BY CHRIS MORRISON AND IAN RONS
At least three Typhoon fighter jets were landing at RAF Coningsby around the time when the brief U.K. temperature record was declared at 15:12 on July 19th last year from a measuring device situated halfway down the runway. Following a Freedom of Information request, the Daily Sceptic has obtained portions of the log books of four pilots flying from the base that afternoon, casting considerable doubt on the record that made headlines around the world.
The pilots’ log books record three of the four Typhoons landing at 15:10, 15:15 and 15:15. However, since these log books round off all times to the nearest five minutes, we can interpret this to mean the three jets landed between about 15:07:30 to 15:17:30 at the latest. But pilots want to rack up the most possible flying hours, so a landing at 15:12:30 would be written down as 15:15 and not 15:10, and there is always wiggle room.
In reality, it’s likely that the three jets actually landed in very quick succession, rather than over the space of several minutes. Many videos are available online showing operations at Coningsby, with Typhoons flying (and landing) close to each other, and a very recent video shows three jets landing within 30 seconds. The lead jet of the three landing on July 19th was ZJ914 – the RAF’s primary display aircraft – suggesting the others were experienced pilots who may well have landed in close formation. Taken in context with the log books, this points to the three aircraft landing together at some point very close to when the record was set at 15:12, and likely a little before.
At 15:10, the temperature suddenly jumped by 0.6°C to hit the 40.3°C record at 15.12. Within 60 seconds, the record temperature dropped back by 0.6°C. At the time, the Met Office claimed that verifying the record had been a “rigorous process” and that all data was accurate.
The Daily Sceptic has published a number of articles about the Coningsby incident and the general recording of surface temperatures by the Met Office. Last November, we asked the Met Office if its “rigorous process” confirming the validity of the 40.3°C record had ruled out all non-climatic causes such as jet aircraft operating near the measuring device, since RAF Coningsby is a major jet pilot training centre and home to two squadrons of Typhoons. We received no reply. Earlier, Lincolnshire Live was told the rise in temperature might have been due to a break in thin cloud. Last November, the Daily Sceptic published a satellite photo showing cloudless skies at 15:00 on July 19th across London and most of eastern England.
In the light of our latest revelations, it’s time the Met Office made a statement about its claimed record at RAF Coningsby. It should either withdraw it, or provide convincing evidence as to why the record should be retained. If it does not take public action, it risks the ‘record’ becoming a national joke.
Last year was a warm year in the U.K. and July 19th was undoubtedly a very hot day, although the mini-heatwave had broken by 22:00, with rain in London and a 20°C drop in temperature. Five English places declared temperatures over 40°C, but all have problems with non-climatic heat corruptions.
The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) grades weather stations and gives lower classifications to those surrounded by tarmac and buildings. An interesting article in the blog Climate Scepticism looked at the five U.K. 40°C sites and found problems at all of them. According to the WMO, the classification set for Coningsby suggests a temperature margin of error of up to 1°C. The second place at London’s St. James’s Park is sited next to a metalled path, suggesting a 2°C uncertainty. Heathrow and Northolt are busy London airports with the same problems as Coningsby. The last site in Kew Gardens is marginally better, but it is sited near one of the largest tropical greenhouses in the world, and breezes wafting over the vast glass structure could corrupt surrounding measurements.
For the purpose of taking temperature measurements to build a picture of long-term climate change, there are few places more unsuitable than an airport runway. But all airports measure temperature for operational purposes, and the easily-available data from numerous locations is embedded in both national and international datasets. In the U.K., the Met Office is fully signed up to the ‘climate crisis’ narrative. One-off weather events and measurements are fed to the unquestioning mainstream media by the Met Office and this helps promote alarm in the cause of the collectivist Net Zero agenda. The Met Office is particularly busy in the summer months where it seems to have decided to catastrophise what was once considered normal summer weather. Three balmy days of 25°C on the Cornish Riviera are now termed a ‘heatwave’, while national weather maps turn blood-red as temperatures climb through the 20s. On a global scale, the Met Office has retrospectively added over 30% warming to the last 20 years, removing a 2000-2012 pause clearly still seen in satellite data.
At the time of the claimed Coningsby record, Dr. Mark McCarthy from the Met Office told Lincolnshire Live that in a climate unaffected by human-induced climate change “it would be virtually impossible for temperatures in the UK to reach 40°C”. There is no way that McCarthy can know this since it is just an opinion, or to be more accurate, an opinion backed up by computer models. There is not a single science paper that would prove that claim conclusively.
If anything, it would seem that much of the claimed urban heat should be removed, rather than increased. In recent ground-breaking work, two American scientists – Dr Roy Spencer and Professor John Christy – working out of the University of Alabama in Huntsville, have started to separate out the effect of urbanisation on temperature measurements. Over the last 50 years, it was discovered that warming could have been exaggerated by up to 50% across the eastern United States. Interestingly, the largest exaggerations were found at airports. At Orlando International Airport in Florida, the local data showed massive warming of 0.3°C per decade, a figure that fell to just 0.07°C when adjusted for urban heat.
Looking around for the odd jet is pointless. Here (from the Manchester Evening News) is a list of places that exceeded 40C that day. They didn’t all have jets taking off:
3.12pm: Coningsby, Lincolnshire – 40.3
12.20pm: Heathrow, west London – 40.2
1.55pm: St James’s Park, central London – 40.2
3.26pm: Gringley-on-the-Hill, Nottinghamshire – 40.1
12.28pm: Kew Gardens, south west London – 40.1
12.39pm: Northolt, west London 40.0
Another 28 places exceeded the previous British record of 38.7C.
Lol
All compromised!!!!
All the locations in the Greater London area are compromised (Heathrow, St James’s Park, Kew, Northolt). There are published studies showing that the UHI effect in the Greater London area is up to +3C on maximum temperatures on hot days. This is independent of any siting issues with individual weather stations.
