Met Office Hadley Centre observations datasets: HadCET
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Hadley Centre Central England Temperature (HadCET) dataset

The CET dataset is the longest instrumental record of temperature in the world. The mean, minimum and maximum datasets are updated monthly, with data for a month usually available by the 3rd of the next month. A provisional CET value for the current month is calculated on a daily basis. The mean daily data series begins in 1772 and the mean monthly data in 1659. Mean maximum and minimum daily and monthly data are also available, beginning in 1878.


Brief description of the data

These daily and monthly temperatures are representative of a roughly triangular area of the United Kingdom enclosed by Lancashire, London and Bristol. The monthly series, which begins in 1659, is the longest available instrumental record of temperature in the world. The daily mean-temperature series begins in 1772. Manley (1953, 1974) compiled most of the monthly series, covering 1659 to 1973. These data were updated to 1991 by Parker et al (1992), who also calculated the daily series. Both series are now kept up to date by the Climate Data Monitoring section of the Hadley Centre, Met Office. Since 1974 the data have been adjusted to allow for urban warming: currently a correction of -0.2 °C is applied to mean temperatures.


Current Version:

The current version of the CET data series is v2.0.1.0 released April 2023. Information on each new release of the series can be found in the Release Notes section.

New CET Version Release

A new version of the CET dataset is planned for release in March 2024.

This version, and subsequent incremental versions, will form part of a new annual release cycle for the CET dataset in which the previous complete year's series values are recalculated using quality controlled temperature observations from selected CET stations.

Further information on this annual release cycle can be found in the HadCET Annual Release Cycle document.


Annual Mean CET
Figure: Mean temperature anomalies for each full year in the CET series against 1961-1990 climatology
Go to download page Data are available from the download page without charge, but please read the terms and conditions.
CET datasets are freely available for use under Open Government License. However, please acknowledge the source if the data are used in any report or product.

Release Notes

Documentation relating to releases of the CET data series can be found by clicking on the link below.

Any updates which result in changes to the methodology or calculation of the series will be documented in the relevant release notes report.

CET Release Notes

CET Annual Release Cycle

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References

When using the data set in a paper, the correct citation to use for HadCET is:

Other relevant references include:

Other information

Dataset produced in collaboration with:

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