Published

2 years ago

February 16, 2024

Alice Rush

The average UK winter has become around 1C warmer and 15% wetter over the past century, new Carbon Brief analysis shows.

The analysis covers more than 100 years of data on temperature, rainfall, wind speed and snow, to assess how UK winters have changed.

The data show that extremely warm and wet winters are becoming more common. Six of the 10 warmest winters on record were in the 21st century, and four of these also rank in the top 10 wettest years on record.

Despite the trend towards milder conditions, extreme cold snaps still hit the UK. The winter of 2009-10, for example, was dubbed the “Big Freeze of 2010” and clocked in as the UK’s least-windy, second-snowiest and eighth-coldest winter on record.

However, extreme cold periods are becoming less common. On average, the UK saw more than 12 snow days each winter in 1971-2000. This dropped to 9.5 snow days each winter by 1991-2020.

As the climate continues to warm, the UK can expect winters to continue getting warmer and wetter. Met Office projections suggest that, under an emissions pathway in line with current global policies, the average UK winter by 2080-99 will be 2C warmer and 11% wetter than they were in 1981-2000.

Warmer winters

The UK Met Office has been collecting meteorological data from thousands of weather stations across the UK since the 1880s. Using this data, it has produced a gridded dataset called HadUK, which provides complete coverage across the UK for a range of climate variables – including rainfall, temperature, snow days and wind speed – on a one-square-kilometre grid.

Carbon Brief has analysed the data for meteorological winters – defined as December, January and February – to determine how weather conditions have changed since records began.

The plot below shows a timeseries of annual winter average temperature (dark blue) over 1884-2021. These are shown as anomalies – that is, the difference compared to a baseline, which in this case is the average winter temperature over 1991-2020.

(Winters are shown on graphs in this article according to the year in which December falls. For example, the winter of December 2021 to February 2022 is shown as 2021.)

Average, minimum and maximum temperature over UK winter (monthly data averaged over December-February) for 1884-2021, compared to a 1991-2020 baseline. 10-year rolling average shown in black. Credit: Chart by Carbon Brief, based on the Met Office HadUK dataset.

The Met Office, in line with the World Meteorological Organisation, uses 30-year averages to assess changes in UK climate. The table below shows average absolute UK winter temperatures for overlapping 30-year time periods across the full data record.

Time period	Average temperature	Maximum temperature	Minimum temperature
1881-1910	2.96*	5.77*	0.18*
1891-1920	3.29	6.06	0.53
1901-1930	3.50	6.21	0.80
1911-1940	3.51	6.21	0.83
1921-1950	3.41	6.12	0.73
1931-1960	3.29	6.05	0.56
1941-1970	3.09	5.84	0.35
1951-1980	3.17	5.91	0.46
1961-1990	3.22	5.94	0.51
1971-2000	3.65	6.40	0.91
1981-2010	3.75	6.58	0.94
1991-2020	4.12	6.97	1.28

Average, maximum and minimum winter temperatures for overlapping 30-year time periods, from 1881 to 2020, using the December-February average of mean monthly temperatures. An asterisk (*) indicates that a full 30 years was not available for this average.

The average UK winter in 1991-2020 was 0.9C warmer than during 1961-90. The most recent 30-year period also includes the warmest maximum, minimum and average temperatures since Met Office records began.

In addition, with an average winter temperature of 4.64C, the most-recent decade (2013-22) – not shown in the table – has seen a further temperature increase of 0.52C above the 1991-2020 average.

Warmer winters are already impacting UK wildlife. For example, Grahame Madge – senior press officer for the Met Office – told the Guardian that animals including hedgehogs, bats and butterflies are emerging from hibernation too early:

“Abnormal warm spells during winter can encourage species out of hibernation. Butterflies such as red admirals and small tortoiseshells and other insects can be particularly challenged as they can emerge largely without access to life-saving food sources like nectar. If the warm spell is followed by a return to colder conditions, the hibernating individuals will have used up valuable energy reserves without being able to replace them, possibly with disastrous consequences.”

Meanwhile, the National Trust says warmer winters have “particularly devastating impacts for trees”, as cold snaps are often not long enough to kill off harmful diseases and pests.

Looking at individual years gives a more detailed picture. The graphic below shows the warmest and coldest 10 winters in the UK since 1884. The dark blue line shows average UK winter temperature, and red and blue dots indicate the warmest and coldest individual winters, respectively. The table below shows the dates and temperatures of these winters.

	Warmest winters		Coldest winters
	Years	Temperature (C)	Years	Temperature (C)
1	1988-99	5.76	1962-63	-0.31
2	2006-07	5.53	1894-95	0.42
3	2015-16	5.43	1946-47	0.75
4	1997-98	5.40	1978-79	1.13
5	2019-20	5.28	1939-4	1.23
6	1974-75	5.22	1916-17	1.33
7	2021-22	5.20	1928-29	1.46
8	2013-14	5.19	2009-10	1.63
9	1934-35	5.13	1885-8	1.65
10	2018-19	5.09	1940-41	1.80

Warmest and coldest 10 winters in the UK since 1884. The dark blue line shows average UK winter temperature, and red and blue dots indicate the warmest and coldest individual winters. The table beneath shows the dates and temperatures of these winters. Credit: Chart by Carbon Brief, based on the Met Office HadUK dataset.

The graph shows that six of the 10 warmest winters on record have occurred in the 21st century. Conversely, only one of the UK’s coldest 10 winters were in the 21st century – the winter of 2009-10.

The Met Office also provides country-level data for different parts of the UK. The plot below shows 10-year rolling average winter temperature for England (dark blue), Scotland (red), Northern Ireland (light blue) and Wales (yellow).

10-year rolling average of winter temperatures for England (dark blue), Scotland (red), Northern Ireland (light blue) and Wales (yellow). Credit: Chart by Carbon Brief, based on the Met Office HadUK dataset.

The plot shows that Scotland consistently sees the coldest winters, while England, Wales and Northern Ireland experience winter temperatures that are an average of around 1.5-2C warmer.

Snow days

As average temperatures rise across the UK, extremely cold days are becoming less common, while record-breaking warm days are becoming more frequent.