Heathrow is of course surrounded by large areas of concrete and buildings, let alone a large crop of jets with engines running.
And since the air is clear of SO2 in London these days insolation will be higher and boosting peak temperatures.
“the UHI effect in the Greater London area is up to +3C on maximum temperatures on hot days”
So why did they altogether suddenly have an attack of UHI that they had never had before?
Coningsby is a long way from London. Here are the others that broke the record:
1.29pm: Niab in Cambridge – 39.9
11.06pm: Charlwood, Surrey – 39.9
2.05pm: Cranwell, Lincolnshire – 39.9
3.30pm: Scampton, Lincolnshire – 39.9
2.37pm: Wittering, Cambridgeshire – 39.9
3.02pm: Bramham, West Yorkshire – 39.8
2.55pm: Monks Wood, Cambridgeshire – 39.8
2.07pm: Watnall, Nottinghamshire – 39.8
1.19pm: Bushey Park, Teddington, south west London – 39.6
3.08pm: Topcliffe North Yorkshire – 39.6
1.49pm: Woburn, Bedfordshire – 39.6
2.35pm: Bedford, Bedfordshire – 39.5
3.50pm: Normanby Hall, North Lincolnshire – 39.4
1.59pm: Sheffield, South Yorkshire – 39.4
2.28pm: Sutton Bonington, Nottinghamshire – 39.4
11.17pm: Wisely, Surrey – 39.3
11.39pm: Chertsey, Surrey – 39.2
1.39pm: Marham, Norfolk – 39.2
2.12pm: Holbeach, Lincolnshire – 39.1
2.01pm: Ryhill, West Yorkshire – 39.1
1.15pm: Writtle, Essex – 39.1
12.47pm: Santon Downham, Suffolk – 39.0
1.08pm: Wellesbourne, Warwickshire – 39.0
1.55pm: Coton in the Elms, Derbyshire – 38.9
12.20pm: Iver, Buckinhamshire – 38.9
1.04pm: Coleshill, Warwickshire – 38.8
1.24pm: High Beach, Essex – 38.8
2.57pm: Leeming, North Yorkshire – 38.8
Never recorded, unquestionably. Never had? Dubious. I can recall several days growing up just outside London in the 1960’s, when the tarmac would stick to your shoes and bicycle tyres. Had I known then that it would become an issue I would’ve kept records. On July 19th 2022, when all the news channels were screaming “climate change” at us, I went for a walk around my local streets around 1:30PM. No melting tarmac to be found. Anywhere.
Good job, there won’t be any tarmac in the future.
It might have escaped your notice, but the UK is ~32 times smaller than Australia.
It’s a tiny island.
Before Stokes comes back it’s the ninth largest island in the world.
1 Greenland
2 New Guinea
3 Borneo
4 Madagascar
5 Baffin
6 Sumatra
7 Honshu (pop 104 million)
8 Victoria Island
9 Great Britain
10 Ellesmere
But apart from Great Britain and Honshu all with small populations.
As Great Britain’s population is concentrated in the south, Scotland is 37% of the area of GB, but only 10% of the population of England. Even in England the population is concentrated in the south. So pretty densely populated on average but very densely populated in the south.
Stokes’ list is concentrated in the south and midlands.
But wouldn’t you expect that southern areas would be more exposed to heat coming from the Sahara, irrespective of population?
No. We’re not a big enough island that we experience vastly different weather patterns – heat coming from the Sahara affects over 80% of Great Britain, irrespective of population density. Look at reports, from all over the country, of Saharan sand being deposited in an area – these go back decades and are a good indicator of how far that Sahara heat will go. I was in Lancashire in the 70’s when we got a spike in heat and a corresponding light dusting of pale Saharan sand.
Eurasia/Africa is the largest island in the world followed by the Americas then Australia..they are all entirely surrounded by sea…:-)
Most of this list are RAF bases , or ex-RAF airfields…Cranwell, Scampton, Wittering, Toplcliff, Marham, Leeming for sure – and probably some others.
NIAB is an agricultural research establishment
It’s interesting that all those temperatures are for a particular time. Just how long did these record temperatures last for? Less than a minute?
Replacing old mercury thermometers (which had some thermal inertia) with electronic Pt100 probes which are very fast means that any warm Zephyr washing through the Stephenson shelter now reads as a new heatwave.
All adding to the UHI problem.
“It is beyond coincidence that all these errors should be in the same direction.”
Dr. Matt Ridley – Angus Millar lecture to the Royal Society – Edinburgh – Nov 1st 2011
“It is beyond coincidence that all these errors should be in the same direction.”
Indeed. So how did all those stations break the record by so much on the same afternoon? Hot day?
Airports, including RAF airports are not the places for official weather stations.
Besides nearby buildings, high vehicular traffic, many acres of contiguous asphalt tarmac, airports have too many high heat output jet engines for considering temperatures anything but advisory.
Airport weather stations are for advising planes of current weather conditions for landing or takeoff.
One does wonder why alarmists are so desperate for the pseudo temperature records produced at airports. Are they that anxious to commit bad science?
So you agree that 40.3 was 0.4 too high compared to numerous other stations ? Even though stations in more populated areas usually read a little higher than the local airport station ?
What I am saying is that the London stations are certainly registering too high due to UHI – they are compromised. By exactly how much is not easy to tell without a detailed examination, but studies show that it is up to +3C.
The issues with some of the other stations like Coningsby are different, but many of the sites are airfields, with all the attendant concrete and buildings – and indeed aircraft.
It was surely a hot day – but the issue is “exactly how hot?”.
1.29pm: Niab in Cambridge – 39.9 – known compromised
11.06pm: Charlwood, Surrey – 39.9 – a.k.a. Gatwick airport
2.05pm: Cranwell, Lincolnshire – 39.9 RAF
3.30pm: Scampton, Lincolnshire – 39.9 RAF
2.37pm: Wittering, Cambridgeshire – 39.9 RAF
Just off the top of my head and the top of your list.
