Is our RR Kampen not a Dutch meteorologist? Where is he when he is needed? Can he be prodded to come out of the woods?
(I just hope he does not work at KNMI)

and

Alexej Buergin (07:59:42) :

Do I understand correctly:

RR Kampen IS a emloyee of KNMI?

And there are THREE different set of records by KNMI at GISS? Why?

And summer 1947 WAS warmer in Holland than anything recent?

—

I am no employee of KNMI or any other weather/climate institute, although in 2006 I was close to a job of operational meteorologist at WeatherNews. But I’m into software quality assurance for a company not at all related to weather/climate. Nevertheless I’m ‘into weather and climate’ since I was 11, 31 years ago, have some years university on this subject until I went into mathematics to study (‘chaotic’) dynamic systems, am an active participant in the Dutch meteorological community.

For the sets of de Bilt records at GISS, see explanations by Ben Lankamp.

1947 is still the hottest summer in the Dutch record, though individual summer months July and August carry high records of very recent years.

Data is available from KNMI in comma-separated format: http://www.knmi.nl/klimatologie/maandgegevens/datafiles/mndgeg_260_tg.txt
Notification from KNMI with regard to this record: due to possible relocations and changes in observation methodes these records of monthly values are not homogenic.

There is no step change around 1950 in this record, so possibly the 1950 relocation, which Hans already described, is the -only- thing corrected for in the record above. For the rest it is non-homogenized data (according to KNMI). The official homogenized version of the De Bilt record can be found here:

http://climexp.knmi.nl/data/temp_De_Bilt_hom.dat

Source: A.P. van Ulden, The Construction of a Central Netherlands Temperature, KNMI-WR 2009-03, available online: http://www.knmi.nl/publicaties/fulltexts/CNT.pdf

A van Engelen and Nellestijn, JW, 1996, Monthly, seasonal and annual means of air temperature in tenths of centigrades in De Bilt, Netherlands, 1706-1995. KNMI report from the Climatological Services Branch

this maps shows the sites that are used to make the series
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=108455475154621623933.0000011301001df084755

Original source:
A. Labrijn, 1945, Het klimaat van Nederland gedurende de laatste twee en een halve eeuw, Mededelingen en Verhandelingen nr. 49, KNMI publ. 102. (PhD dissertation Utrecht University)

So yes Fichtelberg can be used as a homogeneitytest. Of course if stations are remote, small inhomogeneities can disappear in the noise.

Several people here have pointed out the errors in the newspaper articles. So for the sake of presenting balanced and objective information, it would be fair to update your post and make clear that the two newspaper articles you quoted are erroneous.

At the very least it should be noted that there is no basis for the statement that there was a “on average half a degree error” at De Bilt. This statement apparently was made up by a reporter who wanted to write a juicy story, and then other reporters eagerly copied it without checking it out themselves.

REPLY: Actually I have something better – the internal report prepared by De bilt that shows the results of a running field experiment on this issue, which I’ll publish soon. – Anthony

Could one of the knowledgeable commenters from the Netherlands explain how records from that long ago are determined to be outdated or incorrect? I think this question ties in with requests for raw data recently done at Climate Audit, as I believe GISS and its predecessor agencies as well as Hadley Center all used these Smithsonian Collections as their first resources when building their climate history records.

So where have you obtained series 5?

[snip]

Moving the sensor out from under the trees and into an open area would not have made the night time temperatures warmer. The trees, like concrete and building walls, would be a heat souce at night and would have warmed the night time readings. That’s why there is a urban heat island effect. You obviously need to stay in school much longer.

Here is one version (I have applied minor in fills to missing data here and there, not significant in showing the picture, but not reproducible for detailed maths).

Given that all of the data originate from one source (the earliest being labelled BOM CD 1993, it was not a CD but a dowload) it is fair amazing how much variation there is. Plotted are annual averages from daily records.

If you wanted to correlate a climate property with temperature, which curve would you select and why?

http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii14/sherro_2008/DARWIN_SPAGHETTI_2.jpg?t=1253928389

I wonder what Anthony would find if he had the time to look at European WX-stations. And I prefer not to think about what he might find in some other places.

Regarding the UHI adjustments in the article you refer to, I’m surprised that one uses remote Fichtelberg to adjust dutch data – the climate of Fichtelberg in Sachsen is obviously very different from the dutch climate, so don’t you introduce a lot of noise that way?

Below is the reported well documented move in De Bilt:
http://members.casema.nl/errenwijlens/co2/debiltlocations.jpg

Compare adjustments to GHCN data by GIS, van Engelen & Nellesein (KNMI) and myself.
http://members.casema.nl/errenwijlens/co2/debilthomogenisations.gif

http://members.casema.nl/errenwijlens/co2/homogen.htm

The record in http://www.mscha.org/knmi/summer.cgi?station=260&sort=year&month=-1&columns=more does not contain the step change in 1951 which is obvious in the GISS record. And this step change is discussed in http://www.knmi.nl/publications/fulltexts/hisklim7.pdf

To me it looks like the unadjusted GISS record is unadjusted for the 1951 step change because of the station relocation, while the record in http://www.mscha.org/knmi/summer.cgi?station=260&sort=year&month=-1&columns=more is indeed adjusted.

Do you have a direct link to the non-homogenized record you mention above?