Climate change: Met Office warns record-breaking summer of 2022 was ‘a sign of things to come’ for the UK

Last year’s scorching summer which saw the UK hit 40C for the first time in recorded history is "a sign of things to come" unless greenhouse gas emissions are controlled, scientists warn.

The Met Office has released a new State of the UK Climate report for 2022, detailing how the UK fared in its hottest year since records began in 1659 - and what the year 2100 will hold for Britons on our current emissions trajectory.

The report warned that temperatures rising beyond 40C, heatwaves, wildfires, summer droughts, heavy rains, flooding, and rising sea levels will all increase in frequency and severity, with 2022 seeming like a cool year compared with what it will be in 2100 if nothing changes.

Mike Kendon, climate scientist at the Met Office and lead author of its new report, told PA that when the mercury hit 40.3C in Coningsby, Lincolnshire, on 19 July last year, it was “a real moment of climate history”.

But he said on the UK's current emissions trajectory, 2022 would be considered a cool year by 2100's standards.

"This was a rare event in the context of the current climate but our extremes of temperature are changing faster than our mean temperature, and we know that climate change increases the frequency, duration and spatial extent of heatwaves."

Professor Liz Bentley, chief executive of the Royal Meteorological Society, said: “If you look at future climate projections, we are on a path to go for hotter, drier summers.

“So 2022 for me was very much a sign of things to come in future years with our changing climate.”

The Met Office report, which tracks the progress of the UK’s changing climate each year, noted that temperatures are rising above 36C more often than in the past.

Between 1961-1990 the highest temperature recorded was 31.3C, between 1991-2020 it was 33.5C, and between 2013-2022 it was 35.7C. Then in 2022, it hit 40.3C.

While summers were generally getting hotter and drier, the report said the UK was getting wetter too, with five of the 10 wettest years since 1836 taking place since the year 2000. The UK's wettest February, April, June, November and December on record have all taken place since 2009.

Data from a citizen science project called Nature’s Calendar was also included to track how plants and animals are responding to the changing seasons. Woodland Trust research scientist Fritha West said 2022 had a mild February and a warm October, which meant an early spring and a late autumn.

Leaves stayed on the autumn trees for 16 days longer than the 1999-2021 average, and many flowers started blooming and insects started emerging from hibernation days earlier than usual in the spring.

This comes as the UK government has started watering down its green policies after a narrow loss by Labour in the Uxbridge by-election was purported to have been caused by London's controversial ULEZ expansion - an environmental initiative.

Policies believed to be in the firing line included the ban on new petrol and diesel cars, energy efficiency targets for landlords, phasing out gas boilers, and low traffic neighbourhoods.

On Wednesday, the government also delayed new rules to ensure packaging producers paid for the cost of recycling their packaging will be deferred a year, from October 2024 to 2025