The UK has recorded its hottest summer on record, according to the national meteorological service. The season, marked by successive heatwaves, record temperatures, low rainfall, wildfires, and water restrictions, surpassed last year's record, reports infohub.kz.
Provisional data from the Met Office, which has been keeping records since 1884, shows the mean average temperature reached 16.5 degrees Celsius (61.7 degrees Fahrenheit), exceeding last year's 16.1 degrees (61 degrees Fahrenheit). Last year's record had itself broken the 15.7 degrees (60.2 degrees Fahrenheit) set in 2018.
Amy Doherty, head of the National Climate Information Center, said such records are now being broken with increasing frequency, reflecting the influence of human-induced climate change. She particularly noted how much this summer's mean temperature surpassed the previous record set just last year. All of the five hottest summers have occurred since 2003.
The Met Office calculated that human-caused climate change has made such a hot summer 130 times more likely. Without human greenhouse gas emissions, a summer this hot would occur once in a millennium, but is now expected once every nine years.
Minister of Climate Transition Katie White called the situation "a brutal reminder" that we are not waiting for climate change to arrive in Britain; we are living in the middle of it. She highlighted that children too hot to sleep, families worrying about older relatives, farmers watching fields dry out, and firefighters and armed forces battling wildfires have all woken up to a reality none of us wants for the people and places we love.
Heatwaves began in late May and recurred each month of the summer, with two in July. The UK Health Security Agency estimated that 2,877 deaths in England were associated with May and June heatwaves. A peak temperature of 38 degrees Celsius (100.4 degrees Fahrenheit) in Norfolk on June 26 set a record for that month, while the mercury climbed to 38.1 degrees (100.6 degrees Fahrenheit) in London on August 13, the hottest day of the year. England, Wales, and Northern Ireland all set records for mean summer temperatures, while Scotland, which was cooler and less dry, tied its sixth warmest summer. All of Wales and most of England remain in drought conditions.