Independent study echoes previous studies in finding the world’s average land temperature has risen 1˚C since the 1950s

It may not surprise many – but the world is getting warmer. The independent Berkeley Earth Project has concluded average global land temperature has risen by around 1˚C since the mid-1950s after assessing around a billion temperature records, some dating back to the 1800s.

The figure tallies with studies by Nasa, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa), and the Met Office’s Hadley Centre at the University of East Anglia and seems to present an unassailable case

However, the study’s authors have faced criticism for going public with their results on the web before the research has been peer reviewed.
The team, which includes Saul Perlmutter, joint winner of this year’s Nobel Prize in Physics, created a huge open database of climate readings to produce a transparent assessment.

Researchers have now submitted four papers to academic journal Geophysical Research Letters covering their work to date.

As well as the 1˚C figure, the researchers also rejected claims from critics that previous studies have been skewed by urban heat islands, poor quality data stations, and even unethical researchers, as has been alleged by some climate sceptics in the wake of the 2009 “Climategate” furore.

While acknowledging that cities tend to be warmer than surrounding rural areas, the study concluded heat islands do not affect overall land temperature as they make up less than one per cent of the earth’s surface area.
Moreover, the team concluded that stations rated as “poor quality” showed the same warming trend as their “high quality” counterparts.

And while around a third of the temperature sites used recorded a cooling trend over the last 70 years, most notably in the US and northern Europe, the remaining two-thirds showed warming. The authors noted individual temperature histories from a single location can be noisy and a whole world picture is needed to understand the true pattern.

“Our biggest surprise was that the new results agreed so closely with the warming values published previously by other teams in the US and the UK,” Richard Muller, a physicist and head of the project, said in a statement. “This confirms that these studies were done carefully and that potential biases identified by climate change sceptics did not seriously affect their conclusions.”

Phil Jones, the director of the Climatic Research Unit at UEA, which was at the centre of the so-called ‘Climategate’ scandal, said: “I look forward to reading the finalised paper once it has been reviewed and published. These initial findings are very encouraging and echo our own results and our conclusion that the impact of urban heat islands on the overall global temperature is minimal.”

The project has faced criticism as it has been part funded by the Charles Koch Charitable Foundation – a charity backed by billionaire Charles Koch who is an avowed climate sceptic and has repeatedly funded campaigns opposing climate change legislation.

However, the project was also backed by scientific non-profit Novim, Bill Gates’ Fund for Innovative Climate and Energy Research, and the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley Lab.

The team now plans to look at ocean temperatures to build up a truly global picture