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About the Observed trends

The Observed trends are based on gridded datasets that have been generated for a range of climatic variables, covering the UK on a for the period from 1914. These datasets are based on the archive of UK observational data held at the UK Met Office and are available from the UK Met Office website .

The Met Office gridded observed datasets available include:

  • Daily datasets (1960 to 2006)
  • Metrics of precipitation
  • Monthly datasets (currently updated to the end of 2005)
  • Annual datasets (1961 to 2000)
  • Baseline average datasets (1961 to 1990)

The datasets are provided as a series of zipped space-delimited or comma delimited ASCII text files. More information is available for each data set on the Met Office website .

Use the links below to jump to headlines for each section, or the links to the left for more information.

Regression and interpolation techniques have been used to generate values on a regular from the irregular station network, taking into account factors such as latitude and longitude, altitude and terrain shape, coastal influence and urban land use.

  • The methods used to generate the monthly and annual grids are described in more detail in a paper published in the International Journal of Climatology, Vol. 25 (2005), pages 1041-1054 ( downloadable from the UK Met Office website ).

More details about this process are also available in Annex 1 of the UKCP09 Observed trends report.

  • What should I use it for?
  • To explore current climate vulnerabilities and risks, including its recent evolution.
  • To explore adaptation strategies and options in the context of current climate risks.
  • As a basis for understanding the validity of climates generated by the UKCP09 Weather Generator.
  • To explore adaptation strategies and options in the context of responding to projected climate risks.
More about what you should use it for…
  • Benefits
  • Long-term data set of key variables.
  • Daily, monthly, seasonal and annual time series.
  • High spatial resolution.
  • Suitable for exploring current and recent evolution of climate vulnerabilities and risks.
  • Suitable for exploring adaptation options in the context of current climate risks.
More about the benefits…
  • Main assumptions
  • That the provided gridded observational datasets are representative of the true climate.
More about the main assumptions…
  • What to be aware of
  • Different climate variables and datasets have different periods of record.
  • Daily precipitation observations are not available as a contribution to UKCP09.
  • No sub-daily climate information is available.
  • The gridded datasets are for a point and are representative of the climate of the 5 km grid square.
  • It contains some uncertainties.
  • No sub-daily climate information is available.
  • Trends information is only available in images and summary tables.
  • The observed climate during this period of record does contain some climate change.
More about what you should be aware of…