What is Climate Change?

What is climate change?

Climate change is the long-term shift in the Earth's average temperatures and weather conditions.

The world has been warming up quickly over the past 100 years or so. As a result, weather patterns are changing.

Between 2014 and 2023, global temperatures were on average around 1.2°C above those of the late 19th Century, according to the World Meteorological Organization.

Since the 1980s, each decade has been warmer than the previous one. (Met Office)

 

How is climate change affecting St Helens?

 St Helens is located within the North West England climate region, where temperatures have increased (1884-2023), with many of the hottest years occuring in the last few decades.

 

How will climate change affect St Helens in the future? 

The Met Office have produced a Climate Change report for St Helens: Local Authority Climate Report | St. Helens | Report Builder for ArcGIS. The main outcomes of the report showed the following impacts of Climate Change:

• There is an increased chance of warmer, wetter winters and hotter, drier summers.
• Hot summers are expected to become more common. By 2050, every other summer may be as hot as the record breaking summer of 2018.
• Although the trend is for drier summers in the future, there may be increases in the intensity of heavy summer rainfall events.