Cambridge Taken Out Of CET In 1931–Because Of UHI!
By Paul Homewood
h/t Ray Sanders
Among the top temperatures recorded om 19th July last year was 39.9C at Cambridge Botanical Gardens, which had set the UK record back in 2019. I looked at the siting of the weather station there,and there were plainly reasons to believe that the site was too compromised to be used for climatological purposes – see here.
Quite apart from the local siting issues however was the fact that the Gardens had been gradually surrounded over the years by urbanisation, which must have artificially increased temperature trends.
But as Roy points out, this is not a just a recent issue, as the station was taken out of the CET index in 1931, precisely because it was already exhibiting “evidence of urban warming”!
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/Parker_etalIJOC1992_dailyCET.pdf
Cambridge of the 1930s was of course a much different place to today! If there was already urban warming then, just think how much greater it is now.
https://www.cambridgehistorian.co.uk/photographs/cambridge-1930s?ep%5B88116213%5D%5Bpage%5D=0
Comments are closed.
NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
The main cause of urban heat, is the reduction in evaporation from plants and therefore evaporative cooling. Once you understand that, you understand that temperature can change, just by changing the crops growing … a phenomenon well known to glider pilots who look for the fields creating the up draughts.
“temperature can change, just by changing the crops growing … a phenomenon well known to glider pilots who look for the fields creating the up draughts.”
Interesting, as I knew coal burning caused a cooling effect due to Sulphur dioxide and particulates/soot. I wonder if glider pilots have kept any records of places with good up draughts and how this has changed over time as it would be interesting to see if there is anywhere which has being affected by the cooling effect of evaporation from plant and heavy air pollution from coal use that is hotter today than it was in the past.
What “heavy air pollution from coal use that is hotter today than it was in the past”?
Maybe in China? The amount of coal burned in the UK today probably produces as much air pollution as the cigars lit by ten pound notes by our Ruinable Energy promoters.
Did you miss the message that the British Coal Industry including surface mines, closed down over a decade ago. Sure some imported coal, much from Russia, but trivial quantities and all but three coal power stations blown up.
And so far as “heavy air pollution from coal use”, that had largely been resolved in the UK 50 years ago.
@Martin Brumby
I was talking about coal use in the UK in the past (<1970s) particularly when it was burnt in open fires and was of poor quality (e.g. post ww2) was used as the sulphur dioxide and particulates/soot reduced the intensity of sunlight reaching the ground. As the air was cleaned up hours of sunlight and temperatures went up.
My point was that heavy air pollution from low tech coal burning (i.e. open fires) artificially cool the climate by reducing the intensity of sunlight reaching the ground.
"cigars lit by ten pound notes by our Ruinable Energy promoters."
Now that would be a tabloid front page expose I would like to see after the snake oil subsidy farming pyramid scheme that is renewables is exposed so the public want it defunded & the people behind it are in prison (especially in Germany as they really need a scapegoat and Russia natural gas interests coning everyone works well)
The removal of Sulphur Dioxide in the atmosphere resulted in far more black spot on roses; roses thrive on Sulphur. Little known fact my wife learnt from an ex-miner down Radstock way, who was a patient of hers.
And Ringway used to average up temperatures for Stonyhurst? The only Ringway I know is the site of what is now called Manchester Airport. As a child, living nearby, I recall the lines of Wellington Bombers along one fence
Yes, indeedy – back in the 1970s when I was learning to fly gliders at RAF Spitalgate outside Grantham, the cheery upward whine of the variometer was an indication that some serious uplift was available to extend an ‘up, round and down’ into something more extensive. We learnt to head for those areas where on a warm summer’s day, uplift was more likely. It would do the dull-witted key-tappers of climate modelling to experience some real ‘climate’ rather than the algebraic fantasies they engage in. I have experienced all the range of climate on this planet, from the Artic cold to the humid blasts of the monsoon. And the current range in this country is a weak representitive of the conditions I remember in Sussex in the late 1950s, when gorse fires scarred the Downs and peat fires raged on the Weald for weeks. And sleeping at night seemed impossible. At that time, the world population was circa 2 billion. Now, it is over 8 billion. With increasing human population, so has the urban heat island effect. The deserts in India are well accepted to be the result of increased human population causing deforestation and increased UHI effects.
As I recorded on my facebook page, a Malay domestic servant on an RAF station in Singapore in the sixties, when asked by a WVS woman to explain his large family of 9 children, answered with great honesty and a degree of sadness, ‘Too much pooki!’
Try to support a world population of 8 billion with technologies developed by our Victorian forebears is an impossible task. And blaming them for the technical changes that have allowed such a large population to develop is an attempt to avoid real responsibility.
