Optimus Prime

Snowyowl9 record cold. Christ it's been 6 years since a day could be described as one of them.

....or a once typical April.

johncam Great Daily Mail headliner that one.

damianslaw You bring this argument about the past up time and time again, I'll explain why it's not a valid one and why that statement is so poorly thought out. First of all, I don't think anyone has ever once suggested the early days of the industrial revolution didn't contain periods of warm months or a consecutive run of warm months such as February's. Since the last ice age this was typical British climate stuff. Cold months and warm months were fairly well balanced, even during the little ice age where the balance was thrown to more colder months but the period 1730 - 1739 was exceptionally warm. This shows natural variation within the local climate. In a world that was 1.0 - 2.5 Celsius colder it would have still been plenty possible to record notable warm periods, even compared to the post 1940's average where there is clear undeniable warming. Without the warm blips those averages would be too low and would pour even more hot water on to the current christmas pudding. The 19th Century recorded a February average of 4.0 C which is equal to the 20th century (also 4.0) but this was more than compensated for by the very chilly Autumn's and December's. Only April and June shows little difference between the 19th and 20th century's. This wasn't really the case for the other months of the 20th century and certainly not this one. What we have now is the 30 year period for every single month is well in excess of anything in the dataset going back to 1659 and this has been the case since the late 1980's (but warming was taking place much earlier with plenty of evidence going back to the 1930's). The current warmth is unprecedented in the Earth's recent history and the gradient of warming is absolutely remarkable if not gobsmacking. For the current warming to be happening by chance we are talking 6 sigma which is something like 0.00009 % .

Weather-history Weather-history Weather-history February is looking like the December 2015 equivalent. This comes of the back of a remarkable run of warm February's 2023 6.5 2022 6.9 2021 5.3 2020 No, I would say a CET of 8.8 C would do it. That would give us an anomaly of 5 C above normal, like 2015. It would also clear the previous record by 0.8 C. Admittedly December 2015 measures a full 1.5 C above the previous record so this month, if 8.8 C is the end result, would need a full statistical analysis to determine its significance amongst the data set for Feb.

February is looking like the December 2015 equivalent. This comes of the back of a remarkable run of warm February's 2023 6.5 2022 6.9 2021 5.3 2020 6.5 2019 6.9 February is turning into a warm March bearing in mind the 61-90 average is 5.7 C.

KTtom An increased risk of something occuring is different from stating something WILL happen... It's been a bust winter for most forecasters this year.

Probably Europe's most extreme cold spell

That's surprising considering February is an absolutely atrocious winter month really since 1996.

In terms of the UK the mean average was 9.97 C, thus the 2nd warmest after 2022 (10.03 C) Separately: Scotland: 3rd warmest at 8.28 C (2022 8.49 & 2014 8.43 C) Northern Ireland: 2023 easily the warmest at 10.17 C and the first 10 + year (2022 2nd at 9.83 C) Wales: easily warmest at 10.41 (2022 2nd at 10.22 C) Comparatively, Scotland is now experiencing years that are significantly warmer than England's coldest year of modern times; 1963 at 7.95 C. England's 7.95 C in 1963 matches Scotland's most recent really cold year in 2010 which was also 7.95 C. Different planet to today's...

Depends on what you're measuring. Decadal, 2010 - 2019 wasn't as warm as 2000 - 2009 which would indicate a period of cooling. But each 30-year period has shown a pronounced warming trend since the 71-000 baseline compared to its predecessor. I don't think many were expecting a full 24 month period to average this high so soon. I guess we'll see how the climate responds to the inevitable La Nina and how much cooling is experienced.

2023 has been confirmed as the equal warmest year (equal to last year that is !!!) on record. At 11.1 C. https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/data/meantemp_monthly_totals.txt 0.9 C above 1991 - 2020 1.2 C above 1981 - 2010 1.4 C above 1971 - 2000 1.6 C above 1961 - 1990 ~1.9 C above pre-industrial average.

Extraordinary warmth entering Greenland;

Probably part in due to the rising greenhouse gases at the time. The temperature responds to CO2 logarithmically so the early 20th century emissions probably had a more profound impact on the planets temperature than even today. The lack of tropospheric aerosols until after world war 2 was probably also a considerable factor.

2014 is also part of the 11+ club. Question is how long until 11.0 C becomes the norm. Probably by 2050.