Research from the Met Office has said the record temperatures seen across Europe this summer would not have been possible without human-induced climate change.

The summer of 2021 was Europe’s hottest on record with temperatures close to 1°C above the 1991-2020 average.

In assessing the impact of climate change on these high seasonal temperaturesc, scientists used a large collection of computer simulations to compare the climate as it is today, with about 1°C of global warming, with the climate as it would have been without human influence.

The calculations showed that the record-breaking summer season in Europe would have been almost impossible without human influence.

In the present climate, it has an estimated return time of around three years and, by the end of the century, the conditions could be seen every year.

Met Office climate attribution scientist, Dr Nikos Christidis, who led the analysis, said: “This latest attribution study is another example of how climate change is already making our weather extremes more severe.

"Our analysis of the European summer of 2021 shows that what is now a one in three-year event would have been almost impossible without human induced climate change.”

During this record-breaking hot spell, a new European maximum temperature record was set in Syracuse, Sicily, where temperatures reached 48.8°C, beating the previous European high of 48°C recorded in Athens in 1977.