UK Met Office: 2013 ‘very likely’ to be in Top 10 warmest years

This Year (2013) is likely to be one of the warmest on record with global temperatures 0.57 degrees above the long-term average, Britain's Met Office said in its annual year-ahead forecast.

"It is very likely that 2013 will be one of the warmest 10 years in the record which goes back to 1850, and it is likely to be warmer than 2012," the Met Office said on Thursday (20 December).

Next year was expected to be between 0.43 and 0.71 degrees Celsius warmer than the long-term global average of 14 degrees (1961-1990), with a best estimate of around 0.57, it said.

The forecast is based on Met Office research, as well as data from the University of East Anglia, the NASA Goddard Institute of Space Studies and the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Rising temperatures could be due to the natural variability of the climate and global warming from increasing greenhouse gas emissions, said Dave Britton, a Met Office forecaster.

A warmer global average temperature does not necessarily mean every region of the world will get hotter, as regional climate variability produces different effects in different parts of the world, he added.

Eleven of the 12 hottest years on record have occurred since 2001, according to data from the World Meteorological Organisation.

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