Nick – look at Olympic records and the “increase” in accuracy of the timers. Same with thermometers. Thermometers 50 years ago as “accurate” as those today?
The Gringley-on-the-hill data is suspect as well – in a previous article earlier in the day, that temperature was given for the Robin Hood airport, Notts then subsequently it vanished and Gringly-on-the-hill appeared in its place with an identical temperature. Something a bit fishy about the whole thing.
I miss Griff
You’ll have to put up with Nick!
I missed him a couple of times – he ducked!
The temperature was recorded at RAF Northolt:
https://www.google.com/maps/dir/51.5537401,-0.4086683//@51.5519001,-0.418863,2241m/data=!3m1!1e3?authuser=0&entry=ttu
Here’s Northolt weather station: not a truck length from the busy A40
Nick, for some perspective go and read Prof Mike Hulme’s blog.
“In the context of the last few centuries the summer of 2022 in Central England/ England and Wales was hot and dry. But it was not exceptionally so. The summers of 1976 and 1995 were both substantially hotter and drier”
https://mikehulme.org/the-2022-uk-summer-in-long-term-perspective/
That’s a lot of dislikes 😉
People here don’t seem to like the fact it is getting warmer. And as things go, as it gets warmer, sometimes there will be new heat records.
Ironically the question “why it gets warmer” will have a lot to do with aviation, as pointed out by more or less noble ressources..
Minnis et al 2004:
“For a 1% change in absolute cirrus coverage with τ = 0.33, the GCM yielded surface temperature changes (DTs ) of 0.438 and 0.588C over the globe and Northern Hemisphere, respectively”
IPCC special report on aviation:
“The potential effects of contrails on global climate were simulated with a GCM that introduced additional cirrus cover with the same optical properties as natural cirrus in air traffic regions with large fuel consumption (Ponater et al., 1996). The induced temperature change was more than 1 K at the Earth’s surface in Northern mid-latitudes for 5% additional cirrus cloud cover in the main traffic regions.”
NASA:
“This result shows the increased cirrus coverage, attributable to air traffic, could account for nearly all of the warming observed over the United States for nearly 20 years starting in 1975.:”
Nothing to see here, I guess 😉
As a spoof, some years ago… I took passenger miles per year delayed by 8 years and plotted them against temperature rise. The correlation was FAR greater than against CO2.
As hydrocarbon fuels get scarcer and more expensive, both emissions and air transport will fall.
-53 votes (at time of writing) for pointing out the obvious.
Is this a new record Nick?
There’s no way I’ll ever beat that.
Really? Let’s make a start, shall we?
In 1976 there were pictures taken of people successfully frying an egg on the pavement. Every time there has been a ‘hottest ever’ predicted, people have tried to repeat that feat. On the day that a new record was set at RAF Coningsby, Lincolnshire, a reporter tried to repeat the feat of egg frying in Lincoln, Lincolnshire – she failed; it wasn’t hot enough to even partly cook it – it stayed raw and uncooked. Totally unscientific and silly but worth a mention!
In more recent years the parabolic mirror effect of the Walkie Talkie building in London was enough to fry an egg and melt the plastic on a Jaguar’s mirror cowl. They had to redesign the windows because it was frying buildings in the street below.
Oh Nick. So what? Records starting from maybe 100 years ago when thermometers were within what degree of accuracy?
It’s actually crazy how they just pass this off as what is the real situation. Most record high maximums and especially high minimums these days are artifacts of the terrible surface station placements all over the world. Since people don’t question this, the agenda gets rolling and the money starts flowing. Even I remember enough from my 1st grade science class in 2010/2011, you start doing science with legitimate, sound observations. We only have one good dataset and that’s the UAH satellite. There’s no possible way to correct the surface stations if at least 96% of them are corrupted. After all, how do you get only clean cups of water if what you have is mostly dirty cups? I only hope that Spencer and Christy outlive the climate scam. It’s crazy what “science” has come to.
“Exclusive: Three Typhoon Jets Landed Next to Thermometer”
In fact the thermometer is about 240 m from the airstrip
Thanks for showing everybody that the site is totally unfit for “climate” readings.
Being surrounded closely by tarmac, buildings, aircraft taxiway etc etc.
You are doing a bang-up job of showing how ridiculous claiming this as a record really is. 🙂
Yes, it always goes like that here. Someone makes up a story about landing jets firing up the thermometers. No, they were a long way away. But there were buildings around, or something. The jets story gets forgotten.
The taxiway etc have been there for years. Why would they create a record that day?
Nick, which part of the U.K. are you in?
The Antipodes.
The penal colony, that figures
Here is where you get thoroughly skewered Mr Stokes.
Have you EVER been to Coningsby or any other UK military airfield when it is active? Yes or no.
I have, many times; active airbases in Lincolnshire have been accessible for close spectating for decades. If you look left of your screenshot of Coningsby 07 you will see exactly how close people get. I have parked at the traffic lights at RAF Waddington whilst incoming aircraft land from a northerly direction; Shackletons/F15s/Vulcans. I have also been ~70 yards (thankfully obliquely) from the rear end of a Vulcan on full reheat prior to takeoff at Waddington as well as touch and go training; vibration/noise massive and heat plume extremely visible. Same palpable experience occurred when I have been at the end of RAF Binbrook – now disused – when Lightnings took off on full reheat – even louder and extreme reheat plume than a four RR Avon engined Vulcans; same with Tornados at RAF Cottesmore but most problematic for you Phantoms, Typhoons/Eurofighters at Coningsby; they have and continue to practice touch and go as well as other activities all of which require full reheat take offs. They do not get towed out to the end of the runway but taxi from their open hard standings and their engines are running for many minutes – the exhaust plume even with no reheat is cleary visible and is long. Even if they are returning from a training run, the taxi route is straight past the heat sensor – if the land on “07” WSW to ENE. I rarely saw landings from the opposite direction.
