Dear Richard
While spring took a while to warm up (we didn’t reach 25°C in the UK until 30 May), summer has been a very different story so far. The first heat-health alerts were issued (these are aimed at health and social care professionals in England), and heatwave thresholds were met across a swathe of the UK early in June. The hot weather also triggered some heavy and thundery downpours, which led to flash flooding.
But could this early blast of summer heat be an indicator of even hotter weather to come? And with that the risk of drought and wildfires? Hosepipe bans are already in place in parts of England, and concerns have been raised about the low water levels of Scotland’s Loch Ness, the largest body of water in the UK.
Elsewhere in Europe, we’ve already seen extreme heat and drought this year. And further afield in North America, wildfires in Canada led to deadly smog far away in New York.
More worryingly, during the first 11 days of June the world breached the 1.5°C threshold – the critical warming limit set by the Paris Agreement. Global mean temperatures were the hottest on record for this time of year. What’s more, global sea-surface temperatures for both April and May were record-breaking, and now that the climate patten El Niño has been officially declared by NOAA it’s likely to add even more heat to an already warming world.
On 21 June, thousands of people around the world will share the climate stripes created by Professor Ed Hawkins to show how climate change is affecting where they live. Join in and #ShowYourStripes.