The Bureau of Meteorology revealed figures on Tuesday showing Australia had experienced its hottest decade since records began in 1910.

The Bureau's annual report found the average temperature over the past 10 years was 0.48 degrees Celsius above average.

Climatologist David Jones said each decade since the 1940s has been warmer than the previous one.

Jones has warned that this year is set to be even hotter, with temperatures likely to be between 0.5 and 1 degrees above average.

"There's no doubt about global warming, the planet's been warming now for most of the last century," he said.

"We're getting these increasingly warm temperatures - not just for Australia but globally - and climate change, global warming is clearly continuing.

"We're in the latter stages of an El Nino event in the Pacific Ocean and what that means for Australian and global temperatures is that 2010 is likely to be another very warm year - perhaps even the warmest on record."

2009 was Australia's second warmest year on record, with the annual mean temperature 0.90 degrees Celsius above average.

"We saw a 48.8C during February in Victoria on Black Saturday and also some very high temperatures in South Australia and Western Australia with many numbers close to 49, 48 degrees," he noted.