The UK is at risk of summer temperatures exceeding 40 ° C even if global warming remains limited to 1.5 ° C, meteorologists warned Thursday.
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This threshold corresponds to the most ambitious objective set by the Paris agreement to limit global warming compared to the industrial era, which the British presidency of the COP26, scheduled for November in Glasgow, hopes to keep "
alive
" .
According to many scientists, it is now largely out of reach.
On the occasion of the publication on Thursday of the UK climate report for the year 2020, the Executive Director of the Royal Meteorological Society, Liz Bentley, stressed that "
if we add another 0.3 ° C
", these waves of heat "
will become more and more intense - we will probably see 40 ° C in the UK although we have never experienced such temperatures
".
The highest temperature on record in the UK is 38.7 ° C, recorded on July 25, 2019 in Cambridge.
"
By reaching 1.5 ° C of global warming, it will not only be something that we will see once or twice,
" but "
something that we will see on a regular basis,
" she added.
Mike Kendon, the author of the report, judged on the BBC that 40 ° C in summer in the UK is "
plausible
", pointing out that global warming is already manifesting in the UK as in the rest of the world.
According to the report, the year 2020 is the third warmest, the fifth wettest, the eighth sunniest and the first to pass in the top 10 of these three criteria.
