Is ‘warming up’ common?

How fast the temperature rises depends not only on how warm the air is, but also how dry the land and atmosphere are.

Dry land warms faster than wet land because less energy is used for evaporation and more goes directly to warming.

There is strong evidence that UK summer soils are becoming drier as the climate warms, with the Met Office forecasting earlier seasonal drying and more frequent droughts, particularly in southern and eastern England.

The same principle applies above ground. Large, slow-moving areas of high pressure — often called high altitudes or heat waves — are large air sinks.

Like squeezing a sponge, the downward movement dries the air and actually compresses the air, which increases the heating of the air.

While blocking highs do not happen often, research suggests that when they do occur, the heat and dryness they bring is more intense than in the past.

Professor Sarah Perkins Kirkpatrick, a climate scientist at the Australian National University, said: “Dies are forced to warm faster… As soon as a high pressure system comes through, bang, the temperature goes up.”