Climate models aren't doing a good job of reproducing how fast temperatures have risen in western Europe, so the analysis of how much global warming influenced the UK's heatwave last week is likely to be underestimated.
The author is Adam Vaughan.
There was a fire that hit the Shiregreen area in England.
The images are by Christopher Furlong.
According to a team of researchers, the UK's 40C heatwave last week was 10 times more likely due to climate change.
The WWA team concluded that the 40.3C record set in Coningsby should only happen once every 1500 years.
Friederike Otto is a member of the WWA team at Imperial College London. Without climate change, it would not have been possible.
Climate change has made most heatwaves more likely but studies are still needed to quantify how much. The team found that the chances of such high temperatures occurring in the UK were very low. Climate models aren't doing a good job of reproducing how fast temperatures have risen in western Europe so the estimate of 10 times more likely is low. Otto doesn't know why
The team looked at the two hottest days of the year, 18 and 19 July, in east Wales and parts of England. The group looked at the maximum temperature for one day and the average temperature over the course of two days.
The two-day heat that occurred across the whole studied area would happen about once every 100 years, according to the analysis. Without the 1.2C of global heating since the 19th century, the temperature would have been almost impossible.
The UK's previous temperature record, of 38.7C, was broken by 46 weather stations. On the back of the driest January to June in England since 1976, warnings were issued on July 25th that a large part of the country could be without water.
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