2022 will be the warmest year on record for the UK, according to provisional figures from the UK Met Office.
The UK’s national weather service said that all four seasons have been in the warmest top ten since 1884, and the 10 warmest years have all occurred since 2003.
While this year has set a new 139-year annual mean temperature record, the Met Office said 2022 will also be remembered for its “significant” weather events.
The head of the Met Office’s National Climate Information Centre, Dr. Mark McCarthy said: “2022 is going to be the warmest year on record for the UK.
“While many will remember the summer’s extreme heat, what has been noteworthy this year is the relatively consistent heat throughout the year, with every month except December being warmer than the average.
“The warm year is in line with the genuine impacts we expect as a result of human-induced climate change.
“Although it doesn’t mean every year will be the warmest on record, climate change continues to increase the chances of increasingly warm years over the coming decades.”
Fourth warmest summer on record
This year started with a mild theme and New Year’s Day being the warmest on record according to maximum temperature.
16.3° was recorded at St James’s Park, London, and that mild theme was replicated through much of 2022 with more warmer and fewer cooler-than-average days, the weather forecaster said.
The fourth warmest summer in the series for the UK was underlined with temperatures in excess of 40° recorded in the UK for the first time.
Coningsby in Lincolnshire recorded the highest temperature, with 40.3° exceeding the previous UK record by 1.6°.
The summer of 2022 also saw the Met Office issue its first-ever red warning for extreme heat with widespread impacts for the UK.
A cold December
Contrasting the abnormally hot summer, the UK has also been experiencing its coldest December since 2010 this year.
Temperatures dropped to –17.3° at Braemar on December 13, due to cool northerly air. Up until December 27, the mean temperature for the UK was 2.4°C, which is 1.8° below the average for the month.
Although temperatures were below average this month, McCarthy said the main takeaway from 2022 weather patterns is the higher-than-average temperatures experienced throughout the rest of the year.
“The record-breaking temperatures in July have certainly boosted the overall temperature values for the year, but that isn’t the full story,” he said.
“Temperatures have been above the 1991-2020 long-term average for a large proportion of the year, and this is something that we can anticipate as we become increasingly affected by climate change.
“Met Office science has shown that the temperatures witnessed in mid-July would have been extremely unlikely in the pre-industrial period – the era before humanity started emitting lots of greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels.
“However, as we have seen in the first two weeks of December, our climate is still subject to notable cold spells during the winter season, but our observational data show these have generally become less frequent and less severe as our climate warms.”
2023
The Met Office has also confirmed that 2023 is set to be a “notable” year as it is predicted to be one of the Earth’s hottest years.
The UK’s national weather service said the average global temperature for 2023 is forecast to be between 1.08° and 1.32° above the pre-industrial period, which is between the years of 1850 and 1900.
This means that 2023 will be the tenth year in succession that temperatures have reached at least 1° above pre-industrial levels.
Nick Dunstone from the Met Office, who has led the 2023 global temperature forecast, said:
“The global temperature over the last three years has been influenced by the effect of a prolonged La Nina – where cooler-than-average sea-surface temperatures occur in the tropical Pacific.
“La Nina has a temporary cooling effect on global average temperature. For next year our climate model is indicating an end to the three consecutive years with La Nina state, with a return to relatively warmer conditions in parts of the tropical Pacific.
“This shift is likely to lead to global temperature in 2023 being warmer than in 2022.”
