Short-Term Heatwaves in Britain Weaponised by Met Office Using Junk 60-Second Heat Spikes to Push Net Zero Fantasy

Constant promotion of unnatural 60-second heat spikes has characterised the performance of the UK Met Office during an average British summer interrupted by a number of short-lived heatwaves. Helped by trusted and unquestioning messengers in mainstream media, the Net Zero-obsessed Met Office is able to state that daily temperatures will rise to levels that are only briefly touched in highly industrialised areas such as airports. August 12th was just the latest day when a national “extreme” was declared at Heathrow. During a warm May, Heathrow recorded eight of the daily maximum temperatures. Not only do these temperatures arise out of junk low-rated stations, but the 60-second recording is guaranteed to pick up any unnatural heat spike. The World Meteorological Organisation recommends averaging temperatures produced by electronic devices between 1–10 minutes, depending on the need to remove or minimise transient unnatural temperature effects, often referred to as “noise”.

The Met Office is clearly a big fan of noise. It is undoubtedly a significant driver of its Net Zero political messaging and is behind numerous claims that more hot days are being recorded than ever before. Dr Eric Huxter has done some valuable work on temperature spikes, showing for instance how there can be huge differences in one-minute recordings when compared to readings made at the before and after hour mark. He noted that a highly promoted national May Day record of 29.3°C declared at 2.59pm in Kew Gardens was 2.6°C higher than the figure at 2pm and 0.76°C higher than the 3pm recording.

Obvious noise, obvious junk. Huxter comments: “Given the confirmation that spikey temperatures give to the Climate Change narrative, there seems little hope of a scientific evaluation of what the ‘true’ meteorological signal actually is.” Little and none sums it up, and little just left town. The conspiracy-minded Met Office recently stated that the efforts of a small number of people to “undermine the integrity of Met Office observations” was no less than “an attempt to undermine decades of robust science around the world’s changing climate”.

Another one of the small band of people attempting to undermine decades of robust science by pointing to crap Met Office temperature recordings is Ray Sanders. In the course of examining all 380-plus Met Office UK temperature sites, he recently investigated RAF Kenley which happens to lie midway between Heathrow and Gatwick. It is near Caterham and Croydon but it is in stand-by use these days and mainly used by gliders. Sanders notes that although it is CIMO Class 4 and subject to possible temperature errors, it would be a Class 2 if it was just moved a few yards away from a largely unused taxiway. Not a perfect site, notes Sanders, but open enough, as the picture below shows, to avoid artificial sheltering.

Needless to say, nobody can recall Kenley troubling the scorers over at the “extreme” temperature competition. Unbelievably, or risibly as Sanders observes, both Charlwood (Gatwick) and Heathrow are given a better Class 3 rating, and this prompted him to compare the highest temperatures recorded at the last three national record-breaking days.

Such inconsistencies need explaining, although of course there is fat chance of that from the Met Office. Recent Freedom of Information requests from Sanders have been dismissed as “vexatious” and not in the public interest. To be explained or not, Sanders asks if rural Caterham would be recording up to 4.2°C lower than rural Harmondsworth or 2.8°C lower than rural Crawley. “Which is most likely to be nearer the ‘real’ temperature – an open largely grassy area or a concrete jungle inhabited by tens of thousands of cars and hundreds of jet airliners?” And it might be added, why should we pay credence to claims of a climate milestone as was the case on July 19th 2022 when the measurement is half way up the backside of said jet airlines?

“Deploying ultra-modern instrumentation in almost ancient casings within areas subject to numerous distorting factors is the absurd unreality that the Met Office is now operating simply to produce wildly inaccurate representations of local conditions. This whole farrago needs to be completely dismantled and reconstructed by reputable meteorologists,” he concludes.

There is growing scientific evidence that urban heat is having a massive effect on temperatures declared around the world. Two Turkish meteorologists have recently published findings gained from studying data in 10 countries showing that airports and industrial centres are on average 2.5°C to 2.8°C warmer than neighbouring rural areas. Warming trends in recent decades are generally confined to the urban areas, it was noted.

Net Zero madness has left the Met Office between a rock and a hard place. An alternative to disbanding its nationwide network is to accept that the current higgledy-piggledy operation is unsuitable to be weaponised to promote the Net Zero fantasy. It is what it is; that is a rough-and-ready guide to local temperature conditions in very small specific locations. At airports such as Heathrow, it is a useful micro aid for hundreds of planes taking off and landing. It is not a cherished guide to climate Armageddon.

Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor. Follow him on X.