It certainly was a hot year for the United Kingdom.
According to the Met Office's National Climate Information Centre, 2022 marked the warmest year for the U.K. on record.
"While many will remember the summer's extreme heat, what has been noteworthy this year has been the relatively consistent heat through the year, with every month except December being warmer than average," Dr. Mark McCarthy, head of the Centre, said in a statement.
"The warm year is in line with the genuine impacts we expect as a result of human-induced climate change," McCarthy continued. "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."
Since 1884, the ten warmest years on record in the U.K. have all occurred since 2003.
The annual average temperature will be available at the end of the year, but experts expect it to exceed the U.K.'s previous record set in 2014, when the average was 9.88°C (49.78°F).
The U.K. started the year with a mild theme as New Year's Day was the warmest on record -- the temperature hit 16.3°C (61.34°F) in London, the Met Office said. That theme was replicated through much of 2022 with more warmer than average days and fewer cooler than average days.
The country saw its fourth warmest summer on record, underlined with temperatures in excess of 40°C (104°F) recorded for the first time.
At the same time, the country saw an unusual start to winter with the coldest first two weeks of December since 2010 and temperatures dropping as low as –17.3°C (.86°F). So far, the average mean temperature for the month is just 2.4°C (36.32°F), which is 1.8°C below the average for the month.
The Met Office said all four seasons in 2022 were in the top 10 warmest on record for the UK. Winter was the eighth warmest, spring the fifth warmest, summer the fourth warmest and autumn the third warmest.
"2022 has been dominated by higher than average temperatures. The record-breaking temperatures in July have certainly boosted the overall temperature values for the year, but that isn’t the full story," said McCarthy. "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."
McCarthy pointed out that the climate is still subject to notable cold spells during the winter season, but "observational data show these have generally become less frequent and less severe as our climate warms."
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