London’s weather today is …er..

For the last few days London has been enjoying what for Londoners is very hot weather. The temperatures have reached 28 degrees Celsius (82 degrees Fahrenheit) and it threatens to rise another couple of degrees for the next few days.

These temperatures are slightly hotter than normal for this time of the year for London, but they do not provide evidence of climate change, or indeed anything except all places can have periods when it is unusually hot or unusually cold or unusually wet, and London is no exception.

Having just written those words the weather changed. It still is very hot and humid but a great storm has broken out over London, with lightening, thunder, hail stones and very heavy rain.

None of this is evidence of climate change but if the climate change scientists are right we shall have hotter summer spells and more intensive rainfall and larger hail stones. We may not find out whether this is true but our grandchildren will. Certainly, there is nothing in the way of climate change measures that we are undertaking that stands the proverbial snowball’s chance of stopping it.