The Hadley Centre receives, quality controls, and archives large amounts of observed climate data. These are used for monitoring the climate, in studies of the causes of climate change, and in climate modelling.

On the national scale, the Central England temperature and the England and Wales precipitation are used as indicators of historical and present changes in climate. On the global scale, we monitor the global average temperature on land and over the sea, and the sea surface temperature in the tropical Pacific, which is an indicator of variations associated with El Niño.

The Met Office has been appointed to act as one of two joint, GCOS Upper Air Network (GUAN) Data Analysis Centres. The GUAN pages contain information about the objectives of GUAN, the responsibilities of the contributing members, current GUAN work at the Met Office, online products available, contacts and associated links.

The following observations based climate data sets are available from the Met Office for bona fide research purposes. (Commercial or business use is not permitted without the written authority of the Met Office.) The climate indicators present a selection of charts constructed from the climate data sets as used in the quarterly report to Defra.