UK MET OFFICE UNDER SCRUTINY - PART 3

 Let's take a look at exactly how the Met Office observes and collects its raw data.

Weather Station siting.

The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) is part of the United Nations Organistaion (UN), to which almost all national meteorological agencies report their data for climate reporting purposes.

The WMO recently standardised the weather station location requirements for Climate data recording purposes.

The UK Met Office was a significant partner to the formulation of this standard which was ultimately codified by the International Standards Organisation as ISO/WMO standard 19289:2014(E) as detailed below.

https://www.eoas.ubc.ca/courses/atsc303/Instruments/wmo_guides/CIMO_Guide_2014-Met_Site_Classification.pdf

WMO rules indicate that only sites meeting  CIMO Classes 1 or 2 should be used for Climate Reporting purposes. Class 3  sites have  known errors caused by siting of 1°C,  Class 4 sites  error margins of 2°C and Class 5 sites have known error margins up to 5° C.

Consequently, Classes 3 to 5 stations should NOT be used for climate reporting purposes. Classes 4 and 5 are generally considered to have no better than "Junk" status in climate reporting terms though quite possibly  acceptable for their original installed purposes such as immediate aviation advice, local agriculture, local transport etc.

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/climate/maps-and-data/uk-synoptic-and-climate-stations

It required a Freedom of Information request to obtain from the Met Office the list of their Climate and Synoptic reporting weather stations by CIMO Class.

Amazingly this list indicates that of 384 climate reporting stations just 52 (13.7%) fall into Classes 1 & 2.  

A further 30 (7.8% of total) sites are Class 3

187 sites (48.7% of total ) are Class 4

112 sites (29.2% of total) are Class 5

 

Almost 85% of all Met Office sites are NOT deemed acceptable for climate data reporting purposes by the  World Meteorological Organisation and International Standards Organisation stated requirements.  

It is worth noting that the Met Office claims to use its own separate  station monitoring standards but does not give plausible reasons why these should override WMO standards. They do not demonstrate any greater level of suitability for climate reporting than the CIMO standards.

The government are spending billions of pounds to tackle a "climate crisis", and yet their on organisation is unable, or unwilling to make their own weather stations first class! It is a scandal which, so far has gone unreported, save for this small blog.