Jonathan Vautrey

[What role does climate change play in meteorology?]
I think we’ve definitely seen, over the last few years or so, an increase of attention on climate change. We’ve had continuous months over sort of recent years or so where our temperatures have been above average for the time of year and sort of, you know, continuous consecutive months reported to be one of the hottest on record or things like that.
The science is very clear that the world is warming, and it is having an impact on weather systems around the globe and how things are transforming. So, you know, last year, the UK recorded 40 degrees Celsius for the first time ever on record, which is something that not many people would have really predicted ever sort of possible a couple of decades ago or things like that.
So, there’s definitely increasing signs of things happening and just storms around as well, you know. Warmer climates are able to hold more moisture, so things end up getting wetter and you get more of these storms coming through particularly during winter as well. Trying to find that balance of getting the climate change message out there is also quite tricky at times, because I understand that people don’t want to feel like they’re being lectured about things, but it is a very important message to get across, and the impacts that it is increasingly going to bring, not just to the UK, but to places worldwide, is something that is very important.
So yeah, there is this sort of increasing focus, I think really, that climate change has constantly been evolving the weather systems that we do see.