That was a really excellent post all round, thank you. I want to pick out this section in particular, though, as I think the focus on temperature almost above all else is indeed a big problem. When the UK hit 40 °C in July 2022, for the vast majority of people (healthy people, at least) a week later there was no discernible impact remaining and in effect it had ceased to be a visible impact. It was just "something that happened and is now over" for most of the population.
That is not the case for flooding, of course. If the river comes into your house, you're very likely to be spending months living somewhere else or even in a caravan. If the road into town is washed away, your economy is potentially in huge strife. This winter's rainfall has caused very significant problems: for example, the railway between Telford and Shrewsbury has been closed for several weeks now because of a landslip. And even on a less dramatic level, we've all seen what months of soaking wet conditions have done to road surfaces.
The likelihood of wetter winters and more extreme rainfall events is probably what we in the UK should be emphasising more - a *lot* more - than more heatwaves in summer. The Met Office is doing that a bit more now with its comments about a warmer atmosphere holding more water. Serious rainfall/flooding is, for most people in the UK, a *far* more visible thing than a couple of extra degrees in a heatwave.