24/7 Space News
WEATHER REPORT
2025 was UK's hottest and sunniest year on record

2025 was UK's hottest and sunniest year on record

By Joe JACKSON
London (AFP) Jan 2, 2026
Last year was Britain's hottest and sunniest on record, the national weather service confirmed on Friday, calling it a "clear demonstration" of the impacts of climate change.

The previous record of 10.03C was set in 2022.

"2025 now joins 2022 and 2023 in the top three warmest years since 1884," the Met Office said in a statement, noting the United Kingdom's mean temperature through last year was 10.09C.

"This is an increasingly clear demonstration of the impacts of climate change on UK temperatures," it added.

"It is also only the second year in this series where the UK's annual mean temperature has exceeded 10.0C."

It means four of the UK's last five years now appear in the top five warmest years since 1884, and all of the top 10 hottest years will now have occurred in the last two decades.

The Met Office had already announced last month that 2025 was the country's sunniest year since that record series began in 1910.

The United Kingdom, which comprises England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, saw 1648.5 hours of sunshine, 61.4 hours more than the previous record set in 2003.

- 'Exceptional' sunshine -

An "exceptional" amount of sunshine during the spring followed by long spells of clear skies during the summer helped set the record, the Met Office has noted.

Mark McCarthy, the Met Office's head of climate attribution, said the "very warm" year was "in line with expected consequences of human-induced climate change".

"Although it doesn't mean every year will be the warmest on record, it is clear from our weather observations and climate models that human-induced global warming is impacting the UK's climate," he added.

Bob Ward of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics, said the record was "undoubtedly due to climate change".

"We can only stop the growing impacts of climate change by cutting our greenhouse gas emissions to net zero, and the longer we take to reach it the more death, damage and suffering there will be," he said.

The country experienced persistent spells of dry and sunny weather in 2025, with every month except January and September warmer than average.

- Wildfires -

Spring and then a summer featuring four heatwaves were Britain's warmest on record, while spring was the driest in more than a century.

Droughts were declared in several regions, reservoir sites fell below 50 percent of their usual capacity and a handful of water companies issued bans on using hosepipes.

Fire brigades in England in 2025 also tackled the highest number of spring wildfires since comparable records began in 2011, according to figures obtained by the PA news agency from 35 of the 43 fire services in England.

At least 12,454 grassland, woodland or crop fires were recorded by fire services in the three months from March to May 2025.

The number was more than four times the 2,621 incidents logged in the same period in 2024.

Met Office scientist Emily Carlisle said: "Meteorologically, the warmth has been driven largely by persistent high-pressure systems bringing prolonged dry, sunny conditions, alongside above-average sea temperatures around the UK.

"These factors have combined to keep temperatures consistently higher than normal for much of the year."

Last year Britain produced a record-high amount of electricity from renewable energy.

Wind, solar and biomass power combined to supply 47 percent of the country's electricity in 2025, climate and energy website Carbon Brief said in a study Friday.

The country has set a target to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by at least 81 percent by 2035 compared to 1990 levels and is aiming to be carbon neutral by the middle of the century.

Related Links
Weather News at TerraDaily.com

Subscribe Free To Our Daily Newsletters
Tweet

RELATED CONTENT
WEATHER REPORT
2025 on track to tie second hottest year on record: EU monitor
Paris, France (AFP) Dec 9, 2025
The planet is on track to log its second hottest year on record in 2025, tied with 2023 after a historic high in 2024, Europe's global warming monitor said Tuesday. The data from the Copernicus Climate Change Service reaffirms that global temperatures are on course to exceed 1.5C above pre-industrial levels - the threshold considered safer in the 2015 Paris Agreement. Temperatures rose by 1.48C on average between January and November, or "currently tied with 2023 to be the second-warmest year o ... read more

WEATHER REPORT
Startups go public in litmus test for Chinese AI

Sprawling CES gadgetfest a world stage for AI and its hype

Billionaire Trump nominee confirmed to lead NASA amid Moon race

ISS to change commanders before Soyuz crew leaves orbit

WEATHER REPORT
AI systems proposed to boost launch cadence reliability and traffic management

China debuts Long March 12A reusable rocket in Jiuquan test flight

Japan's flagship H3 rocket fails to launch satellite

Hydrogen from ethanol reforming mapped as aviation fuel-cell pathway

WEATHER REPORT
Wind-Sculpted Landscapes: Investigating the Martian Megaripple 'Hazyview'

HiRISE camera aboard Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter passes 100000 image milestone

Search for life should be top science priority for first human landing on Mars report says

Curiosity Blog, Sols 4750-4762: See You on the Other Side of the Sun

WEATHER REPORT
China harnesses nationwide system to drive spaceflight and satellite navigation advances

Shenzhou 21 crew complete eight hour spacewalk outside Tiangong station

Foreign satellites ride Kinetica 1 on new CAS Space mission

Experts at Hainan symposium call for stronger global space partnership

WEATHER REPORT
Time-expanded network model cuts complexity in mega constellation launch planning

Southern Launch to Host Lux Aeterna Re-Entries South Australia

Smart modeling framework targets 6G spectrum chaos in space air and ground networks

K2 Space raises 250m to scale Mega class high power satellites

WEATHER REPORT
From music to mind reading: AI startups bet on earbuds

New tool narrows the search for ideal material structures

Nostalgia and new fans as Tamagotchi turns 30

Chlorine and hydrogen from waste brines without external power

WEATHER REPORT
Creating hallucination-free, psychedelic-like molecules by shining light on life's basic building blocks

Giant amoeba virus ushikuvirus sheds light on how complex cells evolved

Clues to the migration path of hot Jupiters in their orbits

Hubble pinpoints asteroid smash ups in nearby Fomalhaut system

WEATHER REPORT
Uranus and Neptune may be rock rich worlds

SwRI links Uranus radiation belt mystery to solar storm driven waves

Looking inside icy moons

Saturn moon mission planning shifts to flower constellation theory



The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2026 - SpaceDaily.com. All websites are published in Australia and are solely subject to Australian law and governed by Fair Use principals for news reporting and research purposes. AFP, UPI and IANS news wire stories are copyright Agence France-Presse, United Press International and Indo-Asia News Service. ESA news reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. All articles labeled "by Staff Writers" include reports supplied to Space Media Network by industry news wires, PR agencies, corporate press officers and the like. Such articles are individually curated and edited by Space Media Network staff on the basis of the report's information value to our industry and professional readership. Advertising does not imply endorsement, agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space Media Network on any Web page published or hosted by Space Media Network. General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Statement Our advertisers use various cookies and the like to deliver the best ad banner available at one time. All network advertising suppliers have GDPR policies (Legitimate Interest) that conform with EU regulations for data collection. By using our websites you consent to cookie based advertising. If you do not agree with this then you must stop using the websites from May 25, 2018. Privacy Statement. Additional information can be found here at About Us.
Subscribe Free To Our Daily Newsletters