This summer's balmy weather has been a treat for beachgoers and holidaymakers – but scientists warn that it reflects a more worrying trend.

As the Met Office declares summer 2025 to be the hottest summer on record, research shows that the record–breaking heat was made 70 times more likely by climate change.

In a natural climate, we would only expect to see a summer this hot once every 340 years.

But due to humanity's production of greenhouse gases, we will now see these sorts of temperatures return once every five years.

Worryingly, although 2025 broke all previous records, the Met Office says it is barely exceptional for the current climate.

Compared to previous record summers, like that of 1976, 2025's weather patterns and heatwaves could have been far more intense.

Dr Mark McCarthy, head of climate attribution at the Met Office, says: 'Our analysis suggests that while 2025 has set a new record, we could plausibly experience much hotter summers in our current and near–future climate.

'What would have been seen as extremes in the past are becoming more common in our changing climate.'

Between June 1 and August 31, the UK's average temperature hit a balmy 16.1°C (61°F).

That is 1.51°C (2.72°F) above the long–term average, and 0.34°C (0.61°F) above the previous record, set in 2018.

The new record pushes the summer of 1976 out of the top five warmest summers in a series dating back to 1884.

Instead, all five warmest summers have now occurred since 2000.

According to the Met Office, these exceptionally high temperatures are due to a combination of factors.

Dr Emily Carlisle, a Met Office scientist, says: 'The persistent warmth this year has been driven by a combination of factors including the domination of high–pressure systems, unusually warm seas around the UK and the dry soils.

'These conditions have created an environment where heat builds quickly and lingers, with both maximum and minimum temperatures considerably above average.'

However, the record–breaking heat would have been exceptionally unlikely without the influence of human–caused climate change.

Greenhouse gas emissions, including carbon dioxide and methane, build up in the atmosphere and trap heat from the sun.

As the rate of emissions has accelerated over the last 100 years, this buildup has steadily increased the world's baseline temperature.

Between 1991 and 2020, the UK's average summer temperature was 14.59°C, which is 0.8°C (1.44°F) hotter than the average from 1961 to 1990.

When baseline temperatures increase, so too do the intensity of peak temperatures and the frequency of hot spells.

This, in turn, makes record–breaking heat events like the past summer much more likely.

Professor Richard Allan, a climate scientist from the University of Reading, says: 'Hotter summers are consistent with long–term heating from rising greenhouse gases due to human activities, with an additional boost from declining unhealthy particle pollution that has allowed more of the previously scattered sunlight to bake the ground.

'The only way to limit the growing severity of heatwaves, and the intensity of dry or wet weather extremes, is to rapidly cut our greenhouse gas emissions across all sectors of society.'

Scientists also warn that temperatures as hot as 2025 will soon be the new normal, rather than an anomalous exception to the rule.

Although this year was warmer on average than the iconic summer of 1976, the maximum temperatures were not nearly as intense.

The highest temperature recorded this year was 35.8°C (96.4°F) in Faversham, Kent.

This was just cooler than the 1976 maximum of 35.9°C (96.6°F) and well below the record high of 40.3°C (104.5°F), set in July 2022.

2025 saw four heatwaves, but these were all relatively short and only featured temperatures slightly above the average for the rest of the summer.

However, this year was still consistently warmer for the entire three months of summer.

Professor Allan says: 'The length of heatwaves this year did not match the one experienced nearly 50 years ago, and if weather patterns like those that developed in 1976 occurred again in a future summer, the intensity of the heat will be much more dangerous still.'

While this summer's warm weather might have been pleasant, scientists also warn that continuing warming trends pose a serious risk for the UK.

Dr Jess Neumann, of the University of Reading, says: 'Many would say that this has been a 'good UK summer' with lots of warm and dry weather painting a picture of ice creams, beach days and BBQs in the sunshine.

'However, this is not the case for everyone and recent studies indicate that there have been hundreds of heat–related deaths during the UK summer heatwaves.'

In addition to being exceptionally warm, this summer was also drier than average – with the UK receiving just 85 per cent of the average rainfall.

This rainfall varied strongly across the UK, as England and Wales were exceptionally dry while parts of Scotland and north–western England were abnormally wet

This follows England's driest spring in over 100 years and the driest first six months of the year since 1929.

This has brought water levels in reservoirs to extreme lows, triggered hosepipe bans across most of the country, forced farmers to harvest crops early due to drought, and concentrated pollutant levels in rivers to critical levels.

Dr Neumann says: 'Parts of the UK will be in significant trouble if a dry winter follows this summer, as we desperately need rainfall to restock our rivers and reservoirs and recharge our aquifers.

'Whilst on the face of it, a hot and dry summer may be viewed as a good thing by some, in the long term it raises serious questions about where we need to invest in infrastructure, how we manage our water, and what we will need to do to cope with a changing climate.'