Comment For two weeks, computer models have teased the possibility that Britain could reach 40C (104C) this week, a level not surpassed since at least 1850 — and possibly more than 6,000 years. Meteorologists viewed these model predictions with disbelief, skeptical that such predictions would come true. Six days ago, the UK Met Office put the chances of reaching 40 degrees Celsius at just 10%. But the seemingly improbable The model’s predictions turned out to be correct. London Heathrow was among six locations in the UK to exceed 40C on Tuesday, breaking Britain’s all-time temperature record. This is the latest example of how human-induced climate change is pushing temperatures to levels previously thought unfathomable — faster than many can imagine. Britain sees hottest day on record In 2020, the Met Office issued forecasts suggesting the type of heat seen in Britain on Tuesday could occur somewhat regularly by 2050. But seeing it happen in 2022 struck scientists as both premature and an ominous preview of what will come next. “I didn’t expect to see this in my career,” Stephen Belcher, head of science and technology at the Met Office, said in an online video. In 2020, the @metoffice presented a hypothetical weather forecast for 23 July 2050 based on UK climate forecasts. Today, the forecast for Tuesday is shockingly nearly identical for large areas of the country. pic.twitter.com/U5hQhZwoTi — Dr Simon Lee (@SimonLeeWx) July 15, 2022 Belcher warned that unless greenhouse gas emissions are curbed, UK temperatures could eventually rise by that much every three years. Another factor that surprised scientists: It wasn’t just that Britain’s temperature record was eclipsed, it was beaten by 1.6 degrees Celsius (2.9 degrees Fahrenheit). The previous mark was 38.7 degrees Celsius in Cambridge two summers ago. “For meteorologists, breaking records by 2 or 3 degrees is a staggering thought when historical records have only been broken by fractions of a degree,” said Simon King, meteorologist for the BBC. The Met Office said at least 34 locations in the country broke the previous national record. The number of record high temperatures set in the UK on Tuesday, for both overnight highs and lows, and the extent to which they were broken are reminiscent of the heat wave in the Pacific Northwest last year. The UK has broken virtually every temperature record set to be broken by significant margins in the last 24 hours. An amazing and extremely dangerous heat wave by any measure — and eerily similar to the incredible Pacific Northwest event of June 2021. #ClimateChange pic.twitter.com/az4y7lmKuH — Daniel Swain (@Weather_West) July 19, 2022 This heat wave set record high temperatures by huge margins in Seattle and Portland, reaching 108 and 116 degrees. Lytton, a village in British Columbia, broke the previous Canadian heat record of 113 degrees in three consecutive days, reaching 121 degrees on June 29. ‘Hard to understand’: Experts react to Canada’s record 121 degrees Scientists with the World Weather Attribution Project found that climate change had made the Pacific Northwest heat wave at least 150 times more likely. Forecasters also marveled at how much northern temperatures soared in this week’s European heatwave. London is further north than any location in the Lower 48 states and is located at a latitude just north of Calgary. Its high of 104 was hotter than Houston and Miami. How abnormal is Europe’s record-breaking heat wave? Check out this map. @weather channel London’s latitude is 10° north of Chicago. London hit a preliminary high of 104.4°F (40.2°C)🌡️ at Heathrow Airport today, obliterating the previous record of 101.7°F set in 2019. pic.twitter.com/6LVwbhTsJY — Scot Pilié (@ScotPilie_Wx) July 19, 2022 Corinne Le Quéré, professor of climate research at the University of East Anglia, said the high temperatures seen in the UK it shouldn’t be that shocking. “We should not be surprised at the extreme temperatures we are experiencing in the UK this week,” he said in an email. “The rise in extreme temperatures is a direct consequence of climate change caused by human emissions of greenhouse gases. Temperature records will continue to be more and more extreme in the future.” But other scientists said the magnitude of these heat waves could force people to reassess what climate change-induced weather might bring. “I believe it is possible that as a society we have severely underestimated the risks and potential consequences of extreme heat events in populated/temperate regions where extreme heat has historically been rare,” tweeted Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at UCLA. “And #ClimateChange raises the stakes.” “The models, if anything, underestimate the potential for future increases in various types of extremes [summer weather] events,” Michael Mann, a professor at Penn State, told the Guardian. Kasha Patel contributed to this report.
