The recent “pause” in global warming has ended following three years in which temperature records have been successively broken, the Met Office has said.

The idea of a slowing in the rate of warming has been controversial with some arguing it was little more than a statistical blip.

In a statement on its website, the Met Office said it had established that the world’s climate warmed more slowly between 1999 and 2014 than it had done previously, but the last few years had seen a return to the more rapid rate.

Professor Stephen Belcher, the Met’s chief scientist, said: “After a period during the early 2000s when the rise in global mean temperature slowed, the values in 2015 and 2016 broke records and passed one degree Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

“Data from the Met Office shows that the long-term rate of global warming has now returned to the level seen in the second half of the 20th century.”

The so-called pause was exploited by climate science deniers, who insisted it showed the science was wrong and, therefore, should be ignored.

The Met Office said its conclusion that there had been a genuine slowdown was based on an analysis of rolling 15-year trends.

It added this was largely the result of the global impact of a long-term cooling trend in the Pacific Ocean, which had masked the effect of some of the greenhouse gases produced by human activity.

“The influences of anthropogenic greenhouse gas release and aerosols explain much of this increase [the one degree rise] but natural variations in climate, such as the influence of El Niño [weather event], mean that the observed temperature rise isn’t even from year to year,” the Met Office statement said.

“Although global temperatures remained at near record levels throughout, variations in decadal climate in the Pacific led to the slowdown in the rise of Global Mean Surface Temperature.”

Professor Adam Scaife, head of monthly to decadal prediction at the Met Office Hadley Centre, explained the Pacific’s cooling effect on the planet had come to an end.

“The end of the recent slowdown in global warming is due to a flip in Pacific sea-surface temperatures,” he said.

“This was due to a change in the Pacific Decadal Oscillation which entered its positive phase, warming the tropics, the west coast of North America and the globe overall.”

The Met Office added the fact that the world’s average temperature was now 1C higher than pre-industrial levels meant there was “increasing pressure on limiting global warming to a 1.5C warming threshold, as agreed in Paris in 2015”.

10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change Show all 10 1 /10 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change A group of emperor penguins face a crack in the sea ice, near McMurdo Station, Antarctica Kira Morris 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change Floods destroyed eight bridges and ruined crops such as wheat, maize and peas in the Karimabad valley in northern Pakistan, a mountainous region with many glaciers. In many parts of the world, glaciers have been in retreat, creating dangerously large lakes that can cause devastating flooding when the banks break. Climate change can also increase rainfall in some areas, while bringing drought to others. Hira Ali 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change Smoke – filled with the carbon that is driving climate change – drifts across a field in Colombia. Sandra Rondon 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change Amid a flood in Islampur, Jamalpur, Bangladesh, a woman on a raft searches for somewhere dry to take shelter. Bangladesh is one of the most vulnerable places in the world to sea level rise, which is expected to make tens of millions of people homeless by 2050. Probal Rashid 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change Sindh province in Pakistan has experienced a grim mix of two consequences of climate change. “Because of climate change either we have floods or not enough water to irrigate our crop and feed our animals,” says the photographer. “Picture clearly indicates that the extreme drought makes wide cracks in clay. Crops are very difficult to grow.” Rizwan Dharejo 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change Hanna Petursdottir examines a cave inside the Svinafellsjokull glacier in Iceland, which she said had been growing rapidly. Since 2000, the size of glaciers on Iceland has reduced by 12 per cent. Tom Schifanella 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change A river once flowed along the depression in the dry earth of this part of Bangladesh, but it has disappeared amid rising temperatures. Abrar Hossain 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change A shepherd moves his herd as he looks for green pasture near the village of Sirohi in Rajasthan, northern India. The region has been badly affected by heatwaves and drought, making local people nervous about further predicted increases in temperature. Riddhima Singh Bhati 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change A factory in China is shrouded by a haze of air pollution. The World Health Organisation has warned such pollution, much of which is from the fossil fuels that cause climate change, is a “public health emergency”. Leung Ka Wa 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change Water levels in reservoirs, like this one in Gers, France, have been getting perilously low in areas across the world affected by drought, forcing authorities to introduce water restrictions. Mahtuf Ikhsan

“So far 2017 has also exceeded the 1C threshold, although the Met Office has forecast that 2017 is unlikely to be a record-breaking year as temperatures this year have not been influenced by El Niño conditions,” it said.