Midland Summer Temperatures Rising Faster Than CET
By Paul Homewood
h/t Paul Weldon
As you will remember, I challenged the Met Office’s claim that this summer was the hottest on record in England, when the CET said no such thing. As I pointed out, not only did they claim it was the hottest in England, but also in the Midlands region, which is geographically similar to the area covered by CET.
Paul has looked more closely at the long term comparative trends, and prepared these graphs:
For most of the record since 1910 CET mean summer temperatures ran hotter than the Midlands, but in the last few years the gap has virtually disappeared, as the second chart shows.
Paul has also worked out the decadal average differences, which indicate that the Midlands summer temperatures have increased by about 0.4C more than CET has since the early 20thC.
Given the careful way in which the CET has been compiled, this raises the question whether UHI or changes in the mix of stations has affected the Met Office’s Midlands data.
As far as UHI is concerned, CET adds 0.2C to temperatures prior to 1970, to allow for UHI, which would help to explain some of the differences up to then. But this cannot account for the differences since 1970.
This raises more questions about the accuracy of the Met Office’s UK dataset.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
I found a similar problem with CET monthly means, a step-change inconsistency in 2004 of CET with an independent assessment of central England average temperature variations, which was when there was a change in CET station composition:
My analysis:
If CET really should follow the Midlands figures very closely, the obvious sceptical conclusion to be drawn is that historic Midlands figures have been “reimagined” downwards, with the Adjustocene fun factor broadly increasing with age. I wonder if it is possible to find a Midlands dataset from, say, 25 years ago and compare the same data stream with that in use today? It could be enlightening.
It definitely looks odd, a bit like someone added in a new, or forgot to keep adding in an old, fudge factor.
For the station composition of CET see the table at the top of the second page of Parker and Horton (2005), which indicates that the composition was changed in November 2004:
Click to access ParkerHorton_CET_IJOC_2005.pdf
I haven’t updated it recently but I compared several stations and the CET with Stornaway, under the theory that Stornaway might be the least pollited by UHI. All showed more warming than Stornay with the CET and Sheffield in the middle. Oxford was warming fastest.
Strange! I would have expected Cambridge, home of Prof. Wadhams, to have shown the highest excess of hot air.
Adding a correction for UHI seems to be in the wrong direction to me. Stations that have suffered UHI should have an amount deducted from the readings. And I regularly see FIVE degrees change when driving out of the southern suburbs of London not a measly 0.2. Monday evening I saw the coastal warming in action as Leaving Brighton at 11.15pm it was 9C and at home just before midnight it was 2C.
No wonder I am feeling super hot these days…