Last month was Britain's hottest June on record, the country's National Weather Service said on Monday, warning that human-caused climate change is making such temperature records increasingly likely.

Record-breaking heat waves have become a global phenomenon, and scientists warn that efforts to stop rising temperatures are not enough to prevent the most catastrophic effects of global warming.

Britain's Met Office said June's average temperature of 15.8°C was the highest for almost 140 years, beating previous records of 14.9°C set in 1940 and 1976.

"All the data shows that we are going in the wrong direction in terms of the heat, the intensity of it and how long it lasts," service meteorologist Clare Nasir told Reuters. Britain recorded its hottest day on record last year after temperatures topped 40°C for the first time, causing disruption to infrastructure such as airports and railways and sparking bushfires. Describing the latest record as bearing the "fingerprint of climate change", the Met Office said a study by its scientists had found that the chance of June temperatures being higher than 14.9 degrees Celsius had at least doubled since 1940.

Last week, Spain recorded temperatures of up to 44 degrees Celsius and China and the United States experienced a series of heatwaves in June.

Earlier in the month, the British water company South East Water introduced a temporary ban on the use of hoses and sprinklers in the English regions of Kent and Sussex due to high temperatures and increasing demand for drinking water.

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