Britain set to endure hottest-ever day in European heatwave

Temperatures in Britain are set to reach their highest-ever levels on Thursday as northern Europe baked in a heatwave for the second time in a month.

The Met Office, Britain's national weather forecaster, said there was a 40% chance that the record of 38.5 degrees Celsius (101.3°F), set in Kent in 2003, will be broken.

Britonswere facing travel disruption, with trains being forced to slow down to preventtracks buckling in the heat, and health authorities have issued warnings to thevulnerable.

Highpressure drawing scorching air from the Sahara Desert has already brokentemperature records for Belgium and the Netherlands and is expected to persistuntil Friday.

Climatespecialists warned that such heatwaves were becoming more frequent as a resultof global warming from greenhouse gas emissions.

AMet Office study found that last year's heatwave was 30 times more likely tooccur than in 1750 because of the high amount of carbon dioxide in theatmosphere. Since the pre-industrial period (1850-1900) the Earth's surfacetemperature has risen by 1 degree Celsius.

"There is a 40-50% chance that this will be the warmest July on record. This heatwave is exactly in line with climate change predictions," said Dr Karsten Haustein at the Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford.

PeterInness, Senior Research Fellow at the University of Reading, said: "Thefact that so many recent years have had very high summer temperatures bothglobally and across Europe is very much in line with what we expect fromman-made global warming."

The heatwave in Britain is expected to come to an abrupt end on Friday with thunderstorms forecast for several parts of the country, the Met Office said.