Washout summers ‘set to continue for at least another two years’

By Julia Horton
Published on 08/10/2012 14:33

WASHOUT summers across the UK could continue for at least two more years, a new study suggests.

Research published today suggests that a shift in European climate in the 1990s to mild, wet summers in the north and hot, dry summers in the south is linked to a significant warm phase in shifting sea surface temperatures in the ocean.

Experts at the UK National Centre for Atmospheric Science studying the relationship between ocean temperatures and climate cycles found that patterns from the 1990s onwards were similar to the last warm phase between 1931 and 1960. That period also saw a string of wet summers including floods in the Devon village of Lynmouth in August 1952 which destroyed homes, washed away cars and killed 34 people.

NCAS authors Rowan Sutton and Buwen Dong, who are based at the University of Reading, suggested that the current pattern of wet summers will continue as long as the present warm phase persists - which could be at least two years, or longer.

The research, published in the journal Nature Geoscience, comes after people across the UK endured the wettest summer for 100 years.

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