Are Mid-20°C UK Temperatures In May Unusual?
This was the question the Met Office asked a couple of weeks ago in a post on their blog: “The UK’s hottest day of 2022 so far was recorded at Heathrow with 27.5°C today (17 May 2022), leading to an interest in how often we record these kinds of temperatures in the UK during May.
“Mike Kendon, from the Met Office National Climate Information Centre, puts this latest temperature recording into context.” [bold, links added]
Yes, they manage to mention Heathrow and still keep a straight face!
Naturally, the Met Office goes on to claim that these temperatures are now more common because of global warming. In reality, their own data does not support this contention.
SEE ALSO: Met Office Caught Lying About Britain’s ‘Hottest May Evah’ (2018)
The question is, in any case, inane. Temperatures in the mid-20s may be common in the South East but would be rare in Cromarty. Trying to compare data from different stations is like comparing chalk and cheese.
According to the official European Climate Assessment & Dataset (ECA&D), the number of days over 25°C has changed little over the years in Central England.
The chart below runs only to 2020, but no days have gotten anywhere near 25°C in the last two Mays, with the highest only reaching 22.8°C:
If we look at the highest May temperatures each year, there has been nothing remarkable at all happening in recent years. The highest temperatures were set in the 1920s and 40s.
What is noticeable, however, is that we don’t seem to get the exceptionally cold days anymore. In other words, the climate in May is more benign and less extreme than in the past.
A classic example of this was May 1944 when the record UK temperature for the month of 32.8C was set:
United Kingdom: Highest daily maximum temperature records in May https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/climate/maps-and-data/uk-climate-extremes
Notably, however, May 1944 as a whole was close to average temperatures, with two extremely cold spells and heavy frost.
Temperatures dropped to just 22F in England, an astonishingly low figure by any account, as the Met Office weather report of the time highlighted:
Met Office Archives
https://digital.nmla.metoffice.gov.uk/SO_7498a04d-6a40-4207-a27f-772663ffd2fc/
This was extreme weather in anybody’s books. And you will no doubt recall that just a week after that heatwave, the weather became extremely stormy as D-Day came and went.
Nowadays the Met Office would rather discuss temperatures next to the runway at Heathrow!
See more here: climatechangedispatch
Bold emphasis added
Header image: Healthline
Editor’s note: Alarmists revel in claiming hottest temperatures in London, while measuring it at Heathrow Airport, where the recording station is surrounded by acres of concrete and tarmac. The urban heat island effect there will easily add three or four degrees to the actual air temperature, but do they mention that? No.
The Met Office claim they take the UHIE into account when publishing their figures, by reducing recorded temperatures in cities by…wait for it…0.2 of a degree, which allows them to claim 2.8 degrees of a 3 degree increase is caused by carbon dioxide.
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richard
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Coldest spring and start of Summer in the Arctic on record-
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php
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Howdy
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Spammer.
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cathleen
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I’m interested to know if the solar rays from the sun can cause the extreme heat waves. Would be interesting to see a comparison chart of the solar ray’s activites and extreme heat waves in countries throughout the recorded history.
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MattH
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Hi Kathling. Certainly the suns rays are a major player in anomolous temperatures.
One of the less commonly understood mechanism is solar storms
The following is an extract published by https://spaceweather.com/
MAPPING A MAGNETIC SUPERSTORM: Researchers have mapped the best and worst places in the USA to be during a severe geomagnetic storm. For residents of some big cities, the news is not good.
“Resistive structures in the crust and mantle of the Earth make cities along the east coast of the USA especially vulnerable to geomagnetic storms,” says Jeffrey Love of the US Geological Survey (USGS), who led the study. “Hazards are greatest for power systems serving Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, DC, – a megalopolis of over 50 million people.”
Above: Resistive structures in the crust of the Earth measured by the Earthscope project. Credit: Kelbert et al. (2019) [more]
These conclusions are based on a new study of the biggest geomagnetic storm of the Space Age–the Great Québec Blackout of March 13, 1989. Millions of Quebecois spent a long winter night without lights or heat after a pair of CMEs hammered Earth’s magnetic field. The Hydro-Québec power grid was down for more than 9 hours.
What would happen if the same geomagnetic storm struck again? That’s what Love’s team wanted to find out. They combined old measurements of magnetic activity during the 1989 storm with new measurements of Earth’s crust to pinpoint the hazard zones.
At this point, it may be useful to review what happens during a geomagnetic storm. When a CME hits Earth’s magnetic field, our magnetic field vibrates. If you had a sensitive-enough compass, you could see the needle quivering. Next, because of Faraday’s Law, electrical currents begin to flow through conductors. Power lines, pipes, even rocks conduct these geomagnetically induced currents (GICs). Together, Earth and power lines form an electrical circuit; if too much current flows into the power grid it can cause a blackout.
