Met Office issues 40C weather warning for UK

Experts have said extreme heat and temperatures of more than 40C are becoming increasingly likely in the UK due to climate change as the Met Office prepares to publish its annual report.

The weather agency will release its State of the UK Climate report for 2022, which saw recorded temperatures of over 40C for the first time as well as numerous wildfires and a record number of heat-related deaths.

It comes as extreme heat sweeps across Europe, North America, North Africa and Asia just a year later, while June 2023 was the world’s hottest month on record.

Climate experts have warned that the 40C heat seen last year would not be possible without climate change and that Britain is underprepared for increasingly likely extreme weather events.

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Oli Claydon, from the Met Office, said the 40C milestone is still viewed as an “extreme weather event” but it is going to be increasingly more likely in the UK as the years go on.

“It is evident that the climate is possible to reach 40C in the UK now, as we saw in a number of stations in July last year,” he said.

“The likelihood of exceeding it going forward somewhere in the UK in a given year is now increasing due to human-induced climate change,” Mr Claydon added.

“So as well as the need to mitigate against future climate change by reducing emissions of greenhouse gases, we’re already experiencing the impacts of climate change now, so there’s already a need to adapt to the types of weather extremes that we can see in the UK.”

Dr Candice Howarth, of the London School of Economics Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, said 2022 was “very significant” for the UK