Talk about moving the goal posts.
Shockingly, these are the same folks who were at the center of the Climategate controversy.
(BBC) — Researchers have updated HadCRUT – one of the main global temperate records, which dates back to 1850.
One of the main changes is the inclusion of more data from the Arctic region, which has experienced one of the greatest levels of warming.
The amendments do not change the long-term trend, but the data now lists 2010, rather than 1998, as the warmest year on record.
The update is reported in the published in the Journal of Geophysical Research.
HadCRUT is compiled by the UK Met Office’s Hadley Centre and the Climatic Research Unit (Cru) at the University of East Anglia, and is one of three global records used extensively by climatologists.
The other two are produced by US-based researchers at Nasa and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa).
Cru’s director, Phil Jones, explained why it was necessary to revise the UK record.
“HadCRUT is underpinned by observations and we’ve previously been clear it may not be fully capturing changes in the Arctic because we have had so little data from the area,” he said.
“For the latest version, we have included observations from more than 400 (observation) stations across the Arctic, Russia and Canada.”
Prof Jones added: “This has led to better representation of what’s going on in the large geographical region.”