Statistics from the UK’s Met Office suggest that this year’s summer will most likely be the hottest on record, moving summer 2018 into second place.
“Provisional Met Office statistics show that summer 2025 will almost certainly be the warmest summer on record,” said Met Office scientist Emily Carlisle.
“At present, mean temperature is tracking at 16.13°C. The current record is 15.76°C, set in 2018. So, unless temperatures are around 4°C below average for the rest of August – which the forecast does not suggest – it looks like the current record will be exceeded.
“This would move 1976 out of the top five warmest summers since 1884, leaving all five warmest summers having occurred since the year 2000.
“Of course, there are still a few days left of meteorological summer to go, but it’s very unlikely anything will stop summer 2025 from being the warmest on record.”
The months of June and July posted above average temperatures – the UK experienced its hottest June ever this year, and its fifth warmest July, as four heatwaves occurred across the summer period.
In related news, heatwaves in Africa are “hotter, longer and more frequent”, according to new research from the University of Illinois Chicago, which attributes these changes to “increased greenhouse gas and black carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels”. Read the full story