Record-breaking temperatures not surprising

Richard Black comments on news that 2014 is likely to be one of the warmest years on record

By George Smeeton

info@eciu.net

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Commenting on the news that 2014 is likely to be one of the warmest years on record, Richard Black, Director of the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) said that record-breaking temperatures were not surprising and that long-term trends provided the clearest indication of climate change.

Records in the Central England Temperature (CET) series go back to 1659, and are the longest instrumental temperature series in the world

The UK Met Office and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) today release updates of global temperature data, which show that 2014 is set to be England’s hottest year on record and that global temperatures are also at record highs.

Richard Black said: “Breaking the record for the warmest year is of course a rallying point for action on climate change, but record-breaking isn’t a surprise: levels of greenhouse gases are rising, more and more energy is trapped in the Earth system, therefore records will be broken.

“But advocates should be wary of over-claiming, because if you see a record one year, you probably won’t see another one the following year, due to natural variability.

“The long-term trends are much more important: and whether it’s surface temperature, ocean temperature, sea level, glacier melt, Arctic ice melt or the migration of species to cooler conditions, those trends provide a much clearer indication of a changing climate than the occasional breaking of a temperature record.”