UK's 2022 was hottest year on record, says forecaster

Britain experienced its hottest year on record in 2022, the national weather service confirmed on Wednesday, saying that human-induced climate change had made the temperature rise around 160 times more likely.

The Met Office said the average annual temperature topped 10 degrees Celsius for the first time, the highest in records dating back to 1884.

"The results showed that recording 10°C 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," said Met Office scientist Nikos Christidis, commenting on a study which looked at the attribution for the temperature change.

The Met Office findings, which confirmed provisional results published in late December, came as record-high winter temperatures swept across parts of Europe over the new year, bringing calls from activists for faster action against climate change.