Now on bbc news weather world. Sarah keith lucas and nick miller report on the latest weather stories, including a look at the role of Climate Change in last winters Severe Weather in the uk and usa. This time on weather world, spring is in the air here in the uk. After a winter which delivered something increasingly rare proper cold. The uk records its lowest february temperature in over 60 years. And texas, colder than alaska, we look at the Science Behind winters big freeze. Also on weather world. Oh, my goodness. Washed away, the shift in Global Weather patterns that have turned parts of Australia Wetter and wetter. Plus, carbon crisis as levels of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide reach record post industrial levels. It was only a matter of time. Im not surprised. Its very sad, its very. Disappointing, but its, you know, unless we do something about it, it is inevitable. And from the skies to the stars what the rest of the year has in store for us astronomically. Whether its a Solar Eclipse or a shower of meteors, i will be letting you know when to look out for this years celestial highlights. Welcome to the latest weather world. Our regular look at the stories and the Science Behind the weather thats been making the news. This time, nick and i are in londons regents park where all around us, there are signs that spring is about to break forth. And its all very welcome to see, but it comes after a Northern Hemisphere winter which has at times delivered some extreme, and what is nowadays extremely unusual, cold weather. Not possible, not a chance. Thats ridiculous. February, and more than 30cm of snow fell across parts of Eastern England in the wake of storm darcy. The most significant snow here since 2018s infamous beast from the east. In scotland, the Highland Village of braemar is the joint holder of the uks lowest temperature ever recorded, 27. 2 celsius. In february, it dropped to 23 here. Not a record, but still the uks lowest february temperature since 1955. Spells of extreme cold like this are becoming less frequent. The Uk Met Office says in the 30 year period up to 1990, 1a years recorded a temperature below 20 celsius. Since 1990, its only happened in four years. Severe cold and heavy snow swept across the usa too, and its hard to believe this is texas. This is no longerjust an emergency, its clear that it is a disaster. At one stage, the entire state was under a winter storm warning, and houston suffered its first ever wind chill warning. Dozens of people died, whilst power cuts and Food Shortages affected millions. I barely found bread, so everybody is getting stocked up. The shelves are getting empty. In all, around 20 of observing sites across the usa logged all time record minimum temperatures. But even though the country had its coldest february in more than 30 years, the winter as a whole was still warmer than average. This outbreak of severe cold across parts of North America and europe is linked to a natural phenomenon first discovered in the 1950s Sudden Stratospheric Warming. Up in the stratosphere, way above where our everyday weather happens, very cold air forms above the arctic during the winter months. Strong westerly winds develop as the Temperature Difference between the air here and the equator increases. This is the polar vortex. But sometimes this pattern can break down, the winds can slow, even become easterly, and the air here can warm very rapidly, and the effects of that can then move down through the atmosphere, eventually impacting our weather. What you tend to get is a disruption in the wind pattern in the stratosphere which then filters downwards and can affect the jet stream, particularly in the mid latitudes, and the Wind Directions here can become easterly. So often, we can get winds coming from siberia and the continent. So a famous example from two or three years ago is the beast from the east, as it was known, where very cold winds from siberia came across the continent, picked a bit of moisture off the north sea and created quite a heavy snowfall in the eastern side of the uk. Dr hall says its unclear whether Sudden Stratospheric Warming events and their subsequent cold weather outbreaks will become more or less frequent in the future due to Climate Change. But extreme warmth in the Arctic Region last summer may have played a role in this latest example of it. There were fires in siberia, it was very, very warm in siberia. The sea ice was very low on that side of the arctic ocean. It took a long time to recover, so you had a warm anomaly over there. It is possible that that could be linked with the Sudden Stratospheric Warming, although, you know, the analysis has yet to be done on that. As Global Warming heats the arctic more quickly than at the equator, that could be having an impact on the jet stream. It could, at times weaken, with some Scientists Saying its more likely to wobble or meander, at times, taking cold air unusually far south, but further along its meandering path, take warm air unusually far north. As the usa