It is very helpful of Thomas Driver to explain how, despite global warming, we in the UK experienced an exceptionally cold winter (Cooling the Stream, Letters, May 24).

However, he could also have said that assuming a cold winter meant global warming wasn’t happening was mistaken for two basic reasons. The first is that global warming does what it says on the tin. It involves the warming of the planet, and hence to focus on what is happening on our little island instead of the world as a whole is a mistake.

The second mistake is to assume we humans can experience global warming at all, for only the earth itself is in a position to do that. What we experience are its consequences, which is climate change. Even then, strictly speaking, we do not even experience that, but only the disruption to normal weather patterns this in turn creates.

The extraordinary cold spell we experienced in the UK this winter, just like the unprecedented “biblical deluge” that struck Cumbria in November, is neither an example of global warming nor evidence of its non-occurrence, but rather of what progressive global warming leads to, which is significant, and worrying, changes to our weather.

Colin Campbell, Fulford Park, Fulford, York.