Then how did it sneak back in? Also Why are sites never intended as weather stations for public use being included? Do I have to consider sleight of hand, a conspiracy by some bad actors in white coats?
Pmfb,
I don’t believe that the Cambridge Botanic Garden ever was reconsidered for the CET. It seems that the Met Office has generally regarded the CET as a gold standard to be protected, whilst rubbish sites like this, Heathrow and countless other airport runway and town sites are absolutely fine for general “climate catastrophe” pronouncements as lapped up by the media and the government. The phrase “no scientific integrity” is an understatement when applied to the Met Office.
It look like a good old fashioned case of follow the money and the number of people it keeps in a job. Getting public funds by someone screaming we all going to die works well and breaking records and firsts (even if the record or alert system or standard is new – my favourite example “since records began” with no qualifier) to gains attention especially from the mean-well brigade
Interesting to know what temperatures Rothamstead Observatory recorded on the date Cambridge posted its 39.9ºC temperature.
Indeed. And when the Met Office proclaims record temperatures in the hell hole heat trip of Heathrow in high summer, they should also publish the temperatures in local villages. I have clocked a 6 degrees C difference between our leafy village near Frome, and Sainsbury’s car park in Frome, on a hot day.
“Interesting to know what temperatures Rothamstead Observatory recorded on the date Cambridge posted its 39.9ºC temperature.”
Finally tracked the figure down …37.7ºC!
https://wow.metoffice.gov.uk/observations/details/20230630hkbbh4ezooe67rj4yyb969mxca
Open the link, go to graphs, amend start and end dates (I used 17/7/2022 to 20/7/2022) and Bob’s your uncle.
Excellent work Ray. Perhaps Paul might use this as a functional alternative.
But that day is probably the record in the de-urbanised CET, here is the max data around the event:
2022-07-14 21.2
2022-07-15 22.4
2022-07-16 25.0
2022-07-17 30.0
2022-07-18 34.8
2022-07-19 37.3
2022-07-20 22.4
2022-07-21 20.9
2022-07-22 20.9
Funny how the global warming vanished the day after, down to 22.4C.
We got somebody eleses air on that day, from far to the South.
I’d have thought that a comparison over time of the two Cambridge weather stations – Botanical Gardens and NIAB – might reveal a growing UHI effect.
Has anyone ever done that?
I suspect they will try to make Maids Causeway look much the same for 2031. Perhaps some 0lanters 8n the middle of the road?
I wouldn’t be surprised if the MET sited a weather station atop the main flue at Drax.
Going back through Met Office historic records.
2022 – RAF Coningsby which is a totally unacceptable site. It broke the
2019 – Botanic gardens Cambridge a site deleted from CET in 1931 as above which broke the
2003 – Brogdale, Faversham record. Now this one was so way out of kilter that none other than the Royal Meterological Society launched a full scale investigation. https://web.archive.org/web/20191210053116/https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1256/wea.10.04B
None other than respected meteorologists Stephen Burt and Philip Eden regarded the figure as plain wrong and could not rule out interference by “persons unknown” The site photography still shows much of the building materials, that it was well known locally (I was married in Faversham!) that were used to concoct the figure. Regular poster here and Faversham resident Nigel Sheratt can confirm the local “knowledge” of tampering.
The Met office themselves seem to have forgotten about this “record” by 2019 as evidenced by this twitter feed where the Met Office spokesman actually claims there was not a site in Faversham!
So going further back the previous record was set in Cheltenham in 1990.
Personally, I cannot find the site of the 1990 record – but I have a damn good idea where it almost certainly was – if anyone can positively identify it I would be very obliged if they could let me know.
Before that the previous record was set in 1911 simultaneously at Raunds, Northants, and just a short distance from where I now live in Canterbury, Kent.
Which was obviously 79 years before “Climate Scaremongering” appeared on the horizon and it became obligatory to supply “evidence” to prove a theory.
If you feel the above indicate rather dodgy Met Office recording, you should see the blaze of crap that claims to be Scottish records.
As a codecil, if you go to the replies on the twitter thread the Met Office spokesman confirms that Faversham still is one of their sites after all. HOWEVER, he goes on to confirm the Gravesend site {in 2019} is also still theirs…..however the Gravesend site (so atrocious it was co-located with the air-con cooling fans of the Thames Radar Station) had actually closed in 2018! YCMIU
https://www.kentonline.co.uk/gravesend/news/famous-weather-station-closed-191601/
This lot are paid (largely for out of your taxation) to either be grossly incompetent or just plain liars.
I thought one of the measurements from Gravesend was identified (a few years ago, now) as being sited close the the biggest outfall of London sewage into the Thames.
Not, of course, the smelliest aspect of the fraudulent MET Office.
