Stories like this are intended to illustrate the probable effects of global warming in a fashion that most people can visualize since most people would be unable to understand the consequences when the data is presented in the form of "a X degree increase in global mean temperature." Heck, even people who do research in climate change would have difficulty visualizing the impact since local variations in temperature across the year is effectively noise that is about two orders of magnitude greater than the signal.
This is an illustration, not proof. If it is being used as a data point in any research, it is one among many.
Fair point. To make the global impact more clear, I would say something like: "Scotland is amongst many locations this year around the world with reduced snow coverage, including X, Y, Z.". That makes a stronger case for global warming in my opinion, and is still understandable locally.
This is an illustration, not proof. If it is being used as a data point in any research, it is one among many.