I do not know how the ambient temperature spikes during these training sessions or even if they are mediated to factor in the effect of “angry” jet engines – but the fact that people like you rely heavily on utterly compromised readings from heat reflecting concrete structures such as active airfields, commercial but especially military, to peddle your AWG/CC twaddle is a massive problem for your collective credibility – what’s left of it.
So why aren’t temperature records being set there all the time? Why was that day so different?
Because each day is different.
Even you can’t deny that Coningsby is often quoted as with Northolt; you are being deliberately disingenuous when you show a measurement of ~240m between runway 07 but fail to point out that the taxi way is ~50m from the sensor – why (cherry) pick that longer distance?
Even you cannot stop Saharan hot air from near the equator being pumped up by prevailing southerly winds – UHI is a big big problem for you, isn’t it?
BTW you still have not confirmed precisely why you consider CO2 is a polluter in the atmosphere, nor exactly how CO2 warms the planet, what level of human recycled previously sequestered CO2 with which you would be comfortable, how that “ideal level” would affect plant and human life, whether you consider that level to be “nil” and which CO2 “producers” you would be happy to continue to be so, which would be the “net” reducers? Please explain away to this non scientist…
“why (cherry) pick that longer distance?”
Because the headline here blares:
“Exclusive: Three Typhoon Jets Landed Next to Thermometer…“
Why is that headline any more of a blaring blather than your world class scientifically meritorious contribution; if a military jet landed next to a thermometer, it would in all probability be no more – take a look at the heat flume in the picture.
You clearly had no clue about the narrower concrete pathway that is closer to the thermometer – UHI in action; you had no clue about the manner of the fast jet activity at Coningsby, yet you hold it up as an unimpeachable location for the recording of air temperature – fast jet taxiway, adjacent to buildings, Coningsby in a flat location, very few trees, loads of concrete and tarmac. I call it gas lighting but then you might object to the word “gas”.
You still decline the chance of proselytising the Stokesian Gospel of malevolent CO2 – just why is that if you are so confident of your “facts”? I do have the capacity of an open mind.
How did they get to their parking stands Nick? Fly? Or pass on the taxiway? Did any of the pilots think it might be a giggle to wiggle as they passed to blast some hot exhaust in the general direction of the Stevenson screen?
Nick worries about the 487.1Mt of CO2 emitted by Australia in the year to March 2022 (a rise of 1.5% or 7.4Mt over the previous year) but says nothing about the 11.4 billion tonnes emitted by China during 2021.
That’s the only way people believe this nonsense. UHI / sitting problems create record hot average temperatures therefore setting new records. This is, of course, swept under the rug and blamed on CO2.
Because there was hot air from the Sahara spread over most of the country, giving high ambient temperatures. Only a small nudge upward needed to cross into ‘record’ territory.
Was this the first time hot air from the Sahara ever reached the UK?
No – please see my reply to your earlier post. I suggested there that reports of Saharan sand being deposited in different areas of the country would correlate with Saharan heat – why don’t you look at that?
Ummm from the politicians in London?
How do you know that that location doesn’t regularly record the highest temperature of the day many times a year? It’s only in the news when it breaks the highest ever UK temperature.
Because natural variability
A) Because it takes a hot day to begin with, because even rapid response thermistors may not respond that quickly to hot brief gust.
B) Because most days have cooler temperatures and sufficient wind to prevent all but the most transient readings caused by hot exhaust.
LOL… actually still trying to pretend to yourself that this is a reputable “climate” site.
That is so funny !
You clearly have an honours degree in Straw Clutching.
You didn’t measure at a perfect right angle and it’s not a thermometer. (Sigh, I’ll never be able to match your nitpickery and distractive skills!)
Duh! It was a hot day. Nobody doubted that. A brief too much of a good thing. Any other day with similar jet traffic might have caused a momentary 0.6° rise from the usual oppressive 18°C to a blistering 18.6°C (some day soon resulting in a Met Office heatwave alert, no doubt). But no record temperature because the typical day is not so hot.
A high pressure weather system in peak summer. Omg! The only practical solution is global communism. I do see your point, Nick.
I think Nick is being somewhat obtuse…
It’s his default state.
“Any other day with similar jet traffic might have caused a momentary 0.6° rise”
Much talk of that “momentary” rise, but no-one gives data, of course. Well, except Peta:
And as you see, it actually spent two hours at around 40°C.
A whole 2 hours record heat wave?
Oh, the humanity!
A whole 2 hours of jets continuously landing?
No, two hours of baking in the Sun a few meters from a black tarmac taxiway.
Nick is defending a weather station located at an airport. Cool. You’re basically arguing that because other stations broke the 40C mark, that this one is legitimate. You just think that UHI / sitting stations don’t have an effect and every station is perfect! Those other stations could very well be just as or even more compromised than this one. This compounded with a hot summer maximum undoubtedly creates record highs.
Completely specious!
Jet exhaust is hot for quite some distance.
All the jet has to do is taxi nearby, and you proved that they can.
Do tell me Nick, why do you think the temperature suddenly jumped by an amazing 0.6c for just a few minutes, well after the warmest part of a cloudless day?
Around 3 PM is not well after the warmest part of a usual sunny summer day.
Is your argument that hot air from a Typhoon jet couldn’t possibly travel 240-odd meters to affect the thermometer reading?
…. or that the aircraft wouldn’t taxi along the taxi-way. !
He will try anything, no matter how laughable, to support his cult religion.
Nick thinks the RAF still uses Sopwith Camels
Camels were phased out because they produced too much methane.
It wasn’t that… it was because the word “hump” became offensive to somebody.
Nice work Sherlock Stokes. You’ve managed to show that the airplane taxi way is 50m away.
