Introduction

In 1952 Gordon Manley's Climate and the British Scene was published and was followed in 1976 by Chandler and Gregory's The Climate of the British Isles. Both are still valuable texts but twenty years have elapsed since the latter's publication and in that time much has happened to sharpen our climatic awareness and curiosity. The aim of this book is to provide an up-to-date analysis of the climate of the British Isles in a regional format. It has in the past been customary to approach the topic thematically by analysing the geographical variation of each climatic element in turn. Yet climate and weather are not a disaggregated set of components and are experienced as a combination whose character is something more than the sum of its parts. Even Chandler and Gregory's essentially systematic approach concludes with a chapter on regional climates which includes the following observation: ‘it is this set of complex interactions that produces what we understand and appreciate as the overall climate of any particular area, and to which we as individuals respond in our daily lives’ (Chandler and Gregory 1976). Gordon Manley (1952) similarly observed, ‘climate is however apprehended as a whole and through several senses. Let the reader therefore recall not merely the meteorological situation, but all the feelings and associations of the landscapes at various seasons.’ The regional framework adopted here provides a fuller acknowledgement of this gestalt quality and allows us to examine and to interpret climate as it is experienced in different parts of Britain and Ireland. This regional approach provides also an opportunity to illustrate how the changing character of climate may be experienced across the British Isles.