The year of 2023 was the second-warmest on record for the UK, narrowly behind the record set as recently as 2022.
It was also the warmest year on record for Wales and Northern Ireland, second-warmest for England and third-warmest for Scotland.
In this review, we look back at the UK’s climate in 2023, the significant climate events that shaped the year and how human-caused climate change influenced them. We find:
- Eight of the 12 months of the year were warmer than average.
- Somewhat unusually, the warmest periods were in June and September, with the high summer months of July and August generally cooler and wetter.
- June was the hottest month of the year for the first time since 1966 and was the hottest June on record by a large margin.
- Through a climate attribution analysis, we show that a year as warm as 2023 has been made around 150 times more likely due to human-caused climate change.
- We would expect to reach or exceed the 2023 annual temperature in around 33% of years in the current climate.
- 2023 was relatively wet with 1,290mm of rainfall, making it the UK’s 11th wettest year in a series going back to 1836.
- The few wintery cold spells of the year were relatively short-lived.
- 2023-24 has seen the most active start to the storm season since naming storms began in 2015.
(See our previous annual analysis for 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019 and 2018.)
The year in summary
The Met Office produces the HadUK-Grid dataset for monitoring the UK climate. Using geostatistical methods, we combine UK observational data from land-based stations across the country into a gridded, geographically complete dataset.
There is enough coverage of observational data in our digital archives for national coverage of monthly temperature since 1884, rainfall since 1836 and sunshine since 1910. These are used to define long-running climate series and climatological averages, which provide context for variability and change in the UK’s climate through time.
The maps below show the average anomalies compared to 1991-2020 for temperature (left), rainfall (middle) and sunshine duration (right) across the UK during 2023. The darkest shading shows the areas of the country that saw the warmest (red), driest (brown) and sunniest (yellow) conditions relative to the baseline climate.
The maps show that 2023 was, for most of the country, a warm and wet year compared to average, with close to average sunshine overall. The exception to this being western Scotland which saw drier and sunnier conditions.
The UK annual average temperature was 9.97C for 2023, which is just 0.06C below the record high of 10.03C in 2022. This continues an observed warming of the UK climate since the 1960s.
The hottest year in the UK during the whole of the 20th century was 1997, with an average temperature of 9.41C. So far in the 21st century, 13 years have exceeded this value, meaning that the majority of years so far in the 21st century have exceeded what was the hottest year of the 20th century.
In contrast, the coldest year of the 21st century so far was 2010 (7.94C) which was more than 0.5C warmer than the coldest year of the 20th century in 1963 (7.40C).
While 2010 is an extreme-cold year in the context of the current UK climate, it would have been much closer to the average for the late 19th and early 20th century. Climate change has significantly reduced the occurrence and severity of cooler conditions in the UK.
Looking regionally, the map below colour-codes UK counties by the ranking of annual average temperature.
The darkest shade of red identifies those counties that recorded their warmest year in 2023. It was the warmest year on record for all of Northern Ireland and Wales, and also for counties in western England and south-west Scotland.
The year 2022 retains the record for the majority of England and Scotland, with the exception of far north Scotland (for which the warmest year on record was 2014), Western Isles (2006), Orkney (2003) and Shetland (2014).
In addition, 2023 is also provisionally the warmest year on record for Ireland in the 124 year national series maintained by Met Eireann.
Central England Temperature record
The year of 2023 was also the second-warmest year in the Met Office Central England Temperature series (CET), marginally behind 2022. The CET represents a region bounded by Hertfordshire, Worcestershire and Lancashire.
The chart below compares the records for the CET (black) and whole UK (red) for annual average temperature.
While there are inevitable differences in the precise ranking and anomalies of individual years between UK and CET, the series show the strong overall level of agreement. It also highlights how unusual the temperature of 2022 and 2023 are in the context of more than 360 years of observational data.
Extremes and rainfall
The UK climate monitoring network records both daily maximum and daily minimum temperatures.
Last year was the record highest for the annual average daily minimum temperature for the UK, England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and fourth highest for Scotland.
It was the highest annual average daily maximum temperature for Northern Ireland, second-highest for the UK, England and Wales, and third-highest for Scotland.
The year of 2023 was relatively wet with 1,290mm of rainfall, equivalent to 111% of UK average rainfall and putting it just outside the top 10 as the 11th wettest year in a series going back to 1836.
