Floors Castle–Temperature Record In Walled Garden
By Paul Homewood
h/t Ray Sanders
A new record high of 35.1C saw Scotland experience its hottest ever day, according to official figures.
Temperatures soared across the country on Tuesday which saw the previous record high exceeded by 2.2C at Floors Castle, in the Borders.
Another lesson in how not to measure temperatures!
Ever heard of Floors Castle? No me neither.
But it turns out that the thermometer is in the Walled Garden there:
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1893457610801591
The main reason walled gardens were built was because the walls are able to raise the ambient temperature:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walled_garden
Yet Floors Castle is one of the Met Office’s climate stations.
How many more unsuitable sites are there?
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
A walled garden must be one of the best locations if you want to record high temperatures. I suppose they could have put the thermometer in a greenhouse (or just outside a greenhouse door) just to make sure.
Almost as good as a carpark in Motherwell with an ice cream van parked next to the weather station with it’s engine running. This is where Scotland’s previous record temperature was recorded, in 2018 if I remember correctly.
That “record” was eventually ruled out,largely I think, because of the adverse publicity Paul and others managedto raise in the main sream media.
I guess we have two issues here:
(a) Are the absolute values of temperature records being overstated because of poor station siting?
(b) Is it still the case that July 19th 2022 was the hottest day ‘ever’ in the UK?
The answer to (a) is undoubtedly ‘yes’. (b) is a little harder to answer if there has been no material change in the siting of the weather stations over the years. Ostensibly, they might still be registering record temperatures, even though the absolute values of those records are exaggerated. The next thing to ask is, have they switched from mercury to digital thermometers, because this might present an artificial discontinuity in the trend. Have any other changes taken place recently around these stations which might tend to bias higher temperature readings? Is it merely the case that, given the relatively short records of many of these stations, the breaking of previous records is statistically inevitable and nothing to do with climate change?
Jaime, I think you are rather over thinking the issue. A site which does not meet defined standards provides interesting figures but for climate monitoring purposes are complete junk.
Heathrow airport c. 1950:
https://www.mylondon.news/news/nostalgia/astonishing-pictures-show-what-heathrow-22564268
Thanks for that Cat. When my parents (with me in tow) moved down from Hull to the sunny south east I remember them taking me to see Lydd Airport. It still had a plaque proclaiming it was Britain’s (sod the term “UK”) busiest airport!
Driving past Lydd it is signed as London Lydd – well you wouldn’t want to walk from there to the city. It used to be home to a car service to Le Touquet and features in Goldfinger.
If memory serves, permanent buildings did not appear at Heathrow until the early 60s. Up to that point marquees were used. Pre-war Heston and Croydon were the main airports and Gatwick already existed as it has the world’s first aircraft carousel which is still there now but outside the airport. It also staged the Grand National for 3 years.
The Queens Building at Heathrow dates from 1955. I recall having been there and watched the aircraft departing from the spectator roof. No more than about 10 on the ground in a semi circle, but fed from the terminal – the Europa building – by bus. Constellations, Viscounts, a Pan Am 707.
“…recordings are collected daily by our Head gardener…”.
I bet that if the readings were not what the MO wanted they would be questioning the qualifications of the HG to collect them.
Anyone know what class of station this is?
Looking at the end of the video, the siting doesn’t look as bad as many others we have seen.
The walls being quite some distance from the station.
FOI request to the MET office for the sites they use, their WMO class ratings etc.?
That is exactly what I am trying to do. Space permitting I would publish my report to the Met Office on here but it is several pages long.
Good one Ray. If Paul can’t publish it here it might be worth contacting Charles over at WUWT to see if it can be posted on there.
I haven’t visited, but from a look at Google Earth the walled garden is also surrounded by thick belts of woodland on three sides – and even on the fourth side a bit closer away. This surely must make it an exceptionally sheltered site and not typical even of the surrounding grounds of the castle estate, let alone the wider countryside and locality.
Reblogged this on Roald J. Larsen and commented:
What is climate FRAUD??
