FOUR HEATWAVES A YEAR & FLOOD HELL
Climate mayhem will strike us in 50 years
WE could scorch in four heatwaves a year and suffer devastating flash floods twice a decade by 2070 if we fail to tackle the climate crisis.
At present, we experience heatwaves – temperatures above 30C for more than two days – once every four years.
But under the Met Office’s 2070 scenario this rises to four times a year.
And catastrophic flash floods are likely to double from once every 10 years to almost once every five years.
The Met Office based its sobering predictions on an analysis that split the UK into a grid of 2.2km squares, allowing it to project local events in a scenario of ongoing high carbon emissions.
One of its climate scientists, Lizzie Kendon, said: “Extreme weather events, such as higher maximum daily temperatures and intense rainfall events leading to flash flooding, are projected to be serious consequences of climate change affecting the UK in coming decades.
“The new 2.2km projections will allow us to look at the potential for local temperature extremes to exceed 40C.”
The study comes after the UK had its Road floods highest ever daily temperature of 38.7C on July 25, recorded in Cambridge.
Jason Lowe, head of climate services at the Met Office, added: “Our latest projections show that by 2070, these events could occur up to four times every year: a 16-fold increase. What we’ve been able to do with the UK’s future climate is to model the impacts of extremely localised events, like the one in Boscastle in August 2004.
“[This] saw one month’s rain fall in just two hours on the Cornish coastal village. You just can’t capture these in coarser projections.”
But he added: “While the trend is towards warmer and wetter winters and hotter and drier summers, we will still get some cold years.”
The Government is using the predictions to forward-plan, with projects including bolstering flood defences and helping farmers through drier summers.
Environment Secretary Theresa Villiers said: “These projections show in unprecedented detail the extent of the challenge we face. We must adapt to the changes in our climate.”