Provisional full year figures released by the Met Office today for 2014 show it is the UK's warmest and fourth wettest year in records dating back to 1910.

It is also the warmest year on record in the Central England Temperature series, which dates back to 1659 and is the world's longest running instrumental temperature series.

The UK's mean temperature for the year is 9.9 °C, which is 1.1 °C above the long-term (1981-2010) average and beats the previous record of 9.7 °C set in 2006.

This year's record means that eight of the UK's top ten warmest years have happened since 2002.

Looking in more detail across the UK, it was the warmest year on record for all countries and regions apart from Northern Ireland - which had its joint third warmest year behind 2007 and 2006.

Despite the record breaking warmth, no months through the year saw records for temperature - instead each month was consistently warm, with only August seeing below average temperatures.

It was also marginally the warmest year on record in the CET series from 1659 with a mean temperature of 10.93 °C narrowly ahead of the previous record of 10.87 °C set in 2006.

Five of the UK's top six wettest years have happened since 2000

This year's provisional rainfall total of 1297.1 mm is the fourth highest total on record for the UK in the series dating back to 1910, meaning five of the UK's top six wettest years have happened since 2000.

It was also within the 20 wettest years in the England and Wales Precipitation series which dates back to 1766. However, no individual regions had their wettest year on record.

A large contribution to the high annual rainfall total came from very wet weather in January and February. May, October and November were also wetter than average and August was especially wet across Northern Scotland.

Most other months were drier than average in most areas, and September was the driest in the series from 1910 for the UK.

The most notable weather events of the year were the winter storms of January and February which brought damaging winds, inland and coastal flooding.

Commenting on the figures, Friends of the Earth Senior Climate Campaigner Simon Bullock said:

“Without action to cut our use of fossil fuels the world is going to keep warming - with ever-increasing risks of climate disasters."

“Our political leaders must wake up to the climate change threat and agree a binding international action plan to slash emissions in Paris later this year - with wealthy, developed nations taking the lead."

“If we harness the full potential of energy efficiency and renewable power we can build the low-carbon future we urgently need.”