froze, parts of europe had exceptional warmth, with several countries logging their highest february temperatures on record. But assessing how Weather Patterns that would naturally bring us spells of very cold weather are being affected by Climate Change is far from clear and still very much a work in progress. But no matter how hard the freeze, the thaw will come. Thats something these skaters will remember from now on. The dutch capital, amsterdam, in february, and after the ice broke beneath them, bystanders offer rope, even Hockey Sticks to help them to safety. Many of us noticed during the coronavirus pandemic that with reduced traffic levels, the air became a bit clearer, with less pollution, and indeed, emissions of Carbon Dioxide, a key Greenhouse Gas, did drop. But c02 levels are still rising in the atmosphere, and so far this year, the observatory in hawaii recorded daily levels of over 419ppm, which might not sound like a lot, but that is in fact the highest reading ever recorded. The Uk Met Office suggests that average c02 levels are now reaching 50 higher than they were before humans embarked on the industrial revolution. We have measurements of Carbon Dioxide from Ice Cores Which Go Back 800,000 years. We have a record of how much c02 was in the atmosphere. We can see that we have more than 30 more Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere nowadays than we have had at any time in the previous 800,000 years, which is nearly the entire human history. So we are well, well out of sync with the natural system. And the earths extremes, the poles, are bearing the brunt of the global temperature rise that Scientists Say is largely due to increased concentrations of Greenhouse Gases in our atmosphere. We have Satellite Measurements that go back to 1979, and there is this very, very fast decline in the extent of the sea ice in the arctic. And even now in the antarctic, we are starting to see the effects. We are seeing the west Antarctic Ice sheet areas thin where the ice is losing mass. Its actually being eroded from underneath by the warm ocean currents. So we are now seeing the effects of Climate Change basically in both polar regions. But of course, after that dip during the pandemic, Carbon Emissions are now rising again, as some of the hardest hit parts of the world start to relax restrictions and open up again. And now more than a year in, what more do we know about how the virus may be affected by weather and climate . Thats a question i put to dr rachel lowe from the London School of hygiene and tropical medicines. Well, there have been some studies to suggest some modest associations between temperature and humidity and transmission. A lot of those studies didnt account for confounding factors such as Government Interventions and socioeconomic differences. And the consensus to date is that the transmission has been very much driven by Government Interventions and human behaviour, and so we cant base any decisions about relaxing interventions on climate itself. Dr lowe says the spread of the virus in warm humid weather in brazil is proof that these conditions arent significantly hindering it, and Weather Factors can only become more important when there is better global Vaccine Coverage and immunity, and covid 19 could settle into a seasonal pattern. Now, more of the weather thats been making news recently starting with more snow. And this is Spain Injanuary as the capital, madrid, had its coldest weather in decades with record snowfall measuring more than 50cm. In february, unusually heavy snow hit greece too, blanketing some of athens� famous landmarks. Temperatures in the northwest of the country fell to 19 c. In africa injanuary, flooding in mozambique� s second largest city, beira, hit by cyclone eloise, the second of three consecutive cyclones to impact the country in recent months. Elsewhere in east africa, swarms of locusts are back with fears above average rainfall in late 2020s rainy season has produced good breeding conditions for the insects once again. To the wind now, and the chinese capital, beijing, in march, covered in thick dust in a decade, leading to a spike in Air Pollution with levels in some areas hitting 160 times the recommended limit. Caught in a tornado the terrifying moment these people drive into a storm in alabama in march. They escape 0k as parts of the usa are hit by several rounds of severe storms bringing significant damage and destruction. Oh, my god and could the most expensive gust of wind in history be responsible for this . A Container Ship blown off course and blocking the suez canal in march. 