2014 was hottest year on record, according to US data

2014 was the hottest year on record across the globe, US scientists have confirmed.

Last year ranked as the Earth's warmest since 1880, according to two separate analyses by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The ten warmest years on record, with the exception of 1998, have now occurred since 2000, said scientists.

Parts of the world experienced record temperatures, including most of Europe and some of Australia, and the US.

The Met Office has already announced that 2014 was the hottest year for the UK in records dating back to 1910.

In November, preliminary data from the US suggested that 2014 was likely to break temperature records.

Bob Ward of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment said the data "exposes the myth that global warming has stopped".

"The record temperatures last year should focus the minds of governments across the world on the scale of the risks that climate change is creating, and the urgency of the action that is required, including an international agreement to strongly reduce greenhouse gas emissions, to be reached at the United Nations climate change summit in Paris in December 2015," he said.