HadUK‐Grid—A new UK dataset of gridded climate observations

HadUK‐Grid is a new dataset of gridded climate observations for the UK produced by the Met Office Hadley Centre for Climate Science and Services. The dataset interpolates in situ observations to a regular grid using methods developed in a previous equivalent dataset that had been made available to users since 2002 through the UK Climate Projections project (UKCIP02, UKCP09). The new dataset differs from the existing one in a number of key respects: higher spatial resolution, longer time series for some variables, improved consistency with regard to the pre‐processing of station observations, the use of publicly‐accessible ancillary data sources, a revised calculation sequence for some variables and improved version control. This makes for a dataset that is more internally consistent, more traceable and more reproducible. The result is a dataset of key UK climate variables of up to 1 km resolution from 1862 for monthly rainfall, 1884 for monthly temperature, 1891 for daily rainfall, 1929 for monthly sunshine and a wider set of variables with start dates from the 1960s to support the need for national climate monitoring and climate research.