beast from the east 2018

• social impacts

  • 10 ppl died
  • British airways cancelled a lot of flights at Heathrow
  • 3,000 schls closed
• economic impacts

  • farmers crops destroyed
  • network rail cancelled trains
  • businesses couldn't get their goods to factories
• environmental impacts

  • 50cm + snow fell
  • flood warnings for the Cornwall Coast
  • -12 degrees in rural areas
• causes

  • cold air from Siberia moved towards the UK
  • portal vortex caused cold temps + snow to fall in UK
• portal vortex

  area of rotating winds
• management strategies

  • food supplies - public health England told ppl to plan ahead
  • clearing roads - councils sent out snow ploughs
  • red weather warning - Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, Devon
• evidence that weather is becoming more extreme in the UK - rainfall

  • ↓summer rainfall
  • ↑ heavy rain in the winter since 1980s
  • ↑ flooding
• evidence that extreme weather is ↑ in the UK - temp

  • temp ↑ by 1 degree since 1980
  • human induced climate change has caused 2020 type summers to only happened 1 in 90 yrs but now is happening 1 in 2 summers
  • 10 warmest summers have happened since 2002