In February, scientists from the UK Met Office called for a new international project to modernise global temperature records.

Published last week in Nature, Peter Stott from the UK Met Office and Peter Thorne, now of the NOAA Cooperative Institute for Climate and Satellites in North Carolina, US, explain why this is necessary and how it might work.

They argue that it is now essential for the climate community to gather all local daily and sub-daily temperature measurements into a single global database in a transparent and comprehensive way. Results would then show temperature changes on an hourly level, within distances of a few kilometres and such fine-scale data are critical for monitoring and predicting local climate effects.

The project will build on more than 6,000 detailed weather observations held on existing databases. The plan, endorsed by the World Meteorological Organization earlier this year, will take shape following a workshop in September to refine details and agree developments.