April 2007 - Another record breaker.

Met Office climate scientists have released figures revealing new temperature records for April 2007.

April 2007 and the 12-month rolling period ending in April 2007 are set to become the warmest since the records began 348 years ago.

The Central England Temperature (CET) is the world's longest running temperature series and dates back to 1659. The latest CET records reveal:

The provisional mean temperature for April 2007 is 11.1 °C which is 3.2 °C above the long term average.

The provisional mean temperature for May 2006 to April 2007 is 11.6 °C which is 1.9 °C above the long term average for the period.

The forecast takes into account known contributing factors, such as solar effects, El Nino, greenhouse gas, concentrations and other multi-decadal influences. Over the previous 7 years, the Met Office forecast of annual global temperature has proved remarkably accurate, with a mean forecast error size of just 0.06 °C.

The warming trend seen in the CET since the 1980s is consistent with climate predictions from the Met Office Hadley Centre, which undertakes research on the effect climate change could have in the UK and around the world.

One recent global study, 'Defence and Security Implications of Climate Change', looks at the environmental stresses brought about by an increasingly warmer world. These include drought, flooding, changes in crop yield and water resources.

Dr Debbie Hemming, climate scientist at the Met Office Hadley Centre explains: "The effects of temperature rise are being experienced on a global scale. Many of the regions that are projected to experience the largest climate changes are already vulnerable to environmental stress from resource shortages, rapid urbanisation, population rise and industrial development."

Climatologists at the Hadley Centre have also revealed that the recent rapid warming of the CET is almost certainly due to human influence - the first time this has been rigorously identified on such a small geographic scale.

The last 12 months have seen a number of new weather records being set, we saw the warmest month ever back in July 2006 along with record temperatures for the month of September and the autumn of 2006.