Are we really experiencing more ‘extreme’ weather?

The UK climate is getting ever more extreme. We know this because the BBC keeps telling us so, most recently in today’s reporting of the annual Met Office/Royal Meteorological Society (RMetS) State of the Climate Report for 2023. ‘Climate change is dramatically increasing the frequency of extreme high temperatures in the UK,’ writes climate editor Justin Rowlatt on the BBC website. As well as experiencing more really hot days, ‘its observations suggest there has been an increase in the number of really wet days too, such as the prolonged and heavy rain Storm Babet brought to wide areas of the country in October last year.’ He comments: ‘The UK’s shifting climate represents a dangerous upheaval for our ecosystems as well as our infrastructure’. And in case we still haven’t got it, he adds: ‘Climate change has already made more extreme weather events, such as heatwaves, heavy rainfall, storms, and drought, more frequent and stronger in many parts of the world.