Kingston Maurward DCNN 8743 – Shamefully Unacceptable throughout Dorset.

50.71800 -2.39830 Met Office Assessed CIMO Class 4 Temperature records archived from 2019

This site is beyond parody. That the Met Office can claim this site meets CIMO Class 4 is a shameful indictment of an appalling application of standards. I am lodging a complaint to the Met Office about using a site next to the walls of a kitchen garden. This is what it looks like in close up…..

Surely no qualified meteorologist could claim this site is an accurate representation of the Dorset natural environment. At the risk of sounding overly sarcastic I feel justified in asking a serious question – why did they bother to locate the screen outside in the open air? The paintwork would have lasted much longer in one of the greenhouses and the thermometer readings likely equally unrepresentative. This site cannot be defined as Class 4 indeed it should NOT be used for climate reporting purposes at all.

Also inevitably repeating myself, there are literally several dozens of Met Office Screens in locations that are 100% deliberately intended to artificially raise temperature – that really is the main purpose of a walled garden. Every reasonably well educated person knows that so how is it that the alleged experts feel it is acceptable to use such atrocious sites as this one?

The archived records for this site indicate it was installed in 1963 but temperature records only appear from 29th August 2019 and the screen does not appear on Google Earth Pro images prior to then. Quite what existed prior to 2019 is unclear but rain gauge only readings date back to installation.

Obviously this site’s temperature readings have only recently been utilised which rather makes a mockery of claims such as

“The number of days we see over 30C* during summer has vastly increased in recent decades compared with the early 20th Century as a result of climate change.”

Obviously this risible Kingston Maurward site did not exist in the early 20th Century to compare its extremely recent 21st Century unnatural figures with. So how does that compare with the rest of Dorset?

Dorset is a relatively small county by area. Comparing the old English county boundaries it ranks 23rd largest out of 40. How does it compare for weather stations and how good are they? England’s second largest old county (Lincolnshire) has 8 currently operating weather stations, Kent at 10th largest has 7, Derbyshire at 20th has just 3. Dorset has 9 …..and they are all very poor.

Swanage is Class 4 with temperature records from 1928, Marnhull is 4 and from 2019, Kingston Maurward is claimed to be 4 (obviously not) from 2017, Isle of Portland is 4 from 1963, Hurn is 4 from 1951, Fontmell Magna is 5 from 1988, Broadwindsor is 4 from 2011, and Bournemouth:Kings Park is 5 from 1980. However the cherry on the cake is Preston:Cove House which sits in the back garden of a private home in Bowleaze Cove and is absurdly quoted as Class 3. I will review that one later but I can assure everyone (as evidenced in the image below) it is really Class 5. And yes, the little white square behind the shed in front of the hedge and steep bank is what the Met Office claim is accurate to 1°C…….the same as the falsely claimed standard of Heathrow.

In summary, Dorset is over represented by sites for its area compared to other counties (as was also highlighted for Devon in my Exeter report) has no good quality sites, and for reasons only known to the Met Office is now increasing in the number of terribly unrepresentative and unacceptably bad sites. How is this considered best practice?

*And finally not being pedantic but 20C can be read as “20th Century” whilst 20°C can only be read as 20 degrees celsius. It seems journalists cannot find their way around modern keyboards to find symbols – odd given that should be their field of excellence.

Source: https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2024/10/28/kingston-maurward-dcnn-8743-shamefully-unacceptable-throughout-dorset/