'This is our future,' climate adviser warns as 2025 to break heat records

Temperatures in the UK will reach the new normal, a leading government climate advisor has warned, as more work to be done to brace for climate change's impacts will be done. It comes as the Met Office announced that 2025 would be the UK's hottest year since records were established, with climate change continuing to fuel higher temperatures. With just over a week to go, the average UK air temperature across 2025 is expected to reach around 10. 05C, which would beat the new record of 10. 03C from 2022. This is our future, encapsulated in data, Professor Rachel Kyte told the BBC, "This will be our future.

Now the question is, 'how can we prepare ourselves and strengthen our resilience to this?

Understanding humidity and persistent heat made the country vulnerable to droughts and wildfires throughout the spring and summer. Although temperatures vary year to year, scientists may not be certain that human-caused climate change is fueling the UK's rapid warming trend.

The pollution [carbon dioxide] we've been putting in for the past 20-30 years is now what's causing this warmth,

Prof Kyte, the UK's special representative for climate, said. According to her, the UK must become resilient to the fact that higher temperatures are a possibility, which requires further investment in nature and infrastructure.

If we don't invest in our adaptation now, it's going to cost us way more,

she warned. In measurements dating back to the late 1800s, the UK's ten warmest years on record would all have occurred in the last two decades by the end of 2025.

Anthropogenic [human-caused] climate change is causing the rising in the UK as a result of global change,

Amy Doherty, a Met Office climate scientist, said.

What we've seen in the last 40 years, and what we're going to see in the future are more records broken, and the hot years [.

What was normal ten years ago, 20 years ago,she told BBC News,relatively] cool in the future. The Met Office's forecast uses recorded temperatures up to 21 December and assumes that the remaining days of the year are 2C below the long-term average, with marginally cooler temperatures expected over Christmas. So although the Met Office cannot guarantee that 2025 will be the hottest year in the world, it is still the most likely result. Following 2002, 2003, 2006, 2014, and 2022, it will be the sixth time the UK has set a new annual temperature record in this century.

The changes we're seeing are unprecedented in observational data dating back to the 19th century,

Mike Kendon, another climate scientist at the Met Office, said.

On persistent heat, the expected new record of 2025 has been set both spring and summer. As we approach Christmas, those long, hot, sunny days may seem like a distant memory, but bothspringandsummerwere are the UK's hottest ever recorded. Each month from March to August, more than two cents above the long-term average of 1961 to 1990. Temperatures peaked at 35. 8C is well below the highs of more than 40C seen in July 2022, but hot spells have occurred on a daily basis. Heatwaves had been identified throughout much of the region, with four separate - although brief-lived - heatwaves. Several heat-health warnings were also released by the UK Health and Security Agency through the summer. Longer days and nights, according to Mr Kendon, pose an elevated risk to elderly and vulnerable people. He told the Today show that it would also have an effect on the agriculture industry, influencing which crops farmers are able to grow in the United Kingdom.

Low rainfall hit spring and summer. The spring was particularly dry, with the UK's sixth driest since 1836. This lack of rain, combined with the hot weather that helped to dry out the soils, has pushed major areas of the region into drought. The Environment Agency and Natural Resources Wales respectively published official droughts across England and Wales during the summer. According to the Scottish Environment Protection Agency, portions of eastern Scotland also suffered from "serious water scarcity.

Recent rainfall has improved the situation in a large area of the country, and most areas are no longer in official drought. In some regions, however, water levels are still below average.

There's a massive deficit to be made up, and there's no reason just for people who are raising food [and] growing food, but also our rivers, our aquifers, and our availability of drinking water,

Jess Neumann, associate professor of hydrology at the University of Reading. Communities were finding it difficult for communities to adjust to increasing weather extremes as a result of repeated swings of drought and flood, she said. Wildfires were also favored in the long dry, warm weather. According to data from the Global Wildfires Information System, the area of the UK that was impacted by wildfires had already hit a new annual record by late April. More than 47,100 hectares (471 sq km or 182 sq miles) have been burned in 2025, destroying the previous high of 28,100 acres of 2019. Firefighters in his area had responded to more than 1,000 wildfires this year, according to Andy Cole, chief fire officer at Dorset & Wiltshire Fire and Rescue Service, an unprecedent number.

I've been doing this for more than 20 years, and we've seen a dramatic rise in the number of fires we're dealing with in the open,

he told the Today show.

Scientists predict the UK will see more extremes as the UK heats up, owing to humanity's greenhouse gas emissions.

People's weather is going to change rapidly as they have in recent years [with] more wildfires, more droughts, and more heatwaves,

said Dr. Doherty.

But also in the winter half-year, so from October to March [. ] the rain that does fall will fall more often and in heavier rain showers, resulting in more floods this year,

she said. This year, the United Kingdom hasn't been alone in the midst of extreme heat. According to the European Copernicus climate service, the world is forecasting its second or third warmest year ever recorded. However, the international consensUS on combating climate change is also being tested, with the United States and other key fossil fuel suppliers arguing back on their net zero commitments.

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