BRITAIN will have no more snow within decades due to global warming, the Met Office has warned. New projections from the forecaster suggest traditional winter activities such as building snowmen could be lost if global greenhouse gas emissions are not reduced. The research, which will be aired on BBC Panorama this evening, suggests that swathes […]
BRITAIN will have no more snow within decades due to global warming, the Met Office has warned.
New projections from the forecaster suggest traditional winter activities such as building snowmen could be lost if global greenhouse gas emissions are not reduced.
The research, which will be aired on BBC Panorama this evening, suggests that swathes of the south of England may not see days with freezing or below temperatures by the 2040s as a result of climate change.
If this trend continues only very high ground and parts of northern Scotland will experience freezing temperatures by 2080.
But the Met Office stressed that temperatures vary every year, with some Winters colder than others.
The forecaster based its findings on the assumption that global emissions will continue to increase – a credible outcome but not a certainty.
If global emissions are reduced, the UK can avoid larger temperature rises, but average temperatures are still likely to increase.
Hotter, drier summers are also more likely if emissions continue to accelerate, the Met Office said, highlighting there will be regional variations in the effects.
Senior Met Office scientist Dr Lizzie Kendon told BBC Panorama: “We’re saying by the end of the century much of the lying snow will have disappeared entirely except over the highest ground.
“The over-arching picture is warmer, wetter winters; hotter, drier summers.
“But within that, we get this shift towards more extreme events, so more frequent and intense extremes, so heavier rainfall when it occurs.
“It’s a big change… in the course of our lifetime. It’s just a wake-up call really as to what we’re talking about here.”
Dr Kendon said temperatures exceeding 30C (86F) for two days in a row will be 16 times more frequent by the end of the century, compared to the average between 1981 and 2000.
According to the Met Office analysis, the average hottest day in Hayes, West London could reach a scorching 40C.
