DRAFT PRESS RELEASE FOR JANUARY 1996

1995 - The warmest year on record (so far)

Global surface temperatures have now completely recovered from the cooling caused by the June 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines. The 1990-1994 El Nino ended early in 1995, and a narrow band of the eastern equatorial Pacific is now cooler, indicating that, on a global average, 1996 will probably be slightly cooler than 1995.

In 1995, the Northern Hemisphere was warmer than in all previous years, but the Southern Hemisphere was relatively less warm. Parts of Siberia were about +3 degC warmer than usual in 1995, because the early part of the year was exceptionally warm, whereas 1995 was slightly cooler than normal over the Greenland - northwest North Atlantic region and over the midlatitude North Pacific. These features have recurred in many recent years. Also in 1995 the ocean surface was more than 1 deg C warmer than usual near the Azores.

Although differences of a few hundredths of a degree between global average tempeartures in individual years are not significant, 1995 continues the warming trend begun in the mid-1970s. Scientists recently stated that "the balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate" through emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. But the predicted rise in global temperature as CO2 emissions increase will not be steady and uniform ; there will still be colder years and even decades in the future due the Earth's natural climate variability.

The "Central England" temperature in August 1995 was 3.4 deg C above average: this was the warmest August in the record which extends back to 1659. July was 2.5 deg C warmer than average, and the period July plus August was the warmest in the series. The summer, June to August, was the third warmest ever. The period May to October was the warmest ever. There were 26 days exceeding 20 deg C (on average of day and night), compared with the previous record of 19 days set in 1976. August 1st was the second warmest date on record, 24.9 deg C, compared with 25.2 deg C on July 29th 1948. The very warm November 1994 (warmest ever) and October 1995 (second warmest ever), along with a complete lack of colder-than-normal months, made the period November 1994 to October 1995 the warmest 12-month period recorded, by a margin of about 0.25 deg C. The Central England Temperature for the calendar year 1995, however, was about 0.1 deg C lower than in 1949 and 1990, because December 1995 was about 2 deg C below normal.

The England and Wales rainfall for summer 1995 was similar to that for summer 1976, which was the driest in the record developed by the University of East Anglia back to 1766. August was particularly dry, in common with other parts of northwestern Europe, while some Mediterranean countries were unusually wet.

This graph is available as a PostScript file. The data from which it is drawn is also online.

For further information contact:

Malcolm Brooks or Andy Yeatman
The Met. Office
Press Desk
London Road
Bracknell
Berks. RG12 2SZ
Tel: +44-1344-856655
Fax: +44-1344-854942

or

Department of the Environment Press Office
Tel: +44-171-276-0929

or

Phil Jones or Mike Hulme
Climatic Research Unit
University of East Anglia
Tel: +44-1603-56161