It was the sixth wettest March and July, seventh wettest October and ninth wettest December. In addition, 2023 is the only year that has four individual months within the top 10 wettest on record for the respective month.
The wet spells of March and July followed dry spells during February and June, but it was the higher-than-average rainfall through the autumn and into December that pushed up the annual accumulation for the year overall.
As the chart below shows, there has been an observed increase in UK annual rainfall over recent decades, with 2023 joining a cluster of notably wet years that have occurred since the late 1990s.
The lines show the annual rainfall (dark blue) and trend (black dashes), along with the 1991-2020 average (pink), 2023 total (brown) and the highest (red dashes) and lowest (blue dashes) annual totals on record.
The drivers of annual rainfall trends are complex as the annual total masks distribution of rainfall throughout the year and will respond to a multitude of factors, which will include human-caused climate change but also contributions from natural climate variability.
Attribution of UK annual mean temperature in 2023
Met Office scientists conducted an attribution study to quantify the influence of human-caused climate change on the likelihood of reaching a UK annual average temperature at or above that recorded in 2023.
The method uses an established Met Office system for rapid attribution of extreme events. The analysis uses observed values of the UK annual temperature and temperature data for the UK drawn from 14 climate model simulations from the sixth – and most recent – phase of the global Coupled Model Intercomparison Project.
The models are evaluated against the observational data across the period 1884-2014 using approaches commonly adopted for attribution studies. This determines whether they are suitable for use in the assessment and provide adequate representations of UK annual average temperature trends and variability.
One set of model simulations uses only natural climate forcings (“NAT”) for the period 1850-2020, while another set uses all natural and human-caused forcings (“ALL”) for the historical period and the SSP2-4.5 emissions scenario, often described as a “medium” emissions scenario, out to 2100.
These simulations are then able to provide estimates of the likelihood of the UK annual temperature exceeding the observed 2023 value for the following scenarios:
- A natural climate without human-caused greenhouse gases.
- The current climate taken as a 20-year period centred on 2023.
- An end-of-century climate under a medium emissions scenario taken as the period 2081-2100.
A reference baseline for all the experiments is the period 1901-30.
The estimated return period for a UK annual average temperature exceeding 9.97C in the NAT simulations is once every 460 years (with a range of 82 to 587). For the ALL simulations in the present day, this drops to once every three years (with a range of 2.86 to 3.17). For the ALL simulations in the future, this falls further and could see temperatures warmer than 2023 being exceeded more frequently than every other year.
Human-caused climate change is, therefore, estimated to have increased the likelihood of a year as warm as 2023 by a factor of more than 150.
These results are, unsurprisingly, very similar to an equivalent study conducted a year ago in relation to the record-breaking annual mean temperature of 10.03C set in 2022. Regarding that study, we stated:
“A warming climate means that an event that would have been exceptionally unlikely in the past has become one that we will increasingly see in the coming decades.”
Importantly, this analysis also indicates that 2022 and 2023 are not necessarily that extreme in the context of our current climate. This means that there is the potential for a far higher UK annual average temperature extreme even in the present-day climate. In addition, by the end of the 21st century, most years will be warmer than 2023.
Weather through the year
Temperature
The chart below tracks UK average temperatures through the year, with orange highlighting periods that were warmer than the 1991-2020 average for the time of year and blue were cooler than average.
Overall, 66% of days (240 days) were warmer than the 1991-2020 average for the time of year and 34% (125 days) were colder. The most notable warm spells were in June, September and December.
The highest maximum temperature of the year was 33.5C at Faversham (Kent) on 10 September, which is only the fifth time a highest maximum has been recorded in September. This is equal to the 1991-2020 average annual maximum temperature, so it is close to what we would expect as the highest UK temperature for a typical year. However, it is 2.3C higher than the average maximum during the earlier period of 1961-90 (31.2C).
In September, there was also a run of seven consecutive days with temperatures somewhere in the UK exceeding 30C, which is the longest such run in September on record.
The lowest temperature of the year was -16.0C, recorded at Altnaharra (Sutherland) on 9 March during a spell of wintry weather. This is 0.5C below the 1991-2020 average (-15.5C), but 3C above the 1961-90 average (-19.0C) for the year’s coldest day.
