This heatwave and the high temperatures across most of Western Europe have the “fingerprints of climate change all over it”, according to a climate science expert.
Earlier, The Met Office provisionally recorded 35C at both Heathrow and Kew Gardens in London, breaking the hottest May day for the second day in a row.
That has since crept up to 35.1C in Kew.
France has also seen record-breaking heat, with 36C reached in the country’s southwest yesterday.
Friederike Otto, a climate science professor at Imperial College London, said the “temperatures on this scale were once exceptional even at the height of summer”.
It is “absolutely astonishing” to see temperatures reach 35C, he added.
“The science is very clear – climate change makes these heatwaves hotter, longer and far more frequent,” he added.
“The climate we are living in today is simply not the one we grew up with and our buildings and infrastructure are woefully unprepared for what’s next.”
Danger for vulnerable Britons
Dr Garyfallos Konstantinoudis, a lecturer on climate change at the Grantham Institute and Imperial College, warned that the hot weather is “quite simply dangerous and potentially fatal” for vulnerable people, with estimates of 250 additional deaths during the heatwave in England and Wales.
“Early-season heatwaves are especially hazardous because our bodies have not had time to acclimatise,” he said.
“Analysis we conducted across 854 European cities last summer… revealed that heat caused thousands of preventable deaths, with two-thirds of those fatalities driven directly by the additional heat from climate change.”
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