New research aimed at addressing the scientific concerns raised by sceptics of anthropogenic global warming has concluded that global warming is real.

The independent study by the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature (BEST) project – which analyses temperature data from 15 sources – addresses some of the more well-worn arguments of climate sceptics, including the urban heat island effect (UHI), temperature station quality and the risk of data selection bias.

The UHI effect lies at the heart of the allegations of fraud around Climate Gate. A 2007 paper by Ross McKitrick, an economics professor at the University of Guelph in Canada, and Patrick Michaels, an environmental studies professor at the University of Virginia, concludes that half of the global warming trend from 1980 to 2002 is caused by Urban Heat Island.

According to Skeptical Science, scientists have been careful to ensure that UHI is not influencing the temperature trends in climate research and analysis. "To address this concern, they have compared the data from remote stations (sites that are nowhere near human activity) to more urban sites," says the website.

And now BEST is going to new lengths to debunk this and other science-based climate sceptic theories. "Our aim is to resolve current criticism of the former temperature analyses, and to prepare an open record that will allow rapid response to further criticism or suggestions," says the Berkeley organisation's website. "Our results will include not only our best estimate for the global temperature change, but estimates of the uncertainties in the record."

And while the research is yet to be peer reviewed, a variety of academics and scientists have responded to its release and what it means to the climate debate.

"This new study confirms what we already knew," said Bob Ward, director of policy and communications at the UK's Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment. "The warming of the land areas of the Earth since the 19th century cannot be explained by the impact of cities growing to engulf rural weather stations.

"So-called 'sceptics' should now drop their thoroughly discredited claims that the increase in global average temperature could be attributed to the impact of growing cities, which create an urban heat island effect," Ward said.

"More broadly this study also proves once again how false it was for 'sceptics' to allege that the e-mails hacked from the University of East Anglia proved that the Climatic Research Unit's land temperature record had been doctored. ...It is now time for an apology from all those, including US Presidential hopeful Rick Perry, who have made false claims that the evidence for global warming has been faked by climate scientists."

"This comes as no surprise to climate scientists who take great care to take account of this effect in their work,"  said Professor Dave Griggs, ClimateWorks CEO & Director of the Monash Sustainability Institute. "It also confirms findings from other studies using very different methods. For example, looking at temperature trends on windy days and calm days also show no difference contrary to what you would expect from the urban heat island as the heat would build up more on calm days. So, hopefully this paper will help to put this urban (heat island) myth to bed."

The British government's chief scientific adviser, Professor Sir John Beddington, stressed that the study needed to be peer-reviewed before being factored in to the debate, but that if it was found to be correct, it would conform with US work at NASA and NOAA and that of Phil Jones and his colleagues at the UK Hadley Center-UEA Climatic Research Unit. "This work adds to the evidence about how climate change is happening," he said.

Jones, himself, said that the initial findings were "very encouraging and echo our own results and our conclusion that the impact of urban heat islands on the overall global temperature is minimal."

Peter Cox, a professor of climate system dynamics at the University of Exeter, meanwhile expressed surprise that the authors of the new study were so keen to get for peer-review, "when their conclusions aren't exactly revolutionary."

"These studies seem to confirm the global warming estimated from the existing datasets, which is pleasing but not exactly a surprise to those of us who know how carefully the existing datasets are put together," Cox said.

And Professor Sir Brian Hoskins, director at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change, said he hoped that if and when the study was peer reviewed and published, the focus could shift to "the implications for the future of this warming rather than wrangling over whether the warming is really there.”