Climatic Research Unit
For many years monthly average temperature data from Weston Park weather station was collated by the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, and processed to produce the CRUTEM gridded land surface temperature dataset. This dataset forms one significant part of the evidence for global climate change. Currently in its fourth version (CRUTEM4), the monthly updates from Weston Park are now processed by the Met Office Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research.
However, once a year the CRU team updates the CRUTEM4 dataset with climate data that has been made newly available or updated by meteorological agencies around the world.
We spent two days visiting CRU and whilst there we spoke to Professor Phil Jones (Director of CRU), David Lister (Research Associate) and Ian Harris (Researcher). We also had chance to speak to a visiting climate historian Clive Wilkinson whose work we discuss in the Archives station.
Read the ‘Data journey’, ‘Culture’ and ‘Policy’ pages linked below and once you have finished, go to the Met Office station.
Archival sources
Transcript of interview with Professor Phil Jones (Director of CRU) [CRU4]
Transcript of interview with David Lister (Research Associate) and Ian Harris (Researcher) [CRU1&2]
Reflection
We’d like you to take a minute to reflect on some of the things you have read in this section.
Some questions to get you started:
How do the cultural values of this station compare to some of the other stations you have explored?
How do you think the cultural values of the Climatic Research Unit contribute to the quality of the CRUTEM4 gridded dataset?
How do you feel about the pressures that CRU have faced in recent years to release the weather station data underlying the CRUTEM dataset?