UK: Met Office “Dramatic Increase” Temp Claim Is Unprovable
Earlier this month, the Met Office claimed that ‘climate change’ was causing a “dramatic increase in the frequency of temperature extremes and number of temperature records in the U.K.”
Given what we now know from recent freedom of information (FOI) revelations about the state of its nationwide temperature measuring network, it is difficult to see how the Met Office can publish such a statement and keep a straight face.
The claims were the headline findings in the operation’s latest state of the U.K. climate report and are said to be based on “observations from the U.K.’s network of weather stations, using data extending back to the 19th Century to provide long term context”.
That would be the network where nearly eight out of ten stations are deemed by the World Meteorological Organisation to have ‘uncertainties’ – i.e., potential errors – between two and five degrees C.
The same junk stations that provide ‘record’ daily temperatures often in the same places, such as the urban heat furnace that is Heathrow airport. The same junk measurements that the Met Office uses to claim collated measurements down to one hundredth of a degree centigrade.
The WMO rates weather stations by the degree of nearby unnatural or natural temperature corruption.
Classes 4 and 5 have possible corruptions of 2°C and 5°C respectively and these account for the vast majority of the Met Office sites.
The WMO suggests that Class 5 should not be used to provide an accurate measurement of nearby air temperatures, yet nearly a third of the Met Office sites are classified in this super-junk category.
Only classes 1 and 2 have no uncertainties attached and only these should be used for serious scientific observational work. But, inexplicably, the Met Office has very few such uncorrupted sites.
Even more worryingly, it seems to show no sign of significantly increasing the paltry number of pristine sites.
Human-caused and urban heat encroachment are the problems, with extreme cases found at airports, which can add many degrees of warming to the overall record.
But this has been known for some time, and it is a mystery why the Met Office has not done anything about it. Recent FOI disclosures reveal that over eight in 10 of the 113 stations opened in the last 30 years are in junk classes 4 and 5.
Worse still, 81 percent of stations started in the last 10 years are junk, as are eight of the 13 new sites in the last five years.
It’s almost as if the Met Office is actively seeking higher readings to feed into its constant catastrophisation of weather in the interests of ‘Net Zero’ promotion. Whatever the reason – incompetence or political messaging – serious science would appear to be the loser.
As currently set up, the Met Office network is incapable of providing a realistic guide to natural air temperatures across the UK. Using the data to help calculate global temperatures is equally problematic.
Of course, the Met Office can rely on its helpful messengers in the mainstream media not to breath a word about this growing scientific scandal. The central plank of ‘Net Zero’ fear-mongering is rising temperatures and claims that ‘extreme’ weather is increasing as a result.
Temperatures have risen a bit over the last 200 years since the lifting of the mini ice age, the clue to the pleasant bounce being obvious to all. But this is not enough to force the insanity of ‘Net Zero’ on humanity, so fanciful climate models and bloated temperature databases are also required.
The compliant media are uninterested, but the cynicism and outright derision over the Met Office’s temperature antics are growing. The Met Office regularly posts on X and it cannot be unaware that a growing number of replies are less than complimentary.
Last week, it announced the “warmest day of the year” based on measurements taken at Heathrow.
The following are a few of the more polite comments it received:
What is it about LHR that could make it hotter than surrounding areas? I will give you a clue – concrete and hot jet exhausts maybe?
Real temperatures should be taken out in the open away from London.
…manipulating temperatures to fit the climate agenda.
Might as well measure inside an oven.
It’s all made up to fit your agenda.
I have a brighter red highlight in my fonts that I can lend you if you think the one you choose does not does not push the propaganda enough!
Remind us where you were taking temperature recordings in the last century, because it wasn’t on the roasting tarmac of airports.
Urban heat islands should not count and you know it but the grift continues.
In its recent annual report, the Met Office claimed that “our new analysis of these observations really shines a light on the fastest changing aspects of our weather as a consequence of climate change”.
It is not just temperature data that is brought to the ‘Net Zero’ table, but rainfall as well. The indefatigable investigative journalist Paul Homewood took a look at how the Met Office spun precipitation in a recent article in the Daily Sceptic.
He agreed with the Met Office’s claim that rainfall has risen since 1961, but asked why that year was chosen to start the timeline. The graph below shows why.
