Dry February: Met Office Climate Change Narrative Flounders

The Met Office News Blog latest is a thing to behold: an illustration of how to attempt to cling onto a faltering narrative but fail miserably. The poor luvs really are floundering now; even red herrings are in short supply!

February in the UK has been dry so far; exceptionally dry in some parts of the south. But that doesn’t fit with the climate change narrative, so it must be weather right? Er, well yes, and no, maybe, kind of.

With less than a week of February to go, conversations are already being had about how dry the month has been, and what impact this could have.  

This month, we’ve been exploring the theme of water security and climate change. But in more granular detail, February 2023’s lack of consistent rain for most of the UK underlines some of the common differences between weather and climate, and where there’s an overlap in challenges.  

The summer of 2022 saw record-breaking temperatures when 40.3°C was recorded for the first time in the UK. The first eight months of that year were also the driest since the infamously dry start to 1976. With these notable weather events in mind, water resources have often been in the news, and a drought was declared by the Environment Agency for many parts of the UK in August 2022. 

That declaration of drought was subsequently removed for most areas as Autumn rainfall topped up resources for many, though not all.  

Translation: ‘A dry February has nothing whatsoever to do with climate change, but we’ll talk about climate change anyway, when discussing it. just so as to give the impression that the two are connected’.

The models predict the opposite: wetter, warmer winters, not drier, colder winters:

Climate change projections show an increasing likelihood of hotter, drier summers and warmer, wetter winters, though the natural variation of rainfall patterns in the UK means this won’t be the case every year. The month of February is itself a good indicator of the variability of the UK climate with the driest month for the UK in a series back to 1884 being February 1932, when just 9.5mm of rain fell. In contrast, February 2020 was the fourth wettest month on record with 213.7mm of rain.  

But, if we get a dry winter (cos weather), then a following hot, dry summer (cos climate change) is going to be soo much worse:

Mark McCarthy is the manager of the National Climate Information Centre at the Met Office. He said: “Although there’s still around a week left of February, it has been a notably dry month so far, especially in the south of England. 

“In short, high pressure has been dominant over the UK, helping to repel rain-bearing systems across much of the country, though many have managed to influence north-western areas at times.[Tell me about it!]” 

Sam Larsen, Director of Programmes and Planning at Water UK, said: “Water levels in the environment began to pick up following last summer’s drought conditions, but low rainfall this month means a majority of UK rivers are below normal levels for this time of year, meaning there is less water available for nature, agricultural abstraction, and public water supply. 

“It remains to be seen whether rainfall levels will pick up before summer. This, along with the lasting impacts of climate change and population growth, means it’s absolutely vital that we all continue to save water and help safeguard against potential future drought conditions. For hints and tips on how to save water, money and energy, visit www.watersworthsaving.org.uk.” 

You see how it works? We can’t have plain old weather here in the UK anymore; it’s got to be weather which exacerbates climate change impacts, or extreme weather which is exacerbated by climate change.

So, if it gets a bit hot and dry this summer, the hose-pipe bans will come into force, and it will be because of climate change and because you naughty people didn’t save enough water. It will of course have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with poor water management, leaks or increased water usage because of dinghy-assisted population increases (not sufficiently offset by excess deaths or decreasing live births - but give it more time maybe).

The rest of February and into March still looks settled, with high pressure stubbornly persisting over the UK: