What factors could be in play?
via CFACT
June 27, 2025 at 05:04AM
Met Office quoted coordinates 54.42795 -1.21751 & CIMO Assessed Class 5 Installed 1/1/1991
For the first time I have to admit to not being able to identify this screen from either google or bing maps. The quoted coordinates above do not seem to be correct or possibly I simply cannot discern the screen from them possibly in shade. If anyone else can identify the site I would greatly appreciate their locators. Fortunately, the Met Office WOW website has uploaded images presumably by the “Enthusiast” running this site.
What these images demonstrate is an impeccably well kept screen in a very poor site. From all three angles these images are taken there are hedges likely over 2.5 metres tall. It is reasonable to assume the owners house itself will make up the fourth side.
There will frequently be no natural wind in this garden so overheating of the screen will be an inevitability. The completely unnatural surroundings will retain stored daytime heat similarly raising night time minima. This type of location falls well short of basic guidance even for amateur sites and is hopelessly below any form of acceptable official Met Office classification.
I quote from the above Royal Meteorological Society’s guide.
“Siting and Exposure
The issues of siting and exposure are concerned with ensuring that everyone is recording the same thing, the same way, with the same limitations to allow intercomparison of data. Without some minimum standards of site and exposure it is difficult, if not impossible, to compare one station’s data with another as it is specific in nature to the station recording it and can only serve to show changes and variations there.”
Clearly the Met Office did not get the above message from the RMETs especially this following advice:
” Standard siting and exposure of instruments is therefore the bedrock of the entire observing process: neglect these matters and data become much less useful to the wider community…………Ideally, the screen should be fixed in an open place with good airflow on a level surface above short grass at the standard height. It should be no nearer than 30 metres (100 feet) from extensive concrete, aggregate or a
road surface. Measure the height of surrounding objects above screen level: the distance from the screen to these objects should be at least two times these heights……”
Regarding the observational standards of this site, they are impeccable to the extent that when there was a period of missed maximum only readings from 29/9/2017 to 12/12/2017 this will almost certainly have been when the LIGT was replaced by a PRT as part of the Met Office’s instrumentation upgrade of all manual recording sites. All other times readings were almost perfect but no regularity of readings can in any way make up for a poor over recording location such as this.
The sad irony is that the “Enthusiast” is almost certainly a dedicated individual probably doing his/her best. That the Met Office has chosen to adopt such a site is a poor reflection on them and not the site owner. It cannot be over emphasised though that I am not attempting a “hatchet” job on these types of site but the simple fact is that the general public is being coerced into making significant lifestyle changes and potential financial detriment based on what can only loosely be described as “data” from inadequate and unsatisfactory sites such as these.
via Tallbloke’s Talkshop
June 27, 2025 at 04:38AM
By Paul Homewood
Spring this year was by far the sunniest on record in the UK. Given that last year was one of the least sunniest, we need to accept that natural variability plays the major role in all of this,
But question marks remain about the longer term trends, which are clearly increasing.
Which brings us to the question of aerosols and air pollution.
There is absolutely no question that aerosols reduce the amount of sunlight reaching the surface or that they act as cloud condensation nuclei. This is what the Met Office say:
However, human activities are also responsible for increasing the atmospheric concentrations of microscopic particles, such as sulphate from industrial sulphur dioxide emissions; smoke from burning of agricultural waste, and pollution particles from traffic emissions.
These atmospheric particles scatter and absorb sunlight and terrestrial radiation and also act as cloud condensation nuclei and modify the microphysical and optical properties of clouds.
The net effect of the impacts on radiation and cloud properties is to induce a net cooling of the climate system which acts to oppose the warming due to increases in greenhouse gases.
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/climate/earth-system-science/aerosols
And NASA established that reduced air pollution during the pandemic caused measurable warming in some areas:
The COVID-19 pandemic showed what can happen if the humans reduce their aerosol pollution. Fossil-fueled air travel, driving, electricity use, and industrial activity all decreased sharply in the spring of 2020. This led to cleaner, clearer air, which caused a slight warming — up to 0.2 to 0.5° F (0.1 to 0.3° C) — in some places.
So how much of that extra sunlight we have been experiencing in the UK since the 1970s is the result of cleaner air?
The Met Office produced the graph below, which shows just how remarkable the decline in pollution has been.
