The role of climate change in the current global heatwaves has split some of the most eminent Met Office scientific advisers.

Differences emerged on Tuesday about whether decades of dire predictions on the impact of global warming are “coming true before our eyes”, or if the Northern Hemisphere is simply experiencing a particularly hot summer - albeit one with tragic consequences.

To one body of opinion, the sustained and searing temperatures currently hitting Britain, Africa, Canada, Japan and other regions cannot be a coincidence.

The heatwave of 1976 may have been a freak, experts said, but in that year the serious heat was confined mainly to the UK and Western Europe, whereas now it is happening all at once in multiple regions across the planet.

The argument was summed up vividly by Professor Peter Stott, who leads the Met Office’s climate monitoring team.