Five of the top 10 warmest days ever recorded during UK winters occurred during a single week February 2019.

Carbon Brief analysed the warmest maximum and coldest minimum temperature on record for each UK winter. The table below shows the years with the warmest (red) maximum daily temperatures and coldest (blue) minimum daily temperatures since 1960.

	Warmest maximum temperatures		Coldest minimum temperatures
	Temperature (C)	Year	Temperature (C)	Year
1	16.1	2018-19	-10.2	1986-87
2	14.3	1997-98	-10.1	1962-63
3	14.0	2015-16	-10.0	1981-82
4	13.8	1989-90	-9.9	1978-79
5	13.6	2003-04	-9.5	1971-72
6	13.5	1985-86	-9.3	2010-11
7	13.4	2011-12	-9.1	1995-96
8	13.3	2016-17	-8.9	1969-70
9	13.3	2021-22	-8.7	2009-10
10	13.2	1994-95	-8.7	1968-69

Years with the 10 warmest (red) maximum temperatures, and coldest (blue) minimum temperatures, based on individual winter days since 1960. Credit: Chart by Carbon Brief, based on the Met Office HadUK dataset.

Most of the warmest winter extremes on record were in the 21st century. Meanwhile, most of the coldest extremes were in the 20th century.

One way of measuring the change in extreme cold days is to count the number of “frost days” – days with a minimum temperature below 0C – recorded throughout the winter. Another way is to count the number of “snow days”, when snow can be seen on the ground at 9am.

Dr Mark McCarthy is the head of the Met Office National Climate Information Centre, which manages the UK’s climate records. He explains that to calculate snow days, an individual looks at a “representative patch of ground” at 9am in the morning, and if at least half of it is covered in snow, then it is counted as “snowy”.

These results are averaged across hundreds or thousands of observations. This means that, for example, “an average of five days of snow might mean that half of that region had 10 days and half the region had no days”, he explains.

The plot below shows the number of frost days since 1960 (red) and snow days since 1971 (blue) over winter. The black lines show the 10-year running average.

Total winter air frost days (red) and days with snow lying at 9am (blue). The black lines show the 10-year running average. Credit: Chart by Carbon Brief, based on the Met Office HadUK dataset.

The table below shows the total number of first and snow days during UK winters for four overlapping 30-year time periods.

Time period	Frost days	Snow days
1961-1990	38.43	–
1971-2000	35.07	12.29
1981-2010	35.17	11.73
1991-2020	32.75	9.54

Total number of frost and snow days for 30-year time periods, from 1931 to 2020, using the December-February average of mean monthly temperatures. An asterisk (*) indicates that a full 30 years was not available for this average.

The plot shows that air frost and snow days are closely linked. Snow will generally not form if the ground temperature is above 5C, and in the UK, the heaviest snowfalls tend to occur when the air temperature is between 0C and 2C.

On average, the UK saw 12.3 snow days each winter over 1971-2000. This dropped to 9.5 snow days each winter by 1991-2020.

There is also regional variation in snow days. Over the entire 1971-2020 dataset, Scotland received 18.6 days of snow per winter on average, while the UK, Northern Ireland and Wales received between 7.2 and 8.8.

“Significant and widespread lying snow might have been considered fairly typical for a UK winter of several decades ago,” says the Met Office’s latest State of the UK climate report. However, it adds that “this type of event has become increasingly unusual in a warming climate over the last two or three decades”.

The graph below shows the UK winters with the greatest (light blue dots) and smallest (red dots) number of snow days since 1971.

	Snowiest winters		Least snowy winters
	Years	Snow days	Years	Snow days
1	1978-79	35.62	2019-20	2.12
2	2009-10	30.59	1991-92	2.39
3	1981-82	26.90	2007-08	2.97
4	1985-86	23.69	1988-89	3.15
5	2010-11	23.13	2021-22	3.35
6	1984-85	21.54	1997-98	3.45
7	1976-77	20.77	2013-14	3.49
8	1977-78	18.54	2016-17	3.57
9	1995-96	18.43	2005-06	3.72
10	1990-91	18.13	1974-75	3.90

Snowiest and least snowy 10 winters in the UK since 1884. The dark blue line shows seasonal “snow days”, and red and blue dots indicate the snowiest and least snowy individual winters. The table beneath shows the dates and number of snow days of these winters. Credit: Chart by Carbon Brief, based on the Met Office HadUK dataset.

While the climate is becoming milder and snow is becoming less common, very cold and snowy winters can still happen. For example, the winter of 2009-10, dubbed the “Big Freeze of 2010” in parts of the UK media, was the least-windy, second-snowiest and eighth-coldest winter on record in the UK.

Severe snowfall that winter caused “very significant disruption across the UK”, according to the UK Met Office, which adds that “transport was particularly badly affected with snowfalls causing numerous road closures, and train and flight cancellations”.

On 18 December 2009, five Eurostar trains got stuck in the Channel Tunnel after cold temperatures caused electrical failures, trapping 2,000 people for 16 hours. All Eurostar services were cancelled for the next three days.

In January that winter, BBC News reported that “heavy snow and freezing temperatures has caused chaos across Scotland over the past three weeks, with hundreds of schools closed and motorists facing hazardous conditions on the roads”.

Snow covered suburban streets during uncommonly severe cold weather in the UK during the winter of 2009/2010. Credit: Anthony Roberts / Alamy Stock Photo

Research from the UK Met Office indicates that the odds of the UK having a winter as cold as the one in 2009-10 will drop to less than 1% by the end of the century as global temperatures continue to rise.

Wetter winters

The total volume of rainfall recorded during UK winters is also rising. The plot below shows total winter rainfall in mm over 1836-2021 (blue) and the 10-year rolling average (black).

Total winter (Dec-Feb) rainfall in mm over 1836-2021, based on the sum of December-February monthly rainfall totals, compared to a 1991-2020 baseline. 10-year rolling average shown in black. Credit: Chart by Carbon Brief, based on the Met Office HadUK dataset.

The table below shows average UK winter rainfall totals for a series of overlapping 30-year time periods across the full data record.

