The weather is like Brexit: no one’s happy with it, it makes people very hot and you wonder how it's all going to end

We asked for a Soft Summer, like Soft Brexit, but of course we haven’t got it – we’ve got the Hard, Hot ‘tres chaud’ version instead

Like Dominic Raab, we’ve been told to lump it: red hot summers are here to stay (Getty)

The thing about the weather is that it’s a bit like Brexit: No one’s happy with it, it makes people very hot and bothered and, well, you wonder if it is all going to end rather nastily. Existentially bad, even. Apparently more of us are drowning as we plunge recklessly into the sea, or the lager.

Obviously we’ve messed up the negotiations with Lord God Almighty, who I guess looks a lot like Michel Barnier. We asked for a Soft Summer, like Soft Brexit, but of course we haven’t got it. We’ve got the Hard, Hot tres chaud version instead; full-on, sweaty, chaotic. We wanted access to the sun, but also full union with the sea breezes blowing in from the continent; we asked for a bit of a let-up from temperatures that just make you want to lie down in a darkened room and, above all, the occasional rainy spell – because we all love that earthy smell of fresh rain falling onto parched soil.

(This, by the way, is apparently generated by something called “petrichor” – the name derived from the Greek word petros for stone, and ichor, the mythical blood of the gods. The aroma comes when those precious raindrops hit the soil and various oils and secretions that have oozed into the ground are released. Evocative and educational too, this column).

Like Dominic Raab, we’ve been told to lump it: red hot summers are here to stay. So what also seems not to be on offer, now or in the future, is for Britain to return to the old climate zone we used to take for granted in our yearning for something better. We had miserable, mediocre weather all day long, all year round: we didn’t know how lucky we were.

From memory of geography classes, the British, classically, are supposed have a moderate, “temperate” climate, one where the kinds of extremes seen in Europe and America are avoided. You know, 10ft snowdrifts and temperatures that freeze diesel in winter; but turbo oven-style conditions in the summer months. Not the British way at all, that, thanks to the Gulf Stream and our proud island status.

As with our politics, the British weather didn’t used to swing from extreme to extreme, and there is a case for thinking that the national attachment to “moderation in all things” is driven by the moderate British climate, albeit a bit wet, and its topography, where, once again, extremes tend not to feature much outside the Celtic fringe. Generations have been forged by their environment into an outlook of moderation, and a habit of weather-based small talk at the bus stop or water cooler. Now all the weather talk is “big” – higher, hotter, record-breaking humidity and melting icebergs.

Maybe the link between the British character and its weather is a bit fanciful, but those of us who believe in the science of climate change (while retaining some spiritual link with the Lord God Almighty of weather) can see how much the country will be transformed by what is happening now.

Our traditional sensible architecture will need to learn from Eastern styles to add more windows and towers for ventilation (rather than energy-wasting air conditioning units). Our crops and cuisine will need to move on to stuff that is more drought resistant, simply because arable crops can’t hack it in Norfolk any more. We’ll inevitably have to get used to more foreign invasive species that thrive in our more extreme conditions – Japanese knotweed, Chinese mitten crabs and carpet sea squirt, which looks like something off Doctor Who. Bougainvillea everywhere. We might also have to think about where we get our water from, and paying more for this increasingly scarce commodity. Bermuda shorts could become business attire.

Will the British grow more hot-headed, more stormy and lose their sang froid, as the climactic and political temperature ascends inexorably to boiling point? One worries.

Of course the temperatures we’re suffering, or enjoying, today are not “the hottest ever”, merely the hottest since we humans started taking measurements. Way back the earth has been, famously, much colder and much hotter, a more variable performance than even the England team managed in the World Cup.

When dinosaurs roamed the earth running after Raquel Welch in a fur bikini, the earth was, well, hot enough for Raquel Welch to go around in a fur bikini. Hokum, I know, but fun.

Proper science, though, tells us that in the Eocene era, some 50 million years ago, temperatures were about 6C higher than today, which is a hell of a lot, and would see the UK completely underwater, along with our continental EU neighbours: the Eiffel Tower, the Berlaymont EU Commission monolith in Brussels, the majestic Tatra Mountains in Slovakia, the Alps, the Palace of Westminster, Nigel Farage: all hopelessly underwater. Which I hope puts the current debate into some kind of context.

Now, where did I leave the Factor 50?