UK summer 2026: climate change made the record heat 130 times more likely

Human-driven warming made the UK’s record summer of 2026 far more likely, and researchers say the same pattern shows up in storms, droughts and fires worldwide, according to a BBC explainer published on 6 November 2026.

How scientists put a number on heat

Attribution studies rely on computer models. Researchers simulate an event twice: once in today’s world, which has about 1.4C of human-caused warming, and once in a hypothetical world with no human influence on the climate. The gap between the two runs gives an estimate of how much climate change affected a given heatwave, storm or drought.

Dr Mark McCarthy, the Met Office’s head of climate attribution, described the summer as “remarkable” and warned that extreme heat events would only become more common as the world warms.

The World Weather Attribution group (WWA) found that climate change intensified heatwaves across the globe this year. Examples include Australia’s worst in six years in January, 45C in India in April and deadly temperatures in Europe in June.

Heatwaves often come from heat domes, which form when high pressure sits over one area for days or weeks and traps hot air beneath it. The Arctic has warmed nearly four times faster than the global average, and one theory holds that this may affect the jet stream and make heat domes more likely. That link is not clear cut.

Why rain comes down harder

For every 1C rise in air temperature, the atmosphere can hold about 7% more moisture, which can make rainfall heavier. The IPCC says heavy rainfall events have become more frequent and intense over most land regions because of human activity.

The UK picture is more cautious. According to the Met Office, winters from 2016 to 2025 were 13% wetter than those of 1961 to 1990, yet its scientists warn that large year-to-year variation makes it hard to draw conclusions from a single decade.

A clearer case came in October 2025, when Hurricane Melissa became one of the strongest hurricanes ever to hit the Caribbean. WWA researchers found that climate change increased the extreme rainfall linked to the storm by 16%.

Drought, a harder link to prove

Tying a specific drought to climate change is difficult, since many factors affect water availability. Natural systems such as El Niño can play a key role, as in southern Africa’s drought in early 2024. Still, warming is shifting rainfall patterns, leaving some regions wetter and others drier and more prone to drought.

Heatwaves can then deepen dry spells by increasing evaporation from the soil, and higher water demand, especially from farmers, adds stress in hot periods.

This summer the EU’s Joint Research Centre said climate-driven heatwaves worsened drought across Europe, with the Loire, Po, Rhine and Danube all hitting record low levels. In the UK, drought was declared in all of Wales and two-thirds of England, and the top category, severe drought, was used for the first time in parts of southern England.

In the Caribbean, the WWA said global warming made extreme dry conditions 40% more likely in Jamaica and 30% more likely in Puerto Rico from May 2026. Puerto Rico’s drought led to water rationing in summer 2026.

Wildfires and the outlook

Fires occur naturally in many places, and it is hard to say whether climate change caused or worsened a specific one, because factors such as land use also matter. The IPCC says, however, that climate change is making the weather conditions that let fires spread more likely. Long, extreme heat draws moisture from soils and vegetation, leaving tinder-dry fuel. Warming may also raise the likelihood of lightning in some forests.

UNEP bases that projection on the combined effects of shifting land use and climate change, which it says will make extreme wildfires more frequent and intense globally.

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