Average temperature of 10C made 2022 Britain’s hottest ever year

THE average annual temperature in Britain exceeded 10C (50F) for the first time last year, the Met Office has said.

The country’s mean temperature in 2022 was 10.03C – beating the record of 9.88C set in 2014 – making it the warmest average year since the data was first collected in 1884.

It is the first time the average temperature has reached double figures.

All four home nations recorded new highs as the mercury rose to 10.94C in England, 10.23C in Wales, 9.85C in Northern Ireland and 8.5C in Scotland.

Dr Mark Mccarthy, who leads the Met Office’s National Climate Information Centre, said “human-induced global warming” was to blame.

“Although an arbitrary number, the UK surpassing an annual average temperature of 10C is a notable moment in our climatological history,” he said.

“This moment comes as no surprise. Since 1884 all the 10 years recording the highest annual temperature have occurred from 2003.

“It is clear from the observational record that human-induced global warming is already impacting the UK’S climate.” Of Britain’s 20 warmest years on record, 15 have occurred this century and the top 10 readings have been within the past two decades.

The new record comes despite December’s cold snap seeing temperatures plummet to -17.3C in Braemar in the Scottish Highlands.

Every other month saw above-average temperatures, with highs pushing above 40C during the summer heatwave.

Dr Nikos Christidis, a climate attribution scientist at the Met Office, said: “We used climate models to compare the likelihood of a UK mean temperature of 10C in both the current climate and with historical human climate influences removed.

“The results showed that recording 10C in a natural climate would occur around once every 500 years, whereas in our current climate it could be as frequently as once every three to four years.”

Coningsby in Lincolnshire saw the year’s highest temperature of 40.3C – 1.6C above the previous national record.

The summer highs triggered a national health alert and a major incident was declared in London amid a huge surge in fires.

Wales also notched up a new daily maximum temperature record of 37.1C, with Scotland seeing a new high of 34.8C.

The year also brought unusually high levels of sunshine to the UK, lower levels of rain and fewer named storms.

Figures also show that 2022 was the warmest on record in the 364-year Central England Temperature (CET) series. It began in 1659 and is the world’s longest-running temperature dataset.

The annual mean CET for 2022 was 11.1C – beating the previous record of 11C in 2014.