20th February 2009

A follow up letter to a letter by Philip Booth in The Citizen this week

Your headline, "Snow is a sign of global warming", over my letter about climate change (17/02/09), could do with further explanation. We know that climate change means more extreme weather events, but we cannot attribute this specific cold directly to global warming. As others have said we must distinguish between climate and weather. Weather happens in the short term whereas climate is the long term trend.

However the surprise that greeted the recent snow only reinforces how our climate has changed over the years. The Met Office research over 350 years shows that such extreme weather now only occurs every 20 years, but in the days of Charles Dickens hit every five years or so.

Climate scientist Dr Myles Allen, notes that snowfall "could actually increase in the short term because of global warming. We have all heard the expression 'too cold to snow' and we have always expected precipitation to increase."

Another factor which could be important in the future is that melting icesheets could reverse the Gulf Stream. This would lead to Britain having a southern Scandinavian climate with lots more snow and cold. However scientists are in disagreement over whether this is likely or not.

However there is not disagreement that in long term global trends the temperatures are up. The scientists are clear, we need to be taking urgent and radical action not just to reduce climate change but also to prepare for it's impacts.


Philip Booth