If that is 240m then there are some huge cars parked by the buildings. Nice lying Nick
Oh NitpICK! You’re a hoot.
Thank you for the picture – you have shot your own foot.
We see The Main Runway that the aircraft would have landed on. Fine. Lovely
If you visit Coningsby on the Google Map, you’ll see that the other little road runs parralel from one end the main runway to the other
IOW it is a taxi-way or craft to get to the main ‘holding park’
See my picture = expanded out and marked up
Visit any local weatherstation and you’ll find that the wind that day was coming from the EastThe aircraft would have thus approached/landed from the West (left to right on my image)At bare minimum, they would have been headed for the ‘Holding Park – circled on my map below ‘Battle of Britain’Thus they’d have gone to the very far (Eastern) end of the runway and taxied back along the entire length of the ‘little road’Right where The Thermometer is plantedMy purple scribblings hopefully giving some idea of the route they’d have taken and the layout of the place. Use it in conjunction with Nicks mapAs anyone can see, the aircraft will *always* have to taxi past the thermometer.
Normally the prevailing westerly would see them taxi along to the east end of the run way if the were taking off
If they were landing into an Easterly, they’d be taxi past it also
OK, we now understand why Coningsby that day was ‘a bit unusual’?
Because with a prevailing Westerly, the craft would as you suggest, never get near the thermometer.
Enough. I’m having a ponderation for a minute or two here….
Is because something odd happened to the local wunderground stations that day also.
I.E. Around mid-afternoon the wind direction went a bit crazy but especially, the Wet Bulb thermometers all showed a step change up of about 10°C as the dry bulbs were ‘cruising’ at around their daily maximum.
Something affected one and not the other across a moderately wide area encompassing Coningsby
(Somebody is lying by omission)
Something really rather odd happened there that day…………
edit: Headline Amendment
“”3 Jets Landed Then Taxied Past (within feet of) A Thermometer””
“If you visit Coningsby on the Google Map, you’ll see that the other little road runs parralel from one end the main runway to the other
IOW it is a taxi-way or craft to get to the main ‘holding park’”
As I have pointed out too – but he doesnt care to address that issue, and others connected with it. Strange that.
And the amount of heat those engines put out would be more than enough to raise the temperature significantly up to 300 metres away.
It looks very much like stations that Anthony has already documented as not properly sited. It appears to be at the edge of a parking lot filled with autos and near to a taxi strip. Can’t tell what the building may contribute but talk about a poster child for poor siting of an atmospheric temperature sensor.
Temperature sensors at airfields and airports were never sited with the atmospheric temperature records in mind. They are placed where they are to give pilots a reasonably accurate picture of the conditions where they are due to take off and land. This information is extremely important to pilots as it affects the performance of the aircraft during a takeoff and landing. Because of their siting they are usually totally contaminated by other sources and reflective surfaces – it is fraudulent to pass them off as uncontaminated, accurate atmospheric temperature stations, which is what the Met Office is trying to do.
You have never stood anywhere near a jet runway, have you Nick?
My thought exactly.
In fact the thermometer is about 240 m from the airstrip
Ok, so if it wasn’t the jets, do you have any alternative explanation for
At 15:10, the temperature suddenly jumped by 0.6°C to hit the 40.3°C record at 15.12. Within 60 seconds, the record temperature dropped back by 0.6°C.
Yes. It was said by the Daily “Sceptic”, with no data source. It isn’t true. Peta posted the temperature above. It sat around 40C for two hours:
I dunno if you have ever been near any form of airport or airfield.
They remain the worst possible places ever to site a temperature reading device.
My experiences nr Wellsbourne were boiling summer days – esp waiting for Vulcan taxiing fun.
we have a local airfield here…..but wait for it, it’s for ULM landing etc on GRASS.
I would say it’s a good proxy for our local rather warm June temps here in Bourgogne, but not the local closest ones actually used for weather forecasts,-
used in DOLE Tavaux, LFGJ a mil airport surrounded by concrete.The other is LFXA in Amberieu surrounded by open countryside but also concrete.
The coded airports above are used for weather data, but are constantly wrong compared with my own Hg thermometer.
Funnily enough our own temps are consistently higher than those Weather stations, which to my mind not only makes the local weather forecasts routinely unreliable but also the temps+forecasts for the day.
Ie, Airports are crap places to take any form of weather data, but they do it because it’s neccessary and convenient for air transport.
ie .F-all to do with the actual weather.
You have the dew point and the wind direction circled; each has a step change, but one is around 5PM and the other around 8 PM. The temperature is the red line above, and it’s hanging around 40 C from 3 PM to a little after 5 PM. The scale is too coarse to see a 0.6 C rise.
OTOH, what in heck caused that step change in the humidity at 5 PM? Were they washing an airplane or the tarmac just upwind of the sensor? The temperature starts falling at the same time, which you’d certainly see if a lot of water had been sprayed around and was evaporating.
That’s a terrible place for a temperature or humidity sensor. I think that if wind measurements aren’t too far off, the other readings are close enough for air operations, where a few degrees temperature more or less doesn’t change much.
The fire station is next door with exit across the taxiway to the track to the runway. Perhaps they hosed something down? Even a little fire in the grass…
“You have the dew point and the wind direction circled”
The graph is from Peta from Newark, and those are her additions.
But only 20m from the taxiway to the apron just of the image to the left.
Also you have the wrong location for the weather station. It’s very close to the taxiway.
OMG Nick Seriously? And the previous recording was taken 240 m away after a Spitfire took off?
How close can, say, a small cessna follow behind a typhoon or similar jet?
Measured in minutes not distance, depending on wind, I reckon, due to the vortices created as mentioned elsewhere here. Such vortices have been proven to have caused fatal crashes involving commercial passenger aircraft and I know for a fact that small aircraft have been flipped through 180 degrees – in mid air – in the wake of passing fast jets. (Detail from an experienced pilot PPL qualified)
3-4 miles, but to be fair, that is not an exhaust problem. that is the wing tip vortices aka ‘wake turbulence’
To be fair, this is one of the ways that the cult can show the man made element of global warming – 0.6C on 39.7C is ~1.5%.
