The Central England Temperature Record has been getting some inconvenient attention as of late. Joe D’Aleo at ICECAP pointed out recently:
The Central England Temperature record is one of the longest continuous temperature record in the world extending back to the Little Ice age in 1659. December 2010 was the coldest December in 120 years with an average of -0.7C just short of the record of -0.8C recorded in December 1890 and the Second Coldest December Temperature in the entire record (352 years).
I don’t know if it is simply sloppy webkeeping or related to the fact that the CET isn’t cooperating with the AGW expectations, but the Met Office seems to be burying the data from easy public access. They haven’t eliminated it, but it is now harder to find, and what was once a direct link now points to a general purpose climate change page.
WUWT reader Steve Rosser writes:
…the UK Met Office website, it’s undergoing a refresh at the moment and the CET link seems to have been mysteriously cut. It used to be readily accessible via the UK Climate summaries page, see below, however this link now redirects you to a global temperature page instead.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/2010/
Thinking it may be a genuine mistake I e-mailed an enquiry and received a very polite response redirecting me to find it via the obscure link below. It’s hard to argue that this location provides a sufficiently high profile for such an august dataset..
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/people/david-parker
It may be that the original link will reinstated over the next few days in which case this is a non story. However, it looks suspicously like they are taking the focus away from the CET as after 2010 it’s showing an embarrasing disinclination to follow the AGW orthodoxy (+0.4 deg C since 1780). To do so would be a betrayal of their lack of impartiality which I’d personally find very disappointing. It would also send a message that rather than face-up and make the case for 2010 being a rogue year for UK temperatures they’d rather brush the whole thing under the carpet. I hope I’m wrong.
I checked the pages, and what he says is true. First here’s the main climate page of the Met Office: http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/2010/
Note the CET link highlighted in yellow:
This is the page that CET link takes you to:
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate-change/guide/science/monitoring
There’s not a single mention of the CET on that page, but plenty of other datasets are mentioned.
Fortunately, the CET data page is still available, on another Met Office server here, but if you don’t know where to look, you won’t find it easily via the Met Office Climate page.
As I said earlier, this may be sloppy, or it may be intentional.
Given the mess related to the winter forecast we’ve recently seen from the Met Office, I’m inclined to invoke the
“never attribute malice to what can be explained by simple stupidity”
clause.
Once again I must stress I do not subscribe to any conspiracy theory. The Met office data sets are in exactly the same place as I have always found them
What is interesting is to see the extremely gentle rise in temperatures which can be seen here from 1659
http://c3headlines.typepad.com/.a/6a010536b58035970c0120a7c87805970b-pi
But which through our excellent written records can be dated back to 1601. So temperatures have been rising almost imperceptibly for over 400 years as confirmed by other old data sets and records. On the link above is also inscribed the co2 emissions.
It is vey difficult to understand quite where the alarmists are coming from with their horror that temperatures have risen marginally from the Little Ice Age.
tonyb
nik from NYC
If you see this post can you please contact me at tonyATclimatereason.com
Thanks
tonyb
As long as Met Office knows we are watching every single move they make.
As we observe institutions like Met Office dig in under an avalanche of skeptic criticism as they continue spewing zealous arguments stating the current cooling is in fact caused by Global Warming. As we observe the AGW propaganda machine operating in full swing, at least here in Europe and the current events in the Middle East being caused by…. Global Warming as well, I get this dark feeling we’re in for rationing, even prohibition of fossil fuels rather sooner than later. This feeling is supported by the Interpol scenario’s written down in this report: http://www.europol.europa.eu/publications/Scenarios/Organised_crime_in_energy_supply.pdf
We now know why the entire public domain of our cities and highways has been stuffed with observation camera’s. The camera’s will be used to catch any civilian who acquires a gallon of fuel at the corner of the street so he can take his car for a shopping tour.