30-year period	Average annual winter rainfall (mm)
1831-1860	254.69*
1841-1870	276.00
1851-1880	284.28
1861-1890	287.46
1871-1900	281.51
1881-1910	279.06
1891-1920	300.55
1901-1930	311.07
1911-1940	314.51
1921-1950	305.00
1931-1960	298.76
1941-1970	290.82
1951-1980	293.23
1961-1990	301.82
1971-2000	329.22
1981-2010	330.01
1991-2020	346.98

Average winter rainfall over overlapping 30-year time periods, from 1831 to 2020, using the December-February average of mean monthly temperatures. An asterisk (*) indicates that a full 30 years was not available.

Between 1961-90 and 1990-2020, the UK winters became 15% wetter on average – increasing from around 300mm of rainfall to almost 350mm. The more recent decade of 2012-21 – not shown in the table – has seen further increases, with average winter rainfall of 380mm.

The Met Office also provides country-level rainfall data. The plot below shows 10-year rolling average winter temperature for England (dark blue), Scotland (red), Northern Ireland (light blue) and Wales (yellow).

The 10-year rolling of average total winter rainfall for England (dark blue), Scotland (red), Northern Ireland (light blue) and Wales (yellow). Credit: Chart by Carbon Brief, based on the Met Office HadUK dataset.

The graph shows that rainfall is increasing across all four regions of the UK, but remains consistently the lowest in England and the highest in Scotland and Wales.

Looking at the wettest and driest years across the UK shows that individual rainfall extremes are becoming more common. In a ranking going back to 1884, seven of the driest years were in the 19th century, while three were in the 20th. None of the driest years on record have been in the 21st century.

Meanwhile, four of the rainiest winters have been in the 21st century. The graph below shows the wettest (blue dots) and driest (red dots) winters since 1884.

	Rainiest winters (mm)		Least rainy winters (mm)
	Years	Winter rainfall	Years	Winter rainfall
1	2013-14	540.3	1963-64	121.3
2	2015-16	505.7	1890-91	141.4
3	1994-95	498.2	1844-45	164.6
4	1989-90	482.2	1933-34	170.4
5	2019-20	474.5	1846-47	171.3
6	1876-77	458.0	1962-63	171.5
7	1914-15	450.7	1857-58	176.6
8	1868-69	439.6	1840-41	179.6
9	2006-07	435.8	1937-38	186.9
10	1993-94	431.4	1854-55	189.1

Wettest and driest 10 winters in the UK since 1884. The dark blue line shows total winter rainfall, and blue and red dots indicate the driest and wettest snowy individual winters. The grey dashed lines the volume of rainfall recorded during the rainiest and least rainy winters on record. The table beneath shows the dates and total rainfall in mm of these winters. Credit: Chart by Carbon Brief, based on the Met Office HadUK dataset.

The fact that UK winters are getting wetter makes sense, McCarthy tells Carbon Brief, because as the atmosphere heats up, it is able to hold more moisture, which can then fall as rain. According to the Clausius-Clapeyron equation, the air can generally hold around 7% more moisture for every 1C of temperature rise.

However, he adds that the observed trend in UK winter rainfall is “somewhat larger than can be explained purely through the thermodynamic process”, and explains that natural variability is also very important when discussing changes in UK winter rainfall.

“We’re in a particularly wet regime at the moment,” McCarthy explains, “so we are seeing lots of winter rainfall records and wetter winters, but it’s the combination of variability and climate change”.

For example, December 2015 topped the charts as the UK’s wettest month on record, after Storm Desmond swept across the UK, bringing very heavy rainfall and gale-force winds to much of northern England, southern Scotland and Ireland. The resulting floods left many homes inundated and at least 60,000 without power.

The winter of 2015-16 was also the third warmest on record. Preliminary analysis conducted at the time suggested that the exceptional rainfall totals were 40% more likely because of rising global temperatures.

The jet stream

The graph below shows the relationship between temperature and rainfall, where warm and wet winters are shown in the top right, while cool and dry winters are in the bottom left. Darker dots indicate more recent years.

Temperature and rainfall, where warm and wet winters are shown in the top right, while cold and dry winters are in the bottom left. Labels indicate the year in which December falls – for example, 2013 refers to the winter of 2013/14. Credit: Chart by Carbon Brief, based on the Met Office HadUK dataset.

The UK’s winter weather regime is strongly linked to the strength of the jet stream. This thin, fast flowing ribbon of air in the troposphere – the lowest layer of the earth’s atmosphere – acts to steer weather systems towards the UK.

A strong jet stream brings warm and damp winds to the UK from the west, resulting in a warm and wet winter.

For example, the winter of 2023-24 has already been dominated by a series of storms. Storm Jocelyn, which swept across the UK at the end of January 2024, was the 10th named storm of the season. “The storms have mainly been driven by a powerful jet stream,” BBC News reported.

Similarly, during the winter of 2013-14, a series of storms brought record-breaking rainfall to the UK, clocking in as the wettest and eighth-warmest winter on record in the UK. Intense rainfall led to “remarkably widespread and persistent flooding”, according to the Met Office. Around 18,700 insurance claims related to flooding were filed across the UK in the aftermath of the storms, costing an estimated £451m.

One study suggests that climate change made the sustained wet and stormy weather seen around 43% more likely, and put an extra 1,000 houses at risk of flooding along the River Thames.

The study attributes about two-thirds of the increase in likelihood to the atmosphere being able to hold more moisture because the world is warming up and the remaining third to the position of the jet stream.

Flooding in Abingdon Road area, Oxford, on 10 January 2013. Credit: Roger Askew / Alamy Stock Photo

Conversely, a weak jet stream allows cold air from the Arctic and mainland Europe to enter from the east and north. “A slower, more buckled jet stream can cause areas of higher pressure to take charge, which typically brings less stormy weather, light winds and dry skies,” the Met Office says.

This was the case in the winter of 2009-10, which clocked in as the eighth-coldest and least-windy UK winter on record.

Sometimes, the jet stream can even get “stuck” – a phenomenon called blocking – and instead of shunting weather systems from west to east, it can allow a spell of cold, dry weather to sit over the UK for many days.