Above: During a geomagnetic storm, geomagnetically induced current (GIC) flows through power lines and the Earth itself. Credit: GAO
In 1989 researchers didn’t know much about the Earth-half of the circuit. That has changed. In 2006, the Earthscope project began sounding our planet’s crust to determine the 3D electrical properties of deep rock. It turns out, there are huge variations in conductivity from place to place. The type of rock a city sits on determines how vulnerable it is to geomagnetic storms.
In retrospect, Québec was especially vulnerable. The province sits on an expanse of Precambrian igneous rock that does a poor job conducting electricity. When the March 13th CMEs arrived, storm currents found a more attractive path in the high-voltage transmission lines of Hydro-Québec. Unusual frequencies began to flow through the lines, transformers overheated and circuit breakers tripped.
Assuming that the Québec storm was underway again, Love’s team mapped electric fields around much of North America. Measured in units of Volts per kilometer (V/km), these fields predict how much current will be pushed through wires at ground level. The higher the value, the bigger the hazard.
Above: If you live near an orange dot you might be in trouble during a geomagnetic superstorm. The color-coded dots represent peak geoelectric field amplitudes. Credit: Love et al (2022). [movie]
“Peak 1-min-resolution geoelectric field amplitudes ranged from 21.66 V/km in Maine and 19.02 V/km in Virginia to <0.02 V/km in Idaho,” says Love. “Our maps show where utility companies might concentrate their efforts to mitigate the impacts of future magnetic superstorms.”
With Solar Cycle 25 ramping up to a new Solar Maximum expected in 2025, the hazard maps are coming not a moment too soon.
You can read Love et al.’s original research in the May 2022 edition of the research journal Space Weather. Click here.
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MattH
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Hi Cathleen. My copy and paste did not work so well. The top right at https://spaceweather.com/ has ‘archives’. The article with the graphs, charts and and references is archived on June 16, 2022.
The spaceweather site accurately predicts solar storms reaching earth a couple of days in advance, shows the immediate past 11 year solar cycle, often shows movies of the previous day’s solar explosions and much more.
The rule of thumb is when there are a lot of solar storms the Hadley Cell expands which causes tropical weather to spread further North and South. When there are no solar storms the Hadley cell reduces pressure allow Arctic and Antarctic storms to break out into the temperate zones.
Solar cycles have been recorded since Galileo Galilee began recording them. The electrical charges in atmosphere from our sun and other stars is an evolving understanding and study of science.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadley_cell
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Matt
You began: “Certainly the suns rays are a major player in anomolous temperatures.”
The major player in record high temperatures is high altitude thin CLOUD. When I feel like it I will try to find my essays in which I call attention to data which supports this claim. For now I rest my claim on the following.
My favorite meteorologist, R. C. Sutcliffe, wrote: “Clouds which do not give rain, which never even threaten to give rain but which dissolve again into vapor before the precipitation stage is ever reached, have a profound effect on our climate.” (page 33, WEATHER AND CLIMATE, 1966)
Have a good day, Jerry
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MattH
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Hi Jerry. I do not know if you have ever looked at the spaceweather website. If you put your mouse on one of the sunspots on the sun photo and tap your mouse the sunspots become magnified, expanded.
I was introducing Cathleen to the idea that sun activity and strength of solar cycles effect climate and weather. I did not even mention the Milankovitch cycles where in approximately ten days Earth is at aphelium from the sun and Earth will be almost 6 million kilometers closer to the sun in six months time which means Earth will be receiving around 6% more solar energy than presently.
These are fundamentals of climate change. I have not studied high clouds that disappear. Do those clouds cause high temperatures because of phase change or is it through the blocking of infra red surface emissions to space?
Regards. Matt
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Matt,
This morning I wrote the following to Zoe; “Some people do want to do productive work. Like farmers.” Now I see I should have written: Some people do want to do productive work like farmers and fishermen.
And I will summarize yesterday’s afternoon and overnight weather history. At the local airport (about 3 miles from our home) the sky was reported to have been clear from 3pm (daylight time) to 7am (as I write). At (airport) 1am the air temp was 57F, the dew point temp was 51F, and the relative humidity was 81%. At 5am the AT was 52, the DPT 49, RH 89.
At 5am our weather station ‘reported’ AT 52, DPT 51, RH 86%. And the vehicles along the curb in from of our home had dew on their tops and sides.
