In what is fast becoming a British summer ritual, the record holiday heat this week has prompted reams of cheerful forecasts and sunny headlines but far too few reminders that the climate crisis has made record-breaking a norm, according to experts.

The latest record was the 33.2C (91.8F) at Heathrow, which was five degrees higher than the hottest temperature previously registered in Britain on an August bank holiday Monday.

This was at least the third UK heat record this year, after the warmest winter day in February and a new all-time peak high temperature of 38.7C on 25 July in Cambridge.

Most TV and newspaper reports have covered these events in jaunty tones with images of scantily clad sun-seekers, children with melting ice-creams and sweating holidaymakers downing cold drinks on the beach. The “heat and the glory” read Monday’s splash in the Daily Mail, which made the scorching weather just another obstacle that the England cricketer Ben Stokes had to overcome in his epic innings against Australia.

Although there appears to be more focus than in the past on the impact of man-made global heating, climate experts say the balance is still skewed away from the worrying reality of climate disruption, which has crammed all of the UK’s 10 hottest years into the period since 2002.

This is part of a global trend. July was the world’s hottest month ever recorded, following the warmest June. The extreme heat is particularly unusual because this is not an El Niño year – the phenomenon usually associated with prolonged temperature surges. Scientists say the record-shattering temperatures seen in Europe last month were a one-in-a-thousand-year event made up to 100 times more likely by the greenhouse gases that humans have put into the atmosphere.

The Met Office says the worrying long-term trend is clear, but not always easy to balance with the short-term focus on pleasantly (for most people) unusual warmth.

“It’s a challenge,” said Grahame Madge of the Met Office. “As a national weather forecaster, we want to give people advice on what they need to do to prepare for the day ahead. But we also wear a climate hat that means we must advise when we think conditions are influenced by climate change.”

Q&A Why is the Guardian changing the language it uses about the environment? Show Hide The Guardian has updated its style guide to introduce terms that more accurately describe the environmental crises facing the world. Instead of “climate change”, the preferred terms are “climate emergency, crisis or breakdown” and “global heating” is favoured over “global warming”. The scale of the climate and wildlife crises has been laid bare by two landmark reports from the world’s scientists. In October 2018, they said carbon emissions must halve by 2030 to avoid even greater risks of drought, floods, extreme heat and poverty for hundreds of millions of people. In May 2019, global scientists said human society was in jeopardy from the accelerating annihilation of wildlife and destruction of the ecosystems that support all life on Earth. The editor-in-chief, Katharine Viner, says: “We want to ensure that we are being scientifically precise, while also communicating clearly with readers on this very important issue. The phrase ‘climate change’, for example, sounds rather passive and gentle when what scientists are talking about is a catastrophe for humanity.” Other terms that have been updated include the use of “wildlife” rather than “biodiversity”, “fish populations” instead of “fish stocks” and “climate science denier” rather than “climate sceptic”. Damian Carrington Environment editor

Other experts said the Met Office, along with the BBC, should go further and be proactive about linking the weather with the climate.

“At the moment, the Met Office seems to be afraid to talk about climate change. For instance, it published State of the UK Climate 2018 last month, which listed key trends in rainfall and temperature but did not mention climate change,” said Bob Ward of the Grantham research institute on climate change and the environment at the London School of Economics.

Research suggests people base their view of long-term trends on their recent experiences, which can be misleading. Ward said weather presenters could help to overcome this perception shortfall. “Weather presenters can provide overviews of the trends to help people make sense of their own experiences and allow them to think about how risks will change,” he said.

Calculating the influence of climate change is a complex process because it differs from place to place and from day to day according to the interplay of natural fluctuations and human forcing.

Attribution studies are run through supercomputers, and the process is becoming faster, which means it may one day be used alongside weather forecasts. Karsten Haustein of the environmental change institute at the University of Oxford said results could technically be provided within one to three days, though there are currently insufficient staff to perform this task frequently.

This week’s heatwave is the third of the summer and likely to be the shortest. Tuesday was also freakishly hot for the time of year – registering 32.9C at Heathrow – but the Met Office says a cooler front will prevail from Wednesday until at least the end of the week.