UK climate warming accelerates, Met Office report finds

The United Kingdom is experiencing a fundamental and accelerating shift in its climate, with extreme heat once considered exceptional now becoming commonplace, according to a major scientific report published on July 15, 2026. The annual State of the UK Climate report, led by the Met Office, confirms that 2025 was the nation's warmest year since records began in 1884, marking the sixth time the annual temperature record has been broken this century.

The report finds the last four years-2025, 2024, 2023, and 2022-all rank among the UK's top five warmest on record. The most recent decade was 1.33 degrees Celsius warmer than the 1961-1990 average. Scientists state that human-caused climate change, driven primarily by burning fossil fuels, is the dominant force behind this trend, which shows no sign of abating. Mike Kendon, lead author of the report, said the evidence shows the climate of the 20th century has now gone and that the UK is living in a time of historic and unprecedented change.

Regional impacts are stark. In parts of southeast England, the average hottest day of the year is now more than 4.5 degrees Celsius warmer than it was during the 1961-1990 period. In Greater...