Story · Environment map · about 3 min
How much warmer has the UK got, and what comes next?
The UK's average temperature has crept up, with big swings between individual years. Then the models look ahead. This story steps through the measured record first, then the projections, on the same map.
The UK in 2000
Averaged over every 1 km square of land, the UK's annual mean temperature in 2000 was 9.1 °C. The pattern is the familiar one: warmest in the south and along the south-west coast, coldest on the Highlands and the Pennine tops.
2010: the coldest year of the 25
2010 averaged only 7.9 °C. Notice how much of the map shifts a shade cooler. Single years bounce around a lot, which is why one cold winter says little about climate.
2022: the warmest
2022 reached 10.0 °C on average. Compare the last five years (2020 to 2024) with the first five (2000 to 2004) and the average is 0.5 °C higher: a small move on a thermometer, but averaged across a whole country and two decades it is the kind of shift that nudges flowering dates, growing seasons and the odds of a heatwave. Click anywhere to draw that place's own history as a chart.
Looking ahead: the 2050s
Climate models (an ensemble of 16 runs of the Met Office's UKCP18 regional model, under the high-emissions RCP8.5 scenario) show the change against 1981 to 2000. By the 2050s the ensemble average is about +2.5 °C in London and +2.1 °C at Inverness.
…and the 2070s
By the 2070s the same scenario gives about +3.7 °C in London, +3.0 °C at Inverness and +2.9 °C at Belfast: the south-east warms most. A few degrees on a map does not mean a few degrees hotter every single day. It shows up as fewer frosty mornings, more days over 30°C, and summers that feel borrowed from somewhere further south. This is one scenario, not a forecast. Slide the time control to see each decade.
For classrooms and curious minds
Questions to talk about, alone or in a group.
- Why does a single cold or hot year not tell you much about climate change, and what does?
- The projections are a scenario, not a forecast. What is the difference, and why does it matter?
Try it on the map: Use the time slider on the temperature layer to find the coldest year since 2000. Is it the same place that is coldest every year?
The figures above are calculated from the datasets listed on Data & sources and are approximate: many map layers are modelled or interpolated. Read each layer’s caveats on the map.