This week, for the first time, temperatures in the UK exceeded 40°C. Scientists and meteorologists have been absolutely clear for years that the increasing severity of temperatures in the UK is because of climate change. And with the Met Office issuing the first ever red extreme heat warning it is becoming increasingly hard to deny that humans' impact on the planet is causing it to get warmer.
In Wales Monday set a new record for the highest temperature ever seen here with the mercury reaching 37.1C in Hawarden in Flintshire. That update marked the second time in the day the record had been beaten. Earlier the Met Office said a temperature of 35.3C had provisionally been reached in Gogerddan, near Aberystwyth. Temperatures had not been this high in Wales since August 1990.
But how do these high temperatures really prove that climate change is happening? After all we have seen hot temperatures before – let's not forget the infamous heatwave of 1976. But a key point that is continually missed in the discourse around heatwaves and climate change is how the latter will mean the former becomes far, far more common.
