Keith Briffa, from the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit, said the tropical ocean regions were among the more reliable areas from which to infer large-scale temperature changes.

BBC: NEWS | Science/Nature | World 'warmest for 12,000 years'

In it, he noted that Monbiot had called for the resignation of Professor Phil Jones, head of the university's Climatic Research Unit, who featured prominently in the hacked emails.

BBC: When the word 'saintly' can be made a state secret

Climategate is media shorthand for the debate over the content of thousands of emails and documents that were released without authorization from the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit (CRU).

WSJ: Review & Outlook: A Climate Absolution?

There are indications of this in some of the e-mails from and to the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia that were released on to the web late last year.

ECONOMIST: Rajendra Pachauri and the IPCC

In November, shortly before the Copenhagen climate summit, a stash of e-mails from and to various researchers at the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia somehow found its way onto the web.

ECONOMIST: Climate science