The climate of the 20th century has now gone, scientists have declared, as a new report reveals that 2025 was the UK’s warmest year on record – the sixth time this century that record has been broken.
The latest State of the UK Climate report, published by the Met Office and the Royal Meteorological Society, paints a stark picture of a nation whose weather patterns are being rapidly rewired by global heating. The last four years are all among the top five warmest on record, and the most recent decade (2016-2025) is now 1.33°C warmer than the 1961-1990 baseline.
Mike Kendon, the Met Office’s lead author of the report said: ‘What we used to think of as extreme, we increasingly consider as normal. With warming at around 0.25°C per decade since the 1980s, it seems likely this record will be broken again in a matter of years.’
The warming is not just a statistical abstraction – it is physically shifting the UK’s climate zones northwards and uphill. Areas such as the Vale of York and Lancashire now have annual temperatures similar to those experienced by Greater London in the 1960s, while the coldest mountain-top habitats are being lost.
Kendon added: ‘In the south east we are seeing the emergence of new warmer climates, while in our northern upland areas we are losing the climatologically coldest habitats from the tops of our mountains. Our climate is on the move – literally.’
Perhaps most concerning is the impact on temperature extremes, which cause the greatest harm. In parts of the south-east, the hottest day of the year has warmed by 4.5°C – three times the rate of annual mean temperature rise. Days exceeding 30°C in Greater London have more than quadrupled compared with 1961-1990, while the number of tropical nights above 18°C has also quadrupled – a fact that will not surprise anyone in the UK right now.
‘Back then we did not reach even 30°C, anywhere in the UK, in approximately one year in every five,’ Kendon said. ‘Yet, despite historic heatwaves like 1976, overall temperatures as high as this were comparatively unusual in the 20th century.’
The report also highlights the UK’s driest spring for more than 100 years, with most of England and Wales receiving less than half their average rainfall. The spring and summer drought of 2025 saw river flows approach or fall below those of recent droughts in 2018 and 2022.
Lucy Barker, Senior Hydrological Analyst at the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, said: ‘Last year was memorable for the intense drought over the spring and summer, when we saw very low river flows across the country, as well as significant impacts on water supplies, agriculture and the environment.’
Professor Liz Bentley, Chief Executive of the Royal Meteorological Society, said: “‘After the first quarter of the 21st century, this report is an opportunity to take stock of climate change in the UK as ‘ground truth’ from weather observations. The way we experience climate change most is through the weather extremes. Climate change has been described by scientists for many years but is now increasingly being felt by the UK population in their own homes and communities.’
Kendon concluded: ‘Every year is adding to the body of evidence showing climate change in the UK. We are right now living in a time of historic and unprecedented change and in terms of temperature, on annual, seasonal, monthly and daily timescales, this evidence shows the climate of the 20th century has now gone.’
The full report can be read here.
Photo: Pavan Kumar Nagendla