UK Met Office: Global-average temperature data released

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/2009/pr20091208a.html

Global-average temperature data released

8 December 2009

The Met Office has today released station temperature records for over 1,500 of the stations that make up the global land surface temperature record.

These data are a subset of the full HadCRUT record of global temperatures, which is one of the global temperature records that have underpinned IPCC assessment reports and numerous scientific studies.

The data subset will consist of a network of individual stations that has been designated by the World Meteorological Organization for use in climate monitoring. The subset of stations is evenly distributed across the globe and provides a fair representation of changes in mean temperature on a global scale over land.

This subset is not a new global temperature record and it does not replace the HadCRUT, NASA GISS and NCDC global temperature records, all of which have been fully peer-reviewed. This subset shows that global-average land temperatures have risen over the last 150 years and is very similar to the temperature rises shown by the complete data set.

This subset release will continue the policy of putting as much of the station temperature record as possible into the public domain. As soon as we have all permissions in place we will release the remaining station records — around 5,000 in total — that make up the full land temperature record. We are dependent on international approvals to enable this final step and cannot guarantee that we will get permission from all data owners.

We intend that as soon as possible we will also publish the specific computer code that aggregates the individual station temperatures into the global land temperature record.

The University of East Anglia fully supports the Met Office in making these data publicly available and is continuing to work with the Met Office to seek the necessary permission from national data owners to publish, as soon as possible, the data that we can gain permission to release.

• http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climatechange/science/monitoring/subsets.html">Land surface climate station records


• http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climatechange/science/explained/explained5.html">Global-average temperature records explained

[joshcryer]

1. Denialists or skeptics will say this is a win for them, but it's really a win for everyone.

NCDC and NASA have released their data, the more the better.