Ed Hawkins

@edhawkins.org

Climate scientist at the National Centre for Atmospheric Science, University of Reading | IPCC AR6 Lead Author | MBE | Views own | https://edhawkins.org

Warming Stripes: http://www.ShowYourStripes.info

@edhawkins.org Pinned

1976 and all that... Greenhouse gas emissions, mainly from burning fossil fuels, have caused global temperatures to rise 1°C since 1976, but comparable UK heatwaves are now 3°C hotter, and would peak at 38-39°C. (Oh look, same as this week's temperatures...) theconversation.com/we-recreated...

Maximum temperatures on 27th June 1976 (left), and a comparable event in today's climate (right)
@oceanterra.orgReposted by @edhawkins.org

Drought-affected areas in Europe have expanded substantially in recent decades. ​

By the end of August 2026, meteorological drought affected around 46% of Europe, with 40% of the affected area under extreme drought, a much larger share than in 2025.

See more: climate.copernicus.eu/european-sum...

@edhawkins.org

If you've used any climate datasets, you've likely benefitted from work of people like Simon. He is an unsung hero, helping build sub-daily to monthly global climate datasets on which we all rely over the past decade.

@edhawkins.org

Another "need to extend the y-axis" moment... Average temperature in Central England for Jan-Sep for each year since 1772. It is 0.8°C higher in 2026 than any other previous year.

Timeseries of average Jan-Sep temperature for Central England with huge jump up in 2026
@edhawkins.org

Agree on quality vs quantity. I remember bring able (and having the time) to simply scroll through astro-ph each day to find a very small number of papers to add to the 'should read this' list.

@timosbornclim.bsky.socialReposted by @edhawkins.org

New version of the HadCRUT global temperature dataset released @colinmorice.bsky.social HadCRUT5.2 uses HadSST4.2 (with improved adjustments for SST biases during 1933-1961) and CRUTEM5.2 (with updates to stations in China, USA and Canada). Here is the difference from the previous version 5.1

Alt text: Timeseries from 1850 to 2026 of global average temperature from HadCRUT versions 5.1 and 5.2 and their difference.
@coveringclimatenow.orgReposted by @edhawkins.org

📣 CCNow is thrilled to announce the winners of the 2026 CCNow Journalism Awards! Our awards program honors excellent reporting on many critical dimensions of the climate story. Together, their work constitutes the leading edge of climate storytelling. ...🧵↓

@metoffice.gov.ukReposted by @edhawkins.org

🌍 54 million historical weather observations from 95 countries have been unlocked & made freely available online.

📚 With records dating back to 1837, the project enabled the discovery of an HMS Terror logbook & an international weather station network

Read ⤵️
www.metoffice.gov.uk/blog/2026/ho...

@oceanterra.orgReposted by @edhawkins.org

August 2026 was the warmest August ever recorded globally and the warmest month on record

El Niño is pushing temperatures higher, but these records are occurring in a climate that has already been fundamentally altered by decades of burning fossil fuels heating our planet

#Climate 🧪⚒️🌊

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