It is also interesting that the met office (Nick) didn’t claim increased extreme weather around the same time …. 4 typhoons in the UK in the space of 10 minutes! 😀
Degrees C have an arbitrary starting point, so percentage changes are mathematically invalid. To validly calculate a percent of temperature , you have to use the Kelvin scale, where zero is absolute zero. Of course, by that scale, January to August is around 1% change, or maybe up to 2% in North Dakota.
From the Cambridge Fen:
It was very cloudy/overcast raing all night then, on my way to the coffee shop, the sky became two.
One part was Black, the other was (haha) Sky Blue and now, most all of it is = Blue.
Open this image in a new tab and Save it.
Then open in Photo Viewre or whatever and zoom right in on it and compare the yellow line (solar power) against the red line (dry bulb air temp)
See how the lines are the same shape and even the little squiggles line up perfectly
Now tell me that the sun does not directly warm the atmosphere – or especially, how the magical greenhousegases create curves like that.
Also. I’ve sussed Coningsby and its in that picture also…
What happened:
2nd image for this comment:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/06/28/exclusive-three-typhoon-jets-landed-next-to-thermometer-when-britains-record-temperature-of-40-3c-was-recorded/#comment-3740735
The rise in the dew point is interesting. The wind from the South would have wafted jet exhaust from the taxiway toward the weather station. Really it’s the temperature record that need amplifying.
Pilots need real-time data on temperature and humidity to calculate takeoff performance, and the automated systems which provide runway conditions are a big safety factor. But “scientists” and activists in the media regularly abuse this specialized information pretending it is representative of historical data which it is often not. I am reminded of the huge media splash a few years surrounding a “record high” recording from airport monitoring equipment equipment at the Anchorage airport, one of the busiest in the world as it is a mid-point stop for air cargo between China and the 48 contiguous states.
For grins, I checked the records on the same day at the “real” weather station just a few air-miles away. The weather station recorded a high temperature 10 degrees F less than the runway high, but you would never have heard that on the news. Lots of disinformation being spread intentionally by propagandists who know that the human brain is a rudimentary electro-chemical comparison engine which makes most judgments by the pound. (Quantiity = Truth)
What a wonderful definition! Thanks.
“the human brain is a rudimentary electro-chemical comparison engine which makes most judgments by the pound. (Quantiity = Truth)”
This June will be the warmest on record in the UK.
RAF jets are out of control!
UHI is out of control
With one day to go, I doubt that sincerely, without some vigorous manipulation of the data.
And all the jets whizzing about next to the thermometers.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-66042272 “The Met Office will say later on Monday if the high temperatures were linked to climate change.”
coincidence?
until solar activity can be categorically ruled out then it has to be considered.
What drives ENSO?
What contribution do the oceans outgassing carbon dioxide due to warming have on the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere?
48 years ago we had snow in June.
Don’t question the data, it might upset the models.
The data just needs to be adjusted to fit the theory
These stories and comments miss the point.
With most natural phenomenon there is a probability distribution with long tails. Cliff Mass has made a “rule” on this issue. Something like ‘the more extreme and event the less likely global warming had much to do with it’. (Sorry, I haven’t found his wording.) Years ago, Luboš Motl showed that a minor shift in the mean – say average temperature goes up slightly – will have points in that long tail show up at some point.
The Central England Temperature (CET) [based on 1961-1990 climatology**] anomaly is about 3.0 for June. Why then, not expect an occasional record high? In the 1960s and 1980s the anomaly was down. Were there a few record cold readings then?
** The years for comparing “climatology” {in the USA} is the 30-year period, 1991-2020. Why is the MET group delinquent in this?
Fighter jets and tarmac ARE human induced climate change!
Aircraft and tarmac are human-induced local surface temperature change.
There is NO data proving jets and tarmac cause meaningful shifts in the climate zones of the earth.
Exactly! “Their PREMISE is wrong”.
What does it say about our modern day society when science is so blatantly distorted and manipulated?
People will still tell lies to make money.
Man is a rationalizing animal.
A General response but specifically for 186no
“I do not know how the ambient temperature spikes during these training sessions or even if they are mediated to factor in the effect of “angry” jet engines – but the fact that people like you rely heavily on utterly compromised readings from heat reflecting concrete structures such as active airfields, commercial but especially military, to peddle your AWG/CC twaddle is a massive problem for your collective credibility – what’s left of it.”
I know:
AS I have worked at RAF Binbrook (1974-1977), RAF Scampton (1983-85), and RAF Cranwell (1986-1991)…. and what’s more in the Met offices there.
Both as an observer passing weather data to ATC and as a Forecaster briefing aircrew.
First – never, ever have I seen a spike recorded on a thermometer from an RAF aircraft jet exhaust – that from either Lightnings, JPs or Hawks.
Basic met has it that hot air rises and V hot air bloody quickly – your exhaust trail may well be long but are they at any length at 2m AGL. No.
The thermo graph also shows the jump in humidity as the thermals died and mixing of drier air aloft was curtailed (a jet exhaust will have lower RH). The S’ly also veered westerly and lessened, marking the passage of the hottest air.
“Even if they are returning from a training run, the taxi route is straight past the heat sensor – if the land on “07” WSW to ENE. I rarely saw landings from the opposite direction.”
Must have been there on the odd occasions that there wasn’t a stiff prevailing S-SW’ly.
Coningsby’s runway runs 25/07 and with the wind at 180-230 deg during the 40C spell of 2 hrs the Typhoons would be using rwy 250.
Also to firm up on that the Met there would likely have warned ATC of the more westward shift coming.
