The trend continues...

I am writing this post outside in the December sun in jeans and a shirt. This would be normal enough in NZ, but I am in London and temperatures here this time of year should be freezing. 2006 is set to be the UK's warmest year on record. And the honour(?) of 'warmest year on record' is particularly impressive in the UK because they have been recording tempratures for longer than anywhere else in the world - the first measurements were taken in 1659! Worryingly, 2006 was not just a little bit warmer - it was over 0.2 degrees celcius warmer than the next hottest year (1999) and autumn temperatures this year were a whopping 0.8 degrees warmer than the next warmest autumn. After a wet and gray September, October was so warm that the apple tree in our garden thought it was spring and started blossoming!

Whilst the debate about global warming has moved on from whether it is happening to what we can do about it, this year's UK temperatures suggest that the effects of global warming are going to be felt sooner rather than later. That means we need to act sooner rather than later.