In 2023, both the hottest and coldest weather of the year occurred outside of the climatological summer and winter season, a reminder of the variable nature of the UK climate.
Both the highest maximum and lowest minimum temperature of the year for the UK have been increasing at a faster rate than the UK average temperature, reflecting that heat extremes are becoming more severe while cold extremes are becoming less severe in our warming climate.
Rainfall
For rainfall, the wettest periods were seen in March, July, October and December.
In the chart below, the rainfall accumulation is tracked through the course of the year. The solid black line is the 1991-2020 average, the grey shading reflects the variability across years with the red and blue marking the highest and lowest on record. Brown shading highlights points in the year where the total rainfall since the start of the year was below average, and blue regions are where it is above average.
The chart highlights that a dry spell in February was compensated by the wet March, and the dry spell through May and June was followed by a wet July, returning the year to near-average by the start of autumn.
Western Scotland was an exception to this rainfall pattern, with a somewhat drier autumn in particular, although wetter conditions in the east, including some extreme rainfall such as during storm Babet in October, meant that Scotland overall was still wetter than average. For England it was the sixth wettest year on record, third wettest for Northern Ireland, 12th for Wales and 32nd for Scotland.
Storms
The Met Office storm naming, first launched in 2015, provides a storm name list for the period from 1 September to 31 August each year in collaboration with Met Eireann and KNMI, the Irish and Dutch national weather services, respectively.
The 2022-23 storm season was rather notable for the relative absence of storms, with the only storms to be named under this scheme both occurring right at the end of the season in August – storms Antoni (5 August) and Betty (18-19 August).
In contrast, the 2023-24 season has experienced a much more active start with seven named storms from September to December, and the eighth (storm Henk) in early January 2024, which is the most active start to the named storm season since its inception in 2015.
| Storm Name | Dates affected UK | Maximum wind gust | Number of observing sites recording wind gusts over 50 knots |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2022-23 names | |||
| Otto | 17 February (named by Danish Meteorological Service) | 72 Kt (83mph) Inverbervie, Kincardineshire | 31 |
| Noa | 12 April (named by Meteo-France) | 83 Kt (96mph) Needles, Isle of Wight | 25 |
| Antoni | 5 August | 68 Kt (78mph) Berry Head, Devon | 2 |
| Betty | 18-19 August | 57 Kt (66mph) Capel Curig, Conwy | 5 |
| 2023-24 names | |||
| Agnes | 27-28 September | 73 Kt (84mph) Capel Curig, Conwy | 15 |
| Babet | 18-21 October | 67 Kt (77mph) Inverbervie, Kincardineshire | 16 |
| Ciarán | 1-2 November | 68 Kt (77mph) Langdon Bay, Kent | 11 |
| Debi | 13 November | 67 Kt (77mph) Aberdaron, Gwynedd | 21 |
| Elin | 9 December | 70 Kt (81mph) Capel Curig, Conwy | 13 |
| Fergus | 10 December | 64 Kt (74mph) Aberdaron, Gwynedd | 11 |
| Gerrit | 27-28 December | 77 Kt (89mph) Fair Isle, Shetland | 42 |
| Henk | 2 January 2024 | 82 Kt (94mph) Needles, Isle of Wight | 35 |
List of named storms for the 2022-23 and 2023-24 storm seasons
Overall, 2023 was calmer than average. This reflects a long-term decline in average wind speed, as illustrated in the chart below. This shows average UK wind speeds for each year since 1969 (dark blue line), the trend (black dashes), 1991-2020 average (pink), 2023 total (brown) and the highest (red dashes) and lowest (blue dashes) annual averages on record.
This long-term trend should be interpreted with some caution as it is possible that changes in instrumentation and exposure of the observing network through time may influence these trends. However, the decline is consistent with a widespread global slowdown termed “global stilling”.
More recently, global and UK data have shown that since 2010 the decline has stopped or even reversed.
Winter
After a notably wet spell at the start of the year – resulting in flooding across south Wales and Midlands on the 12 January – the late winter period was characterised by a very sunny January and very dry February overall.
It was the driest February since 1993 with much of central and southern England, which received less than 20% of the normal monthly rainfall.
The climatological winter season (1 December 2022 to 28 February 2023) was drier than average and – as discussed above – relatively calm with just one named storm (Otto) occurring in an otherwise dry February.
