Last month, the Daily Sceptic highlighted the practice at the U.K. Met Office of inventing temperature averages from over 100 non-existent measuring stations. Helpfully, the Met Office went so far as to supply coordinates, elevations and purposes of the imaginary sites. Following massive interest across social media and frequent reposting of the Daily Sceptic article, the Met Office has amended its ludicrous claims. The move has not been announced in public, needless to say, since drawing attention to this would open a pandora’s box and run the risk of subjecting all the Met Office temperature claims to wider scrutiny. Instead, the Met Office has discreetly renamed its “U.K. climate averages” page as “Location-specific long-term averages”.
Significant modifications have been made to the new page, designed no doubt to quash suspicions that the Met Office has been making the figures up as it went along. The original suggestion that selecting a climate station can provide a 30-year average from 1991-2020 has been replaced with the explanation that the page “is designed to display locations that provide even geographical coverage of the U.K., but it is not reflective of every weather station that has existed or the current Met Office observation network”. Under the new page the locations are still referred to as “climate stations” but the details of where they are, exactly, have been omitted.
The cynical might note that the Met Office has solved its problem of inventing data from non-existing stations by suggesting that they now arise from “locations” which may or may not bear any relation to stations that once existed, or indeed exist today. If this is a reasonable interpretation of the matter, it might suggest that the affair is far from closed.
Again we are obliged to the diligent citizen journalist Ray Sanders for drawing our attention to the unannounced Met Office changes and providing a link to the previous averages page on the Wayback Machine. The sleuthing Sanders has been on the case for some time, having discovered that three named stations near where he lives, namely Dungeness, Folkestone and Dover, did not exist. The claimed co-ordinates for Dover placed the station in the water on the local beach as shown by the Google Earth photo below.
As a result, Sanders discovered from a freedom of information request that 103 of the 302 sites marked on the climate averages listing – over a third of the total – no longer existed. Subsequently, Sanders sought further information about the methodology used to supply data for both Folkestone and Dover. In reply, the Met Office said it was unable to supply details of the observing sites requested “as this is not recorded information”. It did however disclose that for non-existent stations “we use regression analysis to create a model of the relationship between each station and others in the network”. This generates an estimate for each month when the station is not operating. Each “estimate” is said to be based on data from six other stations, chosen because they are “well correlated” with the target station.
In the case of Dover, the nearest ‘station’ is seven miles away at non-existent Folkestone followed by Manston which is 15 miles distant. By “well correlated” perhaps the Met Office means they are in the same county of Kent. No matter, computer models are on hand to guide the way.
Ray Sanders had sent details of his findings to the new Labour science minister Peter Kyle MP and the recent Met Office changes may have been promoted by a discreet political push. At the time, Sanders asked: “How would any reasonable observer know that the data was not real and was simply ‘made up’ by a Government agency?” He called for an open declaration of likely inaccuracies of existing published data “to avoid other institutions and researchers using unreliable data and reaching erroneous conclusions”.
The Met Office also runs an historical data section where a number of sites with long records of temperature are identified. Lowestoft closed in 2010 and since then the figures have been estimated. The stations at Nairn Druim, Paisley and Newton Rigg have also closed but are still reporting estimated monthly data. “Why would any scientific organisation feel the need to publish what can only be described as fiction?” asks Sanders.
The original Braemar station in Aberdeenshire has recorded temperature data since Victorian times. Due to its interesting topography surrounded by high mountains, it recorded the U.K.’s coldest temperature of -27.2°C in both 1895 and 1982. In summer, the temperature can soar as the heat stays trapped. A new site, some distance from the original, was set up in 2005 and in common with Met Office procedure was labelled Braemar 2 to reflect both distance and climatological differences. In the historical data section of the Met’s website, Braemar 2 is shown supplying data back to 1959. “For reasons I find difficult to understand, the Met Office has chosen to highlight a spurious merging of two notably different data sets for an illogically defined period that fails to represent either site,” observes Sanders.
