The Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) is one of the most important climate monitoring networks in the world. It is co-sponsored by the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) and numerous UN, EU and scientific bodies and its collects information that is used for scientific research within the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Ultimately, it forms the basis for promoting and implementing global Net Zero plans. Given its importance and the need to keep to the highest standards of scientific reporting, it is a surprise that the UK Met Office seems to take its temperature reporting duties rather lightly. It provides information from eight sites, four of which are rated junk class 4 with international ‘uncertainties’ of 2°C. Barely beyond belief, another site is based slap bang in the middle of RAF Shawbury, where pilots in military helicopters make frequently low fly-pasts at all hours of the day and night.
The picture above is taken at the air base, the main RAF helicopter training centre, and it shows a helicopter next to the white Stevenson box containing the measuring device. Other clips – you couldn’t make it up – show helicopters hovering over the screen.
The image is captured from a YouTube video which shows extensive traffic at the base in close proximity to the temperature measuring station. Again we are obliged to citizen super sleuth Ray Sanders who is undertaking a forensic examination of the entire Met Office’s UK temperature station network. Sanders notes that the heat hazes from the engines and the powerful down-draughts from the rotors are clearly visible. He concludes that despite the site being one of the Met Office’s most important locations, it is “completely worthless” for climate reporting. Despite this being a ‘flagship’ site, it is said to demonstrate the “poor standards and total lack of supervision thar the Met Office is being allowed to operate to”. In fact, not only is Shawbury a key location feeding information to international bodies promoting the Net Zero fantasy, it is also one of only 37 UK station in the Met Office’s historical database. In the case of Shawbury it shows measurements stretching back to 1946.
The GCOS takes itself very seriously, noting that it supports research towards improved understanding, modelling and prediction of the climate system. Perhaps the resulting predictions might carry more weight if a little more attention was paid to the data put into the models. When it is not inventing data from 103 non-existent stations, the Met Office is doing little to improve the quality of its operations with nearly 80% of its actual sites in junk classes 4 and 5, with uncertainty warnings of 2°C and 5°C respectively.
The eight UK stations contributing to the GCOS are Stornoway, Waddington, Lerwick, Eskdalemuir, Aldergrove, Camborne, Shawbury and Rothamsted. The first four sites are class 4, with Stornoway airport attracting recent interest because the Met Office claimed to have continuous recordings there since 1873. All very remarkable since manned powered flight was not achieved until 1903, while the actual airport was not built until 1937.
Eskdalemuir was recently awarded Centennial Observing Station status by the WMO for providing “long-term, high-quality climate records that tell current and future generations about climate variability and trends”. Since Eskdalemuir is a junk class 4 site on WMO’s own CIMO rating system, it might be asked how such praise can be lavished on this corrupted site. “Does the WMO not know this is such a poorly rated site because the Met Office did not tell it? After all, the CIMO classifications of sites are not freely available in the public arena,” writes Sanders. Both the Daily Sceptic and Ray Sanders have obtained the listings via freedom of information requests. Waddington, another RAF airbase, attracted some interest recently when it was found to have declared a ‘record’ 40.3°C on July 19th 2022. This of course was identical to the temperature recorded by the runway at nearby RAF Coningsby as three typhoon jets were attempting to land. The record was declared ‘suspect’ by the Met Office due to an application of ground weedkiller, but this didn’t stop the improbable figure later being recorded in the archive run by the Centre for Environmental Data Analysis.
However, it is heartening to report the sight of Rothamsted in the GCOS listing. Sanders is full of praise for this site which also has a WMO Centennial Station award. In fact Sanders considers that it is possibly the Met Office’s finest station, “against which others should be judged”. Sanders makes a start on this work by comparing two temperatures recorded on the afternoon of July 19th 2022 when a heatwave struck over a wide area of southern and eastern England. Coningsby ran up its runway high, a record the Met Office later described as a milestone in climate history. Rothamsted registered a markedly lower 38.5°C. In 2019, a temperature of 38.7°C was declared at the class 5 site in Cambridge Botanical Gardens, while Rothamsted, about 45 miles away, displayed only 36°C.
The Met Office has a few good recording sites but most of the network is very poor and recent highs seem to be two-a-penny with every passing jet or helicopter breeze. Quite why the GCOS should be stuffed with recordings from very poor sites is a question the Met Office needs to answer. When the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres stands up and declares that global boiling has arrived, we should at least be able to be confident that he is quoting from correct figures and knows what he is talking about.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor.
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