This year could surpass 2023 as the warmest one on record in Ireland, given global climatic conditions at present, Met Éireann has said.
Official statistics, which will be published this week, will show the mean annual average temperature in Ireland surpassed 11 degrees for the first time last year.
That is almost 1.5 degrees above the long-term average. Twenty-one of Met Éireann’s 25 synoptic stations, or official stations at which weather recordings are taken, had their warmest year on record. Some 24 had their highest mean minimum temperature (the average of the lowest temperatures every month) and 19 had their highest mean maximum (the average of the highest temperatures in each month).
This was in keeping with global temperatures, which were also the highest on record last year, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and other agencies worldwide. The mean global temperature will surpass the previous hottest year in 2016 and will be 1.4 degrees higher than the pre-industrial (pre-1900) average.
The highest temperature in Ireland last year was 28.8 degrees on June 13th at Oak Park in Co Carlow, and the lowest temperature was minus 7 at Mount Dillon on January 17th.
2023 is likely also to be in the top 10 wettest years since records started to be kept nationally in 1940. It was the wettest year since 2002 at Dublin Airport, and the wettest on record in Athenry since records began 12 years ago. It was also the wettest year since 2009 in Valentia, Co Kerry, and at Cork Airport.
Met Éireann climatologist Paul Moore said the world tends to be hotter as a result of the impact of El Niño, the global phenomenon in the southern hemisphere where the trade winds that blow from east to west are reversed pushing huge amounts of warm air into the atmosphere. El Niño years are warmer than normal.
The effects of El Niño will continue into the first half of this year at least, he predicted. “2023 has a strong El Niño but the delayed effects carries on for months afterwards,” he explained.
Another phenomenon that will carry on into the New Year is the rise in sea temperatures in the North Atlantic which have remained several degrees above normal since last April.
They are partially driving the wetter weather and the recent busy storm season in northern Europe.
“Research has shown that if you have a storm in our current climate, it will be stronger and drop more rain. With higher sea temperatures, there is more moisture in the atmosphere and the potential to drop more rainfall in this case,” he explained.
The start of this year’s storm season, which runs from September to September, has been particularly busy, in comparison with 2022/23. “We missed a lot of the strong storms previously, but we are already up to Storm H this season,” he said.
El Nino can bring colder temperatures in January or February if it disturbs the jet stream “but that is harder to achieve now with the warmer water”.
Last year was provisionally the second warmest on record for the UK since records began in 1884, the UK Met Office has said.
Only 2022, which saw temperatures exceed 40 degrees for the first time in recorded history, was hotter.
Wales and Northern Ireland had their warmest years, with the Met Office saying climate change has made these benchmarks “significantly more likely”.
For Northern Ireland, it was its respective warmest year in a series from 1884, third wettest year in a series from 1836, and also its wettest year since 2002.
The UK Met Office said it expects the pattern of high-temperature records to continue in the coming years as a result of human-induced climate change.
Last year saw heatwaves in June and September as well as above-average temperatures for eight of the 12 months of 2023.
Both Northern Ireland and Wales have now had consecutive warmest years on record, with 2023 topping their previous 2022 records.
Some 1,399mm of rain was provisionally recorded for Northern Ireland by the UK Met Office. – 21% more than average. Additional reporting - PA
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