Met Office

Climate Monitoring and Attribution

Developing observational data; monitoring and interpreting climate variations and change.

A thermometer against blue sky

Climate information and statistics, based on many types of surface, atmospheric and marine measurements, are produced on national to global scales. Climate models are used to attribute causes of past climate change that are seen within the observations.

The datasets produced by our scientists are also used by other science areas. Scientific users throughout the world access the data and statistics via the  External link icon HadObs website.

  • Digital Globe.

    Download data

    A lot of our observational data are available to download for free from our 'HadObs' webpages if they are to be used for private study or scientific research.

  • Arctic sea ice extent for the 1979-2000 median (grey shading), 2007 (blue) and 2012 (red) during September.

    Oceans and sea ice

    Observations of ocean temperature, both at and below the surface; salinity, and sea-ice cover are used to provide advice on global climate variability and change.

  • The United Kingdom on 07/01/2010, imaged by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument on board the Terra satellite (image credit: NASA/GSFC, MODIS Rapid Response; http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov).

    UK monitoring

    The UK climate is monitored by routinely analysing surface observations (e.g. air temperature, precipitation and sunshine) and placing recent extreme weather events in their historical context.

  • Research collaboration will be essential for delivering the predictive capability that the Met Office will require in the coming decade.

    External collaborations

    The Climate Monitoring and Attribution research area is involved in collaborations with institutions around the world.

  • Peter Stott

    Climate Monitoring scientists

    Information on the wide range of work our climate monitoring and attribution scientists undertake; the projects they are involved with and their skills and interests.

Last Updated: 9 November 2010

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