New temperature record in September

- The previous record dates from 1968 and was 27.8C. So today's record is almost 1 degree above the previous record,’ says Erik Sahlée, senior lecturer in meteorology.

When the temperature is higher than normal, some people rejoice while others start thinking about climate change. Is this a normal ‘heat peak’ or is it an indication that the climate in general has become progressively warmer?

- ‘The fact that we have had such warm air up here to Uppsala is due to how high and low pressure are positioned right now over Europe. Right now we have a low pressure over the western parts and a high pressure in the east. This means that warm air from southern Europe is flowing up to us. On the other hand, colder than usual air has been transported to the western-south-western parts of Europe. Exactly how the effects of global warming affect this particular pressure pattern is hard to say, but the warm air is certainly even warmer as a result.

Many of us confuse weather and climate. Can you briefly explain how we should think?

- Yes, it can be easy to confuse the two:

Weather describes the short-term conditions in the atmosphere, such as temperature and precipitation at a given time. It can change rapidly from day to day or hour to hour. For example, it may be sunny one day and rainy the next, or sunny one minute and rainy the next.

Climate describes the long-term patterns and average weather conditions over a longer period of time, usually 30 years or more. Climate then describes what is typical for a place, what we can expect. It also means typical variations, e.g. how the average monthly temperature in Uppsala varies over a year.

A good way to think about it is that weather is what we see and feel today, while climate is what we expect over time. In other words, climate describes what clothes you should have in your wardrobe, weather what clothes you put on.

Can we expect warmer late summers in general in the future?

- Already now we can see how autumn falls later. SMHI has good statistics for this for the whole country here: https://www.smhi.se/data/meteorologi/kartor/normal/arstid-start/host . In Uppsala's case, the meteorological autumn falls on average over the last 30 years about a week later compared to the period 1961-1990. A longer summer should then also mean warmer September days on average.