The chart below depicts UK winter rainfall per year (dark blue line) since 1836. While 2023 was relatively, but not exceptionally, dry in the context of recent decades, it is closer to the average for earlier in the series. The winter of 2022-23 had 83% of the 1991-2020 average rainfall, but 94% compared to the earlier period of 1961-90.
Comparing 1991-2020 to 1961-90, winter rainfall for the UK has risen by 14%. The increase is not uniform across the UK, however, with the greatest increases in excess of 20% across north and west Scotland, and smaller rises below 10% for central and southern England.
It is notable that, in a series stretching back to 1836, the five wettest winters have all occurred since 1990. The record wettest winter of 2013-14 had approximately double the rainfall of 2023, highlighting the large interannual variability in UK rainfall.
In contrast, at the time of writing, wet weather through the first half of the 2023-24 winter has resulted in widespread flooding across the country.
Climate variability is a critical driver in recent extremes of winter rainfall, while the emerging climate change signal resulting from increased moisture in the atmosphere is an important secondary factor contributing to the risk of wetter winters.
UK climate projections indicate a clear shift to higher probability of wet winters over the UK. This is caused by an increase in the number of wet days, an increase in intensity of rainfall, and a decrease in the proportion of winter precipitation falling as snow.
Spring
The first half of March was generally cold and resulted in some of the lowest temperatures of the year.
By the middle of the month, the situation became milder and wetter. March was exceptionally wet for many regions except for northern Scotland. It was the sixth-wettest March for the UK, third-wettest for England and Northern Ireland and fifth-wettest for Wales.
April saw temperature and rainfall statistics near-average, although Storm Noa was one of the most significant April storms since 2013, with hundreds of homes across south-west England and Wales left without power.
A maximum wind gust of 83 Kt (96mph) at Needles on the Isle of Wight was the highest wind gust on record for England during the month of April. This particular site is located at the top of a cliff exposed to westerly winds so is representative of a very exposed coastal location. Inland winds were lower, but still sufficient to cause some disruption.
May was warmer and drier overall, although heavy thunderstorms over 7-11 May caused surface-water flooding across parts of southern and eastern England. Drier weather from the middle of the month, however, resulted in a shift to wildfire reports across parts of Wales, the south-west and west Yorkshire by the end of the month.
Summer
It was the warmest June on record for the UK with an average temperature of 15.8C, beating the previous record of 14.9C that was set in the Junes of 1940 and 1976 by 0.9C. Previously, the top three warmest Junes were separated by just 0.1C.
The highest daily temperature reached in the month was 32.2C (on 10 and 25 June), which did not challenge the June temperature record of 35.6C, recorded on 28 June 1976. What was unusual about June 2023 was the persistence of the warmth rather than its severity. Temperatures exceeded 25C for at least a fortnight with peaks in excess of 30C.
A long-standing curious statistical quirk of UK climatology was that 13 June was the only June date that had never previously recorded temperatures in excess of 30C in meteorological records spanning over 100 years. This quirky fact was finally broken this year, reaching 30.8C on 13 June.
The chart below shows a comparison of the 2023 June heatwave with 1976, the previous joint record warmest June. This shows the UK-average daily maximum temperature through June and July for 1976 (dotted line and grey shading) and 2023 (blue line and orange shading).
The 1976 heatwave was certainly more severe than 2023, but occurred slightly later in the season, peaking in early July. In contrast, the persistent warmth in 2023 fell within the calendar month of June.
A significant contributing factor to the exceptional and persistent warmth was a major North Atlantic marine heatwave, which brought record-breaking temperatures in the North Atlantic and around the UK. A severe marine heatwave was declared in mid-June, which further amplified temperatures over the UK land.
An attribution study by the Met Office found that the likelihood of beating the UK land June temperature record had at least doubled compared to when it was first set in 1940. We estimated there was around a 3% chance of beating the record in a 1991-2020 climate and, by the 2050s, a record could be occurring around every other year on average under a high-emissions scenario.
Unsurprisingly, the June warmth was associated with a persistent high-pressure system resulting in plenty of clear skies and dry conditions. The month was, therefore, also the fourth sunniest June on record, and the sunniest June since 1957, but not as sunny as the exceptionally sunny month of May 2020.
