Extreme weather 'becoming the norm' - as minister warns UK's way of life 'under threat'

Britain's climate is changing rapidly, with records regularly being smashed and extremes of heat and rainfall becoming the norm, the Met Office has warned.

In an updated assessment of the UK's climate, the forecaster says heatwaves and periods of flood or drought are becoming more frequent and more intense.

Energy Secretary Ed Miliband called the findings "a stark warning" to take action on climate and nature.

"Our British way of life is under threat," Mr Miliband told the PA news agency.

"Whether it is extreme heat, droughts, flooding, we can see it actually with our own eyes, that it's already happening, and we need to act."

The report shows the period between October 2023 and March 2024 was the wettest winter period in England and Wales in over 250 years.

Spring 2024 was also the warmest on record.

It says the increasing extremes are "typical of recent years".

Mike Kendon, a Met Office climate scientist and lead author of the State of the UK Climate report, said: "Every year that goes by is another upward step on the warming trajectory our climate is on.

"Observations show that our climate in the UK is now notably different to what it was just a few decades ago.

"We are now seeing records being broken very frequently as we see temperature and rainfall extremes being the most affected by our changing climate."

The report compares the decade up to 2024 with long-term averages between 1961 and 1990.

While the average temperature is increasing, the hottest summer days and coldest winter nights have warmed twice as fast.

The climate is also becoming wetter - with the extra rain falling between October and March.

Over the last decade, rainfall over the six-month winter period was 16% higher than the average between 1961 and 1990.

Effects of UK climate change 'deeply concerning'

Chief executive of the Royal Meteorological Society, Professor Liz Bentley, said the report "reinforces the clear and urgent signals of our changing climate".

"While long-term averages are shifting, it is the extreme heat, intense rainfall and droughts that are having the most immediate and dramatic effects on people and nature," she said.

"This report is not just a record of change, but a call to action."

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Kathryn Brown, director of climate change at The Wildlife Trusts, said the effects of climate change on UK wildlife were already "deeply concerning".

"From swifts dropping out of the sky during heatwaves to trees flowering much earlier than they have in the past," she said.

"We are particularly worried about the effects of droughts on our nature reserves."

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