The Weather Outlook

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saxtemp
03 August 2026 19:58:18
When considering this concept, it's not simply a case of taking every temperature and reducing it by 1.5c, but what would 2026 have looked like without climate change? I believe that a year like this is such an outlier, that we won't see it repeated for decades, even as climate change increases, in the same way 1976 was unique and not surpassed by any measure for decades despite having ocured during a time of less anthropogenic climate change than in later years.

If we did just take 1.5c off, then we'd have had 32c occured in 4 consecutive months. a June peak of 36.5c (above the exceptional 1976 with it's partial climate change effect) and a May peak of 33.6c.

Of course the butterfly effect of meteorology means that without climate change this would not have happened at all, but is this a theoretical maximum year on it's own, combined with climate change to make it even more extreme?

Gandalf The White
03 August 2026 20:14:49

When considering this concept, it's not simply a case of taking every temperature and reducing it by 1.5c, but what would 2026 have looked like without climate change? I believe that a year like this is such an outlier, that we won't see it repeated for decades, even as climate change increases, in the same way 1976 was unique and not surpassed by any measure for decades despite having ocured during a time of less anthropogenic climate change than in later years.

If we did just take 1.5c off, then we'd have had 32c occured in 4 consecutive months. a June peak of 36.5c (above the exceptional 1976 with it's partial climate change effect) and a May peak of 33.6c.

Of course the butterfly effect of meteorology means that without climate change this would not have happened at all, but is this a theoretical maximum year on it's own, combined with climate change to make it even more extreme?

Originally Posted by: saxtemp 

The UK has warmed by 1.3c in the last 50 years, and nearer 2c since pre-industrial times.

As for not seeing this summer repeated for several decades, I’m not sure that’s correct.  With a likely record breaking El Niño building now 2027 is likely to be a new record warm year globally and NW Europe is unlikely to avoid the impacts.

If you look at what’s happening around the world we seem to have succeeded in destabilising the global climate.

Location: South Cambridgeshire

130 metres ASL

52.0N 0.1E



+1
lanky
03 August 2026 20:22:26
Europe including at least the southern half of the UK has warmed much more than the global average.

I posted an analysis a few weeks ago and IIRC summer max's in London have increased by about 3 to 3.5C in the last 60-70 years as a linear trend

Martin

Richmond, Surrey

TimS
  • TimS
  • Advanced Member
03 August 2026 20:32:13
The interesting question for me is about rainfall, and whether this summer has been drier as a result of positive feedbacks.

Overall summer rainfall hasn’t shown a meaningful long term trend up or down, although projections do suggest it should reduce in summer by the 2050s. 

But has the extra heat, with more rapid desiccation of soils and green surfaces than under the same Synoptics pre-warming, led to lower rainfall? And less cloud. The physics would suggest it should, so long as the atmosphere is summery ie quasi-barotropic, rather than baroclinic.

Brockley, South East London 30m asl
picturesareme
03 August 2026 21:45:54

Europe including at least the southern half of the UK has warmed much more than the global average.

I posted an analysis a few weeks ago and IIRC summer max's in London have increased by about 3 to 3.5C in the last 60-70 years as a linear trend

Originally Posted by: lanky 

And i also posted about a study done in part with the met office regarding this. It's linked with the cleaner air since.

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