“THERE should be huge investment to cope.”

That is the verdict from an Oxford climate expert who said the UK needs to invest more money to prepare for a string of bitter winters.

Dr Patrick McSharry, of the University of Oxford’s Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, said data indicated Britain may face several extreme winters, risking an annual repeat of this week’s chaos.

It came after the Oxford Mail reported Saturday’s snow may have cost business £10m.

Dr McSharry, who heads the institute’s Catastrophe Risk Financing centre, said the Government must learn lessons from the mayhem.

He said: “Even if it is difficult to forecast, if the downside of a cold winter is hugh enough, there should be investment to cope.

“In terms of operational planning, questions need to be asked.

“Britain’s GDP per day is about £4.5bn, and if 20 per cent of the workforce cannot get to work, there is a direct loss to the economy of about £1bn a day. It is a very substantial amount of money.”

He said flexible working arrangements and better information for travellers would be cheap ways of improving resilience.

The snow across Britain has been caused by an area of low pressure over Iceland and high pressure in the Azores.

Dr McSharry, from Summertown, said when a similar pattern occurred in the 1960s, a string of cold winters followed.

He said: “There is definitely a chance we may have a number of years of extremely cold winters.”

But climate change scientists warned it was impossible to accurately predict how weather conditions would change.

Myles Allen, who heads Oxford University’s Climate Dynamics Group, said: “People have looked for explanations of weather ever since biblical times, and we just have to accept that an awful lot of this type of weather is just down to luck.

“We should not always expect there to be an explanation.

He added: “We had winters much more severe in the 1960s, and if we go further back to the 17th century, this kind of weather was probably routine. It is interesting everyone is so surprised at the moment. Maybe we have forgotten what winters are like!”