12 of global trade is supposed to pass through here every day. Now to this stunning frozen view from highland scotland injanuary, which was chosen as the bbc Weather Watcher pic of the winter season. To mark the fifth anniversary of Weather Watchers, the bbc in the East Midlands invited viewers to say what being a Weather Watcher means to them. I do like Weather Watchers because its interesting to see other peoples photographs. You wake up in the morning, open the curtains, ive got a camera beside the bed, you take a photograph, you go to the supermarket, you take a photograph on the way. You stop and capture the clouds, the sky. It gives you an excuse to sit down as well,. Take it in. I mean, theres nothing like sitting down in the derbyshire peaksjust looking out over the landscape. Its just really nice i to do, and relaxing. I mean, its obviously emphasis on the weather. The light particularly in Landscape Photography is essential. A good landscape photographl nearly always has a really nice light. Probably some good clouds, maybe even rain. You think, the forecast is good, you know what youre to expect, you know where to go and you go for it. And when youve got that shot, youre just chuffed. And you can sign up to be a Weather Watcher by going to bbc. Co. Uk weatherwatchers. Yes, maybe your photo can be the next pic of the season. Still to come on weather world. Six years on from the historic Paris Climate Accord, we look at whats next as the uk prepares to host a Major International climate conference. 2020 was another hot year, with nasa ranking it as the joint hottest on record along with 2016. And the Uk Met Office calculating it as the second hottest. Either way, all worrying enough in itself, but this heat came despite a Global Weather pattern that usually has a cooling influence. So whats going on . Late 2020 saw the development of la nina in the tropical pacific ocean, a natural Weather Pattern with stronger Easterly Trade Winds bringing cooler than average sea surface temperatures. The opposite to el nino, la nina can have a Cooling Effect across the globe, but it came too late this year to have much of an impact. Since the start of this year, its effects have become much more noticeable, especially here in australia, where in march, Water Cascades off this historic landmark, uluru. A massive deluge gives what the Australian Weather Service describes as phenomenal amounts of rain. Oh, my goodness. In new south wales, the owners of this property should have been celebrating their wedding day. Instead, they watched their home being washed away. Even where they are used to floods at this time of year, they havent seen things so bad. Its very shocking because i havent seen it like this before. In 1990 was the last time i remember having a really big flood. Weve had some where the bridges have gone under before, but not like this. La nina did what it normally does bring cooler, a huge change from the last few hot summers here. Last summer, when smoke j was blanketing entire cities like canberra and sydney, no one could breathe, no one could do anything, but at least this summer. We had that oxygen. So we knew coming out of winter and going into spring that we were going to l have a la nina summer. We didnt know how strong iti would be, we didnt know how strong the impacts would be, but we knew that we would. Have a wetter and coolerl summer, at least relative to the summers weve had over the last 9 10 years. But even though la nina is a natural cooling Weather Pattern, dr Perkins Kirkpatrick says evidence of Climate Change� s warming influence can be found in this too. La ninas were now experiencing are actually a lot warmer than they wouldve been without Climate Change. | and on top of that, mostl of the la ninas that weve experienced are warmer than the hot pattern which is the el nino pattern, and thats the brother to lai nina. So, if we experienced la nina before the industrial revolution, it wouldve beenl a lot colder and perhaps even a lot wetter than what we actually experienced this summer. La nina means 2021 is not predicted to be a record hot year globally, but the Uk Met Office still expects it to be the seventh year in succession where temperatures have exceeded or been close to one Degree Celsius above pre industrial levels. Weather world is now in its seventh year, and this is our 18th programme. And i can count onjust one hand how often we have been filming and its dry, let alone sunny, so this really is a collectors� item. What isnt so rare is how often we say on this programme, a warmer world doesnt necessarily mean a drier one. January, and the uk endures another round of winter flooding. This time, parts of Greater Manchester and cheshire are hardest hit as Storm Christoph sweeps through. My Living Room Floor literally looks like a water bed because the waters gone straight under it. Ive had to turn off all the electricity, all the gas, everything. It was another wetter than average winter in the uk, Scientists Say for every one celsius of warming, the air can hold 7 more moisture. The fact that were increasing moisture also means that moisture is moving more effectively from the regions where its evaporating to the regions where its coming down as rain or snow, so this movement of moisture is actually making the water cycle not only more intense, but also more variable. In the drier regions, the atmosphere is almost becoming more thirsty, because it can hold more water, its more greedy for that water and its sucking