The rather drastic remarks from scientists and politicians who are currently upholding the AGW SCAM now stating that our planet is flat, our populations have grown to big and the food riots were caused by Global Warming make me fear the worst.
We could face a tipping point soon but it won’t involve our climate.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/02/a_tipping_point_is_nearing.html
The UN IPCC and institutions like Met Office is not our only problem.
Our problem is the political establishment currently in power.
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/obama-must-go/
Thanks for the reply Anthony, but the Met Office’s data has always been hard to find, and I’m usually willing to believe in underhand things the MO does, but the fact that the data is still there for all to see (rather than mysteriously disappearing) leads me to think this is just the MO being the MO. Stephen Richards echoes mine and tonyb’s posts.
Why would civil servants in the Met Office team together to hide the evidence that temperatures in central England are variable?
Anthony said
“REPLY: I don’t think either of you read this story carefully. Look at the last sentence, I attribute this to blunder. Nowhere in the story was “conspiracy” mentioned. Tony B was the first to use that word in his comments. Also, please note that this isn’t about bookmarked links, but about public links on Met Office web page changing. – Anthony”
You never used the word Anthony but plenty of others are inferring it. The links are still there. What is even better is that CET and others like it continue to give the lie to dangerous climate change.
tonyb
“never attribute malice to what can be explained by simple stupidity”.
OK, so let’s see if it “can be explained” that way.
If the errors and data disappearances impact pro-AGW and anti-AGW data miners equally, then your H0 is not disconfirmed. But a virtually 100% location of data points in the “inconveniences and weakens anti-AGW data search” box means that H0 is rejected at the 99.99999999% level.
Give or take.
Phil-M says:
February 14, 2011 at 7:33 am
Am I right in understanding that one of the weather stations used to compile the CET is Manchester Airport which, from being a grassy field some 50 years ago, is now ine of the busiest airports in Europe?
Yes, same applies to Glasgow too though its expansion has been less, in fact for Scotland there is not single high level weather station used for Hadcrut, most are airport based which is strange considering the records started before mans first flight.
After all that has happened unfortunately I agree with Jack above. There is no doubt they are trying to hide it. AS the earth cools (see AMSU temps now), these guys will only slowly disappear. It will take about another 3 years before it is proven that the deniers were right and none will lose jobs etc they will simply fade away….
WHAT? Who’s hiding Data? Oh.. the MET Office you say! What’s new?
If someone like me, who’s qualifications are not in Meteorology or climate sciences, if I were to look at the CET from 1659-2010 and realize that it was the second coldest year within the entire temperature record of 352 years, then I would begin to ask questions like!
(Q.1) As the “second coldest December within CET record of 352 years” sounds significant and important information; why had the public not been clearly informed in the Uk’s media that it was the second coldest December within this record of 352 years?
(Q.2) If the MET Office is publicly funded and charged with monitoring, maintaining and interpreting these temperature records for the public, then why was the public not clearly informed in the run up to the second coldest December within this record of 352 years?
(Q.3) In the run up to the second coldest December within this record of 352 years,
why was the publicly funded MET Office informing the public that they would have warmer, milder winters despite having Data to the contrary.
(Q.4) After the fact; How can the publicly funded MET Office defend informing the public of their global temperature estimates and trends in regard to the headline in December of “2010 warmest year on record”
While Uk temperatures were at their second coldest December within the CET record of 352 years?
(Q.5) If the MET Office suggestions to the public that global temperature rises will effect the UK changing the UK’s climate in to a much warmer climate (which I’m fine with) then how is it that, according to the CET from 1659-2010, December was the second coldest year within the entire temperature record of 352 years?
Okay.. these maybe unqualified questions but I’d like to see a clear answer giving to them.
Note that the primary shield and resource of the bully and con man is the willingness of the victim class to give “benefit of the doubt” and unwillingness to “make a fuss”.
Standing up to them is the only way to avoid escalating abuse and utter impoverishment at their hands. Demand competence. Demand proof and data.
