what are we to expect from the opinionated advocates of the BBC staff, and their inherent will to bend all weather effects into some sort of cAGW narrative for the cause.
As Paul pointed out, they do seem a bit reluctant to show any graphs.
It’s 13 years since the BBC organized a meeting for environmental, green, and cAGW activists to attend in 2006, the infamous BBC28gate.
Just to remind you that is when the BBC management was asked if they had such a meeting, and did BBC staff attending, they lied. They lied to you and me, they lie to everyone …
Remind yourselves by reading some old news at http://joannenova.com.au/2012/11/bbc-secret-exposed-greenpeace-activists-bp-decide-what-sciencebrits-see-hello-twentyeightgate/ .
BBC management deceitful lying is still a requirement for the job!
I always think of a comment I read once – “is it true or did you hear it on the BBC?”
Problem is they are working on getting rid of all the temperature profile you describe tomo. Too inconvenient – just like the attempts to erase the LIA and MWP. It is one of the sure signs that it is all a scam.
“The fact that the first 60-70 year (since 1850) were a quite slow at warming, then from about 1910 to 1940 it put on a spurt (as rapid as today’s), dipped again into cooler times from about 1955 to 1974, and since then it’s buck-up a bit, seems to be lost on these two cAGW nit-wits.”
It is not lost on them. Most are not even aware that is what happened. Or, if they do, the cooling part was just an “outlier”. Or because of some volcanos somewhere…whose ashes managed to stay up from 1938 until 1975. And, after all this up-and-down, the current global temperature anomaly is just 0.83°C. But, watch out… it’s just about to pop up again? Devastation is right around the corner. Send money for your “renewable” and they will stop it by putting a big price on carbon. Cynical…you bet.
Indeed “Devastation is right around the corner. ”
With the solar activity in retreat, the effects of a small increase in volcanic activity and cosmic rays helping to cloud the sky, it could easily slip back into much cooler times.
It would not take much — winter’s lasting a few days longer and cooler. It wouldn’t matter that the odd summer maximum record is broken, if the minimum temperatures (throughout the year) are creeping lower, if the growing seasons get shorter. The increasing atmospheric CO2 levels will help alleviate some of the problems, as plants grow stronger and faster at elevated CO2 levels. But it still does not mean that it could (would) be an easy ride.
Still., the government has contingencies for that eventuality haven’t they? Emergency stores of essentials, of fuels, and extra generating capacity just in case? Or maybe not …
Unbelievably, and outrageously, not just Greenpeace but also an anarchic organisation called Extinction Rebellion.
Remember these guys haven’t a science A level to rub between them!
“I am, by the way, amused at their claim that wetter summers are the result of climate change. For years, the Met Office have been claiming that global warming would make our summers drier.”
But it was,as you say, called “global warming” when they claimed that. Warming is measurable and therefore falsifiable and so it’s been rebranded as the all-embracing climate change.
Just read the new book by Burt & Burt : Oxford Weather & Climate Since 1767. An interesting read, many graphs in there but the overall it looks like rainfall hasn’t really changed much. Recent years statistics certainly seem to show a rise in annual average temperatures, but as has been mentioned, this could well be down to the urban heat island (UHI). I read the population of Oxford has increased by around 40000 since I was a lad growing up there. That’s a lot of development in 50 years. In the rural world of Mid-Devon, there has been no overall increase in mean temperatures in the last 30 odd years. I have the records to prove it. Maybe I live in a very small island of normality, who knows?
In reality, the extra rainfall mentioned is confined to Scotland
Scots rainfall figures should be taken with a pinch of salt as the Met Office themselves have acknowledged that there is a discrepancy between the station based rainfall figures (SP series), and gridded figures (areal series), the latter being 10 – 15 % higher in some cases.
Exactly. Wait for my new paper on the subject
The coverage on Channel 4 news was (if that is possible) even more biased than that of the BBC. They interviewed somebody from the Met Office who was a very proficient liar.