The recent changes made by the Met Office to its climate average pages shows that the state-funded operation is fully aware of the growing interest in its entire temperature recording business. This interest has grown because the Met Office is fully committed to using its data to promote the Net Zero political fantasy. But it is silent on the biggest concern that has been raised of late, namely the promotion of temperatures, accurate to one hundredth of a degree centigrade, obtained from a nationwide network where nearly eight out of 10 stations are so poorly sited they have internationally-recognised ‘uncertainties’ as high as 5°C.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor.
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“during the current (Europe-wide) lull in wind, Britain’s 30 GW of installed wind capacity at times has been producing less than 1 GW of electricity.”
Indeed. You can build as many windmills as you want, it won’t make the wind blow. Maximum capacity for an intermittent source is not the only metric – you need to look at minimum capacity.
If our country survives this madness I am sure that historians of the future will find it impossible to explain what went on in the decade 2020 – 2030. I know we are being made to suffer not as a result of one man’s so-called madness but because of the evil machinations of people located elsewhere, the Davos Deviants as I refer to them. Yet how do we explain away our acquiescense ?
I wish I knew!
It just seems like what used to be called “decadence” – success leads to complacency, material prosperity and freedom from wars leads to feelings of comfort, laziness and a belief that everything will turn out great and things will just keep getting better. If the decline is slow enough to be balanced by bread and circuses, people may not notice until it’s too late.
Rome fell, as did Ancient Greece – and every other empire.
Bread and circuses -> Fast food and windmills.
Trouble is not enough people notice that windmills are a circus
People tell you off when you point that out to them.
Very well put, tof (if I may be so bold): in addition, we are in a time where Arthur C Clarke’s quote “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic” is particularly apposite, partly because technology has moved beyond the ability of the average person to comprehend it, largely because we have a political class which is entirely bereft of any understanding of technology and almost as ignorant of business and commerce. They all think that the Wizard behind the curtains will make it work.
People have also come to believe that technology can and will solve all our problems, is always positive, and that scientists are infallible gods who are completely honest
And that politicians just want to help.
Madness!
Spot on. I think you’ve hit the nail on the head.
I don’t think there has been much acquiescence, the problem is when the control of the energy system is moved outside of democratic influence it becomes impossible to change anything by voting against it.
Given that Net Zero is an existential threat to hungry, cold people the only remaining way to affect the policy is by direct action.
We could call it Just Restart Oil.
Democratic influence is pointless, when the public are fed ‘bread and circuses’ by the BBC, and the viewers are more interested in Strictly.
So few now have any appreciation of STEM subjects, let alone knowledge. I am taking about about all those Arts and Humanities graduates that dominate the political bubble.
Then there’s the lazy public that ‘expect everything on a plate’, where Technology has no need for Science and Engineering knowledge and skills; where human health and medical care need ideology, with no need for traditional spiritual care, and where Business Skills, Common Sense and Taste bar you from influencial positions. We have plenty of misdirected effort, as Charlotte Gill is highlighting, but a lack of appreciation for wealth creating careers.
Yes, but you are right, how did we get here?.
We followed the universities, aided by Blair, :Cameron and the rest of the Left, but especially the BBC and NHS?
Every little helps.
That would be 1945 onwards. We are back with the Government we had then.
No,no! You feed spare solar power into the wind turbines to drive the air along. Once it’s up to speed you can use the same turbines to harvest more power in the resulting wind.
Obvious really.
Where’s my Nobel prize then, eh?
Genius!
You could also use surplus wind power to generate sunshine to feed the solar panels
Dammit! I thought my prize was in the bag.
It’s tough at the top!
Or shine a load of floodlights at the solar panels to harvest the subsidies. After all, AFAIK, mains leccy is still cheaper than the leccy generated by the panels.
A new market has been created – “green arbitrage”!
There is a minor problem of the efficiency of lights and panels with that plan!
It’s in the post with the cheque…!
It’s where, appropriately, the Sun don’t shine.
Net zero is only possible where the laws of physics and economics don’t apply – on Planet Minibrain.
4.88% contribution currently (
) from wind and 0.08% from solar – surprise! it’s Winter.
It’s possible that if you covered the planet in windmills and pylons then you could generate enough to keep everyone going everywhere at all times, on the assumption that wind is always blowing somewhere. You might have to knock down every other building to do it…
“Net zero is only possible ….. on Planet Minibrain.”