Sounds like CET has been sent to the same black hole as USHCN v1.
Perhaps the Met Office will reinstate the link. However, if you believe that “we’ve got to get rid of the Medieval Warm Period” then it is unlikely that you will stop there. Warmists cannot get rid of the CET but if it is hidden from public view it will gradually decline in importance as far as policy on climate change is concerned.
Me too.
@ur momisugly David Larsen:
“Were there digital calibrated instrumentation used back in the 1600′s to record that data? What was their benchmark? A drunken bishop recording the data on sheep skin.”
How likely is it that a bishop would be drunk? What makes you think that people in the 1600s were less conscientious and more stupid than people are today?
What makes you think that a simple idiot-proof mercury thermometer would be in greater need of recalibration than modern day instruments?
There is no doubt, its virtually impossible to get the graph anymore. try typing”Central England Temperature (CET)” in the serach box and see what you get. Its outrageous.
On wikipedia MR Connolley has made sure it only reached 2007!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_England_temperature
David Larsen says:
February 14, 2011 at 9:12 am
David I am confused, are you referring to hide the decline?
Hm, they have the longest continuous temperature record in the world and they not even display it? Hide it somewhere? Display a truncated shortened version? Why would they hide the evidence? Cui bono?
If true is this a question of burying good news or bad news?
The following link is to Professor Manley you need to scrolldown to his paper and look for the graphs to 1974. No hockey stick until our Phil and his boys get their hands on the data then a miracle it is a hockey stick.
[no link?]
@Roy:”What makes you think that a simple idiot-proof mercury thermometer would be in greater need of recalibration than modern day instruments?”
Quite right. As far as I am aware, even the Galileo thermometer was quite capable of +/- o.5 degree accuracy. Present day measurements are around +/- 0.45 degree accuracy, aren’t they?
Not really much of an improvement, and as always, the clincher is frequency of calibration.
Something people may not be aware of also, is digital measuring devices can be rather coarse compared to analogue. I get far better consistency measuring with a beam scale, than I do with a digital scale, for example (both accredited accurate to +/- 1/10th of a grain, but with experience, the beam scale can deliver far better).
I own both beam and digital scales, and both get calibrated prior to use, as well as having regular calibration checks while being used.
I tend to use this CET graph as it has a trend line AND co2 emissions.
http://c3headlines.typepad.com/.a/6a010536b58035970c0120a7c87805970b-pi
However that first big Cet graph in this article is unusually clear and the scales are very good.
Anyone able to put a trend line through it from start to finish and also indicate clearly that the average mean for 1659 -the first year of the record- and 2010- the last year of the record- are identical at 8.83C then repost it here in full sight into the public domain?
tonyb
Conspiracy or stupidity or bureaucratic bumbling – who knows.
The only two things we know for sure about this are:
1. As in inconvenient fact, it is not going to appear in any IPCC report, and
2. The top fat cat bureaucrats in the Met Office are going to get the maximum bonuses allowed this year, regardless of actual performance.
“why had the public not been clearly informed in the Uk’s media that it was the second coldest December within this record of 352 years?”
Curiously enough, the answer to your question appears in today’s Daily Telegraph, in the form of a half page collaboratory advert sponsored and paid for by – The Carbon Trust!
When David Cameron promised a “bonfire of the Quangos” he did so with his fingers crossed behind his back for this one. He and Clegg have close family members seriously invested in the many lucrative manifestations of the carbon scam, as have many parliamentarians of differing hues, and they have no intention of allowing this nice little earner to be discontinued through the application of fact, truth or reality. Oh, and by the way, it also is a tax raiser.
I note (just above the plot) that:
1) Where can one find the original, untreated, unadjusted data?
2) Where can I find a clear statement about the adjustments (not just for urban warming), the method used and its justification?
3) Does the urban adjustment since 1974 (and any other adjustments) make any significant difference?
(Maybe this is clear to everyone else, if so, apologies.)