Met Office forecasts show the record breaking heatwave in the South West and Channel Islands has come to an end – but climate experts warn that periods of high temperature will continue to become more frequent, intense and prolonged.
Jersey and Guernsey both recorded their hottest days on record on Thursday reaching 39.3C (102.7F) and 36.4C (97.5F), while on Wednesday temperatures rose to 34C (93.2F) in Cornwall and 35C (95F) in Devon as both counties broke previous records for June.
Temperatures are expected to be lower on Thursday but a Met Office yellow warning for thunderstorms is still in place for parts of Devon and a red warning for temperatures reaching as high as 38C (100.4F) covers the South East and London.
Dr Helen Millman from the University of Exeter’s Global Systems Institute said the temperature would continue to get “hotter and hotter”, adding “we’ll look back on this in decades to come and think, that heat wave wasn’t actually too bad”.
Millman said people referred to heatwaves as the “new normal” but warned they were not going to remain as they were and “heatwaves will just keep on getting hotter”.
“It’s exactly what we would expect to see in our warming climate,” she said.
“It’s just going to get hotter and hotter until we stop adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.
“We really do need to think about cutting our emissions as rapidly as possible.”
