Weather and climate are not the same. A cold spell in winter is definitely not a valid reason to dismiss global warming.
Climate is the average pattern of weather for a particular region and time period, using scientific data collected over decades. The terms global warming and climate change refer to a broad temperature shift across the entire earth’s surface over the course of years and decades.
But weather can change minute-to-minute, hour-to-hour, day-to-day and season-to-season in a specific location. That’s why we all love to talk about the weather – it’s always changing. A good analogy is that weather is your current mood and climate is your overall personality.
Scientists predict global warming will cause more volatile weather, with more intense hurricanes, storms, flooding and hot and cold temperature records broken. The UK Met Office reported a new UK and England temperature record of 40.3°C (104.5°F) on 19 July 2022 in Coningsby, Lincolnshire. This marked a milestone in UK climate history, with 40°C (104°F) being recorded for the first time in the UK and 35°C (95°F) being recorded for the first time in Scotland.
In the Northeast US, extreme winter storms have also been on the rise. Between the winters of 2008/09 and 2017/18 there were 27 major winter storms, which is three to four times the totals for each of the previous five decades.1
You’re in an ever diminishing minority if you still think climate change isn’t a concern. In a recent Ipso MORI poll, 85% of Britons are now concerned about climate change and nearly three in four (73%) say that the UK is already feeling the effects of climate change. Similarly, 62% of Americans see the effects of climate change according to a poll done in late 2019.2