• Question: why is it so cold i great britain

    Asked by smell10 to Austin, Kirsty, Nicola, Nike, Sarah on 14 Jun 2012.
    • Photo: Austin Elliott

      Austin Elliott answered on 14 Jun 2012:

      Well, the farther you get from the Equator, where the sun is strongest, the colder it is, in general.

      In fact, given how far North the UK is, it should probably be colder, certainly in the WInter – we’re on a latitude with places like Calgary and Edmonton in Canada, which have terrible Winters with feet of snow for months. But we’re ‘maritime’ – by the sea – so we have what they call a ‘mild temperate maritime climate’ – warmer than you’d expect in Winter, but also not as hot as you’d expect in Summer, and generally damp!. If you’re part of a big land mass (N America, middle of Europe) you get a climate with more extremes, colder winters, hotter summers. So in a way, the not-very-good Summers in the UK are the trade-off for the not-very-cold Winters.

    • Photo: Kirsty Ross

      Kirsty Ross answered on 19 Jun 2012:

      We would actually be a lot colder if it wasn’t for the Gulf stream. The Gulf stream is a warm current of water in the Atlantic that draws warm water from the Caribbean in the direction of the UK. It warms the air above and insulates us from the worst of the cold weather. If we didn’t have it we would have more similar weather to parts of Europe that are on a similar latitude.

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