While there is a clear trend of UK winters getting warmer and wetter, the data on wind speed is less clear-cut. However, cool weather in the UK is often associated with low speeds, while warm weather is often brought by strong gusts.

The plot below shows average UK winter wind speed over 1969-2021 in knots. The darker line shows the 10-year rolling average, and the most and least windy years are shown by red and blue dots, respectively.

Windiest and least windy 10 winters in the UK since 1884.

	Windiest winters		Least windy winters
	Years	Average windspeed (knots)	Years	Average windspeed (knots)
1	1973-74	13.08	2009-10	7.90
2	1989-90	12.77	2010-11	8.62
3	1974-75	12.72	2005-06	8.81
4	1994-95	12.71	2008-09	9.03
5	2013-14	12.47	1984-85	9.04
6	1982-83	12.41	1976-77	9.31
7	1980-81	12.24	2018-19	9.32
8	1999-2000	12.11	2000-01	9.54
9	1988-89	12.11	1986-87	9.59
10	2019-20	12.08	2016-17	9.68

Windiest and least windy 10 winters in the UK since 1969. The dark blue line shows winter average wind speed, and red and blue dots indicate the windiest and least windy individual winters. The grey dashed lines the average wind speed during the windiest and least windy winters on record. The table beneath shows the dates and wind speeds of these winters. Credit: Chart by Carbon Brief, based on the Met Office HadUK dataset.

The table below shows average UK wind speed totals for three overlapping 30-year time periods.

30-year averages	Average wind speed (knots)
1971-2000	11.06
1981-2010	10.60
1991-2020	10.55

Average winter wind speed for overlapping 30-year time periods, from 1971 to 2020, using the December-February average of mean monthly temperatures.

McCarthy tells Carbon Brief that there has been a notable decline in UK wind speed when looking at annual data, which is consistent with the trend of “stilling” – a slowdown in near surface wind speeds – measured globally. However, he says that this trend is less obvious in the winter-only data.

Meanwhile, the UK State of the Climate report 2022 states that there are no compelling trends in storminess when considering maximum gust speeds over the last four decades.

A range of other atmospheric circulation patterns can also impact UK winters.

The North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) is a large-scale atmospheric pressure see-saw in the North Atlantic region, which describes the difference in air pressure between the high pressure sitting over the Azores, to the west of Portugal, and the low pressure over Iceland.

When the NAO is “positive” and the pressure difference is stronger than usual, the jet stream shifts towards the poles, bringing mild, wet and windy weather to North American and Eurasian winters and leaving the Arctic very cold.

When it is “negative” and the pressure difference weakens, storm tracks shift towards the equator, bringing cold, dry and calm winters to Europe.

Another mechanism is the “stratospheric polar vortex”. This low-pressure weather system sits around 50km above the Arctic in the stratosphere – the layer of the atmosphere above the troposphere. Its main feature is the strong west-to-east winds which encircle the north pole. These winds are known as the “polar night jet” because they only appear during the dark Arctic winter.

As with the jet stream in the troposphere, the polar night jet forms a boundary between the very cold Arctic air and the warmer air over the mid-latitudes. However, if something disrupts the stratospheric polar vortex it can weaken, reverse direction and even split into two. This can trigger a “sudden stratospheric warming” event where air collapses in over the Arctic, causing a spike in temperatures in the stratosphere – by as much as 50C in just a couple of days.

This allows the cold air the polar vortex was holding in to spill out into the mid-latitudes during the weeks that follow. This is what caused the “Beast from the East” snowstorm that hit the UK in 2018. (This is not well reflected in the UK winter data, as the brunt of the storm hit in March 2018 after the end of meteorological winter.)

In general, however, the UK has experienced a run of mild, wet winters in the most recent decade, including the very wet winters of 2013, 2015 and 2019. These are consistent with a positive phase of the NAO and strong polar vortex, according to the latest State of the UK Climate report.

Projections

As the planet continues to warm, the UK’s climate will shift “towards warmer, wetter winters and hotter, drier summers”, the Met Office says.

The UK Climate Projections 2018 (UKCP18) is a series of climate change projections for the UK produced by the UK Met Office, taking advantage of the latest observed data and climate models

The projections include temperature and rainfall changes – for averages and extremes – for each month and season of the year, and for different emissions scenarios and future time periods throughout this century.

The maps below show the probabilistic projections for summer average temperature (top) and winter precipitation (bottom) in the 2080s under the RCP4.5 emissions pathway, relative to a 1961-90 baseline. In this pathway, global temperatures are projected to rise by around 2.7C of warming above pre-industrial levels by 2081-2100, which is broadly in line with the trajectory under current global policies.

The three percentiles (10th, 50th and 90th) reflect the likelihood of those temperatures and rainfall anomalies occurring. The 50th percentile (middle maps) is the “central estimate” across the models, while the 10th (left) and 90th (right) percentiles reflect the lowest 10% and highest 10% of the model results.

UKCP18 projections of winter average temperature in the 2080s (top) and winter precipitation anomaly in the 2080s (bottom), relative to a 1961-90 baseline, under the RCP4.5 emissions scenario. Results are shown at three percentiles: 10th (left), 50th (middle) and 90th (right). Source: Generated from the UKCP18 User Interface.

The table below shows UKCP18 projections for changes in average UK winter temperature and precipitation under RCP4.5, under the 10th, 50th and 90th percentile, for 2080-99, compared to a 1981-2000 baseline.

	10th percentile change	50th percentile change	90th percentile change
Change in average winter temperature (C)	+0.7	+2.0	+3.5
Change in average winter precipitation (%)	-2.0	+11.0	+25.0

Source: UKCP18 Key results spreadsheet

As a central estimate, these projections suggest that by 2080-99, UK winters will be 2C warmer and 11% wetter than they were in 1981-2000.

However, the picture is more complex for wind speed. The Met Office explains that storms in the UK are influenced by factors including sea surface temperatures, Arctic sea ice melt and the jet stream.

It says that “under climate change some of these influences will strengthen storms and others weaken them, as well as potentially change the parts of the world that storms affect”.

It adds:

“UKCP18 projected an increase in near surface wind speeds over the UK for the second half of the 21st century for the winter season when more significant impacts of wind are experienced. However, the increase in wind speeds is modest compared to natural variability from month to month and season to season, so confidence is low.”

