Today’s heatwaves are a warning of worse to come

There comes a moment when the penny drops. And in Britain this week the sound of dropping pennies was loud. Though Britons are by no means the worst affected by the heatwaves now sweeping the northern hemisphere, they have been in awe of a particular round number: 40°C. This is an air temperature never before recorded in the United Kingdom. But it was matched and exceeded in several places on July 19th. It is one thing to understand intellectually that anthropogenic global warming is real, quite another to feel one’s own brain baking.