What year and what month do you think our U.K. climate start to change?

[Methuselah]

I've been giving this subject quite a bit of thought, of late., and I've come to what might be a quite banal conclusion: that global-warming kicked in, whenever it was, we, as individuals, started experiencing snowless winters? From human memory alone, it's largely been a perception thing?

 

[cheeky_monkey]

1 hour ago, Ed Stone said:

I've been giving this subject quite a bit of thought, of late., and I've come to what might be a quite banal conclusion: that global-warming kicked in, whenever it was, we, as individuals, started experiencing snowless winters? From human memory alone, it's largely been a perception thing?

 

mainly because there are very few of us on here who remember the climate prior to the 1960s..many of us may have grown up in the 60s, 70s and 80s so that's why we see 1987/88 as a change ..when there may have been a serious of changes through the C20th that are long forgotten

[Sunny76]

34 minutes ago, cheeky_monkey said:

mainly because there are very few of us on here who remember the climate prior to the 1960s..many of us may have grown up in the 60s, 70s and 80s so that's why we see 1987/88 as a change ..when there may have been a serious of changes through the C20th that are long forgotten

You might be right about that.

Didn’t another shift take place in 1947, after the very cold snowy winter, the summer of 47 was hot and the following year was quite mild. 
 

 

[damianslaw]

On 10/10/2022 at 22:42, Greyhound81 said:

Interestingly in the Summer 08 to Summer 13 cold period, 2011 was one of the warmest years in the UK.  We have not had a year since 2013 when the annual CET has been below 10 degrees.

According to Piers Corbyn, 2013 is when the mini ice age is supposed to have begun.  Something to do with solar cycles apparantly, although I don't really take him seriously.

2011 saw an upsurge in sunspot activity then a dip in 2012-13 may have been reason for the rather cold April 2012 to March 2013 period. 

[A Face like Thunder]

I would say 16th October 1987.

January 1987 was bitterly cold and snowy, we had the Great Storm on 16th October and Christmas Day was one of the mildest on record. It was after the Great Storm that the Met Office began to take weather warnings more seriously, and thus the Burns Day gale in Jan 1990 and extreme heat later in the year were correctly forecast and advance warnings given. And that has continued to the present, although some would now argue for fewer warnings, a bit like announcements on trains!  

[Methuselah]

Sometime just after the Industrial Revolution, I'd say. Though, back then, the effect was so feeble it could be easily overwhelmed by natural forcing...

[Frost HoIIow]

If we're talking modern times then I agree with a face like thunder. So late 1987 was probably when things started to really change. Because before this we had the bitter spell in January 87. Then before that we had the very cold February 86, coldest month since 1962-63. February 86 was the last sub zero CET month until December 2010 I believe.

Edited October 12, 2022 by Frost HoIIow

[hillbilly]

Not very scientific but have just looked at some data for perspective in my area Met office  for average highs in January.

The Decades of the 40s,50s,60s and 70s all hovered between 5 deg and 6 deg.

80s av 5.64 deg

90s av 6.69 deg

0s 7.45 deg

teens 6.25 deg

It is quite clear that Januarys in the 90s and naughties were much milder than anytime since the 1930s which averaged 6.52 deg and the 1920s av 7.0 deg and even the recent teens was surprisingly mild despite including Januarys of 2010 and 2013

 

[Summer8906]

Several answers as the climate seems to have changed somewhat several times in my remembered lifetime, roughly 1978+. There have been these distinct phases:

1. The coldish winter/cool summer phase of the late 1970s and 1980s (to November 1988);

2. The mild winter/warm summer phase of the 1990s and surrounding years (December 1988-April 2007);

3. The cloudy and cool-by-day summers but mostly mild winters, but warm sunny springs, of recent years (May 2007-), interrupted by

3a. A brief period when cold winters returned (2008-13)

For the changeover between 1) and 2), I would say December 1988.

While winter 1987/88 was also very mild, summer 1988 was typical cool 1980s summer fare, and the non-winter months of 1988 weren't terribly warm. But winter 1988/89 was incredibly mild, and, unusually, also dry, and then summer 1989 and 1990 produced a double dose of hot summers and 1989/90 was another very mild winter. While there was variation in this period, the tendency was mild winters and warm summers.

For the changeover between 2) and 3), I'd say May 2007. When the fine spell of April 2007 broke during the May Day holiday weekend of that year, that seems to be the moment when the current pattern of mostly poor summers (cloudy, cool by day, and sometimes very wet) and still-mild winters - but good springs - came in.

This was interrupted by sub-period 3a), notable for several cold winters on the trot, 2008-9 to 2012-13 (though 2011-12 was mild, but even that had snow). The changeover there would, I'd say, be around March 2008 (with a cold early spring accompanied by snow at times) and its ending was very sudden, when July 2013 was unexpectedly warm and sunny (IMX cold springs normally mean cool summers).

