The U.K. Met Office routinely claims heat records from thermometers that are so poorly sited the World Meteorological Society (WMO) attaches an error estimate stating they could be out by up to 2°C. This shock disclosure is contained in the reply to a recent Freedom of Information (FOI) request from the climate journalist Paul Homewood. One example is Porthmadog in North Wales that has provided a steady stream of Welsh records in recent years, and is sited in a vegetation sun trap near the North Wales coast.
The WMO has five classes grading temperature-measurement suitability. There are strict requirements for class 1 to ensure accuracy while sources of corruption increase up to class 4, where the WMO states the temperature could be out by as much as 2°C. The fifth and last class has no requirements and an error estimate of 5°C. Homewood’s FOI request drew the information from the Met Office that Porthmadog’s surrounding vegetation led to a class 4 classification. “This classification is an acceptable rating for a temperature sensor, hence we will continue to quote from this site,” replied the Met Office.
Far from being “acceptable”, this shocking admission reveals the site is completely unacceptable. The Met Office appears hell-bent on catastrophising British weather in the interest of promoting the collectivist Net Zero project. Temperature data corrupted to the extent allowed in WMO class 4 should never be used to make specific observations about the weather, let alone incorporated into long-term datasets. Homewood notes that he is “lost for words”. The Met Office is happy to use a class 4 site for climatological purposes, “even though that class is next to junk status”.
At the end of May, NorthWalesLive reported that Porthmadog recorded the hottest day of the year so far – “and not for the first time”. The Met Office promoted the high on twitter, helpfully colouring the U.K. map orange, one step away from full blood red alert. NorthWalesLive reported that this was by no means a first for the Gwynedd town, “which is regularly Wales’s and sometimes the U.K.’s warmest spot”. There is no mention that the temperature is so high because of the sensor’s highly corrupted, sun-trapped location. Instead Met Office meteorologist Mark Wilson explained: “With the wind coming from the north-east, Porthmadog is getting a lot of shelter. Although it’s by the coast it’s not really getting a lot of breeze off the sea, meaning the temperatures keep rising and rising.”
In fact it seems that the Porthmadog site is excellent value for all-year round records. Last November, the BBC reported, under a ‘climate change’ heading, that the U.K.’s warmest ever Remembrance Sunday had been recorded in the town. Temperatures soared to 21.2°C, beating the previous record, curiously by 2°C, set 33 years ago, also, less curiously, in Gwynedd.
The admission that heat records are being promoted from class 4 sites that could have errors of up to 2°C is the latest signal to the Met Office that it must issue a full explanation to quell the rising doubts surrounding its relentless propagandising of so-called temperature records. Last week, the Daily Sceptic cast considerable further doubt on 2022’s 60-second 40.3°C U.K. record declared at RAF Coningsby on July 19th. Our FOI request found that at least three Typhoon fighter jets were landing at or around the same time the temperature briefly jumped to the new record. There are many airports feeding information into Met Office datasets, and they are unsuitable for accurately measuring purely weather and climatic conditions. Leaving aside any temporary heat distortions from passing jet traffic, they are often cauldrons of heat arising from runways and buildings. Of course none of this would matter very much if temperature readings were used for their original purpose to provide a rough guide to local weather conditions. Using these corrupted data as a primary ‘climate breakdown’ weapon to persuade entire human populations to drastically cut back on their lifestyles is another matter altogether.
Paul Homewood has also raised questions about recent changes made by the Met Office to the Central England Record (CET), the oldest continuous surface temperature collection dating back to around 1660. He found that for most of the record up to 1970, the adjustments are small and have no obvious pattern, with ups and downs offsetting each other. Then, he notes, the years from 1970 to 2003 have been cooled quite markedly, and just as abruptly the temperatures over the last 20 years have been consistently adjusted up.
The graph above plots the changes from the two versions. The cynical might note that the 1980s and 90s were strangely ‘overestimated’, while the last couple of decades were suddenly underestimated, for reasons that go unexplained. One effect noted by Homewood is that a 0.07°C cooling of the summer in 1995 now means it ties with 2022, instead of being hotter. In 2018, the summer was adjusted up by 0.13°C. Homewood concludes with the obvious point that changes to the CET are part of wider adjustments globally, “and the tampering is always one way, cooling the past and heating the present”.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor.
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