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One of the problems with Climate Change in the United Kingdom is that most of us can’t see it. We search the world around us for possible signs, but when they come, in the form of a cluster of intense storms, we’re still not sure, because nature is so variable, or because our lives are so short and memories shorter, or perhaps because we no longer live in the landscape in which we grew up; no longer know what exactly each season should bring.
Dudley, Eunice, Franklin: all these storms have come in quick succession and only months after we saw trees flattened like wheat because of Storm Arwen and so, of course, the immediate question becomes – is this climate change? We scratch our heads, trying to remember a time before this. The Great Storm of 1987
It’s the same with the signs in our flora and fauna. My backyard daffs are in full bloom right now. I was a little skeptical when they first started to swell in January. As far as I remember from previous years, these aren’t an early blooming variety. I was worried about them because of the mild January. They may have been too excited by the warmest New Year in history.
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I ignored that thought. I started to wonder if my daffs could be part of a pattern, only after a report from the University of Cambridge was published. The researchers used a database that dates back to the mid-18th centuries to find that climate change is causing plants to flower earlier in the UK. In other words, spring is returning.
Of course, the only people who can paint for us a broader picture of seasonal, wildlife and weather change and what we are likely to see more of, are the scientists, and often they are non-committal – they talk in likelihoods rather than certainties.
It’s easy to tell the story of the devastation a storm causes, not so easy to tell the tale of what caused the storm itself, or if it is linked to the wider, still more complex story of climate change.
Meteorologists as well as climatologists seem to have the same hymn sheet regarding the links between global warming and Dudley Eunice and Franklin. The general consensus is that although strong winds are unlikely to be caused by climate change, the overall damage from such storms is worse due to increased rainfall and sea-level rising which are linked with the climate crisis.
Friederike Otto, of the World Weather Attribution Service who observed that: “The damages of winter storms have gotten worse because of human-caused climate change for two reasons: one, the rainfall associated with these winter storms has become more intense, and many studies link this clearly to climate change; and two, because of sea-level rise, storm surges are higher and thus more damaging than they would otherwise be.”
However, other scientists Hayley J Fowler at Newcastle University and Colin Manning believe that strong winds will increase due to climate change. The pair study “sting jets”, areas of very powerful wind within a storm, one of which was predicted as part of Storm Eunice. This phenomena is poorly represented in models, and they predict we will see “more intense wind storms over the UK as climate change accelerates, with much of this coming from storms that develop sting jets”.
Whatever the precise learnings from these recent storms, what’s clear is that they are a reminder of the power of the elements, and science is telling us that this power is in flux.
According to a study published in Climatic Change, flooding, droughts, and hot weather will increase in frequency as global warming increases.
All this should be a visceral spur to change, but what’s remarkable is how little talk or urgency there is now around climate, just over 100 days after COP26.
We’re happy to talk about the damage done by storms, but not so much about the serious work of reducing emissions.
Karl Mathiesen, writing in Politico, describes the world as in the grip of a “global climate attention crisis”, distracted by Ukraine and a gas price crisis.
While we may be emerging from Covid, other crises require our attention. A minority of Tory politicians want net zero to be portrayed as a plan to make people poorer and colder, rather that a key to future energy security and a sustainable planet.
But the climate crisis is a storm we can’t afford to look away from.
We must face it, and channel our fear towards reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
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