The post Analysis: How UK winters are getting warmer and wetter appeared first on Carbon Brief.

Analysis: How UK winters are getting warmer and wetter

Greenhouse Gases

Cropped 25 February 2026: Food inflation strikes | El Niño looms | Biodiversity talks stagnate

Published

17 hours ago

February 25, 2026

Alice Rush

We handpick and explain the most important stories at the intersection of climate, land, food and nature over the past fortnight.

This is an online version of Carbon Brief’s fortnightly Cropped email newsletter.
Subscribe for free here.

Key developments

Food inflation on the rise

DELUGE STRIKES FOOD: Extreme rainfall and flooding across the Mediterranean and north Africa has “battered the winter growing regions that feed Europe…threatening food price rises”, reported the Financial Times. Western France has “endured more than 36 days of continuous rain”, while farmers’ associations in Spain’s Andalusia estimate that “20% of all production has been lost”, it added. Policy expert David Barmes told the paper that the “latest storms were part of a wider pattern of climate shocks feeding into food price inflation”.

Sign up to Carbon Brief’s free “Cropped” email newsletter. A fortnightly digest of food, land and nature news and views. Sent to your inbox every other Wednesday.

NO BEEF: The UK’s beef farmers, meanwhile, “face a double blow” from climate change as “relentless rain forces them to keep cows indoors”, while last summer’s drought hit hay supplies, said another Financial Times article. At the same time, indoor growers in south England described a 60% increase in electricity standing charges as a “ticking timebomb” that could “force them to raise their prices or stop production, which will further fuel food price inflation”, wrote the Guardian.

‘TINDERBOX’ AND TARIFFS: A study, covered by the Guardian, warned that major extreme weather and other “shocks” could “spark social unrest and even food riots in the UK”. Experts cited “chronic” vulnerabilities, including climate change, low incomes, poor farming policy and “fragile” supply chains that have made the UK’s food system a “tinderbox”. A New York Times explainer noted that while trade could once guard against food supply shocks, barriers such as tariffs and export controls – which are being “increasingly” used by politicians – “can shut off that safety valve”.

El Niño looms

NEW ENSO INDEX: Researchers have developed a new index for calculating El Niño, the large-scale climate pattern that influences global weather and causes “billions in damages by bringing floods to some regions and drought to others”, reported CNN. It added that climate change is making it more difficult for scientists to observe El Niño patterns by warming up the entire ocean. The outlet said that with the new metric, “scientists can now see it earlier and our long-range weather forecasts will be improved for it.”

WARMING WARNING: Meanwhile, the US Climate Prediction Center announced that there is a 60% chance of the current La Niña conditions shifting towards a neutral state over the next few months, with an El Niño likely to follow in late spring, according to Reuters. The Vibes, a Malaysian news outlet, quoted a climate scientist saying: “If the El Niño does materialise, it could possibly push 2026 or 2027 as the warmest year on record, replacing 2024.”

CROP IMPACTS: Reuters noted that neutral conditions lead to “more stable weather and potentially better crop yields”. However, the newswire added, an El Niño state would mean “worsening drought conditions and issues for the next growing season” to Australia. El Niño also “typically brings a poor south-west monsoon to India, including droughts”, reported the Hindu’s Business Line. A 2024 guest post for Carbon Brief explained that El Niño is linked to crop failure in south-eastern Africa and south-east Asia.

News and views

DAM-AG-ES: Several South Korean farmers filed a lawsuit against the country’s state-owned utility company, “seek[ing] financial compensation for climate-related agricultural damages”, reported United Press International. Meanwhile, a national climate change assessment for the Philippines found that the country “lost up to $219bn in agricultural damages from typhoons, floods and droughts” over 2000-10, according to Eco-Business.
SCORCHED GRASS: South Africa’s Western Cape province is experiencing “one of the worst droughts in living memory”, which is “scorching grass and killing livestock”, said Reuters. The newswire wrote: “In 2015, a drought almost dried up the taps in the city; farmers say this one has been even more brutal than a decade ago.”
NOUVELLE VEG: New guidelines published under France’s national food, nutrition and climate strategy “urged” citizens to “limit” their meat consumption, reported Euronews. The delayed strategy comes a month after the US government “upended decades of recommendations by touting consumption of red meat and full-fat dairy”, it noted.
COURTING DISASTER: India’s top green court accepted the findings of a committee that “found no flaws” in greenlighting the Great Nicobar project that “will lead to the felling of a million trees” and translocating corals, reported Mongabay. The court found “no good ground to interfere”, despite “threats to a globally unique biodiversity hotspot” and Indigenous tribes at risk of displacement by the project, wrote Frontline.
FISH FALLING: A new study found that fish biomass is “falling by 7.2% from as little as 0.1C of warming per decade”, noted the Guardian. While experts also pointed to the role of overfishing in marine life loss, marine ecologist and study lead author Dr Shahar Chaikin told the outlet: “Our research proves exactly what that biological cost [of warming] looks like underwater.”
TOO HOT FOR COFFEE: According to new analysis by Climate Central, countries where coffee beans are grown “are becoming too hot to cultivate them”, reported the Guardian. The world’s top five coffee-growing countries faced “57 additional days of coffee-harming heat” annually because of climate change, it added.

Spotlight

Nature talks inch forward

This week, Carbon Brief covers the latest round of negotiations under the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), which occurred in Rome over 16-19 February.

The penultimate set of biodiversity negotiations before October’s Conference of the Parties ended in Rome last week, leaving plenty of unfinished business.

The CBD’s subsidiary body on implementation (SBI) met in the Italian capital for four days to discuss a range of issues, including biodiversity finance and reviewing progress towards the nature targets agreed under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF).

However, many of the major sticking points – particularly around finance – will have to wait until later this summer, leaving some observers worried about the capacity for delegates to get through a packed agenda at COP17.

The SBI, along with the subsidiary body on scientific, technical and technological advice (SBSTTA) will both meet in Nairobi, Kenya, later this summer for a final round of talks before COP17 kicks off in Yerevan, Armenia, on 19 October.

