57.44280 -2.38969 Met Office CIMO Assessed Class 5 Installed 1/1/1908
A reader recently asked if I was soon to run out of Class 5 sites to review. I replied that not only was I nowhere near that point, I was almost as unlikely to run out of walled garden sites to review.
I genuinely find it quite unbelievable that the Met Office accepts such sites as suitable for inclusion in the historic temperature record. Whether or not this site actually has records dating back 117 years (archives only show back to 1959) is not relevant, the site is in a deliberately engineered environment that does not reflect anywhere than inside the walls.
It is not always straightforward getting close up imagery from these sorts of sites, however, the screen can just be made out in this view of the gardens.
Centre image just above the white bench and in front of the low hedge, the white box on legs is the Stevenson Screen. An indication of how unlikely to reflect the natural environment this site is comes from Wikipedia.
“The shelter provided by enclosing walls can raise the ambient temperatures within a garden by several degrees, creating a microclimate that permits plants to be grown that would not survive in the unmodified local climate.”
I recently queried with the Met Office the accuracy of readings at the back garden Cavendish site. They not only absurdly claimed accuracy to the 5th decimal place (i.e. one hundred thousandth of a degree) but also commented I could not compare readings with nearby amateur weather stations as they may well only be “poor garden sites”. I find the hubris of the Met Office quite breathtaking, they feel it is perfectly acceptable to site their weather stations as appallingly badly as Fyvie Castle walled Kitchen garden but criticise other more likely carefully sited private ones.
Fyvie weather station is actually very typical of UK weather stations (especially Scottish sites) and simply demonstrates much Met Office data is unfit for the purpose of historic temperature recording.
via Tallbloke’s Talkshop
January 5, 2025 at 09:10AM
Iowa Climate Science Education 