it up more effectively, and moving that into a storm system, into monsoons, into the high latitudes where it can fall as heavy rain, so in some senses, the warming of climate because of increasing Greenhouse Gases, is causing very dry events to become more dry as well as making very wet events become more wet. Last october, the uk had its wettest day ever recorded. The Uk Met Office says such a deluge without human induced Climate Change should happen once every 300 years but by the end of this century under a medium Greenhouse Gas emissions scenario, it could happen every 30 years. Later this year, leaders from Around The World will gather here in the uk for the latest United Nations Climate Change summit, cop26. Having been postponed from last year due to the pandemic and with pressure growing to further cut Carbon Emissions to limit Global Warming, it promises to be the most important meeting since the Paris Climate Accord was signed in 2015. Speaks french cheering and applause that Landmark Deal brought a commitment to pursue efforts to limit the global temperature increase to 1. 5 celsius above pre industrial levels. Since then, the usa under donald trump became the first nation to withdraw from that agreement. We dont want other leaders and other countries laughing at us any more. And they wont be. But now, with President Biden in charge, the country has rejoined. And appointed one of its most senior politicians, john kerry, as its climate envoy. Glasgow will be extremely important. In fact, i would say that in myjudgement, it is the last best chance the world has to come together in order to do the things we need to do to avoid the worst consequences of the climate crisis. In the run up to the Glasgow Conference in november, weve asked some delegates from Around The World to give us their thoughts on what they want it to achieve. For us in the caribbean, Climate Change is an existential threat. What it does, it threatens the very survival of people within this region. We are hoping that cop26 will not only be a Cop Of Climate Ambition to reduce Greenhouse Gases, but it will be a cop with greater ambition where there is greater recognition that the Current System of providing Climate Finance to developing countries, particularly in the caribbean, is not working. Africa has only 4 of the worlds emissions but 17 of the worlds population. So in some ways, africa is already net positive in relation to climate emissions, but i think you will see that African Leaders will come with a more nuanced argument. They will emphasise that green recovery, that investing in renewable energy, investing in sustainable, investing in recognising the real value of natural capital, those elements are actually better for growth anyway than fossil fuels. Mexico is one of five mega diverse countries in the world. Last year, the pandemic impacted the world. In a single year, we were able to change a lot of things that we never thought to change in that short time. Maybe we can, at this point, use that experience to really craft some policies| for Climate Change. Pulling together everything on everyone� s wish list to produce realistic achievable policy will be the Glasgow Conferences biggest challenge as the bbc� s environment correspondent, Justin Rowlatt told us. So as you can see, everyone coming to this conference in glasgow in november this year has a slightly different agenda. Think of it like trying to get your family to agree to a programme of action. So the host, the uk government, has come up with a series of key priorities it wants from the conference it would like every country in the world to make a commitment to going net zero by 2050. It wants to up the pace of carbon cuts and would like to see Greenhouse Gas emissions halved by 2030. It also wants countries to say how they are going to adapt to the consequences of Climate Change. And it wants richer countries to come up with £100 billion a year to help poorer countries adapt and make the transition to a lower carbon economy. Now, thats a lot of cash and it is an ambitious agenda, and just like with your family, its very hard to get everyone to agree, but that is the challenge for this conference in glasgow in november this year. Now, lockdown during the pandemic has given some of us a renewed interest in the Natural World around us, perhaps because weve had no choice but to spend more time and less pollution, clear skies permitting, has made it easierfor us to spot notable events in the night sky. Now, last years highlight was in december, the great conjunction, the closest jupiter and saturn have appeared in the night sky in 800 years. So we thought wed have a look at whats coming up this year, and joining me is bbc weather presenter, elizabeth rizzini, who also provides forecasts for the bbc sky at night programme. Lizzie, wow us with all things celestial in 2021. There are some really good conjunctions coming up this year. Conjunctions, of course, vary year on year because everything is moving in space. So it will always appear to look a little bit