Money talks

Finance for nature has long been a sticking point at negotiations under the CBD.

Discussions on a new fund for biodiversity derailed biodiversity talks in Cali, Colombia, in autumn 2024, requiring resumed talks a few months later.

Despite this, finance was barely on the agenda at the SBI meetings in Rome. Delegates discussed three studies on the relationship between debt sustainability and implementation of nature plans, but the more substantive talks are set to take place at the next SBI meeting in Nairobi.

Several parties “highlighted concerns with the imbalance of work” on finance between these SBI talks and the next ones, reported Earth Negotiations Bulletin (ENB).

Lim Li Ching, senior researcher at Third World Network, noted that tensions around finance permeated every aspect of the talks. She told Carbon Brief:

“If you’re talking about the gender plan of action – if there’s little or no financial resources provided to actually put it into practice and implement it, then it’s [just] paper, right? Same with the reporting requirements and obligations.”

Monitoring and reporting

Closely linked to the issue of finance is the obligations of parties to report on their progress towards the goals and targets of the GBF.

Parties do so through the submission of national reports.

Several parties at the talks pointed to a lack of timely funding for driving delays in their reporting, according to ENB.

A note released by the CBD Secretariat in December said that no parties had submitted their national reports yet; by the time of the SBI meetings, only the EU had. It further noted that just 58 parties had submitted their national biodiversity plans, which were initially meant to be published by COP16, in October 2024.

Linda Krueger, director of biodiversity and infrastructure policy at the environmental not-for-profit Nature Conservancy, told Carbon Brief that despite the sparse submissions, parties are “very focused on the national report preparation”. She added:

“Everybody wants to be able to show that we’re on the path and that there still is a pathway to getting to 2030 that’s positive and largely in the right direction.”

Watch, read, listen

NET LOSS: Nigeria’s marine life is being “threatened” by “ghost gear” – nets and other fishing equipment discarded in the ocean – said Dialogue Earth.

COMEBACK CAUSALITY: A Vox long-read looked at whether Costa Rica’s “payments for ecosystem services” programme helped the country turn a corner on deforestation.

HOMEGROWN GOALS: A Straits Times podcast discussed whether import-dependent Singapore can afford to shelve its goal to produce 30% of its food locally by 2030.

‘RUSTING’ RIVERS: The Financial Times took a closer look at a “strange new force blighting the [Arctic] landscape”: rivers turning rust-orange due to global warming.

New science

Lakes in the Congo Basin’s peatlands are releasing carbon that is thousands of years old | Nature Geoscience
Natural non-forest ecosystems – such as grasslands and marshlands – were converted for agriculture at four times the rate of land with tree cover between 2005 and 2020 | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Around one-quarter of global tree-cover loss over 2001-22 was driven by cropland expansion, pastures and forest plantations for commodity production | Nature Food

In the diary

2-6 March: UN Food and Agriculture Organization regional conference for Latin America and Caribbean | Brasília
5 March: Nepal general elections
9-20 March: First part of the thirty-first session of the International Seabed Authority (ISA) | Kingston, Jamaica

Cropped is researched and written by Dr Giuliana Viglione, Aruna Chandrasekhar, Daisy Dunne, Orla Dwyer and Yanine Quiroz.
Please send tips and feedback to cropped@carbonbrief.org

The post Cropped 25 February 2026: Food inflation strikes | El Niño looms | Biodiversity talks stagnate appeared first on Carbon Brief.

Cropped 25 February 2026: Food inflation strikes | El Niño looms | Biodiversity talks stagnate

Greenhouse Gases

Dangerous heat for Tour de France riders only a ‘question of time’

Published

2 days ago

February 24, 2026

Alice Rush

Rising temperatures across France since the mid-1970s is putting Tour de France competitors at “high risk”, according to new research.

The study, published in Scientific Reports, uses 50 years of climate data to calculate the potential heat stress that athletes have been exposed to across a dozen different locations during the world-famous cycling race.

The researchers find that both the severity and frequency of high-heat-stress events have increased across France over recent decades.

But, despite record-setting heatwaves in France, the heat-stress threshold for safe competition has rarely been breached in any particular city on the day the Tour passed through.

(This threshold was set out by cycling’s international governing body in 2024.)

However, the researchers add it is “only a question of time” until this occurs as average temperatures in France continue to rise.

The lead author of the study tells Carbon Brief that, while the race organisers have been fortunate to avoid major heat stress on race days so far, it will be “harder and harder to be lucky” as extreme heat becomes more common.

‘Iconic’

The Tour de France is one of the world’s most storied cycling races and the oldest of Europe’s three major multi-week cycling competitions, or Grand Tours.

Riders cover around 3,500 kilometres (km) of distance and gain up to nearly 55km of altitude over 21 stages, with only two or three rest days throughout the gruelling race.

The researchers selected the Tour de France because it is the “iconic bike race. It is the bike race of bike races,” says Dr Ivana Cvijanovic, a climate scientist at the French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development, who led the new work.

Heat has become a growing problem for the competition in recent years.

In 2022, Alexis Vuillermoz, a French competitor, collapsed at the finish line of the Tour’s ninth stage, leaving in an ambulance and subsequently pulling out of the race entirely.

Two years later, British cyclist Sir Mark Cavendish vomited on his bike during the first stage of the race after struggling with the 36C heat.

The Tour also makes a good case study because it is almost entirely held during the month of July and, while the route itself changes, there are many cities and stages that are repeated from year to year, Cvijanovic adds.

‘Have to be lucky’

The study focuses on the 50-year span between 1974 and 2023.

The researchers select six locations across the country that have commonly hosted the Tour, from the mountain pass of Col du Tourmalet, in the French Pyrenees, to the city of Paris – where the race finishes, along the Champs-Élysées.

These sites represent a broad range of climatic zones: Alpe d’ Huez, Bourdeaux, Col du Tourmalet, Nîmes, Paris and Toulouse.

For each location, they use meteorological reanalysis data from ERA5 and radiant temperature data from ERA5-HEAT to calculate the “wet-bulb globe temperature” (WBGT) for multiple times of day across the month of July each year.

WBGT is a heat-stress index that takes into account temperature, humidity, wind speed and direct sunlight.

