Suspicions Mount as Met Office Continues to Open More Junk Temperature Measuring Sites

From THE DAILY SCEPTIC

by Chris Morrison

Evidence continues to mount that the UK Met Office is chasing ‘hottest evah’ temperature extremes by deliberately siting new measuring stations in locations likely to be affected by heat spikes and unnaturally warmed ambient air. In the last 10 years to the middle of 2024, 81.5% of new sites were junk Class 4 and 5 operations with potential internationally-recognised errors up to 2°C and 5°C respectively. Incredibly, eight of the 13 newly-opened sites over the last five years were of junk status. Now comes news of a new site recently opened in Wales at Whitesands that in the words of citizen super sleuth Ray Sanders, “appears to be a deliberate attempt to produce artificially elevated readings both now and ever increasingly in the future”.

It’s so bad, it beggars belief that it has been added to the official list of Met Office recording sites. For starters, it is a manual operation suggesting amateur involvement with all the human errors that might entail. Sanders, who is undertaking a scientific study of all 380 plus Met Office sites, notes that from the start date in May 2024, almost half the days had no record until the end of the year. But much worse is to be found in an examination of the actual siting. Its location on sand and sandy soils is hardly ideal since they absorb and release heat more readily than clay, loam or topsoil. This creates a microclimate that can skew temperature in the immediate vicinity.

Whitesands is a camping site on Welsh sand dunes. The Stevenson screen is next to a road with a 5mph speed limit, reports Sanders, meaning that slow moving traffic such as motor homes and camper vans may pass by. According to Met Office guidelines, an undesirable site is one where there is sheltering or shading effects of trees on the measurements. The image above is from November 2024 and the structure behind the screen is a guard designed to protect newly planted saplings from animals. Sanders observes that the hedge is to the northern plus eastern and seaward elevation of the screen, which will shield it from cooling night time breezes but retain warmer onshore breezes. Was this all invisible to the Met Office inspectors – did they not know about the requirements, he asks. Previous photographic evidence shows the structure was there before the screen arrived.

The Met Office is its own worst enemy. It is over a year since the Daily Sceptic revealed that almost 80% of its 380-plus stations across the UK were in the junk classes 4 and 5. It appears to have done nothing to correct the situation and the example of Whitesands can only raise further suspicions about its motives. The science writer Matt Ridley recently wrote in the Telegraph that it has been “embarrassingly duped by activists”. The need for ever higher temperatures to promote the failing Net Zero fantasy is only too evident. The Met Office is a public body so one cannot discount the effects of unaccountable stupidity, idleness and self-important arrogance, but it is worrying sign for a science organisation that more damning conspiratorial theories are rapidly spreading across social media. Past frequent posters on X such as the Head of Climate Impacts Professor Richard Betts rarely make a contribution these days, while Met Office statements are frequently greeted with robust and critical replies.

Sanders challenges any meteorologist to prove that these extremely poor sites deployed now and in the future are not intended to be used to corrupt the ongoing historic climate records. A disinterested party might suggest from impartial evidence presented to him that the “Met Office is using data of dubious accuracy from recently-installed low-grade sites with known artificially elevated readings to produce evidence on temperatures increases over time”.

Again, the Met Office is its own worst enemy. Sanders is engaged in a serious scientific study and is critically examining temperature figures that play a vital role in persuading populations around the world that a so-called climate crisis requires a drastic Net Zero political solution. But of course, not all are on board with such an investigative project – looking at you BBC and the rest of the legacy media. After all, if there’s no climate crisis, there’s no need for the fantasy Net Zero solution. ‘Hottest evah’ outliers may be useful for short-term squawking headlines. But to show the kind of long-term warming that can drive an alarmist political narrative, historical records and climate averages are required. The Met Office seems all too keen to oblige.

As regular readers will know, Sanders recently discovered that the Met Office was still running records from 103 non-existent stations by inventing or estimating data from what were subsequently described as “well-correlated neighbouring stations”. Examination of publicly available Met Office records shows that stations identified as near to the non-existent sites often don’t exist. Alas, a number of Freedom of Information requests from Sanders seeking the identity of some of these “well-correlated neighbouring sites” – a simple matter it might be thought of asking to see the proof behind the Met Office’s claims – were met with the claim that the requests were “vexatious” and the public interest was not served by responding to them.

Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor. Follow him on X.