Some more unsettled weather at the end of the month meant that while recording only around 68% of average rainfall, June was not dry enough to trouble any records.
A more unsettled situation then took over for the remainder of the summer, with conditions turning cooler, duller and windier.
It was the sixth-wettest July on record with 140.1mm and the wettest since 2009 (145.5mm). It was the wettest July on record for Northern Ireland and for parts of north-west England including Merseyside, Lancashire and Greater Manchester.
August continued the unsettled theme with a distinct lack of summery weather – however, it was not as wet as July.
A key driver of the wet high summer was a displacement in the jet stream to a more southerly track across the UK. The map below shows anomalies in wind speed at 250hPa, relative to a 1991-2020 average. (250hPa is a level of equal pressure and is equivalent to a height of around 10.5km.)
The purple regions show where the wind is stronger than average and orange they are weaker – highlighting a strengthening of the upper-level wind across southern England and a weakening in the more typical summer jet stream to the north of Scotland. This resulted in low-pressure weather systems from the Atlantic being directed on a more southerly track over the UK.
Despite being relatively wet during the high summer (July through August), the average temperature averaged across July (14.9C) and August (15.3C) was 15.1C. This was cooler than June (15.8C), but close to the 1991-2020 average for Jul-Aug (15.2C).
Another indicator of the influence of climate change on UK climate is that a wet summer such as that of 2023 is approximately 1C warmer than equivalently wet summers from the past.
Autumn (and December)
In early September, the jet stream shifted north and high pressure returned. Consequently, the UK experienced another heatwave bringing some of the hottest weather of the year, peaking at 33.5C at Faversham, Kent on 10 September.
A new high-temperature record was also set for the month for Northern Ireland with 28C at Castlederg, County Tyrone on the 8 September.
It was the longest run of days reaching 30C somewhere in the country during September on record at seven consecutive days (4-10 September). It is only the fourth time on record that the highest temperature of the year has occurred in September, with the other years being 2016, 1954, 1949 and 1919. High temperatures were not confined to the daytime and some locations also recorded “tropical nights” when the minimum temperatures do not drop below 20C.
The month concluded with Storm Agnes kicking off the 2023-24 storm season. But the early warmth contributed to it becoming the joint-warmest September on record for the UK (with 2006). An average temperature of 15.2C was warmer than July and only marginally behind August.
A rapid attribution conducted at the time showed that a September this warm would be exceptionally unlikely in a natural climate, but in our current climate there is approximately a 3% chance of reaching or exceeding it. A September this warm does still require the right combination of factors, but climate change is making such late-season warmth more likely.
The remainder of the autumn season and December continued the generally mild, wet and – at times – stormy theme, with the joint-sixth wettest October and joint-eighth wettest December on record. It was the sixth-warmest autumn for the UK and third-warmest for both England and Wales.
Reviewing 2023 demonstrates how the UK is subject to the combined influences of the variability in the weather, but also the influence of human-caused climate change. This is affecting both our climate statistics and also the likelihood of some types of extreme events.
The post Met Office: A review of the UK’s climate in 2023 appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Israel’s bombardment of Gaza during the conflict that broke out in October 2023 has wrecked progress towards adapting the enclave to climate change and left two million Gazans vulnerable to heatwaves, drought and disease, the Palestinian Authority (PA) said in a new climate plan submitted to the United Nations.
Palestine’s third nationally determined contribution (NDC), uploaded to the UN climate body’s website this week, says that while “the aggression on the Gaza Strip did not make the climate worse”, “it removed the housing, water and sanitation systems, health facilities, energy networks, roads and livelihoods through which people absorb a climate they were already struggling with.”
The 91-page document lists the types of infrastructure it says Israel has destroyed and notes how the destruction will worsen the impacts of climate change. It says the bombing of hospitals and rising hunger have make it harder for Gazans to cope with the health impacts of climate-driven heatwaves and waterborne diseases.
The destruction of water tanks, boreholes and desalination plants, meanwhile, have left Gazans struggling with the effects of water shortages and drought, while mass unemployment reduces people’s ability to afford climate-driven price rises. The erasure of most of the Strip’s homes makes it more difficult for people to avoid the sun’s increasing heat, the NDC said.
Many Gazans are now living in the ruins of collapsed buildings or in makeshift shelters and tents that offer little or no protection from high temperatures.
