The world warmed more in the last ten years than previously thought, according to a new global temperature series updated by the Met Office
The controversial record of climate change, put together by the Met Office Hadley Centre and the University of East Anglia, is one of only a handful of global temperature data sets stretching back since the end of the 19th century.
The temperature series was at the centre of the Climategate scandal in 2009, after hacked emails from the University of East Anglia showed scientist were unwilling to release original data.
Critics claimed that the whole argument for global warming could not be trusted if the data set was questioned.
However a series of inquiries found the science was correct, although the University of East Anglia was criticised for failing to share information.
Now a new analysis of land and sea temperatures, that includes new data from weather stations in the Arctic, has found the world is warming even more than previously thought.
The new data set also shifts around the hottest years on record, so that the new temperature series, known as HadCRUT4, is more in line with other global records held by NASA and NOAA in the US. The American series had already added Arctic temperatures from extrapolated information.
Before it was thought the hottest years were 1998 followed by 2010, 2005, 2003 and 2002. The updated series puts 2010 as the hottest year on record followed by 2005, 1998, 2003 and 2006.
The main conclusions of the new temperature series remains the same – that overall warming since 1850 has been around 0.75C and the 10 warmest years on record all occurred in the last 14 years.
All the data that that HadCRUT4 is based on will be publicly available online in the coming days.
Professor Phil Jones, director of CRU, who was at the heart of the Climategate scandal, said the temperature series is slightly warmer because it includes the new data from the Arctic, where the world is warming faster.
Most of the new data came from weather stations controlled by Russian scientists.
"HadCRUT is underpinned by observations and we’ve previously been clear it may not be fully capturing changes in the Arctic because we have had so little data from the area," he said.
"For the latest version we have included observations from more than 400 stations across the Arctic, Russia and Canada. This has led to better representation of what's going on in the large geographical region,” said Prof Jones.
Dr Peter Stott, Head of Climate Monitoring and Attribution at the Met Office, said the new series is "yet another piece of evidence that the world is warming".
“The scientific evidence is really strong that we are warming,” he said.
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