UK should expect summers over 40 ° C in the next decade warns

The United Kingdom should urgently prepare for summer temples of over 40 ° C (104 ° F), according to Met Office, is the country’s National Weather Service, which warns the likelihood of extremely high summer temples rapidly as the climate warms.

Temperatures in Lincolnshire, in the eastern part of the UK, hit a record 40.3 ° C (104.5 ° F) in July 2022, the highest level ever registered in the country. The heat wave was made at least 10 times more likely by climate change, researchers said at the time.

Now, scientists warn that such extreme will not be an isolated event. The team, led by Gillian Kay on Met Office, used a climate model to simulate more than 2500 UK Summers to assess the kinds of extremes that are possible under 2023 climatic conditions.

The results show that there is a 50 percent probability of temperatures above 40 ° C that occur in the next 12 years, with southern and eastern England most vulnerable to heat extremes. The risk of such extreme heat has risen rapidly in recent decades, which increases six times from the 1980s and almost stumbled sales 2000, research shows.

Meanwhile, temperatures above 42 ° C (107.6 ° F) have a probability of 1 percent of occurring in a given year and the maximum possible temperature that Britain could see under the current climate conditions is 46.6 ° C (115.9 ° F) – though this top would kay.

The simulations also give meteorologists a sense of the weather conditions needed to produce extreme heat in the UK. The most likely scenario is a sustained heat wave that settles over Europe, where the hot air moves across Britain’s south and east coasts. This week, Met Office warned a fresh heat wave that had penetrated the United Kingdom, triggered by intense heat over the European continent.

Heat waves have become more persistent as the climate is heated. The hot summer of 1976 experienced that day temperatures remain above 28 ° C (82.4 ° F) for two weeks – under today’s climate, such conditions can persist for well over a month, the new research shows. Simulations show that three or oven consecutive temperatures in temperatures Aboben 40 ° C are also possible in all conditions.

“Temperatures several degrees above the 40 ° C that we saw in July 2022 are possible and we need to prepare for them,” Kay says, striking that the climate is warming, such temperatures are increasingly likely. During the Heat Wave in July 2022, Britain fought to handle even a short burst of heat above 40 ° C. More than 1200 excess deaths were recorded, railway transport was disturbed, schools were closed and ill fires swept through the landscape.

Kay urged the public authorities-unparallel those responsible for public health to “stress test” their systems to ensure that they can adequately cope with such extreme temperatures. “The MET office and other similar organizations have said for a long time now that with climate change we should expect more intense and more frequent heat waves,” she says. “That’s exactly what we see in the study.”

Extended heat waves are dangerous. Not only straps the environmental ecosystems – drying of soil, withered plants, emphasizes wildlife – but they also emphasize the human body, especially if both daytime and night temperatures remain high for a long period of time. Long -heating heat waves increase the risk of death significantly as a result of cardiac arrest and stroke. The risk is highest in regions where persistent hot weather is unusual, such as in the UK, as home rarely has air conditioning.