Cawood DCNN 4086 – Class 1 Premier quality – proof of Met Office Data Misrepresentation.

53.82782 -1.14830 Met Office CIMO Assessed Class 1 Installed 1/1/1951 Temperature data archived from 1/1/1959. Elevation 6 metres a.m.s.l.

Cawood is a village formerly in the West Riding of Yorkshire but now defined as in North Yorkshire just north of Selby. Cawood is famous for its notable Sword and Sciantec part of Cawood an international agricultural research conglomerate who host the manually reporting climate weather station on behalf of the Met Office.

The unique Met Office’s own assessment of this site is “Excellent” and on a par with Rothamsted but that premium quality does not stop the Met office manipulating data in a wholly unacceptable manner. I personally challenge the Met Office to justify their actions with this station as detailed below.

The Cawood weather station site has been in the same place since it was originally installed with a continuous archived data set for 65 years since 1959. The manual readings are impeccably well kept with data from FOI indicating missing days observations are almost non existant – 365 days readings a year every year. In not being automated the readings will be from Liquid in Glass thermometers throughout the period with no change in instrumentation type to affect readings in any way. Although, like Rothamsted, some may claim the continually changing nature of the fields around are unnatural, I feel that is just nit picking. This site is probably as good as is possible in England and is very well run and maintained. A nationwide coverage of just 50 stations of this quality would prove an excellent reference source for historical temperature recording.

The Met Office operates a set of “Climate Averages” stations which show rolling 30 year climate averages from 1960 to date. As I demonstrated with Freedom on Information requested data in my Dungeness review, of 302 stations the Met Office quoted, 103 no longer exist. The Met office claimed that “data” for these non existent sites was supplied by a peer reviewed scientific process, however, when pressed to supply data sources for 2 sites (Folkestone and Dover) they were unable to quote what the sources actually were. Here again is the link to the full list of “Open/Closed” stations.

Climate Averages Reporting Stations.

Leaving aside the machinations required to concoct rolling “Climate Averages” for closed stations, obvious candidates for a long term climate average would be climate stations that were both premium quality (Class 1) and operational throughout the entire period form 1960 to date. Cawood is the 100% perfect example to use……. so I tried to look it up to view the unadulterated series.

Open questions to the UK Meteorological Office – WHY ARE YOU NOT SHOWING THE DATA FOR THE LONG RUNNING CLASS 1 CAWOOD SITE? WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO HIDE?

In the absence of the Met Office simply supplying real world hard indisputable data, I shall examine the alternative “data” on offer that the Met Office feels the general public should only have openly presented to them.

Church Fenton Leaving aside that it is 3 miles from the Cawood site, I seriously doubt many residents of Church Fenton even knew where their named weather station was actually located given it was on the old RAF base now known as Leeds East Airport. Archived temperature records only exist from 1984 (24 years after the start of the time series being averaged) and ended 11 years ago in 2013. Over half the published 60 year averages must be by “peer reviewed” number concoctions, furthermore this process is continuing.

What sort of quality was this now long closed site? From its known location, though unlikely to have ever been formally CIMO assessed, and from the image below I estimate Class 3…….BUT Was it an internationally agreed distance from the runway?

Why even attempt to offer largely concocted figures from a low grade aviation site with such a short period of actual real readings? Which stations are actually being used to create these “averages”?

Linton on Ouse 16 miles distant, again the residents of the village after which the site is named are unlikely to have been familiar with their weather station located at RAF Linton on Ouse and just like the Church Fenton site not publicly accessible. Archived temperature data only runs from 1984 (24 years after the time series stats) and closed down in 2021. Again from the image below, the site looks to be of low quality probably Class 4

Dishforth Airfield 24 miles distant but at least this time it is clearly indicated as yet another aviation site. Archived temperature data runs from 1957 (before the start of the time series – good) but ends 8 years ago in 2016 again requiring mathematical conjuring tricks to formulate averages. The image below indicates a likely Class 3 site but with an elevation notably 27 metres higher than Cawood.

Finningley 25 miles distant and yet again another aviation site better known as the now defunct Doncaster/Sheffield Airport. Archived temperature records do start in 1958 prior to the time series but the station was closed 29 years ago in 1995. The weather station’s exact location is difficult to definitely confirm but Met Office data suggest it sat nearby Vulcan Bomber XH558 which is unlikely to be taking off any time soon. Half the time series data will have had to undergo computer modelled torture to provide some numbers.

And finally High Mowthorpe – the clue being in the name. Apart from being 27 miles distant it is also the small matter of 169 metres higher up. It is Met Office assessed as Class 3, again inferior to Cawood. It does have a continuous temperature record but in such a different and distant climatological location that it really cannot have any relevance to Cawood. High Mowthorpe is also not evidently the best kept of sites.

In conclusion, the Met Office has opted NOT to perform a simple long term averaging representation from just one Class 1 site’s readings (with no other inputs required) and in preference have supplied no fewer than five alternative much inferior sites with all manner of adjusted, amended, modified and likely corrupted so called “data” to confuse the public. The term “all smoke and mirrors” comes to mind. Will the Met office respond to my original challenge? I doubt it….they have too much at stake to give an honest answer.

Source: https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2024/12/29/cawood-dcnn-4086-class-1-premier-quality-proof-of-met-office-data-misrepresentation/