England and Wales are rainy countries, but their island position in the North Atlantic leads to regular seasonal, yearly and longer-term decadal variations. The year 1961 fell within a drier interlude, and current totals are similar to those around the 1930s, 1880s and 1780s.
Helped by the widespread availability of satellite images and measurements, the Met Office does an excellent job in forecasting short-term weather and is of great benefit to shipping, the military, agriculture and the general population.
But the state body funded by over £100 million a year is clearly riddled with ‘green’ activists who, on the evidence that a number of sceptical journalists have presented, are using unreliable figures, carefully-curated statistics and inaccurate measurements to promote their own attachment to the insanity of hydrocarbon elimination.
https://principia-scientific.com/met-office-dramatic-increase-temp-claim-is-unprovable/
****************************************************Facebook removes pro-nuclear energy content
Dozens of Facebook users promoting pro-nuclear lobby group Nuclear for Australia’s content have had posts removed for being “misleading”, triggering claims some people are trying to “suppress vital information that could change the future of our country”.
Months out from the federal election – in which nuclear will be a key issue – and after anti-nuclear groups had their content blocked or accounts temporarily deleted across social media platforms, Nuclear for Australia has received 44 complaints from supporters who have had posts taken down.
The users had shared a Nuclear for Australia petition to legalise nuclear energy and a video interview between the organisation’s founder, Will Shackel, and businessman Dick Smith supporting the energy source in June and July.
But a Meta spokeswoman played down the issue, denying it had censored the two posts The Australian was able to share with it.
“Based on the information available, we believe the content was removed due to a technical error by our automated systems. The error was identified and fixed in late July and all impacted posts were reinstated,” the spokeswoman said.
Facebook users were told their posts were removed because “it looks like you tried to get likes, follows, shares or video views in a misleading way” and “your post goes against our community standards on spam”.
“We want you to share freely with others. We only remove things or restrict people to keep the community respectful and safe,” Meta says in an automated response.
Mr Shackel will email supporters on Wednesday asking for contributions to “help us bypass the roadblocks and bring the truth to light”.
“The truth about nuclear energy could transform Australia’s future but has been blocked from reaching the people who need to hear it most,” he says in a copy of the email.
“This isn’t just a minor inconvenience – it’s a clear indication of the political will of some to suppress vital information that could change the future of our country.”
Mr Smith, whose face and voice have been used in fraudulent ads online, said it was impossible for the government to legislate against removal of material but they needed to step in and treat Meta and other tech giants as publishers, ensuring they were liable for what they put on their platforms.
“You end up with this situation where they let through fraudulent ads run by criminal gangs but at the same time they delete genuine posts,” Mr Smith said.
Renew Economy, which posts clean energy news and analysis, had the same automated response from Meta as Nuclear for Australia did when a post sharing analysis by University of Queensland economist John Quiggin was removed on July 22.
The analysis was headlined “Czech nuclear deal shows CSIRO GenCost is too optimistic, and new nukes are hopelessly uneconomic” and found building two to four megawatt nuclear plants in Australia would “probably cost $50bn-$100bn, and not be complete until well into the 2040s”.
The Climate Council had a TikTok video hitting out at the Coalition’s nuclear energy policy taken down on July 21 for violating community guidelines of “integrity and authenticity”.
The video reappeared a few days later after a staff member appealed, saying the video was science-based and had been reviewed by researchers at the organisation prior to it going live.
The Climate Council says it understands TikTok pulls videos only after users lodge complaints and is investigating how many complaints it takes to get a post removed.
The Australian Conservation Foundation had its account on X suspended on July 22 for violating the social media platform’s rules “against evading suspension” after a user reported them.
The organisation appealed the decision and after the ACF made contact with an Australian-based employee at X, the account was switched back on that night.
ACF’s X profile was suspended for a second time on August 4 with no warning and was down for nearly two days, with the social media platform saying its account had been flagged as spam by mistake.
Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen said at the time he didn’t always agree with the ACF but the suspension was “another outrageous example of social media trying to shut down voices for climate action”.
Mr Shackel posted on X: “Breaking: Australian Conservation Foundation has had its X account suspended. Perhaps the disinformation caught up with them …”
Communications Minister Michelle Rowland said the Parliamentary Joint Select Committee on Social Media and Online Safety was examining the influence and impacts of social media on Australian society, including how digital platforms influenced what Australians saw and heard online.