Great news. If anyone can get us all to that planet, Elon can.
We’re saved!!! Hooray!!!
Someone tell Ed.
It is interesting that Elon knows and is talking to the Government. I like it!
Minimum capacity for both wind and solar is zero. Surely even Millibrain can understand that. The question he skipped in Parliament was “Zero, how do you plan to cope with that”? There was also When are bills falling by £300, is it now or sometime well past the life of the Parliament, when we go back to coal? If we used coal now, are electricity bills would be roughly half, and we would have a 24/7 supply! If we mined coal again probably even less. So much for green. BTW Trump will finish it off in the USA too, Industry needs energy, proper reliable cheap energy, just as China has from coal!
Indeed, zero, and Comrade Millie Band I am sure understands this very well. He either intends to immiserate the country, or he is just stringing this thing along until some point where it it will become unsustainable to pretend otherwise and they will say “Oh sorry, Net Zero will be a bit delayed”. We shall find out, soon.
In 2009 we had Climategate. —People may recall the thousands of emails that the global temperature gatekeepers were sending each other. They revealed a concerted attempt to make sure the general public were not going to find out the true state of climate and global temperature. They were protecting their politicised science from scrutiny.
Not long after came the COP in Copenhagen where countries met to thrash out deals to send astronomical sums of money from rich ones to poor ones as some kind of climate justice and to help poor countries “fight climate change”—-The very same climate change that Climategate revealed was not really much of a problem. As it became clear that no deals were going to be made, many world leaders like Obama flew home early. Except one notable exception —-Miliband. He stayed right to the bitter end to try and give away our hard earned cash. —Now here is this eco socialist back in charge of energy trying to do the very same thing again———–WAKE UP UK. —-You are being fleeced under false pretences. There is no climate crisis and we knew that 15 years ago in 2009.
Climategate criminals were pritected and kept their salaries for ….. 14 years.
Wake up UK? You do know what the UK voted for in July…
Yes – ending 14 years of Tory liberal socialism. Unlike other countries we lacked a right wing alternative with standing. But the flow of council wins for Reform should reach a crescendo in May.
Greens are intellectually deficient people. Fantasist communists. They should all be locked away in a nice camp to protect us from their idiocy
It would also protect them from our inquistitiveness, but it would need an ‘iron curtain’ for it to continue.
Money talks.
Yet again a former Minister in the 14 years of Conservative led disaster has the nerve to blame Labour Ministers for the consequences of policies they brought in and vigorously supported.
Remember “vote blue go green”? I think it was a typo “Vote blue go bust”.
We were lumbered with Coutinho as she was Sunak’s mate from the Treasury. Her economic acumen was so great somehow paying more per MWh for wind energy would save us money. If only more voters had not wasted their vote on Labour here and supporter Reform would be rid of her.
At Least “ He Twied “ W-nker!!!!….
Dreams are often an expensive failure called Miliband
Saturday 9am Windy Miller is giving us 11% of our needs! Apart from a little steady nuclear the rest is coming from batteries and flywheels (ie gas!).
Flywheels?
Does David MiniBrained know what they are, how big they need to be, how much farm land they will need to take over and the engineering limits to their viability?
Or does he think they are the fly equivalent of hamster wheels and that all we need is a few billion trained flies on flywheels to keep the lights on?
Has anyone asked him?
And now we know the true purpose of the inheritance tax wipeout of farming.
It is to release all that redundant farmland for David MiniBrained’s flywheels.
The farmland will be redundant because the population problem will be solved by starvation. Of course illegal migrants will get priority for rations and food stamps etc and it will be the North of England whites who will starve to make way for Labour voting illegal migrants and the like.
Great plan Rachel. You had it all worked out with David MiniBrained all along. That is what I call shrewd political planning.
PS. Just because Stalin demonstrated what can be achieved politically if one is oblivious to the death and suffering caused, does not mean it is OK for Starmfuhrer’s Far Left friends to emulate Stalin.
Oops – I mean Ed MiniBrained.
Stalin is about right for this Government. We shall have collective farming next, which nearly starved Russia completely. Note what happened in the Stalinist dictatorship next to South Africa! Mugabe (AKA Starmer) is probably in awe!
