Provisional full year figures for 2014 show it is the UK's warmest and fourth wettest year in records dating back to 1910.
It is also the warmest year on record in the Central England Temperature series, which dates back to 1659 and is the world's longest running instrumental temperature series.
The UK's mean temperature for the year is 9.9 °C, which is 1.1 °C above the long-term (1981-2010) average and beats the previous record of 9.7 °C set in 2006.
This year's record means that eight of the UK's top ten warmest years have happened since 2002.
University of Exeter researchers have played a crucial role in creating a comprehensive new report indicating that the global risk from extreme weather is set to intensify.
The critical report, published by the Royal Society, indicates that exposure of human populations to extreme weather is set to increase as global climate and population size, location and age continue to change.
A Working Group consisting of 15 world-leading academics, including Exeter professors Peter Cox and Katrina Brown, were brought together to produce the influential report, published on Thursday,...
Greg Clark, Minister of University, Science and Cities, is opening the UK's only dedicated space weather forecast centre today.
The centre is a key milestone in the protection of the UK economy and infrastructure from the real threat of severe space weather events.
The Met Office Space Weather Centre, based at the Met Office's headquarters in Exeter, is the culmination of more than three years work to combine the space weather resources and scientific expertise of the UK and USA and was made possible by £4.6 million funding from Government.
A world-leading climate scientist from the University of Exeter has been honoured with a prestigious national science award.
Professor Pierre Friedlingstein, from the College of Engineering, Mathematics and Physical Sciences has been bestowed with a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award.
He is one of just 14 scientists nationwide to be awarded the honour, in recognition of his outstanding research entitled Earth System biogeochemical feedbacks, climate targets and emissions mitigation.
Professor Friedlingstein, from Exeter’s Mathematics department, said he was...
A public forum with world-leading IPCC Fifth Assessment Report authors
Did you know that the South West is home to one the largest concentrations of climate science researchers in the world? Exeter as a city contributes more to the UN’s iconic Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report than any other city in the world.
During this interactive event you will be able to speak directly to world-leading climate change researchers. Climate scientists will talk about how their research contributes to the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report (AR5), and you will be able to...
Youth charity The Prince’s Trust is urging more unemployed young people in the South West to embrace their inner entrepreneur and explore the option of self-employment thanks to financial backing from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).
The Prince’s Trust Enterprise Programme, which helps jobless young people to start up in business, has already created more than £3.1 million in social value for the South West alone, according to research published by the charity last year .
Supported with investment from ERDF, from now until June 2015, over 1,300 more young...
With the weather in the South West causing a lot of grief over the past few weeks, we thought it might be nice for TED readers to sit back and imagine themselves in one of the ten hottest places in the world.
#10 - In Salah, Tamanrasset Province, Algeria
In Salah (or Ain Salah) is home to some of Algeria’s largest oil reserves and production facilities. In Salah has the typical hot desert climate with extremely hot summers and mild winters. The village is located in the heart of the Sahara Desert, so it’s no wonder that the tenth highest temperature was recorded here. The...
A new study offers an explanation for the extraordinary run of wet summers experienced by Britain and northwest Europe between 2007 and 2012. The study found that loss of Arctic sea ice shifts the jet stream further south than normal resulting in increased rain during the summer in northwest Europe.
Dr James Screen from the University of Exeter used a computer model to investigate how the dramatic retreat of Arctic sea ice influences the European summer climate. He found that the pattern of rainfall predicted by the model closely resembles the rainfall pattern of recent summers....
In the last week it has become official – 97% of scientific research papers on climate indicate that the earth is heating up and that this is due primarily to human activity. The catastrophic consequences of the release of gases into the atmosphere whose particles trap heat is now abundantly clear. This is as close to scientific proof that we get, and is on a par to evidence that smoking causes lung cancer and other diseases.
We might be sceptical, as all good science is because it needs to continually review what is happening, but to deny that global warming is caused by people is...
University of Exeter researchers have had a high profile role in creating the world’s most comprehensive report on climate change.
A combined total of 12 researchers from the University and the Met Office were selected as lead authors of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Working Group I (WGI) 5th Assessment Report (AR5) – a greater number than from any other region.
The Summary for Policymakers was published on Friday 27 September 2013 and is the six yearly update on the state of the Earth’s climate, covering the physical science basis of climate change....