The decline in January snow since the late 80s is notable. It's quite a statistic that southern England has only had widespread lying snow in January since then, in 2010 and 2013. Net result is that winter is now my least favourite season, as it just gives dark and damp with little or no snowy or frosty recompense. Imagine how miserable our summers would be if only two months of July since 1987 had achieved widespread consecutive days of 25C+?

Edited October 21, 2022 by Summer8906

[A Face like Thunder]

A well-informed post thank you Summer8906. My one issue is on (1), with the summers of 1983 and 1984 being warm, even hot, by the standards of the day, at least where I was in the SE of England. 

[Sunny76]

1 hour ago, A Face like Thunder said:

A well-informed post thank you Summer8906. My one issue is on (1), with the summers of 1983 and 1984 being warm, even hot, by the standards of the day, at least where I was in the SE of England. 

I think you might be right. Could we argue that 1979/80 was the early phase of the warming?

79-80 was a mild winter, and 1980 on the whole was a warmer year compared to 1979.

The summer months were cool though, but August was cloudy and the nights were warm. 

Edited October 21, 2022 by Sunny76

[LetItSnow!]

October 1979 seems like a good start, at least in this country. After a very cold year, things started to turn warm around this time. There were record high minima that month and it also gave way to an exceptionally warm first half to December. November had had some mild weather at times. 1980 had chilly weather at times, particularly January, March, most of the summer and also October, but the rest tended to be quite mild. August 1980, as stated, had some very mild minima due to full and cloudy weather and is a little like a prototype modern summer month in some ways. There was just a slight hint of things being different but still with cold interludes. That would continue throughout the next 4 years before that step down between January 1985 and October 1987.

[Sunny76]

23 minutes ago, LetItSnow! said:

October 1979 seems like a good start, at least in this country. After a very cold year, things started to turn warm around this time. There were record high minima that month and it also gave way to an exceptionally warm first half to December. November had had some mild weather at times. 1980 had chilly weather at times, particularly January, March, most of the summer and also October, but the rest tended to be quite mild. August 1980, as stated, had some very mild minima due to full and cloudy weather and is a little like a prototype modern summer month in some ways. There was just a slight hint of things being different but still with cold interludes. That would continue throughout the next 4 years before that step down between January 1985 and October 1987.

October 79 sounds like a something similar to 1987.

Yeah, the first week of December 79 was extremely mild and cloudy. Daytime temps were 15-16c.

[ANYWEATHER]

It all started from the year ●

[Methuselah]

13 minutes ago, ANYWEATHER said:

It all started from the year ●

An absolutely true statement, Ian, but one that's wholly irrelevant to the current discussion: the Industrial Revolution didn't happen in the year dot!

[Summer8906]

20 hours ago, A Face like Thunder said:

A well-informed post thank you Summer8906. My one issue is on (1), with the summers of 1983 and 1984 being warm, even hot, by the standards of the day, at least where I was in the SE of England. 

Thanks. I agree that 1983/84 were hot, and comparable to many of the better summers of the 90s. But they went against the general grain of the time, which was for cool and cloudy summers - in the same way that 2018, and this year, went against the current grain of cloudy summers, with cool days and mild nights.

[Summer8906]

19 hours ago, LetItSnow! said:

October 1979 seems like a good start, at least in this country. After a very cold year, things started to turn warm around this time. There were record high minima that month and it also gave way to an exceptionally warm first half to December. November had had some mild weather at times. 1980 had chilly weather at times, particularly January, March, most of the summer and also October, but the rest tended to be quite mild. August 1980, as stated, had some very mild minima due to full and cloudy weather and is a little like a prototype modern summer month in some ways. There was just a slight hint of things being different but still with cold interludes. That would continue throughout the next 4 years before that step down between January 1985 and October 1987.

It could be argued though that 1979/80 was just a warmer 'blip' in a generally cold period, in the same way that late 2017/early 2018 and late 2020/early 2021 were cooler 'blips' in a generally mild period.

We moved down south in August 1979, which would have resulted in an "artificial" perception of warmer weather. I do remember September and much of October 1979 being warm and sunny, then November and December 1979 being mild, wet and at times, very windy. February 1980 was mild also but January 1980, which I barely remember, was apparently colder than average overall. 1980 seemed a fairly mixed year but, like 2011, was unlucky to get by far the worst weather during the summer. I used to have a weather text book which showed the max temps for July at a weather station at Rogate, West Sussex (very close to where I lived at the time) and the max temps were, quite frankly, shocking. Seemed to stay below 20C most days until better weather arrived on the 21st.

Autumn 1980 and in particular, winter 1980/81 were decidedly benign. Early 1981 was, if I remember right, very sunny where I was - a real SAD-buster (not that I got SAD in those days in any case...)

Edited October 22, 2022 by Summer8906