LONDON: Last month was the hottest June on record in Britain, the country’s national weather service said on Monday, warning that human-induced climate change was making such temperature records increasingly likely.

Britain’s Met Office said the average mean temperature of 16 degrees Celsius in June was the highest in a series going back almost 140 years, beating a previous record of 14.9°C set in 1940 and 1976.

“All the numbers are suggesting that we’re going in the wrong direction when it comes to the heat, the intensity of the heat and how prolonged it is,” meteorologist Clare Nasir said.

The Met Office also said a marine heatwave affecting the North Atlantic had played an underlying role in raising land temperatures in Britain and said rainfall during June had been 68pc of its average level.

Describing the latest record as bearing a “fingerprint of climate change”, the Met Office said a study by its scientists had found the chance of June being hotter than 14.9°C had at least doubled since around 1940.

Published in Dawn, July 4th, 2023