I was reading a report today on the BBC website entitled Winter ‘second warmest on record’. It was referring to winter in the UK. In fact, the five warmest winters in UK history were in the last five years.

What interested me was the reference to the Hadley Centre Central England Temperature (HadCET). The HadCET measures and reports daily and monthly temperatures in a triangular region encompassing Bristol, London and Preston (see the map below). Monthly temperatures have been measured since 1659, and daily temperatures since 1772. No where on Earth have temperatures been recorded for this long.

The graph below shows the temperature in Central England using daily mean averages to report monthly temperature averages since 1780. Temperatures have fluctuated as seen in the graph, with a steep curve describing temperatures here since the 1980s.

Ref: Parker, D.E., T.P. Legg, and C.K. Folland. 1992. A new daily Central England Temperature Series, 1772-1991. Int. J. Clim., Vol 12, p317-342

You might find it useful to explore the Hadley site. There are number of interesting links that you could use in your classrooms. For example, the “climate projections” link brings you to two computer animations, one of temperature, the other of sea ice. In the temperature animation, you watch a rotating earth from 1860 through the year 2100, and as time marches on the globe becomes redder (hotter). The second animation focuses on sea ice coverage. Again, in the same time frame, you watch a rotating earth but this time you see the sea ice shrinking in the North Polar region.

There were other articles on the BBC cite. For example, in Germany, winter has been warmer as well. In fact winter was warmer throughout Europe, including Russia.

Can these data be used to claim that greenhouse gases caused this? Yes and no. With climate change, data from an individual year has to be seen with respect to mean temperatures in other years, as well as what other indicators are showing. For example, as in the animation mentioned above, sea ice is decreasing. There are other indicators that caution us to consider the reality of global warming. The lack of snow in ski resorts was common throughout Europe this winter. Zoo keepers have noticed that bears are coming out of hibernation earlier than in past years. Flowers that normally wait til spring to bloom are opening earlier. The evidence of warming is there. However, as one of the scientists who was interviewed said, the Earth has been around for about 5 billion years, and temperature fluctuations have occurred throughout geologic time. Five warmer winters does not make for a climate change. Yet, at the same time, scientists agree that the emissions of human produced greenhouse gases is the factor that is causing the Earth to warm faster than it has in the recent past.

I think you will find the articles and the sites that I’ve referenced in this piece useful to you, and look forward to any comments you might have.