The long-predicted 2-day heatwave in parts of England & Wales at the start of the week saw temperatures peaking at over 40°C in one Lincolnshire village (Coningsby), while over two dozen other locations went past the UK's previous highest temperature, set in 2019.

Red ‘extreme heat’ warning

The government declared a level 4 ‘national emergency’, the very highest in its recently-modified alert system. There were disruptions to travel, with overhead railway lines, roads and even airport runways beginning to melt in the heat, and London’s fire service apparently facing its busiest day in decades, as a number of fires were sparked in various place (some of which may have been the result of arson).

Yet even the 40°+ recording is contentious, because the measuring device is located halfway down the runway at busy RAF Coningsby. According to Professor Ross McKitrick, about half of all land-surface temperature measurements used to show global warming are taken close to airport runways. Which might explain why the second hottest place in Britain this week was – erm – Heathrow, one of the busiest airports in the world.

Thousands of deaths?

Newspaper and TV headlines ‘blazed’ with warnings from climate ‘experts’ that thousands might die in the 2-day heatwave. As it turned out, national news channels were eerily quiet on actual death statistics, ITV simply reporting “several deaths across the country”, these consisting almost exclusively of teenagers tragically getting into difficulty after jumping into lakes, etc, and therefore not directly caused by the extreme heat.¹

The media has concocted similar scare stories before. During a ‘killer’ summer heatwave four years ago (anyone remember it?), newspapers told us that nearly 1,000 more Brits than average had died of the heat. In reality, the Office for National Statistics made it clear that “those claims are not supported by the published data”. On the contrary, “fewer deaths were registered” that summer “than during the same weeks” of the previous two years.²

Any serious scientific discussion of climate change has to focus on long-term trends, not singular events.

In fact, despite the impression given by media alarmism, tens of thousands more deaths are registered during the cold weather of the winter each year than the hot weather of the summer.

Assessing single events

Politicians, among them Boris Johnson, along with a number of climate change ‘experts’, have claimed that this week’s record highs are in themselves ‘proof’ of global warming. But any serious scientific discussion of climate change has to focus on long-term trends, not singular events.

Certainly, Met Office statistics show that 9 out of 10 of the hottest days ever recorded in the UK have been since 1990. The UK has apparently been slowly getting warmer for over a century, and this has very recently speeded up. In the past three decades the country has become 0.9° warmer on average. The doomsday warnings heap on the fear – telling us this week's heatwave is just the beginning. One day soon, 40° will seem chilly; within a generation, our children will yearn for a summer as cool as 2022, for Britain is about to become an apocalyptic ‘hothouse’!

Ten-weeks’ blazing heat

Confusingly, other reliable statistics give differing perspectives. Scientists are agreed that there occurred a slowing down in the rate of average global surface warming from 1998–2012, causing many to prefer to use the term ‘climate change’ than ‘global warming’ (though that's certainly been reverted in the past week, at least in the UK). Even since then, although little-reported, the average UK temperature in the decade 2010-2019 (9.17°) was colder than in the previous 10 years (9.31°).

Back in the 1920s, close to 500,000 people globally died every year in storms, floods, droughts and heatwaves. In 2020, just 14,000 people died as a result of such natural calamities – a fall of 96%. Over a century ago, in 1911, the sun blazed for two months, with temperatures reaching the high 30s.

In the summer of 1976, temperatures exceeded 32 degrees on a daily basis for over two weeks, something that has never happened since.

Then there was the summer of 1976, when temperatures exceeded 32 degrees on a daily basis for over two weeks, something that has never happened since. Temperatures hit 36° in some places during ten long weeks of blazing heat, criminal trials came to a halt, towns were plagued by swarms of insects, and water was rationed as the country faced the worst drought in 250 years.

Don’t forget the cold

In any case, not everywhere experienced unusually warm weather last Monday and Tuesday. In parts of Scotland, it was a rather different story. On Monday afternoon, a friend and I went out for a cycle run, hiring electric bicycles (a first for me). We had a terrific time, stopping for lunch by rocks on the shore, to the significant interest of a curious seal who kept a watchful eye from a watery distance. As folk were frazzling under record sunshine in south England, further north my friend and I kept our jumpers and jackets on the entire five hours we were out, there being a continual cool breeze and persistent light drizzle. The heatwave was far from being UK-wide!

In fact, the spring and early summer of 2022 has been one of the coldest and windiest in the far north in recent memory, some places recording record high winds. Indeed, across the UK, April witnessed blizzards, storms and ‘blood rain’, while at one point, temperatures were set to drop as low as -5C, leading to the widespread prediction that it might be “the coldest start to May in 25 years”. We're only talking about two or three months ago. 

2021 was also perhaps better known for low record temperatures than high, with January being the coldest the UK had seen in 10 years, and temperatures falling to almost -23°C overnight in mid-February, the lowest in more than two decades, following an ‘extreme freeze’.

Given the earth is part of God’s incredible creation, we all have a duty to be environmentally friendly, taking great care over all that he has made.

Ongoing debate

Given the earth is part of God’s incredible creation, we all have a duty to be environmentally friendly, taking great care over all that he has made. But apocalyptic language only feeds into the green eco religion that has gained so many fanatical followers unable to see the need for balance over how to address ecological concerns. (The question also remains as to whether any genuine occurrence of ‘climate change’ is a result of God removing his protection over the land).

I’m certainly no expert on climate change matters. But it’s clear that the issues concerned aren’t anything like as clearcut as the climate change activists try to make out. Those who are open and honest enough to consider them – sadly, the above-noted activists, along with the mainstream media, will brook no serious discussion – will continue to debate whether the recent high temperatures –

1. are part of a wider global warming; and if so – equally crucially – whether this is the result of man-made emissions;
2. are part of an irregular periodic meteorological cycle; or
3. constitute an isolated freak weather occurrence.

Notes
1. One of these was a fellow-pupil at my son’s school, who drowned after taking a dip in the River Tyne – never to be recommended. It was a real shock to the whole school. Please pray for all those grieving the loss of these teenage boys (Kathryn – PT Managing Editor).
2. The Telegraph’s Associate Editor said the heatwave has given work-shy Britons a new reason to stay at home, not least given demands from unions that workers should not have to work in temperatures above 25 degrees.