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Asked by Ben to Aileen, Caroline, Christopher, Rehemat, Stephanie, Stephen on 7 Mar 2018.
Question: Why are we now getting cold temperatures while we previosly got warm temperatures?
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Christopher Nankervis answered on 7 Mar 2018:
Some scientists think that the weather is getting more variable as the climate warms, so colder weather may still happen as the climate on average gets hotter.
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Stephanie Mann answered on 8 Mar 2018:
The planet is getting warmer but not everywhere at the same time. This winter we got such a cold spell because the arctic got so warm this year it actually pushed some of the cold arctic air south across Europe. The evidence is clear though, 16 out of the 17 hottest years on record have been since the year 2000! Our planet is warming even though there is snow outside!
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Stephen Twomlow answered on 8 Mar 2018:
As climate change progresses we see more erratic weather and we will not always know what is normal. Look at the big chill that hit the UK and Europe last week – coldest temperatures for long time – yet at the same time the arctic was warmer than the UK – wierd
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Aileen Baird answered on 9 Mar 2018:
As all the other scientists have said, the average temperature of the Earth is warming up. However, this doesn’t mean that every day the temperature will be warmer, there are still big variations in the temperature, but if you take an average (a mean) of the temperatures over time, the average number is higher than it has ever been.
Have a look at this graph from NASA. Some years it was especially hot or cold as you can see because the line isn’t perfectly straight. However, overall the line is still going up to the right, showing that as time goes on, the temperature of the Earth is increasing.
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