Roy Spencer Of UAH Claims Met Office Temp Records Are Accurate
According to climatologist Roy Spencer, using what he calls a ‘relative bias removal’ method, he comes to the conclusion that the Met Office’s claims of hottest summer this year are correct
Yet the Central England Temperature Record shows this summer as tied with 1976, not 0.6C hotter as the Met Office claims for that region.
Meanwhile Stornoway and Armagh are junk Class 4’s and should not be used anyway.
As his model goes on to use all the other long running junk sites that the Met Office uses, I’m not sure why you would expect any difference with the Met Office numbers.
He then goes on to make the astonishing claim that it might be that there has been little additional UHI warming since then [1800], and so a downtown London weather station might be adequate for monitoring large-scale climate change.
Ray Sanders has responded on Talkshop to Roy Spencer’s surprising defence of the Met Office’s use of junk stations:
The above blogpost drew my attention for no other reason than I was specifically mentioned in it. For reasons I simply cannot fathom out, Roy Spencer included both myself and Tallbloke’s Talkshop in his decision to “validate” the UK Met Office’s methodology with his own, I use the term loosely, research.
I really have no problem with being referenced but quite why in such a derogatory manner seemed more akin to the inept “debunk” attempted by the formerly Meta sponsored “Science Feedback” than any other valid reason. The Met Office and their “over-Lord” Vallance seem to not be the only ones trying to silence or put down the Talkshop.
Drawn in, I continued with the article and I have to say found it remarkably wanting of any vestige of scientific detail. It read more like stating “I agree with the Met Office whilst Ray Sanders and the Talkshop are wrong because we both say so”. With some reluctance I feel I have to respond to clarify the position and rather question Mr Spencer’s somewhat strange conclusions and motivations in reaching them.
Firstly regular readers will know that I am in the process of assessing every operational Met office weather station plus many long term closed sites. In over 400 reviews so far I have opened up many other meteorological aspects for debate above and beyond pure simple siting issues and backed this up with extensive links to official data sources to demonstrate my points.
The ultimate Surface Stations Project aim is to recreate a UK national historic temperature record based on accurate and verifiable prime source data with no adjustments. In other words I am trying to prove beyond any reasonable doubt the real world situation and not the output of a computer modelled unreality.
An example of the early stages in this process was the initial data provided for the long term (but now closed) premium quality site at Wye Agricultural College. This real world data does not support the “massaged numbers” provided by the Met Office for this area where three of the five reference points are long deceased – Dungeness offered its last readings 1/12/1979 that is now over 46 years ago.
I use this as an example in contrast to Mr Spencer’s approach which is largely to accept the Met Office numbers as Holy Gospel and not question the multiple errors, problems and misrepresentations therein.
So to start:
“There has been criticism of the UK Met Office’s methodology for monitoring long-term changes in UK-average temperatures, starting with Tallbloke’s (Ray Sanders’) blog post on 31 October 2024. A major criticism that Tallbloke has is the fact that most UK stations do not meet the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) criteria for a good climate monitoring station. The UKMO doesn’t actually use the WMO quality classification system, but their own 4-tiered system. Another criticism is that many UK stations have closed in recent years, and so those stations are, in effect, estimated (“fabricated”?) from surrounding stations.“
The UKMO most certainly does use the WMO criteria – I have published their listing twice. Is Mr Spencer saying this international standard to which the Met Office was party to formulating does not apply to them? if so, that rather claims the Met office says “Up yours” to the WMO which I know for certain they do not.
“those stations are, in effect, estimated (“fabricated”?) ” Why the question mark to the term “fabricated”? Fabrication is the construction of something from separate constituent parts. In the case of the Met Office, artificial numbers termed “climate averages” for no longer existing sites are constructed from a medley of other sites’ readings. These are neither readings nor data, they are reified mathematical constructs (a.k.a. fabrications) entirely dependent on which constituents are used to compile them. The Met Office refuses to identify the constituent parts to anyone outside their organisation hence other potential definitions of the term “fabrication” may legitimately come into play.
“On the additional subject of replacing a closed station with estimates from surrounding stations (which NOAA also does because so many of their UNHCN stations in the U.S. have closed, a process that has also been criticized), I believe it is a little disingenuous to claim those data are “fabricated”. . Rather than continuing the closed station record with estimates from surrounding stations, one could just use the surrounding stations, which is the same thing.” {my bold}
The above is rank nonsense. Since when has an “estimate” derived from surrounding areas been the same as a specific site reading i.e. a FACT. The only person here being “a little disingenuous” certainly is not me. Frankly I cannot believe Roy Spencer can make such an absurd statement not worthy of a secondary school statistics paper failure.
Mr Spencer then continues essentially claiming Met office data are excellent and so are his and they both agree….a case of wise men in agreement or is it fools seldom differing? How many of all the following aspects of Met Office data (and by association his) shortcomings has Mr spencer accounted for or is even aware of?
Full story here.
As I revealed, there is evidence that junk stations are running 0.5C or more hotter than Class 1 Rothamsted, when comparing the summers of 1976 and 2025.
This should come as no surprise to him, because his own work has come to similar conclusions in the US. Curiously, Spencer states that his methodology vindicates the Met Office’s.
But it is not their methodology that is the problem – it is the junk data being fed into it.
What nobody can get away from is that the WMO specifically say that these junk stations should not be used for climatological purposes.
There is simply no excuse for the Met Office to do so.
Spencer’s argument seems to be that using junk sites is alright because they have always been junk. The Met Office is simply comparing like with like. But that is no excuse. Junk in always produces junk out.
NOAA worked out two decades ago that their temperature network was not fit for purpose. That was why they introduced in 2005 a network of high quality, well maintained weather stations; the US Climate Reference Network, USCRN.
For years, of course, WUWT has done sterling service exposing just how badly sited many US stations are. There is no excuse for the Met Office not to do the same.
The only reason they won’t is that it would be an admission that their existing network, which they have used for years to claim they know UK temperatures to hundredths of a degree, is not fit for purpose.
Editor’s note: Roy Spencer works with John Christy (who is the Alabama state climatologist) at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, where they produce very useful monthly lower troposphere temperature charts. Spencer likes to think of himself as a climate skeptic, but he believes CO2 does drive temperature, so is one of those nicknamed ‘lukewarmers’. This means he is for all intents and purposes, an alarmist in skeptics clothing, and his defence of the Met Office does nothing to weaken that opinion.
See more here notalotofpeopleknowthat
Header image: The Guardian
You can see Roy Spencer’s website here drroyspencer.com
Some bold emphasis added