Scotland recorded its highest average temperature on record last year, according to the Met Office.

The country saw an annual mean temperature of 8.50C in 2022, which beat the previous record of 8.43C set in 2014.

Last year was also the hottest year on record for all other UK nations, with an average temperature of over 10C recorded for the whole of Britain for the first time.

A Met Office study, released this month, showed that human-induced climate change made the UK’s record-breaking annual temperature around 160 times more likely.

It said the warm conditions would have been expected once in 500 years under a natural climate, without humans warming the planet through activities such as burning fossil fuels.

But experts said this is now likely every three to four years in the current climate.

For the UK as a whole, the 2022 data shows the country saw a provisional annual average temperature of 10.03C, the highest in records dating back to 1884 and 0.15C higher than the previous record of 9.88C set in 2014.

Met Office climate attribution scientist Dr Nikos Christidis said: “To assess the impact of human-induced climate change on the record-breaking year of 2022, we used climate models to compare the likelihood of a UK mean temperature of 10C in both the current climate and with historical human climate influences removed.

“The results showed that recording 10C 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.”

Dr Mark McCarthy, head of the Met Office National Climate Information Centre, added: “Although an arbitrary number, the UK surpassing an annual average temperature of 10C is a notable moment in our climatological history.

“This moment comes as no surprise, since 1884 all the 10 years recording the highest annual temperature have occurred from 2003.

“It is clear from the observational record that human-induced global warming is already impacting the UK’s climate.”

At the start of 2022, the Met Office forecast the year would be the warmest on record for the UK.