More evidence of climate change, this time in North West Europe, where extremely hot days are getting hotter more quickly than hot days are getting hotter. And we’re already well aware that the hot days are getting hotter.
Now work from the University of Oxford suggests that extremely hot days are getting hotter faster than hot days are getting hotter. More than twice as fast, in fact.
This graph and the news that goes with it will come as little surprise to those who read this post last year. There was a similar graph there:
…with that mental little red dot top right, showing just how extreme the extremely hot days were in Sheffield last July.
And it’s all Spain’s fault. Well, when isn’t it?
Because Spain is warming faster than North-West Europe, this means that air carried in from this region is ever more extreme relative to the ambient air in North-West Europe. The hottest days of 2022, for instance, were driven by a plume of hot air carried north from Spain.
I don’t have any answers for this trend. I’m just here pointing out that it’s yet more evidence that these sort of trends exist. Being aware of this is a good first step in either doing something or nothing about it. The study’s author says:
‘These findings underline the fact that the UK and neighbouring countries are already experiencing the effects of climate change, and that last year’s heatwave was not a fluke. Policy makers urgently need to adapt their infrastructure and health systems to cope with the impacts of higher temperatures.’
Ah, yes. Let’s get the politicians to do something about it.
That’ll work.
Of course, there will be some people who will read this and go “pfft” or make some such noise, because they don’t believe that climate change exists. They don’t need to come and talk to me. They need to talk to someone on their own level of expertise, like the guys in Oxford who are presenting these data, because obviously, they are also experts in recording and analysing near earth temperatures over north-western Europe for the past 60 years.
That’s why they are all also physical scientists at one of the world’s most prestigious universities.