Nowhere in any coverage is there any mention of the Little Ice Age. I presume the LIA is now unmentionable, as they are doing their worst to eliminate it from the record.
There is more urban heat effect as the years go by. This obviously has nothing to do with the level of trace gases in the air, but gives average temps a nudge upwards.
Summer madness, this goes on every year, alarmists ‘making hay while the sun shines’.
The CET series shows any CC effect as increasing winter trend, what’s not to like about that?
We are in a slightly ‘warmer’ period. If you climb Everest and wander around on the top for a week, you are still on the mountain, and at record breaking heights or thereabouts for the whole week!
In the full CET there are clearly points in time where the vast majority of years in the previous one or 2 decades were, the/among the, warmest on record at that time.
Perhaps the Met Office can explain how these ‘results’ are caused by human CO 2 emissions?
I watched ITV News at 10 last night, I usually watch ITV news as it is marginally less doom laden than BBC on Global Heating, last night was full on Chicken Little with graphs. Greenland, Arctic Sea Ice rising sea levels, fires in North Russia and Canada, more rain in Britain, film of floods in Northern England. Record temperature in Cambridge featured prominently, no mention of cold elsewhere, UHI or LIA.
I was left feeling very depressed, but comforted by the thought that a crash usually follows when almost everyone buys into a boom or myth.
Yes, it’s ironic that whilst producing ever more dubious statistical claims, they ignore the best and most frequently proven one – that 99% of such Doomsday claims are wrong. The highest probability here is that things will now change.
I was also going to comment on the ITV news. We are all used to BBC going over the top whenever they can, and also C4, but has it now become a competition?. Is there now a TV award for “most inaccurate, alarmist and stupid climate catastrophe news report of the year” that has suddenly made ITV join the bandwagon (or should the be handcart to hell) with last night’s load of b^ll^cks” trying to associate every bit of bad weather to AGW or can we just assume that it is the usual MSM TV luvvies . Pass me the prozac .. i am also depressed.
“Is there now a TV award for “most inaccurate, alarmist and stupid climate catastrophe news report of the year”
No, but I think ‘Not a lot of people know that’ should create one and give the result wide publicity.
Great idea!
How are not increasing temperatures proof of increasing temperatures?
July 2019 CET was around 40th warmest in 360 years, the same as 1923, 1870 & 1847!
“Under that warming climate, we would expect that the hot extremes would tend to cluster in more recent times and the colder extremes are further back in time….
Perhaps Dr Mark McCarthy would explain why the complete reverse is observed and verified by the WMO:
Coldest ever recorded more recently on Earth minus 89.2 C at Vostok, Antartica 21 July 1983 just 36 years ago
. . . and further back in time, the hottest ever recorded 56.7 C at Death Valley, California USA on 10 July 1913 or 106 years ago
Some interesting contrasts if the data are broken down by month and season.
Counts of “Warmest since 2001”
UK CET
Annual 10 6
January 3 2
February 3 1
March 2 2
April 5 3
May 3 0
June 5 0
July 4 3
August 2 1
September 5 2
October 5 4
November 5 2
December 3 1
JFM 5 3
Spring 6 4
Summer 4 3
Autumn 5 4
Winter 10 2
Clearly in the UK it is the warmer winters which affect the annual data, UHI at work again?
What happened to the warmest 20 in the past 22 years meme? For the UK this was only 14 years.
Natural variability rules.
The gratuitous photo is a Getty stock image of Brighton Beach, which is the “go to beach” for photographers as it is so near to London. Perhaps he should have used this one:
https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/news-photo/the-waters-edge-crowded-with-bathers-at-brighton-beach-news-photo/3335990 (Aug 1937)
Or even this one: https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/news-photo/snow-covers-brighton-beach-as-the-brighton-pier-stands-in-news-photo/80541466? (April 06)
Reblogged this on Climate Collections.