So the morning the sun, due to cloudless sky, will need to first need to evaporate the liquid droplets of dew before it can begin to warm the 51F surfaces of the vehicles and the earth surfaces which maybe had cooled down to 51F, which I forgot to measure with my IR thermometer. So, I have to only speculate that the soils (ground) surfaces had not cooled down to 51 after being warmed by yesterday’s sun (clear sky in the afternoon). But the Tmax was only 71F, not near a record temperature for that day.
Just some data for you to ponder.
I will answer: “Hi Matt,
This morning I wrote the following to Zoe; “Some people do want to do productive work. Like farmers.” Now I see I should have written: Some people do want to do productive work like farmers and fishermen.
And I will summarize yesterday’s afternoon and overnight weather history. At the local airport (about 3 miles from our home) the sky was reported to have been clear from 3pm (daylight time) to 7am (as I write). At (airport) 1am the air temp was 57F, the dew point temp was 51F, and the relative humidity was 81%. At 5am the AT was 52, the DPT 49, RH 89.
At 5am our weather station ‘reported’ AT 52, DPT 51, RH 86%. And the vehicles along the curb in from of our home had dew on their tops and sides.
So the morning the sun, due to cloudless sky, will need to first need to evaporate the liquid droplets of dew before it can begin to warm the 51F surfaces of the vehicles and the earth surfaces which maybe had cooled down to 51F, which I forgot to measure with my IR thermometer. So, I have to only speculate that the soils (ground) surfaces had not cooled down to 51 after being warmed by yesterday’s sun (clear sky in the afternoon). But the Tmax was only 71F, not near a record temperature for that day.
Just some data for you to ponder.
You ask: “Do those clouds cause high temperatures because of phase change or is it through the blocking of infra red surface emissions to space?” It is the latter. The thin high clouds do not significantly reduce the solar radiation the reaches the earth’s surface, but according the Feynman’s scattering theory the much larger cloud droplets, than the gaseous molecules of the atmosphere, do greatly scatter the IR radiation being emitted by the earth’s surface back toward the surface from which they had been originally emitted. And the cloud droplets do not absorb this IR radiation for if the droplets did absorb the IR radiation, they would quickly evaporate and there would be not high thin clouds which turn the cloudless blue sky into a ‘milky blue’ sky. Which, the latter, we SEE when the high thin clouds are present.
Have a good day, Jerry
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MattH
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Thank you for that clarification Jerry. It is easy to be allied to an incorrect idea when understanding such things is merely a part time interest.
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Herb Rose
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Hi Jerry,
The scattering of light Feynman speaks of is visible light, not IR or UV, which are invisible. Scattering of visible light is a result of reflection and transmission with refraction. The water droplets clouds absorb IR (which is why they disappear without rain) and radiate longer wavelengths of IR. Since there are no gas molecules in the atmosphere above the troposphere (molecules composed of oxygen and nitrogen) that absorb IR the water in the atmosphere is absorbing the IR radiation coming from the sun, just as the oxygen and nitrogen compounds absorb 95% of the UV coming from the sun.
The Earth is not heating the water in the atmosphere. It is being heated by the IR coming from the sun and the IR resulting from the absorption of UV by oxygen and nitrogen. How could evaporating water from the surface cause the water in clouds to evaporate?
Herb
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Kevin Doyle
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Herb,
I agree 100%. You may have stated Ozone (O3) knocks out lots of UV radiation before it reaches Earth. H2O and CO2 also knoçk out both ‘visible’ and IR radiation before it reaches Earth.
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Herb Rose
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Hi Kevin,
It is not O3 that absorbs UV but O2 and N2.
The concentration of O3 in the ozone belt is 10 ppm. Take a piece of clear plastic 10,000 cm^2 and paint 1 cm^2 black. How much light will be blocked by that 1 cm^2?
Ozone is created when UV energy is absorbed by O2 and the energy exceeds 450,000 joules/mole. This causes the O2 molecule to split into atoms. When 1 of those atoms encounters an O2 molecule it will lose energy by combining with it to form an unstable O3 molecule. That O3 molecule will remain stable until it too is able to lose energy and more stable O2 is formed.
If you look at the chemical composition of the atmosphere you find the higher the altitude the more energy the matter has (A high altitude layer of oxygen atoms and helium atoms followed by layers of Nitrogen and oxygen molecules, followed by O3, O2, N2 and the troposphere with N2 and O2.
H2o and CO2, being transparent to the visible spectrum do not block them but allows them to pass through the atmosphere where they are absorbed by the Earth’ surface. Since CO2 can only absorb IR in 4 narrow wavelengths and there is very little of it in the atmosphere, it is the liquid water nano droplets that are absorbing the IR coming from the sun.
