‘Our atmosphere by definition is chaotic’: We asked a meteorologist how they record heat waves

euronews (in English)

We spoke to Weather & Radar meteorologist Tamsin Green about how we record record-breaking weather.

Transcript

00:00 Our atmosphere by definition is chaotic.

00:03 Weather is so dynamic.

00:04 Everyone always says, you know, weather is not an exact science because it really isn't

00:08 and that's the difficulty that comes with being a meteorologist.

00:11 Hi, I'm Tamsin Green and I'm a meteorologist at Weather and Radar.

00:17 The 4th and the 5th of July were the hottest days on record for the planet since records

00:22 began for the global average in 1979.

00:25 So the whole process of recording measurements for the weather has advanced and evolved enormously

00:32 over the years.

00:33 In terms of actually recording temperatures, they're recorded by weather stations, weather

00:37 balloons, buoys in the ocean, satellites, a load of different instruments that work

00:43 on collecting not only temperature but pressure, humidity, wind speed, precipitation.

00:47 So there's a lot of standards in place that have to be implemented by the WMO, so the

00:52 World Meteorological Organization, and some of those standardized things include temperature

00:58 sensors needing to be two meters above the ground, on level ground, not near any trees,

01:03 any buildings.

01:04 They have to be in a white ventilated shielded box so they're not affected by direct sunlight

01:09 or anything like that and they are painted white in order to reflect the sun as well.

01:13 So you have those official stations to record that and globally the WMO has 11,000 of those

01:20 automatic land weather stations.

01:22 So weather records have to be officially verified by the WMO and verifying data can take several

01:28 months if not years.

01:29 Just to give you an example, so the all-time temperature record in Italy is 48.8 degrees

01:35 that was set in Sicily in August in 2021, but that was only just verified by the WMO

01:42 on the 17th of July of this year, so 2023, so just two years after the record provision

01:47 broke.

01:48 So that's quite some time and that's because there's a whole host of different experts

01:53 that have to examine the raw data and they have to assess all different things including

01:57 the type of instruments used, the environment, any calibration procedures and errors, nearby

02:01 data for comparison as well because one weather station records 45 degrees and one five kilometers

02:07 away records 25 degrees, you know that seems quite obviously erroneous.

02:11 And then once that is verified, which obviously can take some time, it's then archived officially

02:15 and then shared with the public.

02:20 Unfortunately people like climate deniers, you can't really escape.

02:23 The issue with climate change is that global warming is only one aspect of that and I think

02:30 a lot of people cling on to, okay well climate change is the warming world, so if it's not

02:37 really hot right now outside my window then climate change doesn't exist and it's really

02:43 important to step back and look at that wider view because there are so many more stories

02:48 to tell and records broken that aren't just in terms of temperature because that's just

02:52 one aspect of climate change.

02:53 It also includes more extreme, more frequent weather events for different people all across

02:59 the world, there's completely different impacts for everyone.

03:02 But it's not just the air temperature that's reaching record highs, it's the water temperature

03:07 as well.

03:08 A few weeks ago a weather station on a buoy off of the Florida Keys, a place called Manatee

03:13 Bay, recorded potentially, it's still waiting to be verified, but potentially the highest

03:17 ever sea surface temperature ever recorded globally and that hit 38.4 degrees.

03:24 It's a rapid increase in frequency and intensity of all sorts of different weather events.

03:30 The other side of the globe right now in Australia where it's currently their winter time, they're

03:35 getting temperatures 16 degrees above average and it's looking like it is their hottest

03:39 winter on record.

03:40 [Music]

03:42 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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