Whitesands Addendum – The answer to a previous question.

In my previous report on Whitesands I posed the question “What are the Met Office’s real motives?” Further information is now available that I feel provides the answers.

When I originally reviewed Whitesands there were no recorded temperature readings for the site nor any up to date Google StreetView images, both of which are now available. These are very enlightening.

Firstly the observations record. This site is yet again an amateur site that has been accepted into the Met Office Climate Reporting Network and is recorded as below:

As an amatur/personal/enthusiast/whatever “other” type site in its first year of observations, it would be expected to have a keenly well kept record – it most certainly does not. Starting from the 12th May 2024 there should have been 233 daily readings for 2024 but, in reality, only 163 attempts were actually made. That is very poor indeed but it then gets worse, of those recorded 163 attempts a further 29 failed to secure adequate readings to form a daily average. So barely over half of the readings required were actually taken – if it starts this bad it is only likely to worsen. This is a typical extract from the file with columns I and J being maximum and minimum temperature readings. Also worth noting the frequent gaps in the date column.

If the effort of taking readings is so “hit and miss” what confidence can be given to the accuracy of those actually taken?

Whilst observational frequency can be improved what about the actual siting now that it can be viewed in detail? Imagine you are a highly trained and qualified meteorologist such as a Met Office employee. You are fully aware of all the siting requirements for a reliable weather station. Even ignoring the WMO requirements, (jointly established with the International Standards Organisation) you will definitely know your own organisation’s requirements.

So how does this work? The screen is on the corner of a roadway where slow moving vehicles (such as motorhomes or SUV’s towing caravans et alia) are moving around the corner and tripping the PRT into a reading spike.

But that is only the part of the story, remember the Met Office directive above? “No trees” is very specific so why plant them right in front of the screen? The image is from November 2024 and those swirly plastic covers known as “tree guards” are to protect the newly planted saplings from animals. Just like Culzean Castle and many others, hedging just centimetres from the screen has been planted. This hedge is to the northern plus eastern and seaward elevation of the screen which will shield it from cooling offshore nighttime breezes but retain daytime warmer onshore breezes to ultimately over record – almost by intent? Was this all invisible to the Met Office inspectors? Did they not know about the requirements?

A new 2024 site installed alongside a fence , where slow moving motorised vehicles will pass within 3.5 metres, in an unrepresentative area and has just had hedging planted under 1.5 metres away is supposed to meet acceptable standards. This appears to be a deliberate attempt to produce artificially elevated readings both now and ever increasingly in the future.

So going back to the motives, why are the Met Office withholding the details of all those
“well correlated” sites they claim are being used to compile “climate averages” data for long closed sites? A disinterested party might suggest from impartial evidence presented to them that…….the Met Office are using data of dubious accuracy from recently installed very low grade sites with known artificially elevated readings to produce evidence on temperature increases over time.

I again challenge any meteorologist to defend the assertion of many that the Met Office’s actions in deploying such poor sites even now (and they will continue to do so) and to prove wrong that these are intended to be used to corrupt the ongoing historic climate record.

This, the reality:

Versus this, the public portrayal:

Source: https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2025/07/19/whitesands-addendum-the-answer-to-a-previous-question/