Also Typhoon’s at Coningsby will use RWY 25 because the approach is less populated than the 07 approach.
You do know that the Rwy in use is designated by the far end and not the end they fly towards and land on?
“You clearly had no clue about the narrower concrete pathway that is closer to the thermometer – UHI in action; you had no clue about the manner of the fast jet activity at Coningsby, yet you hold it up as an unimpeachable location for the recording of air temperature – fast jet taxiway, adjacent to buildings, Coningsby in a flat location, very few trees, loads of concrete and tarmac.”
And: ” but fail to point out that the taxi way is ~50m from the sensor ”
“UHI is a big big problem for you, isn’t it?”
And you clearly have no clue that the Typhoons are housed in individual hardened hangars to the south of the rwy and have no need to use that taxiway
https://www.google.com/maps/place/RAF+Coningsby/@53.0919311,-0.1648764,1611m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m6!3m5!1s0x4878724361cba713:0x17ec5c5f02eb395d!8m2!3d53.0991209!4d-0.1701335!16zL20vMDJ2cWNx?entry=ttu
And:
“UHI is a big big problem for you, isn’t it?”
Indeed, for many denizens here it is – its not applicable at the first sign of hardened ground and especially not in windy conditions.
Lack of trees is a good thing for unadulterated temps as (surely obviously) there is less shelter and more turbulent mixing.
And it’s hard to find any Stevenson screen that does not have some tarmac/concrete nearby and was always thus. How about the literally acres of grass there as well. UHI is met in conurbations (large areas of building/road etc) and not from the odd “narrower concrete pathway”.
A surface wind mean ~20 gusting 20-30kph renders any UHI effect from over a concrete pathway as zero.
Temps are not compromised in any way that a scrutiny of the thermograph (as seen on the graph above) and second by second sampling from recorded data would not show up. The 40.3C at Coningsby was audited.
There was no deviation from a remarkably steady temp trace during the duration of the ~40C spell (a factor only seen during damped windy conditions on such days).
To anyone with a whit of Met and specifically RAF Met station conditions your vitriol towards Nick is baseless and worse.
Nick is talking perfect sense, and he knows as well as I do that the collective echoes here will shout him down – he has to refrain from responding, but I dont.
“your collective credibility – what’s left of it.”
LOL – on a Blog inhabited by deniers, then that is a good thing and QED.
As nick said recently – Climate change is a problem, Climate change deniers are not.
Cue …..
What an excellent post.
What a load of bollocks and gibbersih.
Sheds close to site, tarmac, they all add heat absorption near the thermometer, that raises its temperature.
If you want to stand just behind the exhaust vents of a jet fighter.. I say Go for it ! 🙂
I count 17 aircraft on the apron just to the West of your carefully cropped map. Try this one
https://www.google.com/maps/place/RAF+Coningsby/@53.0941217,-0.176603,489m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m6!3m5!1s0x4878724361cba713:0x17ec5c5f02eb395d!8m2!3d53.0991209!4d-0.1701335!16zL20vMDJ2cWNx?entry=ttu
Two more: one on the grass, and another being moved from a maintenance hangar. True, there are more South of the runway with their own hangars. I assume they are the combat ready ones, rather than the ones in use for training.
Bing has a more up to date aerial view that shows the new hangars on the apron. The distance from the taxiway centre line to the middle of the weather station is 25m.
Note also the uneven surrounding vegetation. The hangars can be seen in Google Streetview from summer 2021 but are not there in 2020.
Thanks for reading, Nick.
As I predicted, once the original claim of jets landing next to the thermometers collapsed, there is an endless list of supposed faults – paving, vegetation etc. What none of it explains is why the temperature that day was 2C higher than any previous day (also with tarmac, vegetation).
But as I said in my first comment, it is endless and pointless. Even if you can spin a story about the heat in Coningsby, why did 33 other places also beat the record on that afternoon? Formation flying?
Nice try, but a fail.
The post is not about every temperature recorded, but specifically about the validity of the UK record allegedly set at RAF Coningsby. It could well be the case that properly adjusted there was a new, but lower record at Coningsby that day, and does not preclude other records being set elsewhere. Your attempted deflection is irrelevant to that issue. If the Coningsby record is overturned then the one that supplants it should be subject to equal scrutiny.
The claim about jets passing close to the thermometers has not collapsed. You attempted to deflect by measuring from the runway centreline back to a building some 25m behind the actual weather station, inflating the distance by an order of magnitude. I have shown that the weather station is just 25m from the taxiway, easily close enough to be affected by taxiing jets with a stiff southerly breeze to waft the hot air towards the Stevenson screen. The linger time for jets on the taxiway passing at a slow taxi speed in any case far exceeds that on landing at perhaps 150mph. It is clear that the apron at the Western end of the runway is very much in use with new hangars built there a couple of years ago.
I wouldn’t want to be standing behind a Lightning if it was climbing vertically on full reheat even if it were 250 feet above me.
Why does it feel warm when standing next to a passenger jet that is stationary, engines off and cold, with external electricity supply?
A military jet, such as the old Tornado, will have its APU running to provide power whilst stationary to run through its Built In Testing, to align its navigational system all before the main engines are started. I presume Typhoon is not dissimilar. Taxiing involves using the main engines, which need to be spooled up. This is all excess heat being pumped into the local environment, and the difference on that day was 0.6 Kelvin (1 degree Fahrenheit approximately), which could be due to these factors, you don’t need to have the aircraft taking off at all with or without reheat, therefore the runway used is somewhat irrelevant.
I don’t doubt your testimony. But I would suggest that still in 1991 the thermometers in use were mercury and alcohol rather than thermocouples, and that in most instances even at RAF bases they were read every 3 hours or every hour at best. There is no way such readings would pick up the effects of a jet passing by on the taxiway. Indeed, I suspect that if the taxiway were active when a reading was due it might be deferred a few minutes on safety grounds.