Palestine’s previous goals to cut emissions and adapt to climate change in Gaza, expressed in its last NDC five years ago, were based on a pre-war baseline that “no longer describes anything that exists”, the NDC says. Progress made since 2021 has now been destroyed, it adds.
Green reconstruction of Gaza
Instead of continuing to aim for these adaptation and emissions-reduction goals, the PA is now calling for the green reconstruction of Gaza. It says buildings should be constructed again in an energy-efficient manner with solar panels and served with modern water, waste and transport systems.
While the PA, controlled by the Fatah political party, continues to claim legitimate control of Gaza, the strip was effectively governed by Fatah’s rival Hamas between 2007 and the recent war. Control is now split between Israel and the political wing of Islamist militant group Hamas, after a US-backed ceasefire took effect in October 2025, although a UN-backed committee plans to take over.
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The United Nations, European Union and World Bank have jointly estimated that Gaza needs $71.4 billion of investment in the next two years to recover and build back. This process should be Palestinian-led, they said in April.
But US President Donald Trump has said the US should “take over” and “own” Gaza and redevelop it as the “Riviera of the Middle East”. Israel’s right-wing prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that Israel should control the territory with civil administration managed by Palestinians favourable to Israel.
With occupation, targets conditional
In the other part of Palestine, the West Bank, the Palestinian Authority carries out some government functions, but ultimate control rests with Israel, which has occupied the West Bank since 1967.
Because Israel controls planning in most of the West Bank, the NDC argues that the PA cannot pursue all the climate projects it wants. In addition, Israel restricts the movement of PA officials, making data collection difficult, and controls the West Bank’s electricity supply meaning that the PA cannot control whether it comes from dirty or clean sources of energy.
Given this situation, the NDC says that all of Palestine’s new climate targets are conditional but it will aim to reduce emissions 12.8% below a business-as-usual baseline by 2035 and 17.1% by 2040. If the Israeli occupation ends and Palestine regains full sovereignty over its land and resources, it will aim for reductions of 15.1% and 19.1% by 2035 and 2040 respectively under an “independence pathway”.
That could allow, for example, for greater electrification and reducing emissions per unit of growth, the document said.
To achieve the 2035 emissions-reduction target and adapt to the impacts of climate change, the PA says it needs $8.6 billion in total. This funding would be spent on measures like encouraging solar farms and rooftop solar and scaling up solar water heating to cover four-fifths of households. To complement the planned increase in solar power, the authority wants to modernise the electricity grid and install battery storage.
In the transport sector, it aims to promote the uptake of electric vehicles, develop bus rapid transit corridors and scrap old polluting trucks and buses. In Gaza in particular, it wants to deploy 66 electric buses when the conflict ends.
To adapt to climate-driven drought, the NDC includes initiatives to reuse wastewater through treatment plants, build desalination plants in Gaza to remove salt from seawater, and promote irrigation for farmers.
The new climate plan was prepared by Palestine’s Environment Quality Authority, with support from the United Nations Development Programme and the governments of Britain and Spain.
The United Nations recognised Palestine’s statehood in 2012 and it joined the UN’s climate convention and signed the Paris climate agreement – which requires countries to submit more ambitious NDCs every five years – in 2016.
The Israeli foreign ministry did not respond to a request for comment. But in late 2024, then Israeli climate envoy Gideon Behar told Climate Home News that the war and the resulting environmental destruction in Gaza was the fault of Hamas.
The post Palestine: Israel’s bombing has left Gaza vulnerable to climate change appeared first on Climate Home News.
Palestine: Israel’s bombing has left Gaza vulnerable to climate change
Solar power generation in the UK reached a new record over the summer of 2026, as temperatures across the nation soared, according to new analysis by Carbon Brief.
Collectively over June, July and August, solar farms and rooftops generated 8.8 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity in the UK*, as shown in the chart below.
Speaking to Carbon Brief, Chris Hewett, chief executive of trade association Solar Energy UK welcomed the new record, adding that it was driven by “clear skies and continued growth in deployment”.
This surge in generation took place amid the hottest summer on record in the UK, with five heatwaves between May and August.
Summer 2026 was the sixth sunniest on record, with more than 620 hours of sunshine, according to the Met Office. England and Wales – which experienced the most extreme heat – saw their second-sunniest summers on record.
