Scotland in 2011: what was the weather like?

We all moan about the weather, sometime with good reason, but it’s good to keep a record of what 2011 was really like.  It may have seemed like another year of poor weather but in fact it was the sixth warmest year on record.  

The graph has been prepared by Richard Dixon of WWF Scotland.  The black line shows the actual temperatures for each month of 2011 and the green line the average temperatures for the years 1971-2000.  The year started off with temperatures slightly below average for January followed by four months (February – May) when temperatures were above average.  The summer was slightly cooler than average and then there was a very mild autumn. 

In fact Scotland had the warmest spring and second warmest autumn on record and was also (not shown in the graph) the wettest year since the records began in 1910.  April and November were the warmest recorded.   Overall 5 months were 1 degree Celsius above average and 2 were 2 degrees above average.
One warm year does not mean climate is changing but the record for the past two decades has seen temperatures consistently above average.  As the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere continues to increase, now 390 parts per million and rising at about two parts per million each year, we can expect to see more above average temperatures and more records broken in coming years. 

Adrian Shaw