Herb
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Herb,
“The scattering of light Feynman speaks of is visible light, not IR or UV, which are invisible.” You clearly have not read, or begun to understand, what Feynman taught to his students. (Chapter 32 Radiation Damping. Light Scattering, The Feynman Lectures On Physics, Volume I)
Have a good day, Jerry
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Herb and Kevin,
Herb wrote: “The water droplets clouds absorb IR (which is why they disappear without rain)”. If this were true there would be no cloud droplets.
Have a good day, Jerry
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Herb Rose
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Hi Jerry,
The water in the clouds comes from the surface of the Earth, yet you do not see this water below the cloud level. You see water droplets because they have lost IR and condensed into larger droplets. Repeat after me: Evaporation means absorption of IR, Condensation means loss of IR.
Herb
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Matt,
First, I have to thank you again and again for your comments give what I remember to share a context. And I accept your excuse for not seeing everything clearly. But the NOAA people who goofed were working full time. So read on.
There is another influence of clouds which causes higher temperatures. We have recently discussed twilights.
So I begin this story by quoting my quote: The most obvious is most difficult to SEE! For the story demonstrates the TRUTH of it.
NOAA began great research project termed SURFRAD (surface radiation) whose instruments measured the 5 radiations: Downwelling Solar, Upwelling Solar. Direct Normal Solar, Dowelling Infrared, and Upwelling Infrared. Which properly added and subtracted should be zero when one day’s measured air temperatures were very similar to the previous and next days’ temperature. Hence, a seemingly radiation balance condition.
However, when they set up their natural laboratories with its instrumentation they discovered that such a radiation balance (zero) was not observed (measured) when it should be. One radiation they had overlooked was twilight (which is now termed Diffuse Solar. Solar radiation which does not cast a shadow.
However, we know that cumulus clouds can be bright white when direct solar shines on them and is scatted by the cloud droplets. So the instrument which measures Dowelling Solar measures the Direct Normal Solar, when there is no cloud between the Sun and the instrument plus diffuse solar which is composed of the solar being scattered by the atmospheric molecules and the diffuse solar being scattered by the cloud droplets. Hence during partly cloudy skies the total Downwelling Solar can be significantly greater than that measured during cloudless skies.
So this is the rest of the story about the measurement of the earth’s radiations.
Have a good day, Jerry
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MattH
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Hi Jerry
I find your explanation is very valuable which I have not come across previously.
Time to go to work.
Best wishes. Matt
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Matt,
Here is something you maybe have never read. When in Sidney Australia I discovered a 1840 book by David Brewster titled The Martyrs of Science. Who were Galileo. Tycho Brahe, and Kepler. So I learned these three lived at the same time and corresponded with each other, if they did not actually have direct discussions with each other.
You and other PSI Readers, have had chances to read the following essays: (https://www.darwins-theory-of-evolution.com/), http://principia-scientific.org/new-scientific-law-greenhouse-effect/, https://principia-scientific.com/solar-radiation-sufficient-no-greenhouse-effect-certain-atmospheric-gases/ . So I can imagine how alone Galileo must have felt as he pointed to his observations that proved that the Earth did not standstill as he wrote in two books with Dialogues involving fictitious characters. So I just looked at the index of Two New Sciences and find that Galileo’s co-martyrs, who contributions to the SCIENCE of that time, are not listed. Two New Science was published in 1638 and Brahe had died in 1601 and Kepler in 1630. Galileo’s first Dialogue was published in 1632.
After a review of my previous essays, I finally saw a possible reason that Galileo ignored the contributions that Brahe and Kepler had made. For it is a historical fact that Galileo refused to accept the quantitative validity of Brahe’s astronomical measurements and Kepler’s mathematical quantitative analyst of Brahe’s data. Hence, both Brahe and Kepler had to have been critical of Galileo’s refusal to accept that the orbitals of the observed planets were elliptical and not perfect circles. And Galileo was probably offended by their criticism of his conclusion. Some scientists seem not able to accept that they can never be certain that THEIR IDEAS are TRUE and such scientists, regardless of their positive achievements, can have very thin skins.
Have a good day, Jerry
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Matt and PSI Readers,
(https://www.accuweather.com/en/us/salem/97301/weather-radar/330144) Maybe you have seen this but when I scroll down the size (detail) of this image I find the areas of precipitation, that exist over continents and oceans and seas, world wide. Redundant for emphasis. Which I assume are being observed by downward satellite radar of the cloud tops.
Should make the prediction of precipitation quite simple and accurate. I just checked out local upward radar weather and found it similar to the downward radar images of the same area.
Certainly would be interested in learning how many of you are aware of this world wide image.
Have a good day, Jerry.
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