June 2026 was the hottest June in England since records began in 1884, according to Met Office data, while Wales and the UK as a whole experienced their second-warmest June.
It was the driest July for England and Wales since records began in 1836, with some parts of London seeing no rain at all in the month, while Wisley in Surrey had no rain for 62 days.
In England, temperatures peaked at 38.1C at Kew Gardens in London on 13 August.
According to the Met Office, this summer’s record mean temperature was made 130 times more likely by climate change.
Amid these hot and sunny months, solar power generation increased 23% from the same period in 2025. This is double the level of solar generation over the summer of 2021, according to Carbon Brief analysis.
While solar panels can be affected by periods of extreme heat, the longer hours of daylight and higher levels of irradiation over the summer more than offset any efficiency losses.
June, July and August all saw solar set new monthly records for solar generation – July saw the highest solar generation in a calendar month ever, with 3.3TWh meeting 15% of overall electricity demand for the month.
As of the end of August, the total UK solar generation in 2026 stood at 17TWh – 13% higher than the same point in 2025.
The number of solar farms and rooftop installations has grown substantially in recent years, helping to boost generation. Domestic rooftop solar accounts for around 29% of total capacity.
In 2025, the UK’s solar capacity reached 21 gigawatts (GW) by the third quarter of the year, according to UK government figures. This is a jump of 3GW, or 18%, year-on-year, as Carbon Brief reported in January.
(Capacity is the maximum output possible from an electricity generation, whereas generation is what was produced over a certain time period, such as a day, month or year.)
According to the University of Sheffield, the installed solar capacity is now nearly 24GW.
This includes nearly 172,000 solar installations that have been fitted across the UK since the start of 2026, according to recent government figures. In July alone, more than 19,800 rooftop solar panels were installed – the equivalent of one installation every two minutes.
In total, nearly 1.7m households in the UK now have solar panels installed.
Over 26 heatwave days this summer – periods of at least three days when temperatures exceed the Met Office’s county-level heatwave temperature threshold – UK households with rooftop solar panels avoided an estimated £86.7m in electricity costs, according to analysis by Utility Bidder.
Talking about the surge in solar generation this summer, Hewett says:
“[It] not only kept bills down for people with solar and batteries in their homes, but helped keep overall power prices much lower than they would have been if Britain had been relying on more gas generation during the day”.
Despite the record generation, no new half-hourly solar power output record was set in the summer of 2026. This still stands at 15.2 megawatts (MW) on 23 April 2026.
* This article refers to the UK throughout, but strictly relates to the island of Great Britain, made up of England, Scotland and Wales. Northern Ireland is part of the separate, all-Ireland electricity system.
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The post Analysis: UK solar power hits record high over summer 2026 appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Farmers around Europe are dealing with the aftermath of a summer of extreme heat, drought and wildfires that were exacerbated by climate change.
Human-caused climate change is increasing the severity and likelihood of many extreme weather events around the world, which is increasing volatility for food producers.
This summer resulted in, for example, shrunken potatoes in the Netherlands, reduced carrot harvests in France, dried-up rice fields in Italy and scorched olive groves in parts of the Mediterranean region.
Global food prices are currently at their highest level since early 2023 due to “heatwaves and energy price dynamics”, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization.
Other factors such as blocked fertiliser supplies in the Strait of Hormuz and high fuel costs have also played a role in this year’s agricultural outputs.
In the six charts below, Carbon Brief provides a snapshot of the impact this summer’s extremes are considered to have had on crop production and yields across Europe.
1. Most EU countries expect to see declines in cereal production this year
2. Most countries are recording reduced crop yields
3. Around €2bn worth of cereal losses after June heatwave
4. UK yields of wheat, barley and oats are all due to drop in 2026
5. Maize production in France is due to hit a four-decade low
1. Most EU countries expect to see declines in cereal production this year
France, in particular, will see heavy losses in the amount of cereals – such as wheat, barley and oats – it produces this year, according to European Commission data.
French cereal production is expected to drop by almost 8 megatonnes (Mt) in 2026, compared to 2025.
The chart above shows that most European countries, aside from Bulgaria, will also see production losses this year.
Germany is due to see the second-largest losses in production, dropping by almost 4Mt compared to 2025.