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/blog/2024/how-is-uk-air-quality-landscape-changing
While cities like Birmingham were obviously badly affected by dirty air in the past, this pollution was inevitably spread more widely across the country by winds. And in the last few years we have had reduced sulphur emissions from shipping to add to the mix.
And the Met Office’s State of the UK Climate Report last year admitted that cleaner air was a factor in increased sunshine:
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/climate/maps-and-data/about/state-of-climate
A 2006 study by the Met Office found a strong correlation between sunshine and temperatures in spring, summer and autumn:
Which all begs the question – what impact has cleaner air had on the rise in UK temperatures since the 1960s?
And why is the Met Office so reticent to mention it?
via NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
June 27, 2025 at 04:34AM
By David Wojick
The U.S. Energy Department (DOE) has an ongoing research program on detecting and deterring the killing of eagles and other flying critters by wind turbines. The Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) issues eagle killing permits to wind facilities, which are supposed to incorporate technologies that minimize deaths.
It looks like FWS has never implemented, or even publicly evaluated, any of DOE’s research products. The permits are issued under the Eagle Protection Act, which clearly calls for mitigating eagle deaths, and the DOE products claim to do so. This is a glaring deficiency.
For example, here are four DOE research reports from 2021-22, which FWS has had plenty of time to look at.
“A Heterogeneous System for Eagle Detection, Deterrent, and Wildlife Collision Detection for Wind Turbines”
Technical Report – Jan. 2021
“Golden Eagle Behavioral Modeling Enabled by High-Fidelity Atmospheric Models”
Conference presentation – May 27, 2021
“SSRS (Stochastic Soaring Raptor Simulator)”
Software – October 18, 2021
“Evaluating the effectiveness of a camera-based detection system to support informed curtailment and minimize eagle fatalities at wind energy facilities”
Technical Report – January 27, 2022
Here is a recent example.
Evaluating the Effectiveness of a Detection and Deterrent System in Reducing Golden Eagle Fatalities at Operational Wind Facilities
Technical Report – May 30, 2024
The DOE research has been going on for at least a decade. It may have begun with this:
“Wind Energy Industry Eagle Detection and Deterrents: Research Gaps and Solutions Workshop Summary Report”
Technical Report – April 13, 2016
DOE is also looking at other birds as well as bats. (It is estimated by some that windmills kill more bats than birds.) Here are a few recent examples:
“Activity-Based Informed Curtailment: Using Acoustics to Design and Validate Smart Curtailment to Reduce Risk to Bats at Wind Farms”
Technical Report – January 15, 2025
“Evaluation of the Turbine Integrated Mortality Reduction (TIMRSM) Technology as a Smart Curtailment Approach (Final Summary Report)”
Technical Report – July 14, 2024
There is even research that I find morbidly amusing. They have developed a prototype air gun to shoot projectiles emulating birds and bats into windmills to simulate deadly collisions.
See “Design of a Launcher for Wildlife Collision Simulation on Wind Turbines to Validate Strike Detection Systems”
Conference presentation – October 17, 2024
Strike detection is important for knowing how many critters are actually being killed, especially offshore, where they cannot simply count carcasses. Also, some proposed mitigation systems use it. They apparently tested two strike detection systems, and both worked.
Here are some interesting features:
“Projectile Design: Projectiles were sized 8 g, 25 g, and 250 g. They were constructed of unflavored gelatin and laser-cut balsa wood to simulate flesh and bone while having aerodynamic characteristics that would allow for repeatable flight trajectories. The gelatin mixture also contained a trace amount of concentrated coyote urine to deter wildlife from consuming the projectiles on the ground before they could decompose.”
Concentrated coyote urine seems like an esoteric product. In any case, this is just a prototype since the biggest projectile is just over a half pound and they were just fired at a 1.5 MW test windmill. These are synthetic bats and small birds.
Eagles can weigh up to 15 pounds, and shooting projectiles of that size into 3 to 4 MW blades could be spectacular. Note that it is not easy to hit the blades, which can have tip speeds over 200 mph. They report a 35% hit rate, so this could become a sport or even a competition.
I can find no evidence that the Fish and Wildlife Service is even assessing the use of these various technologies in conjunction with its eagle kill permitting. They are solely focused on an electrocution offset program that does not work.
See my article, “Wind power’s eagle-kill permits are a deadly failure, so permitting must stop.”
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June 27, 2025 at 04:08AM
Iowa Climate Science Education 