SOAPBOX | PET GAZETTE | 15
THE IMPACT OF EXTREME
WEATHER ON PONDS
By Dave Hulse, technical consultant at Tetra
T
he Met Office recently
revealed that the UK is
experiencing hotter days
and more “tropical nights”.
This is in addition to the
country being exposed to more weather
extremes over the last 10 years than
previous decades.
With this in mind, it’s safe to say that
extreme summers and winters are
becoming increasingly challenging for
pondkeepers. Dave Hulse, technical
consultant at Tetra UK offers advice for
fish keepers on how to cope with severe
seasonal weather conditions.
The summer of 2018 was a real scorcher.
According to the Met Office, it was the joint
hottest on record, shared with the infamous
summer of 1976. However, we should
not confuse this extreme ‘weather’, (short
term temperature, pressure, precipitation
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conditions), with ‘climate’ – the average of
these values over a long period of time.
There is no doubt that the climate of the
UK is shifting. The Met Office reports that the
Central England Temperature has risen by
about a degree Celsius since 1980, with 2006
being the warmest year on record.
HOW DOES POND WATER
REACT TO EXTREME SEASONAL
WEATHER CHANGES?
With the prevalence of warmer summers
on the rise, pondkeepers should consider
the impact of this on their garden pond.
Interestingly, a considerable amount of heat
is required to raise the temperature of liquid
water. In fact, the amount of energy required
to increase the temperature of one gram of
a substance by one degree Celsius is called
the ‘specific heat capacity’, and water has
the highest specific heat capacity of any
June 2019