A leading government climate advisor has warned that rising temperatures in the UK will become “the new normal,” urging greater preparedness for the impacts of climate change.
This comes as the Met Office projects 2025 to be the UK’s warmest year on record, citing climate change as the primary driver of increasing temperatures.
With just over a week remaining, the average UK air temperature for 2025 is projected to reach approximately 10.05C, surpassing the current record of 10.03C set in 2022.
“This is our future, encapsulated in data,” Professor Rachel Kyte stated to the BBC.
“Now the question is ‘how are we going to prepare ourselves and build our resilience to this?'”
A combination of scarce rainfall and sustained warmth has rendered the country susceptible to droughts and wildfires throughout the spring and summer months.
While annual temperature fluctuations are natural, scientists affirm that human-caused climate change is accelerating the UK’s warming trend.
“The pollution [carbon dioxide] we’ve put in for the last 20-30 years is now what is driving this warmth, and so not curbing emissions well enough means we’re going to continue to see these kinds of impacts,” Prof Kyte, the UK’s special representative for climate, said.
She emphasized the need for the UK to enhance its resilience to higher temperatures through increased investment in natural resources and infrastructure.
“If we don’t invest in our adaptation now, it’s going to cost us way more,” she warned.
By the close of 2025, the UK’s ten warmest years on record will have all occurred within the past two decades, based on measurements dating back to the late 1800s.
“Anthropogenic [human-caused] climate change is causing the warming in the UK as it’s causing the warming across the world,” said Amy Doherty, a climate scientist at the Met Office.
“What we have seen in the past 40 years, and what we’re going to continue to see, is more records broken, more extremely hot years […] so what was normal 10 years ago, 20 years ago, will become [relatively] cool in the future,” she told BBC News.
The Met Office’s projection is based on observed temperatures up to December 21, assuming that the remaining days of the year will be 2C below the long-term December average, with slightly cooler conditions anticipated over the Christmas period.
Therefore, while the Met Office cannot definitively confirm that 2025 will be the hottest year, it remains the most probable outcome.
This would mark the sixth instance this century in which the UK has established a new annual temperature record, following 2002, 2003, 2006, 2014, and 2022.
“The changes we are seeing are unprecedented in observational records back to the 19th Century,” said Mike Kendon, another climate scientist at the Met Office.
The anticipated new record for 2025 is attributed to sustained heat throughout the spring and summer months.
While the long, hot, sunny days may seem distant as Christmas approaches, both spring and summer were the UK’s warmest ever recorded.
Each month from March to August exceeded the long-term average between 1961 and 1990 by more than 2C.
Temperatures reached a peak of 35.8C – significantly lower than the highs exceeding 40C observed in July 2022 – but hot spells occurred repeatedly.
Four separate, albeit relatively short-lived, heatwaves were declared across much of the country.
The UK Health Security Agency also issued multiple heat-health alerts throughout the summer.
Mr. Kendon noted that prolonged periods of hotter days and nights pose a heightened risk to elderly and vulnerable populations.
He told the Today programme it would also have an impact on the agriculture sector, influencing which crops farmers are able to grow in the UK.
Spring and summer were also characterized by low rainfall. Spring was particularly dry, ranking as the UK’s sixth driest since 1836.
Combined with warm weather that further dried out the soil, the lack of rainfall led to widespread drought conditions across the country.
Throughout the summer, official droughts were declared across several regions in England and Wales by the Environment Agency and Natural Resources Wales, respectively.
Parts of eastern Scotland also experienced “significant water scarcity,” according to the Scottish Environment Protection Agency.
Recent rainfall has improved the situation across much of the country, and most areas are no longer officially in drought. However, water levels remain below average in certain locations.
“There’s a huge deficit to be made up, and there’s a huge implication, not just for people who are farming the land [and] growing food, but our rivers, our aquifers, our availability of drinking water,” said Jess Neumann, associate professor of hydrology at the University of Reading.
She added that the recurring cycles of drought and flooding are making it increasingly challenging for communities to adapt to escalating weather extremes.
The prolonged dry, warm weather also created ideal conditions for wildfires.
By late April, the area of the UK affected by wildfires had already reached a new annual record, according to data from the Global Wildfires Information System dating back to 2012.
More than 47,100 hectares (471 sq km or 182 sq miles) have now been burned throughout 2025 – surpassing the previous high of 28,100 hectares in 2019.
Andy Cole, chief fire officer at Dorset & Wiltshire Fire and Rescue Service, reported that firefighters in his region had responded to over 1,000 wildfires this year – an “unprecedented” number.
“I’ve been doing this for over 20 years and we’ve seen a marked increase in the number of fires we’re having to deal with in the open,” he told the Today programme.
As the UK continues to warm due to human-induced greenhouse gas emissions, scientists anticipate more frequent and intense weather extremes.
“The conditions that people are going to experience are going to continue to change as they have in the last few years [with] more wildfires, more droughts, more heatwaves,” said Dr. Doherty.
“But also it’s going to get wetter in the winter half-year, so from October to March […] the rain that does fall will fall more intensely, and in heavier rain showers, causing that kind of flooding that we’ve been seeing this year as well,” she added.
The UK is not alone in experiencing extreme heat this year. The world is on track for its second or third warmest year on record, according to the European Copernicus climate service.
However, the international consensus on addressing climate change is being challenged, with the US and some other major fossil fuel producers scaling back their net-zero commitments.
Additional reporting by Justin Rowlatt, Kate Stephens and Zahra Fatima
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