The agency’s latest State of the UK Climate report highlights how 2024 saw the second warmest February, warmest May, fifth warmest December, fifth warmest winter and warmest spring, with some of these records having already been surpassed this year.
Indeed, the country has warmed at a rate of approximately 0.25°C per decade since the 1980s, with 2015-2024 being 1.24°C warmer than during 1961-1990.
As the UK’s climate warms, it is also becoming wetter, with the report showing that rainfall between October and March has been 16% greater for the last decade than it was between 1961 and 1990.
Furthermore, two-thirds of the observed sea level rise since the 1990s has happened in just over the last three decades, rising faster than the global average.
Met Office climate scientist and lead author of the report, Mike Kendon, said that the 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,” he continued.
“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.”
The report is based on observations from a network of several hundred weather stations and temperature and rainfall data extending back to the 19th century.
Aside from high temperatures and extreme rainfall, it highlights a range of other metrics, such as air and ground frosts, which have both steadily declined since the 1980s. There were more than two weeks’ fewer air frosts during 2015-2024 than 1931-1990.
Near-coast sea surface temperatures have been on average 0.3°C warmer than a decade ago and nearly a degree warmer than 1961-1990, and five of the 10 warmest years occurred in the most recent decade, with 2024 ranked the sixth warmest.
In addition, the number and severity of snow events in the UK has declined since the 1960s and the climate has become sunnier since the 1980s, primarily driven by increases in winter and spring sunshine.
“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, commented professor Liz Bentley, chief executive of the Royal Meteorological Society
"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.”
Image credit: Shutterstock
Chris Seekings is the Deputy Editor of ISEP’s Transform magazine, which is published biomonthly for ISEP members. Chris’s role involves writing sustainability-related news, features and interviews, as well as helping to plan and manage the magazine’s other day-to-day activities.