Prof Til Feike, a cropping systems expert at the Julius Kühn-Institut, says many areas in Germany and Austria, as with other parts of Europe, have been “hit hard by a long-lasting dry period in combination with record-high heatwaves”.
This has resulted in dry grassland for animals and lower yields of maize, which is a “key fodder crop” for livestock. He tells Carbon Brief:
“In the long run, farming must adapt better to more extreme weather conditions, not only heat and drought, but also prolonged wet periods. So, there is no one-fits-all solution for climate change adaptation.”
2. Most countries are recording reduced crop yields
Heat and a lack of water have “substantially worsened” crop expectations this summer in western and most of central Europe, according to a recent bulletin from the EU Joint Research Centre.
Yields are expected to be “significantly reduced”, with local crop failures “likely” in areas such as France, southern Germany, northern and central Italy, and Hungary, it added.
The chart below shows that yields of cereal grains – which, here, refers to the tonnes of a grain grown per hectare of land – are expected to fall in most EU countries in 2026.
Slovakia, Austria and Hungary are expected to see the largest declines in cereal yields, reducing by more than one tonne per hectare in 2026 compared to 2025.
The recent EU bulletin noted that irrigated crops performed well in Portugal this summer – the country with the largest yield increases. Other crops relying on rainfall showed growing signs of heat stress, it added.
3. Around €2bn worth of cereal losses after June heatwave
The record heatwave that hit many parts of Europe in June contributed to an estimated €2-2.3bn in cumulative grain production losses, as shown in the chart below.
The intense June heat in western Europe would have been “virtually impossible” just 50 years ago, according to a rapid climate attribution study. It was the region’s hottest June on record.
The Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) thinktank analysed June and July 2026 grain forecasts from Coceral, a European grain traders association.
ECIU estimated lost supply by multiplying the change in tonnes of grains between these two months by prices for harvest delivery in 28 European countries.
Major grain producers France, Germany, Hungary and Spain accounted for 86% of the lost revenue, according to the ECIU.
Extreme heat is also expected to have a wider economic impact across the continent. Analysis from Triodos Bank found that this summer’s extreme weather could reduce the EU’s gross domestic product (GDP) by around 1% this year, or around €180bn.
4. UK yields of wheat, barley and oats are all due to drop in 2026
If current trends continue, the average yields for cereals and oilseeds will result in the UK’s worst harvest since detailed records began in 1984, according to ECIU.
Barley yields could fall by 15%, oats by 14% and wheat yields by 6% year-on-year, according to 2026 harvest surveys from the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board, a non-departmental public body that provides agricultural data to the UK government.
ECIU said that, even if the situation improves, this year is still expected to be one of the five worst harvests on record. This means that four of the five worst harvests in the UK have occurred in the past decade.
Consumers will likely see higher prices and/or smaller vegetables in supermarkets as a result, Tim O’Malley, chairman of UK company Nationwide Produce, told BBC News in August.
Other crops, such as berries, have grown successfully in the extreme heat. But the Guardian noted fears this could dip later this year “as plants become exhausted from heavy cropping during the heatwave”.
5. Maize production in France is due to hit a four-decade low
France has been acutely affected by this summer’s extreme weather, with more than 7,300 excess deaths during heatwaves and a record number of weather stations recording temperatures of above 40C.
The country is the EU’s largest agricultural producer, but heat, drought and wildfires have affected many crops.
The chart below shows that maize production is set to drop by more than one-third (35%) year-on-year.
This could result in France’s lowest maize production since 1980, according to data from Agreste, the country’s agriculture ministry’s statistics service.
Due to the heat, “record-early” grape harvests have also been recorded in various parts of the nation since mid-July, reported Le Monde. In some cases, this means “smaller, less juicy grapes, which will yield less wine”, explained the newspaper.
6. Declines in EU grains since 2025
Overall in the EU, data and projections indicate declines in the output of cereal grains this year.
Cereal production is set to fall by 9% compared to 2025, according to the European Commission.
Just one year in the past decade – 2024 – recorded lower production levels.
Maize production is set to be particularly affected, with projections indicating a 13% drop, to 52Mt – the lowest level in the EU since 2007.
The post How this summer’s heat and drought impacted crops in Europe – in six charts appeared first on Carbon Brief.
How this summer’s heat and drought impacted crops in Europe – in six charts
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