Expert scientists say climate change is here

Many of the world's top climate scientists are in Berkshire this week to take part in climate change research workshops.

The University of Reading is hosting the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the Met Office as they discuss climate action over the next decade.

Chair of the IPCC, Professor Sir Jim Skea said these workshops will provide "critical guidance for our leadership" and help assess "the ever-growing body of climate literature".

Minister for Climate, Katie White said the workshops demonstrate "the UK's scientific leadership in action as we tackle the climate challenge head-on."

Scientists at the workshop said extreme changes in weather patterns could become the norm and there was a general consensus that "climate change is here".

Last week the university said it had recorded the longest unbroken spell of rainy days in the town since they started measuring them in 1908.

Director of the Met Office Hadley Centre, Professor Rowan Sutton said: "We have experienced an incredibly wet period and of course we've seen a lot of flooding.

"It is part of a pattern, it's a long-term pattern."

He added: "We are seeing wetter winters, wetter autumns in the UK and this is entirely consistent with our expectations of how the build-up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is changing our climate."

As part of the IPCC visit, a public lecture was held at the university. Reading was the birthplace of the climate stripes, a visual representation of what's been happening to the world.

Climate scientist at the university, Professor Ed Hawkins explained that his jacket represented the changing global temperatures from 1850 to 2025.

He said: "The left of the jacket is cold blues from the 1850s and changes to hot reds for 2025."

Vice-chair of IPCC's working group, Sherilee Harper said: "Now more than ever, people are feeling those impacts and they have lived experience of climate change."

"I think that lived experience of climate change translates into people looking for actions that they can do to be part of the climate change solution.

"Just as we all experience the weather, increasingly it seems climate change is not something that only impacts others."