Yes, I have heard of Floors Castle. Just because you haven’t because you are English does not mean it is of no significance. It is a beautiful house with huge grounds. You can visit it, it is just over the border so you’ll be safely back in England before nightfall. That said the temperature measurement (last year) was rubbish. The two sides of the rusty old max min thermometer were not even showing the same reading. Ever heard of Coningsby, no me neither.
Weather forecasts claim +/- 2 C as accurate. This station is okay for weather forecasting and simple monitoring: it is clearly totally unsuitable for precision monitoring as is claimed by the AGW fraternity. I wonder if there are any outlier type stations indicating on the cold side of their region: somehow I suspect not.
Actually Jack, there are quite a few of those recording on the cold side but of course cold records rather bugger up the message of global warming. BUT if you really want the spectacularly daft, how about a station regularly recording BOTH the hottest AND coldest!
http://santondownham.org/#:~:text=Santon%20Downham%20often%20features%20in,thanks%20to%20out%20unique%20location.&text=If%20you%27re%20looking%20for,it%20has%20its%20own%20website.
Surely not….oh yes it is an official Met Office site.
I know I am banging on a lot about this subject but when I tell people about the ridiculous and downright fraudulent activities of the Met Office they seem to think I am making things up….I am not.
Santon Downham has a large car park with a ‘metalled’ surface and is in the middle of a huge coniferous forest devoted to timber production. In a sense it is ideal for record achievements as it is something of a frost pocket in the winter and a heat bowl in the summer. I have yet to look for the Stevenson Screen there.
Taking this issue a step forward begs the question what is all this spurious data actually used for?
There is an organisation known as World Weather Attribution (really YCMIU!)
which attributes weather station data to a mindblowingly weird probability calculations of such data being due to climate change.
Here is a report on the 2022 UK heatwave
https://www.worldweatherattribution.org/without-human-caused-climate-change-temperatures-of-40c-in-the-uk-would-have-been-extremely-unlikely/
Here they analyse the data from Durhan Onservatory, https://web.archive.org/web/20161013003820if_/http://static.panoramio.com/photos/large/18187332.jpg
St James’ Park https://www.google.com/maps/@51.5048671,-0.1310778,3a,75y,90.76h,87.37t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s4yVeVIcAcmmZKkkwmaDnFw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?entry=ttu
And the obligatory RAF base at Cranwell (that’s a sewage settlement tank alongside – well why not?)
https://www.google.com/maps/dir//53.0311594,-0.5034429/@53.0311707,-0.5034476,197m/data=!3m1!1e3?entry=ttu
So they attribute appallingly bad site data as “PROOF” of anthropogenic Global Warming.
What I find most spectacularly bizarre is their likelihood of repeatperiods of these temperatures. One in 500 years for St James Park? Well 500 years ago the population of London was about 50,000. Durham University did not exist on anything like the time scale quoted and as for Cranwell….perhaps if King Harold could have whistled up a few Typhoon Jets he wouldn’t have had quite such a problem with those pesky Normans.
Further to the STV report above it is worth pointing out that the other “hot” site referred to as Charterhall is actually the former RAF Charterhall (an airfield? – what a surprise!) What did the original Greycrook 2003 record site just a few miles away show? Nothing at all because just after it set the 2003 record it was shut down as (according to the Met Office itself it was reporting “DATA RUBBISH”
So how come if it produced known incorrect data was its “record” allowed to stand?
It is not only the site, but the thermometers are also important. Perhaps one should ask the date of the last test certificate.
When the site at Dunstaffnage was made in 1971 we were sent a handfull of thermometers from the Met Office. As my specialty is measurements, I asked for calibration certificates for them. There was several seconds of silence on the ‘phone then, “I will try to dig them out”.
When they arrived they proved to be the manufacture’s test results; including one dated 1936; 35 years previously (I remember it well as it was the year of my birth). For one thermometer no calibration certificate was found, but they expected us to use it in the Stevenson Screen. Fortunately I had a recently calibrated HP Chrystal Thermometer and could retest all the thermometers before use.
And they then give temperature anomalies to hundredths of a degree. Incompetence or deliberate fraud?