“Digital platforms have a range of community standards, terms of service and policies to support the integrity of the information and accounts on their platforms,” she said.
“Debate on matters of public interest is a hallmark of our democracy.”
Opposition communications spokesman David Coleman said social media platforms should not censor legitimate political debate, noting freedom of expression was fundamental to society.
“The last thing we need are digital giants telling us what we can and cannot say but the Albanese government sees things differently,” he said. “If its deeply flawed misinformation bill had become law, political censorship by big tech would have become rampant.”
Mr Bowen was approached for comment but his office referred The Australian to his previous remarks attacking the removal of Renew Economy’s Facebook post and the ACF’s X account.
Opposition climate change and energy spokesman Ted O’Brien said: “Labor and others should not rob Australians of their right to a mature conversation about the role zero-emissions nuclear energy could play in Australia as part of a balanced energy mix.”
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Ford cancels plans for Electric SUV
Ford Motor is cancelling plans for a large electric sport-utility vehicle and expects to take US$1.9 billion in related special charges and writedowns, as automakers continue adjusting their EV plans because of softer-than-expected demand.
The Dearborn, Mich., automaker said it is scrapping plans for an electric three-row SUV, citing tough pricing pressure as automakers resort to aggressive discounts to move their EVs. This spring, Ford had said it would delay plans for that model by two years, to a 2027 release date.
Ford instead will offer hybrid gas-electric versions of future large, three-row SUVs, a popular vehicle category that includes the brand’s Explorer and Expedition nameplates.
The company’s moves are the latest example of automakers unwinding EV-investment plans they made years ago, when it looked like there was big untapped consumer demand for battery-powered models. There has been more hesitancy among car shoppers than auto executives initially expected, with surveys showing concerns about high prices and finding places to charge.
General Motors last month pushed back the timeline on the opening of a suburban Detroit factory that is being renovated to build electric pick-ups and delayed the release of a Buick EV.
Ford also pushed back the launch of a new electric pick-up truck by one year, until 2027, the second time it has pushed back the timeline. In addition, Ford said it would trim its capital spending on fully electric vehicles to about 30% of its budget, from 40%.
“Based on where the market is and where the customer is, we will pivot and adjust and make those tough decisions,” Ford Chief Financial Officer John Lawler said.
Ford shares rose 1.5% in midday trading Wednesday. The stock remains down 11% in 2024.
Ford has said its EV business is on pace to lose about $5 billion this year. In the three-month period ended in June, the automaker lost about $44,000 on every electric vehicle that it sold.
Executives have said the company is trying to reduce the losses on its current EV line-up while making sure future offerings turn a profit.
Carmakers are trying to strike a tricky balance on electric vehicles. Tougher tailpipe-emissions rules, along with the rapid rise of Chinese EV makers, are pressuring them to invest in the technology. But consumer interest in EVs has waned after a burst of enthusiasm.
For example, while Ford is recalibrating its plans to include more hybrids, it also is moving ahead with the rollout of several full EVs. It will start making an electric commercial van in 2026 and two new pick-up trucks a year later.
One of the trucks will be a midsize pick-up, built using a new, lower-cost EV system that has been under development for nearly two years by a team of about 100 Ford engineers in Irvine, Calif. Led by former Tesla executive Alan Clarke, that project is designed to produce several electric models that Ford says will be profitable and allow the company to compete with Chinese EV makers.
Ford Chief Executive Jim Farley has said that China’s EV companies have the advantage of a lower-cost supply chain and that Ford needs to find ways to lower its own costs to compete.
“We believe that the fitness of the Chinese in EVs will eventually wash over our entire industry in all regions,” Farley told analysts last month.
Ford said it would take a special, noncash charge of $400 million to write down expenses related to the cancellation of the electric SUV. The move also may result in additional expenses of $1.5 billion, which would be reflected as special items in future quarters, the company said.
GM and other traditional automakers also have pulled back or delayed some EV investments, citing slower-than-expected demand for vehicles that run on batteries alone.
Sales of fully electric models rose 6.8% through the first half of the year, according to Motor Intelligence data, a sharp deceleration from near 50% growth in 2023.
