Adding urgency to its efforts to slash greenhouse gases, as a new study shows the United Kingdom is warming faster than the global average.
The average annual temperature in the UK rose at a rate of 0.18 degree Celsius each decade from 1950 through 2012, according to a paper e-mailed to Bloomberg newsagency by the London School of Economics.
That’s 1.5 times the global average rate of increase of 0.12 degrees Celsius a decade.
Britain aims to cut carbon emissions by 34 per cent for the 30 years through 2020 as part of its contribution to global efforts to rein in temperatures.
LSE says the report by Bob Ward and Naomi Hicks on Recent and future changes in the global and UK climate presents an analysis of Met Office records which shows that the linear warming rate of UK annual mean temperature was 0.18°C per decade between 1950 and 2012.
The authors also point out that the seven warmest years in the UK since records began in 1910 have all occurred from 2000 onwards.
Overall the UK average annual temperature increased by about 0.59°C between 1910-1939 and 1983-2012.
The report indicates that UK annual rainfall has been increasing since about 1970, with six of the 10 wettest years on record all occurring within the last 15 years.
There was flooding in many parts of the UK during 2012, which was the second wettest year on record.
Bloomberg reports United Nations envoys are striving to agree on a treaty by 2015 to contain emissions worldwide and help limit global warming to two degrees Celsius.
A study last week led by the University of Hawaii at Manoa found that from 2056 onwards, even the coolest year in London will be warmer than any year from 1860 through 2005, a phenomenon the researchers termed “climate departure.”
They said that while the size of temperature changes rises toward the poles, the tropics would face climate departure earlier because they have a smaller historical range of temperatures.
The LSE’s paper comes from its Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment and the Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy.
Those two groups are a collaboration between LSE and the University of Leeds that’s sponsored by the government-funded Economic and Social Research Council.
The full report can be found at http://www.lse.ac.uk/GranthamInstitute/publications/Policy/docs/changes-in-global-and-uk-climate-low-res.pdf