Oops – I mean Ed MiniBrained.
Fifty years ago, a popular question, in Physics departments, I have to say, was how big a flywheel would a bus need to be supply the energy needed to drive a certain distance, including the driver and passengers.
The objective of the exercise, after doing the simple calculation, was that you realised that you had to increase the mass of the bus, because of the flywheel, and redo the calculation, ad infinitum, or do some fancy Mathematics.
What if David Minibrained opted for a single flywheel to eliminate redundancy?
Would Yorkshire provide sufficient land?
Of course the speed of rotation would have to be sufficiently low that the G-forces would not cause it to fly apart, disintegrating into zillions of pieces,
And to avoid hazards to aviation the flywheel would have to be mounted with its axis vertical to rotate horizontally.
To pay for it the land below its rotations could be the world’s largest theme park although by then air travel might have become a thing of the past.
I have a really inexpensive way to harness carbon capture technology.
We turn over all UK’s farmland to fast-growing plants, harvest and bury them deep underground.
That also will reduce demand for energy by starving the population to death.
Japanese knot-weed comes to mind as it is easy to grow even right through concrete which means we can grow it in our cities and streets which will no longer have any motor traffic or people by then anyway.
With that plan we can achieve net zero everything by 2030.
I am going to stand for election as soon as I can being the only person in the country with a far more brilliant solution to net zero than David Minibrained.
It also of course fits neatly with the Chancellor’s inheritance tax plan to wipe out UK farming altogether.
Ed MiniBrained is no match for this genius. Vote for me!!!
If that previous idea on carbon capture does not get me a Nobel prize this one is a sure fired certainty.
We line up all the Far Left Blowhards in front of all those fancy windmills and get them blowing.
They will love it as the best thing in the world for them is the sound of them blowing hard and the rest of us will reap the benefits in electricity thereby generated.
Now that is far more practical than anything Ed Minibrained has ever thought of and proposed, see?
Please up vote this genius suggestion and we can send a screen grab to the Parliamentary Energy Committee as an extempore petition requesting my appointment as the new Energy Secretary. I am ready to answer questions from anyone on the Committee or in Parliament about my incredibly clever ideas for the energy future of this country.
Hm, very sarcastic! The best method to separate CO2 from air is probably gas centrifuges, and if they were big enough and the entire country covered in them, we could probably reduce the CO2 by a tiny amount. The energy to drive then could come from… Slight snag there, there would be little room for windmills!
Oops – I mean Ed MiniBrained.
No idea why this frivolous comment was downticked twice. Have we all lost our sense of humour?
11% was from wind that day, much of the rest from gas which we apparently don’t need.
Mad Ed is basically 2-tier’s responsibility, so he has to carry the can for this, but let’s book Ed’s place in the sanatorium now. He needs it.
“2-tier’s responsibility”
Don’t be silly. He does not have any.
Being detached from the reality of the world around himself, he thinks he is acting perfectly responsibly of course all the while the world watches on in incredulity and amazement at the scale and number of stupid things he and his Far Left playmates are achieving.
Were they still alive now, this country would be better served had we elected Marx and his family.
Groucho and his brothers that is. Not Karl.
With 2TK doing the work of two men, Laurel and Hardy come a close second.
Trump 47. Do not ask for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee Net Zero.
The notion that the UK can lead the World leader to “decarbonisation” by 2050 is a fantasy that is facing not only a new Government in the USA (White House, Senate and likely House) opposed to Net Zero where “drill-baby-drill” is the motto, but the other suicidal cheerleader, Germany, has a collapsed Government over this issue and rest of Europe burning more coal and yet more gas.
In practical terms Net Zero is impossible within the time frame.
Our World lead in Net Zero will be as successful as our very expensive World-beating Covid Track & Trace…..
Track and trace appears brilliant compared to “net zero”, but like all Government projects didn’t do what they said, and cost a very silly amount of our money. Be ready for even more tax!
Ever. That is the underlying problem. Have you heard that they want to reduce the capacity of electric car batteries (less range) because there is a severe shortage of lithium, and the slaves to mine it?
15 minute cities. No need for vehicle range of more than 100 miles per day.
All comms by online meetings monitored by government eavesdropping.
Simple.