Your observations about the direction in which the runway was used are more pertinent. However, it is clear that the taxiway could well have been in use given the operational apron at the Western end of the airfield. The satellite images show that it was resurfaced and the centreline painted sometime in 2020-2021.
The more recent satellite image suggests that the RAF were not always mowing the surrounding vegetation often enough, which degrades the station measurements. It’s clear that the weather station site is close to the taxiway, with just 25m between the centreline and the middle of the station. That’s close enough for a warm draught from the engine. I can think of my own experiences of being on airport tarmac in the days when you were bussed to or from the aircraft. We were of course kept rather farther from passing aircraft, but you would still notice the warmth sometimes.
Haven’t posted to this place for a long while – but the denial of what was indisputably the hottest day over the UK ever recorded, based on the hottest place being an airfield – when there are 4 stations at 39.9C (still 1.2C above the previous highest) then 3 stations at 1.1C higher, 3 at 0.9C higher etc etc.
I live in the county of Lincolnshire close to the likes of Coningsby, Cranwell, Scampton, Holbeach and Normanby Hall to name the closest record breakers.
You can also add my reading at 38.9C ( by far my highest reading in my 10 years living there) at 80m in the Lincs Wolds.
Watching the models leading up to the event (at even the 240hr range) – they were scarily correct in forecasting a plume of hot air advecting from N Africa over Spain and France that was in excess of 24C at 850mb (~5000ft).
Just using basic met to predict a surface temp from that air (DALR + superadiabat) gave 40C+ ….. in fact had the wind been lighter (was F4/5) then 43C was on the cards. As it happens little was added as a super as a result – and why the temp was so homogeneous over a large area.
The 03808 (Camborne SW England) balloon ascent overnight 18/19 July recorded the UK’s highest ever (instrumental) 850mb of 25.2C —– try adding the DALR on that ….Other S English balloon ascents that night had likely seen the hottest 850’s pass over.
https://www.torro.org.uk/extremes/summary#:~:text=Highest%20850%20hPa%20temperature%3A%2025.2,Crawley%20on%2012%20January%201987.
As Nick says, jets land all the time at Coningsby and 240m is more than enough for a hot plume from the exhaust to have risen as a thermal and /or mixed out in the gusty breeze (and they certainly don’t last for 2hrs).
But if as I know you will, you just double down on it then I’m happy to accept the many other non-airfield stations that were over a degree C over the previous recorded highest Max for England.
It was an extremely hot day made hotter by Man’s works and activities. Man’s nature is to use it for ideological and pecuniary gains. So you can say Man is responsible for the extremely hot day, proving man causes climate change. [When it is just weather.]
No reputable scientist would use anything other than radiosondes, UHA6 and ARGO to try to say anything scientific about changing contemporary global temperatures.
Ignore the taxiway. Right next to the site, enclosed on the other side by sheds etc..
A perfect heat trap if the wind is in the right direction.
This site is totally unfit for climate evaluation.. period.
But it is all you have, so you will naturally milk it to your full cultist extent.
“But it is all you have, so you will naturally milk it to your full cultist extent.”
Indeed.
It’s called an application of science and personal knowledge.
Rather than ideological bigotry, amplified by the echoes of the similarly inclined.
And, may I say (well even if I may not) …. Is that all you have?, other than the ideological bigotry that is ?
An Ad Hom.
Were you living in Oxfordshire or Berkshire during the summer of 1976?
(our well ran dry in that autumn).
Nothing I have seen of summers ever since – (quite a few in warmer France) has ever rivalled the heat we had in 1976.
As far as I am aware, in the 1930s there were quite a few summers similar, but I wasn’t about then.
I also live in the county of Lincolnshire and I found the day quite warm but I have experienced hotter days than that previously – I would dispute that it ever really got above 38-39C, despite the skewed records that abound. However, like your post, I am merely relying on anecdotal evidence.
And Further:
https://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/archives/archives.php?day=19&month=7&year=2022&hour=6&type=ncep&map=0&type=ncep®ion=&mode=0
The Welsh record at Hawarden Airport was from a weather station recently moved nearer the taxiway.
The lengths people go to…
Yup – several metres by all accounts! All to give pilots the data they need and then abused by climate enthusiasts.
I am not a mathematician but it seems to me, irrespective of UHI affect, that temperature records will always be set from time to time. If that were not so then the temperature would be seen to be falling. A climbing average, over a long period might indicate climate change, that might not or might be anthropogenic in origin. Anyway, not a crisis.
Exactly.
Alarmists seem unable to grasp that any temperature record will be broken eventually, even if climate is stable. Flipping a coin and obtaining ten heads in a row is very unlikely (1/2exp10), but if one does it long enough it will happen.
More and more people flip coins…
“They didn’t all have jets taking off:
12.20pm: Heathrow, west London – 40.2”
What a plonker!
LHR is one of the busiest airports in Europe.
If you live in Hounslow you would know!
What many people don’t realise is airports also handle a lot of freight as well as passengers.
In fact Heathrow is the UK’s largest port by value serving 218 destinations worldwide and in 2022 handled over £205bn worth of goods to over 218 destinations, 112 of which were long haul. About 83% of goods travelled in the cargo belly of passenger flights and 18% in cargo only flights. £182bn was to and from non EU destinations.
https://www.heathrow.com/company/cargo
Story tip https://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/features/66055520
We have the same temperature issue in Seattle. Officially, our temperature comes from SeaTac Airport. It is reported live on the TV Weather Channel. We also have three local network TV weather stations. During the day, their website posted temperatures are 1 F to 3 F cooler than SeaTac Airport. However, the local network TV stations use the SeaTac station for ALL their historical temperatures. I emailed all three local TV stations and asked for comments about the local anomalies. I received no responses.
I love it that records taken 50 years ago with the that technology is compared to “records” with the technology today. And Nick loves old “records”.