OT: Yesterday’s temperature record

I read something a few months ago where a meteorologist explained that when weather stations were first set up they were placed in open countryside. Gradually over time urban sprawl had replace countryside by roads and buildings which absorb and re-radiate previous heat.

He managed to find some weather stations that were still in open countryside (Green belts have their uses) and compare them with others not far way but now in urban heat islands, and the difference in maximum temperature reading was considerable.

He must have been in right-wing oil company pay. Stands to reason.

Down in the South West, the local TV weather forecasts regularly show two areas that greatly exceed the forecast temperatures for the region in general, generally 6 to 8 degrees hotter.

Where are these two areas?

Yes! Exeter airport and Yeovilton Naval Air Station.

Wisley and Kew , gardens not the PRO, often appear in such lesser record citings, hardly tarmac deserts. But on the other hand close to a major urban heat island, the way Gravesend and Tilbury often get cited , being down wind of the same major urban heat island

Pilots need accurate temperature, pressure and wind data. They can't get it throughout the flight, but they can get it at both ends. Small planes don't have fancy radar altimeters, so they need to adjust their aneroid ones between takeoff and landing to keep them accurate.

Few other people apart from the Met Office itself have a need to maintain an accurate weather site, so there are virtually none. There are a few amateur sites e.g.

Downwind? The hottest weather comes off the continent from the east to south (usually south-east is the hottest, as it has the shortest route over the cooler sea). Gravesend and Tilbury get that /before/ London.

There are hundreds, if not thousands, of "amateur" weather stations which are linked to online sites. I have one and have records with Ecowitt and Weathercloud. There are several others, including a Met Office one and Wunderground.

Many different locations and makes of weather station are available for viewing at these websites, although you need to have an account to see them. Although amateur, it's interesting that viewing stations close to each other (let's say a dozen or so within 5 km) usually reveals temperature levels varying by only 1°C.

Having Met stations at airfields to supply weather-related flight-safety information is one thing, but claiming a new temperature record there that results from the various local heating effects is quite another.

The two oft-quoted airfields in this region are regularly forecast to be 6 to 8 degC warmer than other places.

However, if it suits the climate lobby to use such data, then that’s what they’ll do, as 97% of climate scientists don’t want to be defunded.

because nobody lives in the country, These sites were developed before telemetry go going

I recall one statement to the effect that one station on the West coast of (or and island off) Scotland showed no 'global warming' whatsoever.

To my mind aircraft in the sky, de forestation and new rabbit hutches in all the villages are what's making it warmer, not CO2.

The Thanes Valley conurbation attracts thunderstorms like s*it attracts flies.

Oddly enough, My two nearest airfields (Mildenhall and Lakenheath) are military and agree pretty well with what I measure locally and are two degrees cooler than the Cambridge Botanical Gardens

I live about 300' ASL and that makes nearly a degree difference in winter.

Remember the old joke? To reverse the effect that Britain's emissions have had on the world's temperature, buy a dachshund (or sometimes a brick) and stand on it...

F*ck you

-- “It is hard to imagine a more stupid decision or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.”

Thomas Sowell