Although there is “no exact scientific consensus” on the best heat-stress index to use, WBGT is “one of the rare indicators that has been originally developed based on the actual human response to heat”, Cvijanovic explains.

It is also the one that the International Cycling Union (UCI) – the world governing body for sport cycling – uses to assess risk. A WBGT of 28C or higher is classified as “high risk” by the group.

WBGT is the “gold standard” for assessing heat stress, says Dr Jessica Murfree, director of the ACCESS Research Laboratory and assistant professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Murfree, who was not involved in the new study, adds that the researchers are “doing the right things by conducting their science in alignment with the business practices that are already happening”.

The researchers find that across the 50-year time period, WBGT has been increasing across the entire country – albeit, at different rates. In the north-west of the country, WBGT has increased at an average rate of 0.1C per decade, while in the southern and eastern parts of the country, it has increased by more than 0.5C per decade.

The maps below show the maximum July WBGT for each decade of the analysis (rows) and for hourly increments of the late afternoon (columns). Lower temperatures are shown in lighter greens and yellows, while higher temperatures are shown in darker reds and purples.

Six Tour de France locations analysed in the study are shown as triangles on the maps (clockwise from top): Paris, Alpe d’ Huez, Nîmes, Toulouse, Col du Tourmalet and Bordeaux.

The maps show that the maximum WBGT temperature in the afternoon has surpassed 28C over almost the entire country in the last decade. The notable exceptions to this are the mountainous regions of the Alps and the Pyrenees.

Maximum WBGT across France for the month of July from 1974-2023. Rows show the values for each decade and columns show the hourly values for 3:00pm, 4:00pm, 5:00pm and 6:00pm. Lower temperatures are shown in lighter greens and yellows, while higher temperatures are shown in darker reds and purples. Triangles indicate the six Tour de France locations analysed in the study. Source: Cvijanovic et al. (2026)

The researchers also find that most of the country has crossed the 28C WBGT threshold – which they describe as “dangerous heat levels” – on at least one July day over the past decade. However, by looking at the WBGT on the day the Tour passed through any of these six locations, they find that the threshold has rarely been breached during the race itself.

For example, the research notes that, since 1974, Paris has seen a WBGT of 28C five times at 3pm in July – but that these events have “so far” not coincided with the cycling race.

The study states that it is “fortunate” that the Tour has so far avoided the worst of the heat-stress.

Cvijanovic says the organisers and competitors have been “lucky” to date. She adds:

“It has worked really well for them so far. But as the frequency of these [extreme heat] events is increasing, it will be harder and harder to be lucky.”

Dr Madeleine Orr, an assistant professor of sport ecology at the University of Toronto who was not involved in the study, tells Carbon Brief that the paper was “really well done”, noting that its “methods are good [and its] approach was sound”. She adds:

“[The Tour has] had athletes complain about [the heat]. They’ve had athletes collapse – and still those aren’t the worst conditions. I think that that says a lot about what we consider safe. They’ve still been lucky to not see what unsafe looks like, despite [the heat] having already had impacts.”

Heat safety protocols

In 2024, the UCI set out its first-ever high temperature protocol – a set of guidelines for race organisers to assess athletes’ risk of heat stress.

The assessment places the potential risk into one of five categories based on the WBGT, ranging from very low to high risk.

The protocol then sets out suggested actions to take in the event of extreme heat, ranging from having athletes complete their warm-ups using ice vests and cold towels to increasing the number of support vehicles providing water and ice.

If the WBGT climbs above the 28C mark, the protocol suggests that organisers modify the start time of the stage, adapt the course to remove particularly hazardous sections – or even cancel the race entirely.

However, Orr notes that many other parts of the race, such as spectator comfort and equipment functioning, may have lower temperatures thresholds that are not accounted for in the protocol, but should also be considered.

Murfree points out that the study’s findings – and the heat protocol itself – are “really focused on adaptation, rather than mitigation”. While this is “to be expected”, she tells Carbon Brief:

“Moving to earlier start times or adjusting the route specifically to avoid these locations that score higher in heat stress doesn’t stop the heat stress. These aren’t climate preventative measures. That, I think, would be a much more difficult conversation to have in the research because of the Tour de France’s intimate relationship with fossil-fuel companies.”

The post Dangerous heat for Tour de France riders only a ‘question of time’ appeared first on Carbon Brief.

Dangerous heat for Tour de France riders only a ‘question of time’

Greenhouse Gases

DeBriefed 20 February 2026: EU’s ‘3C’ warning | Endangerment repeal’s impact on US emissions | ‘Tree invasion’ fuelled South America’s fires

Published

6 days ago

February 20, 2026

Alice Rush

Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.

This week

Preparing for 3C

NEW ALERT: The EU’s climate advisory board urged countries to prepare for 3C of global warming, reported the Guardian. The outlet quoted Maarten van Aalst, a member of the advisory board, saying that adapting to this future is a “daunting task, but, at the same time, quite a doable task”. The board recommended the creation of “climate risk assessments and investments in protective measures”.

‘INSUFFICIENT’ ACTION: EFE Verde added that the advisory board said that the EU’s adaptation efforts were so far “insufficient, fragmented and reactive” and “belated”. Climate impacts are expected to weaken the bloc’s productivity, put pressure on public budgets and increase security risks, it added.

UNDERWATER: Meanwhile, France faced “unprecedented” flooding this week, reported Le Monde. The flooding has inundated houses, streets and fields and forced the evacuation of around 2,000 people, according to the outlet. The Guardian quoted Monique Barbut, minister for the ecological transition, saying: “People who follow climate issues have been warning us for a long time that events like this will happen more often…In fact, tomorrow has arrived.”

IEA ‘erases’ climate

MISSING PRIORITY: The US has “succeeded” in removing climate change from the main priorities of the International Energy Agency (IEA) during a “tense ministerial meeting” in Paris, reported Politico. It noted that climate change is not listed among the agency’s priorities in the “chair’s summary” released at the end of the two-day summit.