Meanwhile, sales of hybrid vehicles have risen sharply over the past year, and many automakers have said they plan to roll out more of them as an interim step for customers who aren’t ready to make the leap to a fully electric model.
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Huge Increase in Coral Produces Third Year of Record HIGHS on the Great Barrier Reef
Massive increases in coral across the Australian Great Barrier Reef (GBR) have been reported for 2023-24 making it the third record year in a row of heavy growth. Across almost all parts of the 1,500 mile long reef, from the warmer northern waters to the cooler conditions in the south, coral is now at its highest level since detailed observations began. The inconvenient news has been ignored in mainstream media which, curiously, have focused on a non-story in Nature that claimed “climate change” poses an “existential threat” to the GBR. “The science tells us that the GBR is in danger – and we should be guided by the science,” Professor Helen McGregor from the University of Wollongong told Victoria Gill of BBC News. The existential threat is “now realised” reported the Guardian.
Travelling back from the reality inhabited by the Guardian, it can be reported that last year’s gains were eye-catchingly large. On the Northern GBR, hard coral cover leapt from 35.8% to 39.5%, in the central area it rose from 30.7% to 34%, while in the south it went from 34% to 39.1%. The report is the result of monitoring of hard coral cover reefs from August 2023 to June 2024 by the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS). The percentage of hard coral cover is a standard measurement of reef conditions used by scientists and is said to provide a simple and robust measure of reef health. Similar reports have been published by the AIMS over the last 38 years.
For the first two years of record coral growth, the narrative-driven mainstream media ignored the recovery story. But this year, the suspicious might contend, something had to be done to blunt the sensational news of the stonking rises. Help has come in the form of a paper just published in Nature which uses proxy temperature measurements and climate models to suggest temperatures around the vast reef area are the highest recorded in 400 years. This time period is the blink of an ecological eye-lid given that coral has been around for hundreds of millions of years during periods when temperatures and atmospheric carbon dioxide have been markedly different. Nevertheless, this is said to pose an existential threat despite it being known that sub-tropical corals thrive between 24°C-32°C, and in fact seem to grow faster in warmer waters.
Natural bleaching, when the coral expels algae and turns white, can occur with temporary local temperature changes, but evidence from many years of scientific observation suggests the corals often and quickly recover. Long term changes in water temperature – tiny compared to coral’s optimum conditions – pose no threat, but alarmists concentrate on the bleaching events to warn of possible ecological collapse. The Guardian noted a recent fifth mass bleaching in eight years across the reef, driven, it claimed, by “global heating”. So far, its readers are in the dark as to how this squares with the recent record growth.
A decade of mass bleaching, relentlessly catastrophised in the interests of Net Zero by activists in the media, academia and politics, does not appear to have done much harm to the recent growth in the Northern GBR.
Or the central area.
Or even in the south where the water temperatures are slightly cooler.
To read the latest AIMS report is to read the best possible spin on the story that the reef is heading for disaster. And, of course, it is all down to the unproven changes in climate that are said to be caused by human activity. It is claimed this will cause more frequent and long-lasting marine ‘heatwaves’, a product no doubt of a climate model. It is generally suggested that these heatwaves and mass bleaching were rare prior to the 1990s, although how anyone can know this is a mystery. Detailed GBR observations and temperature recordings barely stretch back a few decades.
As is often the case with publicly-funded operations, the political message is never far from the surface. Thus we learn that “enabling coral reefs to survive these stressful conditions requires a combination of a reduction in global greenhouse emissions to stabilise temperatures… and the development of interventions to help reefs adapt to and recover from the effects of climate change”. No doubt this last proposal requires large amounts of money from the taxpayer to cover the costs of such worthy work.
Not everyone goes along with the coral fear-mongering. The distinguished scientist Dr. Peter Ridd has studied the GBR for 40 years and notes that coral numbers have “exploded” in recent years. He says that all 3,000 reefs in the world’s largest system have excellent coral. “Not a single reef or even a single species of reef life has been lost since British settlement,” he reports. The impact of bleaching is “routinely exaggerated by the media and some scientific organisations”. In his view, the public is being deceived about the reef. “How this occurred is a serious issue for the reef-science community which has embraced emotion, ideology and raw self-interest to maintain funding,” he observes.
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Jim Hansen and his twin
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