Our climate in the UK is changing and therefore it is essential that we record those changes accurately. The foundation for this monitoring comes from our extensive network of meteorological observations. The Met Office National Climate Information Centre is responsible for translating these diverse observations into an understanding of our nation’s weather and climate and its longer term historical context. Today we have released a new report called ‘State of the UK Climate 2014’.
What is it?
‘State of the UK Climate’ is a new annual publication that presents a summary of the UK’s weather and climate, in this case for 2014, comparing it to historical records to provide long-term context. It is intended to provide an accessible, authoritative and up-to-date assessment of UK climate trends, variations and extremes based on the latest available climate quality observational datasets.
What does it say?
Some of the important findings of this year’s report are:
2014 was the warmest year on record for UK land and coastal waters.
2014 was the fourth wettest year on record for the UK.
8 of the 10 warmest years for the UK have occurred since 2002 and all the top
ten warmest years have occurred since 1990.
7 of the 10 wettest years for the UK have occurred since 1998.
Mean sea level around the UK rose by 1.4 millimetres per year (mm/yr) in the
20th Century, when corrected for land movement.
Within its pages you can also discover a host of other facts and figures from days of heavy rain, snow and sunshine hours, a summary of significant weather events in 2014 and the fact that February 2014 saw the highest ever recorded sea level at Newlyn in Cornwall in a 100 year series.
Why now?
We monitor a wide range of observations and will always report our findings as they happen, regardless of whether that be a single severe storm, the hottest year on record, or a relatively benign month. However the eagle-eyed may have noticed that we refer to these statistics as “provisional”. This is because we also continue to collect more observations and undertake extensive quality control of the data for a long time after the event. At the completion of this process approximately 6 months later we will then recalculate all our national statistics to include all the best quality data that we can. That is why we are now publishing up to date statistics for the year 2014.
Will this be updated?
Yes. This publication is intended to be the first in a series of annual reports and we expect to publish the summary for 2015 next summer . These will provide the most up-to-date and highest quality UK climate statistics available. Our routine day-to-day and monthly monitoring will also continue, so for those that can’t wait we’ll still be providing our important real-time monitoring as well.
Feedback
We would also love to hear your feedback or suggestions so that we can improve the publication and make it as useful as possible. While we cannot promise to respond individually to all comments we will be sure to consider them all as we plan the release for ‘State of the UK Climate 2015’ next summer. Please email all comments to socuk@metoffice.gov.uk.
Find the full report here: State of the UK Climate 2014
Official blog of the Met Office news team 
Reblogged this on elirazcon.
More climate change propaganda from the Met Office. More baseless manipulated claims based on short term records.
The article asks “Why now?” Well with the Paris jamboree coming up, and draft agreement not exactly going well, that’s not too hard to figure out. Better get some more ‘quality controlled’ claims out there.
More evidence that the Met Office has lost its way when two day forecasts are still so unreliable as to be largely useless for all practical purposes.
…and with no evidence to back up any of your claims. Top drawer jbenton2013 *thumbs up*
“More climate change propaganda from the Met Office.” Please elaborate. What has been ‘manipulated’ (or are you merely alleging that they published a summary for 2014 solely because it was the warmest UK year so far recorded; but they published something similar for 2013 – http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/news/2014/state-of-the-climate-2013)?
Otherwise I will conclude that you are posting propaganda. And – like me – you haven’t read the new Met Office UK climate report for 2014.
The propaganda results from trying to spin short term records, and even more unreliable rainfall records, into something they do not and were never designed to show ie claims of weather extremes.
And neither 2013 nor 2014 were even close to being the warmest year on record according to satellite records.
The above blog says nothing about ‘extremes’. So please quote to us where the actual report spins about ‘weather extremes’, assuming that that is the case.
“And neither 2013 nor 2014 were even close to being the warmest year on record according to satellite records.” Source required. And I think you will find that the warmest year on record worldwide will be 2015.
“2015 will not even be close to the hottest year Haworth-Roberts. With only three months of the year to go we can tell with a high degree of certainty (97% in fact) that the reliable satellite records will confirm that 1998 was the hottest year.
I’ve no idea what the Met Office land based records will show, but I’m sure if you ask Julia Slingo she will be able to tell you already.
Correction – I did carry out a search for ‘State of the UK climate 2013’ but I now realise that what came up was something different.
The introduction to the 2014 report does say “The report is intended as an update to The climate of the UK and recent trends (Jenkins et al, 2008) and as the first in a series of annual ‘State of the UK climate’ publications.”
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/learning/learn-about-the-weather/how-weather-works/autumn-facts?WT.mc_id=Twitter_Content_Autumn
Is it possible to read this without prolonged annoying advert music blasting out?
Hello Ashley
I’ll pass your comments on and see if there is anything – other than muting the speaker – that can be done.
Helen
Ashley
Apparently the Vimeo video comes with autoplay. We’ve re-embedded the video so it doesn’t autoplay, so everyone should be able to read in peace.
Helen
Thanks (in fact the music ended after about three minutes).
I like the idea but it does seem to me that the old Monthly Weather Report [MWR] publication that you abandoned in 1993 did it better and with more detail. The ‘State of the Climate’ is obviously glitzier, but it lacks any of the detail and the climate data that the MWR had. I would prefer to see detailed climate returns for each month rather than using it as a tool just to produce bullet points to justify climate change.
Hello Bruce
The new State of the Climate report is an annual publication that presents a summary of the UK’s weather and climate for each year. We also provide summaries on a monthly basis http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/summaries which include an assessment of the weather and the monthly data.
Helen
Hi Helen
Thanks for your reply and pointing out your monthly summaries which I did know about. My point was that since 1993 we have lost the Monthly Weather Report [MWR] and a few years before that the Daily Weather Report [DWR]. As informative as the monthly summaries you do now on your web site are, they are in my opinion a poor substitute for the MWR and the DWR as is the ‘State of the UK Climate’.
Bruce.
“Seven out of 10 wettest years since 1998” sounds impressive.
However on the longer E&W series, since 1766, there have only been two wettest years, 2000 and 2012.
This compares to 1848, 1852, 1872, 1877 and 1882 in a similarly short period. (The wettest decade was the 1870’s)
The 1780’s and 90’s, and 1910’s were also as wet.
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2015/09/24/state-of-the-uk-climate-report/
We should really be analysing the similarities between now and then, rather than just blaming everything on CO2.
The key graph is this one of the E&W series. It is clear that very little is changing.
I asked Benton the following: “The above blog says nothing about ‘extremes’. So please quote to us where the actual report spins about ‘weather extremes’, assuming that that is the case.” Unsurprisingly he has failed to answer my question. Thus I will dismiss all his claims about propaganda and ‘spin’.
More evidence that Benton simply cannot get his facts right: http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/sep/17/2015-hottest-year-on-record-noaa
He said the EXACT opposite of this.
Why don’t you look at the reliable satellite records instead of reading the Guardian Haworth-Roberts. Both satellite datasets show 2015 well below 1998, and with only three months to go no chance of overtaking it.
Why don’t you post a supporting link Benton instead of merely making claims (including ones flatly contradicting a recent story in a major national newspaper) that I have not heard anywhere else?
Here’s a link for you. It reveals that your repeated claims about 1998 are plain false.
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/201413
If 2015 proves cooler than 1998 I will metaphorically eat my hat.