That word "melted" seems unjustified. CNBC reports:
> The RAF didn’t specify why it suspended flights, but a spokesperson said “the runway has not melted” as early media reports indicated.
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/07/18/london-flights-suspended-aft...
> The UK’s highest of 38.7C was recorded in Cambridge in July 2019.
This isn't remarkable.
>the record temperature of 100 degrees was reached at Greenwich on August 9
This was in 1911, from: https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/115352761/9911357
> "following today’s high temperatures, a surface defect was identified on the runway" https://twitter.com/LDNLutonAirport/status/15490520549365719...
> "high surface temperatures caused a small section to lift" https://twitter.com/LDNLutonAirport/status/15490713790095114...
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrication_in_the_United_King... [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1911_in_the_United_Kingdom
I'll take your word for it that the met office didn't start collecting temperature data until 1914. Countless other entities didn't either, and none of them were cited either. In what year did Wikipedia start collecting temperature data?
I wish we had a pithy term for people underplaying exceptional events (complacency-mongering?) to show off how unflappable they are, because it would be nice to use it in this case.
Temperature records being broken are, by definition, exceptional events. In this case, the UK's temperature record was broken by 1.5C, which is a huge increase.
> This was in 1911
Cherry-picking a data point. There's a very significant trend of hotter days and record breaking occurring in the past few years. One outlier in a century of data doesn't mean very much (and your source of a paragraph from an Australian newspaper in 1911 seems to get the value wrong).
This is as much cherry-picking as the linked article is. It's one measurement.
> source of a paragraph from an Australian newspaper
The link is an Australian paper, too.
Where are you finding this trend data? It's not in any of these materials. Please share if you have it. I've seen all sorts of trends, but they always start after the last cycle, when it was very hot in '30s.
This article has at least some stats about hottest days going back before the 30's: https://www.rte.ie/news/weather/2022/0719/1311135-uk-hottest...
>Heathrow Airport was the first place to break the 40C mark, hitting 40.2C at 12:50 BST but several other places also passed 40C during the afternoon, including Gringley on the Hill in Nottinghamshire and St James's Park, Kew Gardens and Northolt - all in London.
I think you missed my point. To spell it out: a modern Australian news outlet should be easily able to report accurate data. In 1911 they presumably relied on the telegraph (small "t") and human transcription, leading to a high probability of errors.
And, indeed, an error seems to have occurred in this case. The maximum recorded temperature for that year was actually 36.7 °C (98.1 °F) [0]. This was presumably due to errors in transcription, rounding errors, or (ironically) deliberate sensationalism.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_weather_records
>Monthly Weather Report 1911
Last page (140):
>In England 90° was exceeded on several days, the hottest being AUGUST 9th, 97° at Camden Square, London, Wokingham and Hillington, 98° at Raunds, and 100° at Greenwich (in the Glaisher screen; the value recorded in the Stevenson screen was 97°), the highest ever recorded in this country.
AFAIK Stevenson screens are now the standard, and Glaisher stands tend to record higher maximums, so the 100 isn't directly comparable.