Looking at weather maps showing the changes in temperature already occurring in Europe it is clear how lucky those are who live next to the cooling Atlantic Ocean. Even over the next three years the increased temperature gradient from west to east is quite alarming – with central Europe up to 2C hotter on average than 30 years ago.
Even in Britain it is up to 1C warmer in the south-east. Ireland, Cornwall and west Wales, close to the cooling sea, are the only places where the rise is minimal. Even the Outer Hebrides and the far north of Scotland are warming appreciably because sea temperatures there have risen quite fast too.
So that everyone can prepare for the disruption that droughts, floods and extreme weather events will bring, researchers are dividing Europe up into 25km squares and developing a regional climate prognosis for each of them for the next few years.
As scientists study past and present climate changes, the computer model can also calculate what the land surface temperature will be in a lattice of thousands of boxes across the earth’s surface. In Britain and Europe generally the forecasts are said to be most accurate because the sea temperatures off our west coast are the most comprehensively measured in the world.
