Don’t you just love that: “89%”? Gives it that touch of pseudo-scientific accuracy and certainty.
This one comes from The Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research, which is part of the UK Met Office, and is dated 2003. The Hadley Centre had produced a report for the British-Irish council which found that
“average snowfall could decrease by up to 89%”
This gave Dr Richard Dixon, Head of Policy for WWF Scotland an opportunity to speculate that:
“It even begins to answer the question of whether life itself will be tenable in the Scottish Islands in 100 years time.”
Quite why the absence of snow and a rise in temperature of between 1.8 and 2.2 degrees would make Scotland’s highlands and islands less habitable rather than more is not quite clear. Perhaps he was concerned that the “highlands” might be flooded.