Riviera Britain
Temperatures ‘will soar 5C in 50 years due to climate change’
BRITAIN could bake in regular 40C (104F) heatwaves as a result of global warming, the Met Office warned in a major report yesterday.
By 2070, average summer temperatures could reach 24C (75F) – an increase of 5.4C on today.
This is similar to conditions in the south of France and other parts of the Mediterranean, with hot UK summers like this year’s becoming the norm.
The climate will be drier too – with half as much rainfall in summer as now within 50 years, although winters could be around 35 per cent wetter.
There are fears such extremes would lead to increased flooding in winter as well as arid heat and droughts in summer.
The forecasts are made in the Met Office’s UK Climate Projections 2018 (UKCP18) report, which is the biggest update to how climate change could affect Britain in almost a decade. They would only happen, the study said, if the world continues to increase carbon emissions rather than reduce them, which is most countries’ policy.
The record UK temperature is 38.5C (101F), set in 2003 near Faversham in Kent.
But Professor Jason Lowe of the Met Office warned: ‘As we go through the century, we expect from UKCP18 to see increasing numbers of summer days in the South of England above 40C. This is a temperature we have not yet experienced in the UK.’
Winters will be around 4.2C warmer while sea levels will rise around one metre higher (3.2ft) if the effects of global warming cannot be prevented.
Summers as hot as this year’s – the joint warmest on record – could become common, with a 50 per cent chance of occurring every year. This is up from a 5 to 10 per cent chance now.
Sea levels affecting London, where the Thames Barrier is expected to be in use until 2070, could rise by up to 3.7ft by 2100 if emissions continue to climb, with similar rises in Cardiff.
Belfast and Edinburgh will see increases of around 3ft under the worst-case scenario.
Even if emissions are cut – in line with the Paris climate agreement to keep temperature rises to well below 2C – the UK‘s average yearly temperatures would be 2.3C hotter.
Last month the UK’s Committee on Climate Change warned that by 2080 up to 1.2million homes may be at increased risk of flooding.
Environment Secretary Michael Gove said yesterday: ‘Climate change [in the UK] will manifest itself most acutely when it comes to water – the intense rainfall of the winter, the arid heat of the summer and rising sea levels will be how we experience climate change most immediately.’
He said officials were already factoring projected sea level rises into planning for flooding, while new reservoirs would be built to tackle drought.
Mr Gove said farmers should be paid to tackle climate change and boost productivity, from planting cover crops to protect soil to planting trees on agricultural land, while there will be measures to curb fertiliser emissions. He added that there would be strategies to repair peatland, protect and create woodlands, and cut food waste.
But green campaigners accused the Government of not going far enough. The report noted that 2008-2017 was on average 0.3C warmer than 19812010. The top ten warmest years have all occurred since 1990.
‘More days above 40C’