different. Conjunction, of course, is when two or more celestial objects appear to be close together in the night sky. So look out for, on the morning of the sixth and seventh of Aprilfor Saturn and the thin crescent moon. If thats a bit too early for you, venus becomes an Evening Planet and we will see that in conjunction with mercury and, again, with the moon on the night of the 12th and 13th of may. What about an eclipse . Everyone likes those, any of those coming up this year . Well, were due to see the biggest Solar Eclipse, actually in the uk, since 2015, the most spectacular. It will be a partial Solar Eclipse here, so the shadow of the moon wont completely cover the sun. Towards parts of the arctic, it will be an annular Solar Eclipse, which means ring of fire, as the moons disc wont completely cover the sun. Meteor showers, what are the highlights with those this year . Well, we see the same ones every year, but this year, three of them coincide with the new moon. In october, the draconid and another in november, and most importantly, the very high meteor rate at around 160 metres per hour possible to spot in clear skies and stay away from the city lights, of course. Fingers crossed for conditions like this, obviously, it will need to be dark, but clear, you know what i mean. Lizzie, thank you. And finally, proving that its notjust humans who get excited about snow an acrobatic performance from a giant panda in washington, dc in february. Next up, the olympics. Thats all we have time for for this edition of weather world. You can watch clips from some of our previous programmes at bbc website. Yes, you can watch when we went Whiskey Tasting in scotland. That was a good one. Im sure there is a link to weather and climate in there somewhere. Were back later in the year, but until then, you can never get enough of pandas in the snow. So here are some more. See you next time. Goodbye well, its certainly been cold in the last couple of days. Weve snow, particularly across northern parts of the uk. But heres the good news if you dont like the cold. It is going to feel a lot better on wednesday. We wont have that cold northerly wind. We wont have that windchill, which weve been experiencing for a couple of days now. But the arctic air has spread right across the continent into northern parts of the mediterranean as well, so its quite a widespread outbreak of cold arctic air. Now, through the early hours you can see clear skies across much of the country. Still a few wintry showers there across parts of scotland. But lighter winds, clear skies, a frost as well. Temperatures in some cities down to around 2 or 3 celsius early on wednesday morning. So wednesdays looking Something Like this, lots of bright, Sparkling Sunshine First Thing in the morning. But the clouds will build through the morning and into the afternoon. So actually the second half of the day is looking a little overcast for some of us. And in the north west of the country, later on in the afternoon, and towards the evening, the clouds will thicken further and we are expecting some outbreaks of rain in places like belfast, glasgow, much of the western isles. And thats because a Weather Front is approaching, the winds turning direction, actually milder air is reaching us. And by very early on thursday morning you can see that generally across the country it is frost free almost. Now, that change is brought by area of low pressure which will be tracking into the north of the uk. You can see that slightly milder air brought in by these south westerly winds. So i think on thursday temperatures, at least for a while, will recover to double figures, onlyjust. Perhaps 11 or 12 across parts of england and wales. But with that also comes a Weather Front and outbreaks of rain parts of the north west of the uk. I think the best of the weather will be further south and also south east. Now, as we head into thursday night and friday, that Weather Front will move across, in fact, its a cold front and behind it we once again open up the gates to a cold air stream from the arctic, which could bring wintry showers to Northern Areas of the uk. So, yes, temporarily it is going to turn just a little bit milder through thursday, friday, maybe saturday, but the second half of the weekend it is turning colder again. A very warm welcome to bbc news. My name is mike embley. Our top stories Delicate Diplomacy In Vienna American officials describe the first day of talks on reviving the Iran Nuclear Deal as constructive. Brazil registers more than 4,000 coronavirus deaths in 2a hours its a new record for the country. At the trial of derek chauvin, a Police Trainer tells the court the force used by the former officer against george floyd was excessive. The new voluntary, One Child Policy why so many chinese parents are limiting themselves to a single infant. Translation for me, its i already hard to raise this one. It feels better to put all your energy into one child. And spectacular views of the darker sky at night the impact of less Light Pollution during lockdown