UK’s Met Office Says Global Temperatures Rising Since 1850

Global average land temperatures have been rising since 1850 and the warming has speeded up since 1970, UK Meteorological Office data released on Tuesday shows.

The data comes from over 1,500 weather stations around the world used for climate monitoring. It shows rapid global warming since the 1970s, with each decade getting progressively warmer.

The Met Office Hadley Centre has published the data to boost transparency and underpin evidence that the world is warming.

Climate change skeptics have seized on a series of leaked emails from the University of East Anglia, accusing climate experts of colluding to suppress others’ data and enhance their own.

“The University of East Anglia fully supports the Met Office in making this data publicly available,” the Met Office said in a statement.

The Met Office intends to publish the remaining records from around 5,000 stations when it has approval from data owners to put together the temperature record. Negotiations between 190 countries on a new deal to fight climate change beyond 2012 began in Copenhagen on Monday.

(Reporting by Nina Chestney; Editing by Keiron Henderson)