Ministry of Silly Walks. By Eduardo Unda-Sanzana from Antofagasta, Chile - Photo 02-07-14 12 56 41, CC BY 2.0, Link

Claim: Britain’s Junuary 2024 Only Felt Cold Because of Climate Change

Essay by Eric Worrall

Apparently you soft Brits have become so used to mild global warming weather, an almost normal Summer felt freezing cold.

Average months now feel cold thanks to climate change

Published: July 3, 2024 9.20pm AEST
Matthew Patterson
Postdoctoral Researcher, Atmospheric Physics, University of Reading

People in the UK love discussing the weather. For the first two weeks of June 2024, the cold, dull conditions were all they could talk about. Major news outlets like the BBC, the Guardian, Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph all carried stories on this theme.

The colder start to June was driven by winds from the north, bringing cool polar air down towards the UK. However, in the second half of the month, a high-pressure system took over and temperatures picked up, reaching 30.3°C on Wednesday 26.

In reality, June 2024 temperatures were pretty typical, about 0.4°C below the long-term average. The month was drier than usual and sunshine hours were slightly above average for the UK as a whole, though significantly below average in parts of Scotland and Northern Ireland.

The hottest five days in the UK since 1910, have all occurred in the past five years.

Such a rapid rate of warming means we have come to normalise extreme heat, while relatively cold or even average conditions feel unusual and thus newsworthy.

Public normalisation of hotter temperatures may also affect our perception of climate change and thus our willingness to act on it. Ecologists describe a phenomenon called “shifting baseline syndrome”, which is the idea that as the environment degrades, each new generation accepts the degraded situation they experience as normal. This also applies to climate change, as people forget or have no experience of the climate in the not-too-distant past.

Read more: https://theconversation.com/average-months-now-feel-cold-thanks-to-climate-change-233812

Obviously it would be a calamity for Britons to get used to Tomatoes reliably ripening in Summer, and swimming pools being warm enough to use, because they might demand more of the same. Imagine if you could visit a British beach and be confident of actually swimming in the water, I mean for longer than 5 minutes?

Clearly it is time to shut down the British economy and put an end to this subversive warmth, it is time to restore proper British Junuaries. Otherwise Britons might all end up like Australians, drinking beer in the sun and calling relatives who live in cold places to tell them how nice the weather is.

Think of the children!

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michael hart
July 6, 2024 6:17 am

July is currently saving a lot of wear and tear on the hosepipe.

observa
July 6, 2024 7:06 am
John XB
July 6, 2024 7:40 am

“People in the UK love discussing the weather. For the first two weeks of June 2024, the cold, dull conditions were all they could talk about.”

That’s because we had been told by the ‘experts’ we were heading for the hottest June ever, but would drown in the wettest weather ever.

We were told that just because we all felt May was very cold, it was in fact toasty warm but our senses were deceiving us.

Must listen to the experts to know whether that wet stuff falling on our head is rain or climate change, and unusual for the time of year, our heating coming on at night doesn’t really mean it is cold.

John XB
July 6, 2024 8:10 am

British climate. Explained.

February fill-dyke – because the snows and ice of Winter melted and filled the dykes behind the hedgerows.

March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb. The month noted for its often blustery. beginning and calm end.

April showers – self explanatory.

Never cast a clout until May’s out – temperatures can be deceptively high as May progresses, only to plunge before its end.

Flaming June – self-explanatory.

I learned this as a child. The sayings are ‘typical’ rather than certain. In my experience (72 years) no two years are the same. Being an island between a huge continent to the East, huge ocean to the West and Arctic airstream coming from the North, weather variability is normal.

It’s why the British talk so much shout the weather, we get so much of it.

Ian_e
July 6, 2024 9:51 am

Hmm – so are you saying it was just weather?? [Asking for a friend.]

Ian_e
Reply to  Ian_e
July 6, 2024 9:54 am

P.s. I’m feeling really let down by the summer weather this year. I mean, we’ve had the two fine days but where is that thunderstorm?

Ed Zuiderwijk
July 6, 2024 9:53 am

Matthew Patterson can better go and study psychology.

gezza1298
July 6, 2024 12:28 pm

Just as Antony Watts has shown in the US, recent replies to FOI requests and follow ups by citizens from the Met Office have shown their temperature stations to be far worse than was expected. this puts into perspective the claim that the hottest days in June have all been in the last 5 years.

Bob
July 6, 2024 4:40 pm

The CAGW clowns are scraping the bottom of the barrel with reports like this. But alas that is all they have.

July 8, 2024 10:36 am

In March I published a solar based prediction for negative North Atlantic Oscillation conditions for 6th to 16th June 2024.

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