Heatwave ends but experts warn of more heat to come

Met Office forecasts show the record breaking heatwave in the South West and Channel Islands has come to an end - but climate experts warn that periods of high temperature will continue to become more frequent, intense and prolonged.

Jersey and Guernsey both recorded their hottest days on record on Thursday reaching 39.3C (102.7F) and 36.4C (97.5F), while on Wednesday temperatures rose to 34C (93.2F) in Cornwall and 35C (95F) in Devon as both counties broke previous records for June.

Temperatures are expected to be lower on Thursday but a Met Office yellow warning for thunderstorms is still in place for parts of Devon and a red warning for temperatures reaching as high as 38C (100.4F) covers the South East and London.

Dr Helen Millman from the University of Exeter's Global Systems Institute said the temperature would continue to get "hotter and hotter", adding "we'll look back on this in decades to come and think, that heat wave wasn't actually too bad".

Millman said people referred to heatwaves as the "new normal" but warned they were not going to remain as they were and "heatwaves will just keep on getting hotter".

"It's exactly what we would expect to see in our warming climate," she said.

"It's just going to get hotter and hotter until we stop adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.

"We really do need to think about cutting our emissions as rapidly as possible."

Millman said people were "not ready at all" for rising temperatures as railway lines, schools, hospitals, businesses and homes were not designed for extreme heat.

"We have a legal framework for climate mitigation but at the moment we don't have a legal framework for climate adaptation, which is what we would really need in order to get the funding from the Treasury to invest in all of these changes that we're going to have to make," she said.

Schools across the the South West and Channel Islands were affected by the heat, with 60 schools closed or finishing early in Devon on Wednesday.

Professor Tim Taylor, the director of the Centre for Net Positive Health and Climate Solutions at the University of Exeter, said there were solutions to adapting to high temperatures.

"We do need to build in certain measures to improve the way our houses work," he said.

"We need to build in better ventilation, we need to be thinking about certain solutions."

Taylor said research was done with the University College London on having light coloured roofs on buildings to reduce temperature.

"We estimated that for the 2018 heatwave this would have reduced the temperatures in the city by about 0.8 degrees, which could have reduced the number of deaths by 249 people," he said.

Taylor said that while air conditioning was an effective solution, there were better alternatives.

"It [air conditioning] just kicks the heat outside and can make the situation worse outside for our community, so poorer groups will be more impacted if we take that approach," he said.

He said people should instead look at solutions that can cool us down and also improve our environment and improve the lives of everyone.

"Every little bit does help, it can be cooler by planting trees and having shade, these kind of things can make a difference.

"Businesses might be willing to open their doors for people to come in and experience the cooling inside and we're seeing that in some some places that cool rooms are making a difference in extreme heat."

While temperatures are expected to be lower in the coming days, the UK Health Security Agency has issued a heat health alert for the South West until 09:00 BST on Sunday.

The government agency responsible for protecting the public from infectious diseases and environmental hazards said high temperatures could cause "significant impacts" across health and social care services.

These include a rise in deaths, heat affecting the ability of the workforce to deliver services and increased demand for power exceeding capacity.

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