Posts misleadingly compare cooler 2024 U.K summer with record global temperature

What is the claim?

Posts on Facebook comparing the U.K.'s relatively cooler summer temperatures in 2024 with record-breaking global temperatures claim that 2024 is not the hottest summer on record. 

One user wrote, "2024 ! Hottest summer on record  ! Bollox  ! What about 1976  ? It was far hotter than this one ! And this year for the 1st time  I has to put heating on in July  !  What unforseen things are going on behind our backs ! Wake up folks  !  Something horrible is afoot   !” Another said, "The hottest summer on record.... Really? It must have by passed where I live. Heating on in August/September." Archived versions of these posts can be accessed here and here.

However, multiple scientific organizations have confirmed that summer 2024 was the hottest on record, and experts have confirmed that a relatively cooler summer in the U.K. cannot affect the planet's temperature as a whole. 

What is the truth?

The summer of 2024 has been the warmest in recorded human history. According to the Copernicus Climate Change Service, the boreal summer temperature (June-August, summer in the northern hemisphere) was at 0.69°C above the 1991-2020 average. The average temperature on European land was also at a record high of 1.54°C above the 1991-2020 average.

Global-average surface air temperature anomalies relative to 1991–2020 for each boreal summer (June to August) from 1979 to 2024. Data source: ERA5. Credit: Copernicus Climate Change Service/ECMWF. (Source: Copernicus Climate Change Service)

Similarly the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ranks the boreal summer temperature of 2024 as the warmest in the last 175 years.

This graph by NASA Earth Observatory shows how average temperature has increased from 1880 to the present day.

Global average temperature compared to 1951-1980 average. (Source: NASA Earth Observatory)

Temperatures in the United Kingdom

According to the U.K. Met Office, 2024 was the coldest summer in the U.K. since 2015. However, that doesn't mean that temperatures in the U.K. are not rising over the years in the long term. A Met Office report pointed out that summer 2024’s U.K. average mean temperature of 14.37°C is cooler compared to the 1991-2020 average of 14.59°C but warmer than the 1961-1990 average of 13.78°C.

Met Office Scientist Emily Carlisle explained in the report, “While this summer may have felt cool compared to recent years, it’s important to note where it sits in a historical context, with the changing climate of the UK increasing the frequency of warmer summers, as can be observed through our observations. While climate change increases the frequency of warmer weather in the UK, our natural variability means that we’ll still experience cooler than average summers at times.”

The Met report also showed that a graph of the U.K. summer mean temperature from 1884 to present shows a year-to-year variability of UK summer temperatures, but a generally warming trend. 

Dr. Bill McGuire, Emeritus Professor of Earth Sciences at University College London, told Logically Facts, “Globally, this is the hottest summer ever recorded -and quite possibly the hottest for around 125,000 years.” He further explained that even though 2024 has had the coolest UK summer since 2015, the country makes up such a tiny percentage of Earth’s surface area that it has a negligible effect on the planet’s temperature as a whole.

The verdict

A cooler British summer does not mean that the summer of 2024 was not the hottest on record and that climate change is not real. This has been confirmed by data from American and European agencies and experts.