If I remember rightly that 1990 record was set at Boscombe Down.
I remember the day because I was a guest at the wedding of my best man’s elder son less than 50 miles away. All in formal dress. My formal dress was a kilt!! I was the only cool one there!
I seem to recall a very excited Met Office saying that they needed to check ‘the equipment’ at the Botanic Gardens before it could be considered a record. Shame about the location eh?
This is UHI – 19/07/22 : 17:00 LIDL carpark Cupar Fife 32.0c , 5 miles outside Cupar on A91 ( farm lane) 17:15 25.0c.
MO claiming June 2023 is already UK’s hottest evah! Highest mean and highest average max.
Will rank very high in CET mean, but record unlikely – currently beating 1976 (not the hottest) to day 26, will be close but I’d guess it’ll dip back under.
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/about-us/press-office/news/weather-and-climate/2023/hottest-june-on-record
I experienced snow in June in 1976 in Cambridge.
I see the Met Office is already claiming that June 2023 will be the warmest on record.
I can’t believe that it’s been the warmest on record in Derby. We’ve had less than a week of quite warm, the rest of the time pretty cool and today very cool, I had the car heater on this morning because my grandson complained he was cold on the school run. Thenext three days are forecast as being similar to today.
No really exceptionally high temperatures but it has been consistently very warm, see the graphs in my Met Office link above, also the heat has often been present in Scotland this year, in fact sometimes the warmest weather has been in Scotland, which helps boost the UK wide temperature average.
I may be mistaken, but it looks like the ‘UK marine heatwave’ may be subsiding.
My suspicion is that the warmer than average temperatures in the N.E. Atlantic have been caused by the unusual weather pattern that led to the warm June in the UK. Lower than normal wind speeds and wind direction from the South / South East / East. The weather pattern has now flipped to a more common configuration, with cold air masses emerging from N. Canada / Greenland and travelling East across the Atlantic. The drop in temperature has been very pronounced in the UK, as has the arrival of extensive cloudiness.
The N. Atlantic as a whole also appears to exhibit a pattern suggesting lower overall wind speeds – in particular less colder water heading south off Africa and a diminished Gulf Stream off the US East coast.
Definitely cooled down in Surrey the last 2 days with a lot more cloud – it’s almost as if the clouds have an effect in blocking the heat from the sun and making it cooler. I wonder if anyone has done any research on this idea?
EON’s ludicrous latest TV advert.
Perhaps that should watch this.
Notable that 4 of the top temperatures on 19/07/2022 listed above were London based. Studies have shown that the UHI effect in the London area can increase max temperatures by up to 3C. Weather station siting makes no difference to this wide-area effect.
The effect of the London conurbation on extreme highs is massive, if the highs aren’t in the London area, they are upwind.
In the hot weather last year I remarked how the temperature where I am rocketed in the middle of the night as the wind direction switched to bring us ex London air.
An FOI request for pilot’s logbooks for RAF Coningsby has revealed that 3 Typhoons landed within a window of around a minute just at the point that the alleged record temperature happened. The Met Office has refused to comment on this question previously but should be forced to respond now there is evidence of outside activity. An earlier feeble explanation was to say that there was a break in the cloud but evidence from satellite photos show that to be a lie.
Have you got the foi?
I read it here: https://dailysceptic.org/2023/06/28/exclusive-three-typhoon-jets-landed-next-to-measuring-device-when-britains-record-temperature-of-40-3c-was-recorded/
Thanks
Wasn’t there a Scottish temperature record like this caused by an ice cream van – does anyone know if was actually accepted? I thought I was discounted by nothing would surprise me.
https://fi-fi.facebook.com/SkyNewsAustralia/videos/tonight-an-idling-ice-cream-truck-creates-a-warming-record-for-scotland-plus-why/10155616118796728/
Thanks for the link Gezza, I was personally trying to use an inside contact to find similar information. It appears the FOI has brought it out into the open.
I will continue to push the Met Office and when they inevitably refuse to answer push further on the government ministerial front.
In addition I am trying to get a particular investigative journalist on board.
This crap has got to be stopped.
Pleased that it is of use to your efforts. It would be a marvelous achievement to force the Met Office to retract the record temperature they love so much.
Hey just think about it Gezza, where are they gonna find to break their impossible record now? The inside of the hangars?!!
There’s some relatively small wind turbines on Shoreham port estate, nothing to do with offshore Rampion a few km away.
It seems someone has been keeping tabs on the bird kills, being on land they aren’t invisibly dealt with by the sea.
https://www.sussexexpress.co.uk/news/people/wind-turbines-blamed-for-death-of-birds-in-sussex-very-traumatic-4188406
Als0 not the nature clean up system as in the country to remove the dead birds.