Spring has sprung!
Source: The Times 18 March, 2005 and BBC
By Paul Simons and Ben Hoyle
AFTER the coldest start to March for 34 years, temperatures are soaring across Britain and a glorious weekend is in prospect.
As recently as Sunday, blizzards raged across northern Scotland and most of the UK was in the grip of biting winds that held temperatures to a chilly 7C (45F).
The sudden shift is caused by a pocket of high pressure anchored off the West Coast of Ireland, drifting south and settling over France.
Instead of driving fierce northerly winds down through the country, this continental high is now bathing us in warm breezes from the Atlantic and North Africa, the Met Office said yesterday.
By Tuesday night it was so warm that for the first time in six weeks no frost appeared anywhere in Britain. On Wednesday temperatures reached almost 20C (68F) at Gravesend, in Kent — 10C above the normal high.
The record March temperature of 25C, set in 1965 and 1968, is unlikely to be beaten but London could reach 18C today, hotter than Los Angeles, Barcelona and Jerusalem.
The period from mid-February to mid-March was the coldest since 1987, and the first week of March was the coldest since 1971. But Britain came off lightly compared with most of Europe. March 3 had the coldest March temperature on record in the Netherlands, plunging to -20C (-5F), and Switzerland experienced a low of -34C (-29F) in the border region next to France.
Southern Europe is now enjoying a remarkable heatwave. On Wednesday, Bilbao, in northern Spain, reached 28C (82F), and Biarritz, in southwest France, climbed to 25C (77F).
This coincides with a study published today in Science, saying .......
Global warming is inevitable over the next century, even if all emissions of greenhouse gases ceased today, scientists have discovered.
Concentrations of carbon dioxide and other gases that contribute to climate change are so high that their warming effects would persist if levels stabilised now. Were greenhouse gases to remain at 2000 levels — an impossible scenario — temperatures would rise by 0.5C (0.9F) and sea levels by 11cm (4in) by 2100, the US National Centre for Atmospheric Research has found.
Policies designed to control warming are likely to take decades to have an impact. Even if the Kyoto Protocol and other measures to cut greenhouse gas production succeed, the world will still have to prepare for higher temperatures.
Effective emissions controls, however, would substantially reduce the degree of warming that can be expected, according to the study.
Click here for the BBC Springwatch project
posted by John Harris at 10:46 am
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