US INTERVENTION: Bloomberg said the meeting marked the first time in nine years the IEA failed to release a communique setting out a unified position on issues – opting instead for the chair’s summary. This came after US energy secretary Chris Wright gave the organisation a one-year deadline to “scrap its support of goals to reduce energy emissions to net-zero” – or risk losing the US as a member, according to Reuters.

Around the world

ISLAND OBJECTION: The US is pressuring Vanuatu to withdraw a draft resolution supporting an International Court of Justice ruling on climate change, according to Al Jazeera.
GREENLAND HEAT: The Associated Press reported that Greenland’s capital Nuuk had its hottest January since records began 109 years ago.
CHINA PRIORITIES: China’s Energy Administration set out its five energy priorities for 2026-2030, including developing a renewable energy plan, said International Energy Net.
AMAZON REPRIEVE: Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon has continued to fall into early 2026, extending a downward trend, according to the latest satellite data covered by Mongabay.
GEZANI DESTRUCTION: Reuters reported the aftermath of the Gezani cyclone, which ripped through Madagascar last week, leaving 59 dead and more than 16,000 displaced people.

20cm

The average rise in global sea levels since 1901, according to a Carbon Brief guest post on the challenges in projecting future rises.

Latest climate research

Wildfire smoke poses negative impacts on organisms and ecosystems, such as health impacts on air-breathing animals, changes in forests’ carbon storage and coral mortality | Global Ecology and Conservation
As climate change warms Antarctica throughout the century, the Weddell Sea could see the growth of species such as krill and fish and remain habitable for Emperor penguins | Nature Climate Change
About 97% of South American lakes have recorded “significant warming” over the past four decades and are expected to experience rising temperatures and more frequent heatwaves | Climatic Change

(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)

Captured

US emissions, MtCO2e, under a “current policy” scenario in which the EPA removes key federal climate regulations

Repealing the US’s landmark “endangerment finding”, along with actions that rely on that finding, will slow the pace of US emissions cuts, according to Rhodium Group visualised by Carbon Brief. US president Donald Trump last week formally repealed the scientific finding that underpins federal regulations on greenhouse gas emissions, although the move is likely to face legal challenges. Data from the Rhodium Group, an independent research firm, shows that US emissions will drop more slowly without climate regulations. However, even with climate regulations, emissions are expected to drop much slower under Trump than under the previous Joe Biden administration, according to the analysis.

Spotlight

How a ‘tree invasion’ helped to fuel South America’s fires

This week, Carbon Brief explores how the “invasion” of non-native tree species helped to fan the flames of forest fires in Argentina and Chile earlier this year.

Since early January, Chile and Argentina have faced large-scale and deadly wildfires, including in Patagonia, which spans both countries.

These fires have been described as “some of the most significant and damaging in the region”, according to a World Weather Attribution (WWA) analysis covered by Carbon Brief.

In both countries, the fires destroyed vast areas of native forests and grasslands, displacing thousands of people. In Chile, the fires resulted in 23 deaths.

Firefighters spray water on homes in Vina del Mar, Chile. Credit: Esteban Felix / Alamy Stock Photo

Multiple drivers contributed to the spread of the fires, including extended periods of high temperatures, low rainfall and abundant dry vegetation.

The WWA analysis concluded that human-caused climate change made these weather conditions at least three times more likely.

According to the researchers, another contributing factor was the invasion of non-native trees in the regions where the fires occurred.

The risk of non-native forests

In Argentina, the wildfires began on 6 January and persisted until the first week of February. They hit the city of Puerto Patriada and the Los Alerces and Lago Puelo national parks, in the Chubut province, as well as nearby regions.

In these areas, more than 45,000 hectares of native forests – such as Patagonian alerce tree, myrtle, coigüe and ñire – along with scrubland and grasslands, were consumed by the flames, according to the WWA study.

In Chile, forest fires occurred from 17 to 19 January in the Biobío, Ñuble and Araucanía regions.

The fires destroyed more than 40,000 hectares of forest and more than 20,000 hectares of non-native forest plantations, including eucalyptus and Monterey pine.

Dr Javier Grosfeld, a researcher at Argentina’s National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET) in northern Patagonia, told Carbon Brief that these species, introduced to Patagonia for production purposes in the late 20th century, grow quickly and are highly flammable.

Because of this, their presence played a role in helping the fires to spread more quickly and grow larger.

However, that is no reason to “demonise” them, he stressed.

Forest management

For Grosfeld, the problem in northern Patagonia, Argentina, is a significant deficit in the management of forests and forest plantations.

This management should include pruning branches from their base and controlling the spread of non-native species, he added.

A similar situation is happening in Chile, where management of pine and eucalyptus plantations is not regulated. This means there are no “firebreaks” – gaps in vegetation – in place to prevent fire spread, Dr Gabriela Azócar, a researcher at the University of Chile’s Centre for Climate and Resilience Research (CR2), told Carbon Brief.

She noted that, although Mapuche Indigenous communities in central-south Chile are knowledgeable about native species and manage their forests, their insight and participation are not recognised in the country’s fire management and prevention policies.

Grosfeld stated:

“We are seeing the transformation of the Patagonian landscape from forest to scrubland in recent years. There is a lack of preventive forestry measures, as well as prevention and evacuation plans.”

Watch, read, listen

FUTURE FURNACE: A Guardian video explored the “unbearable experience of walking in a heatwave in the future”.

THE FUN SIDE: A Channel 4 News video covered a new wave of climate comedians who are using digital platforms such as TikTok to entertain and raise awareness.

ICE SECRETS: The BBC’s Climate Question podcast explored how scientists study ice cores to understand what the climate was like in ancient times and how to use them to inform climate projections.

Coming up

22-27 February: Ocean Sciences Meeting, Glasgow
24-26 February: Methane Mitigation Europe Summit 2026, Amsterdam, Netherlands
25-27 February: World Sustainable Development Summit 2026, New Delhi, India

Pick of the jobs

The Climate Reality Project, digital specialist | Salary: $60,000-$61,200. Location: Washington DC
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), science officer in the IPCC Working Group I Technical Support Unit | Salary: Unknown. Location: Gif-sur-Yvette, France
Energy Transition Partnership, programme management intern | Salary: Unknown. Location: Bangkok, Thailand

DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to debriefed@carbonbrief.org.

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