Several recent controversies, which appear to have had more to do with propaganda than objective science, have cast further doubt on the scientific credibility of the Met Office.
During the heatwave at the end of June, the Met Office declared a new record temperature for June of 37.7°C at Lingwood in Norfolk. Concerns were immediately raised when it was revealed the Lingwood weather station was a junk Class 5 site, which should not be used for climatological purposes.
All provisional records must be verified, so the Met Office inspected the site. Its Inspection Report confirmed all the problems previously identified and even found other issues of significant concern with the site.
Yet astonishingly it ignored all this and confirmed the new 'record' as valid. Incredibly it even increased the temperature from 37.7°C to 38.0°C, arguing that the operator had made a mistake with his reading.
The Lingwood site is in a private garden, surrounding by high hedges on three sides and a thick bank of trees on the other. World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) standards state that temperature recording stations should be in open areas with no nearby obstacles, and in areas with low vegetation of under 10cm.
Photographs taken at the Met Office inspection show the proximity of hedges and poorly maintained grass, well over the height allowed. Both restrict the mixing of air. There was also a large flower bed immediately behind, with bushes of some sort growing to a fair height.
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The modern station is still in White Rock Gardens, Hastings and the 2024 Met Office correspondence says the original inspection assessment was Class 4, but the database had incorrectly displayed Class 1. The Met Office’s regional network manager explicitly attributed the erroneous classification to human error.
How many other sites have been incorrectly classified and been producing erroneous readings and for how long? (Rhetorical)
Perhaps it’s time to investigate the possibility of petitioning the World Meteorological Organisation to discount all data from the British Meteorological Office until further notice. They surely must have a mechanism that discounts data from dodgy sources?
I believe what we’re seeing is the Enlightenment in reverse. Back then, science won the day. Now we’re seeing quasi-religious ideology subverting and undermining science, taking us back into the Dark Ages.
Sadly, I think that you are right.
Up here in NE Scotland we’ve had quite a lot of rain and temperatures rarely in the 20s
Ssshh! Don’t let the rest of the country hear you! The Met Office and MSM are too busy counting the heatwaves in the south of England. I think we’ll soon be in double figures, and your weather is just too inconvenient for them.
Cheque Book Science: A Note
The Met Office has not been free to tell the truth since 1997. As a former senior government ‘suit’ involved in the restructuring of research in the UK I explain why…
https://substack.com/@jdee/note/c-58425367
“…The Director General of the Met said something I’ll never forget, ‘It’s very simple: we give the customer exactly what they want.’ There and then the Met Office was going to cop out, yet it had to do so to survive. What you see today is a relic masquerading as the real thing. But they won’t admit this, of course; they dare not.
And what did the customer want? Well, back then behind closed doors we knew that anthropogenic warming wasn’t an issue, but the government wished to use it as a lever to push forward some radical policies. Overtly signalled as energy security policies they were, in fact, a raft of economic reforms designed to maintain the status quo for the privileged few under deteriorating market conditions.”
The age of lies and corruption. Paul has integrity, which the entities at the MO do not possess. He is one of those shining lights of honesty that occupy the alternative media.
And he relentlessly sticks to the facts i.e. data and historical records.
I recall the Met Office declaring there was to be a “barbecue summer” some years ago and it turned out to be a washout. In other words long term predictions of climate and weather are simply not possible beyond about 10 days. I seem to remember them announcing they would not be be making those kind of predictions anymore.
Perhaps they should stick to weather forecasting rather than doom mongering.
Of course they should, but that wouldn’t fit in with Met Office boss, Penny Endersby’s abiding belief in man – made climate change. I wonder how many other people don’t believe a word that comes out of the Met Office?
I have very little knowledge of how these monitoring stations work, how they should be positioned or maintained.
Reading that report, it reads to me that the author is saying everything is just fine. Any issues it highlights are called ‘minor’ and/or not consequential. Maybe I have misread it?
Is the author of the MO report not being accurate or truthful, or is the critical thrust of this DS article based on the knowledge of the author of this article?
Would the person who downticked my question care to explain why they did so?
Im not criticising this article or the author of this article. I’m asking for help with understanding why the MO report looks like it is saying something other than what this article says it is saying.
Most of our institutions are no longer trustworthy.
We can not believe statements issued by top medics, scientists (and associated journals), senior police officers – and, of course, politicians and their civil servants.
If only they could ban the Internet, they might even get away with the tosh they tell us.
But, if they got rid of Freeview (as they plan to do) then banning the Internet would mean that they couldn’t tell us anything.
If this site is to require users to login every time we visit the login option should be the first thing we see. Putting it at the beginning of comments means we can begin reading only to find the system has forgotten us snd then scroll down.
After login it takes us back to the beginning. Very annoying. Unnecessary.
in response to the post it seems the elite establishment has politicised all administration while the public has been depoliticised by exhaustion and incessant propaganda from the state.
The hypothesis is that “man-made CO2 is causing serious and irreversible and dangerous climate change”. That should be falsifiable statement, but I do not think it is. The term dangerous is a non-scientific Not sure about irreversible. OK how about “man made CO2 causes climate change”- well that is easier and more likely to be falsifiable I think. But how do you do that? You make a prediction and see if it matches up with reality. Both of these are not easy things to do with complex data and complex system, the planet. Now there are the models, but trying to model the planets climate i think is beyond us at the moment- I mean 100km x 100km grid just does not cut the mustard I think. On top of that do we know what is happening in the depth of the oceans? Or in the stratosphere? not so much so, as we have only just started measuring the oceans. So the science is a bit iffy and unless the Met Office and any other organisation that claims to be scientific is not asking these questions and trying their best to disprove the hypothesis then they are not scientific. But… Read more »
It isn’t about “science”—-It is politics that has hijacked “science” —-ie “Official Science”
It’s strange how scientists usually find the results that their paymasters want.
Excellent post – absolutely spot on.
It’s strange how none of the mainstream media report on these simple facts.
Nobody can deny it’s been bloody hot for a bloody long time. Whether that has anything to do with anthropogenic climate change is another matter entirely.
It was just as hot in the 1920’s and 30’s and in the Middle Ages for 400 years, long before there were any cars or planes or central heating or Industrial Activity. So is it unreasonable to think that what caused the warming periods back then is doing the very same today? Even the IPCC have admitted that they cannot tell the difference between warming that occurs naturally and warming that maybe caused by human activity.
They do not understand the way natural variability works. Until they do, any anthropogenic element remains hypothetical.
These decisions must come from the top of the MO, a deliberate policy to underpin the climate scare. Time for legal action?