Swedes will remember the summer of 2014 as one of the warmest ever and it is clear that even the annual average was higher than any other year since records began in the 1860s.

Even if the summer was warmer than usual, it was the mild winter, spring and autumn that pushed the yearly average temperature up to 6.9 degrees - almost 0.2 degrees warmer than the previous record from 1934.

"That the average temperature was so high last year is mainly caused by a lack of cold rather than presence of heat," Sverker Hellstrom, climatologist with the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute, told national daily newspaper Dagens Nyheter on Friday.

"We are seeing more and more warm years and fewer cold years," he said.

"What differs from year to year depends on the air currents. Low pressures that bring in mild Atlantic winds during winter and high pressures with sun and warmer temperatures during other parts of the year will result in high yearly averages.

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has stated that Europe also experienced the warmest year on record in 2014, and temperatures were also up globally on the previous 2007 record.