Ballypatrick Forest DCNN9168, DCNN 9169 WMO03916 – Totally unacceptable behaviour by the Met Office.

55.18062 -6.15446 Met Office CIMO Assessed Class 4 Original site installed 1/1/1961

Ballypatrick Forest weather station lies in the north of Northern Ireland just under 6 km from the coast at Ballycastle. In addition to being an official “climate averages” reporting station, it is also an “Historic Station” shown with almost continuous data back to 1961. Many of the historic sites which appear on the Met Office list have somewhat dubious provenance as I recently posted on Valley, and Braemar, and Southampton and Whitby and Stornoway …….rather than keep this linked listing going it is simpler to say most of them have either been relocated, had spliced datasets, duplicated or even simply do not exist but are falsely claimed to be open and still reporting data as at Nairn, Newton Rigg, Paisley and of course Lowestoft. It is perhaps unsurprising then that Ballypatrick’s history is somewhat “cloudy”.

At first glance the present site may not look overly concerning regarding its likely representation of the wider area. It does appear to fulfill the 100 metre “exclusion” area for Class 1 as seen below.

The area gradient can be visually indicated by this street view image of (n.b.) May 2019 with the screen and enclosure to the left of centre.

This slope angle does not preclude the site from being Class 1 if the assessment standard shown at the far steeper gradient of Cassley is a benchmark for the Met Office rating system. This really only leaves shading and/or variable ground cover to cause such a mark down to Class 4. A review of the site image history reveals this from August 2011.

Now the site name of Ballypatrick Forest makes sense! The woodland surrounding the site is plantation forest that is periodically felled and then allowed to grow back. This immediately renders a significant sheltering effect both of wind and sun and renders the site Class 4 or even worse.

The most recent image from May 2023 is now showing not only the regrowth of the new plantation but also the return of the shrubbery around the enclosure.

Reviewing this site reveals huge changes over time that vary the representation of the wider area of this site from good to very bad dependent on totally anthropogenic reasons that certainly have zero to do with any change in the natural climate. These changes will cause significant and known artificial variations in temperature readings. For the Met Office to promote such a known temporally and dramatically variable site as “Historic Station” data is not scientifically credible at all. I consider portraying such data under the banner “CLIMATE AND CLIMATE CHANGE” as Disinformation.

The provenance of this Ballypatrick site becomes even more suspect when the “data” is studied. I have put that term “data” in inverted commas for the reason that the veracity of this site’s readings is seriously in question on several grounds other than just site surroundings.

Below is the Data Header from which an easy question to answer should be “What is the location of this site from 1961?”

Irish Grid reference points, digital coordinates and even elevation all help to locate where this station was in 1961 so very easy to answer that above question……..only it was NOT there. How is it acceptable to give an incorrect location? Yes the weather station is NOW at that location but it was NOT there in 1961

Without very in depth research and a degree of specialist knowledge there is no way any member of the general public would know this site has been significantly relocated. Furthermore they have no way of knowing that the relocation was to an area that was significantly climatologically different. Most people would assume all this welter of historic data was perfectly accurate and the temperature uplifts over time reflected “climate change” because of the Argument from Authority of the taxpayer funded Met Office.

Below are annual extracts for the comparative climate average periods of 1961 to 1990 and 1991 to 2020.

The Met office “data” from an “Historic” site for which they give claimed unchanged location details clearly “proves” an average maximum temperature increase of 0.67°C and an *average minimum increase of 1.15°C over a 60 year period. Almost perfectly in line with the predetermined end result to be proved of 1.5°C increment in global mean temperature since “pre-industrial” times.

{* this higher level of minima increase will be demonstrated to be mostly a facet of reading protocol in a later post}

So how can anyone question the veracity of the above data – it is obviously true isn’t it? Look again at the headline description “Ballypatrick Forest DCNN 9168, DCNN 9169……..” DCNN stands for District County Network Number and is a unique indicator to every Met Office weather station…….and two separate ones are shown. In the event that the Met Office relocates a site they are not obliged to renumber (nor rename) the site if the move is insignificant. This is their own definition n.b. my bold:

“3.6. Station identification

A station may be defined as a collection of instruments and observing systems, existing today or for periods of time in the past, which together may be considered as a common source of observations associated with a given location. At a typical station the thermometers and rain gauges are located in an enclosure, which is a small area of level ground suitably exposed to the weather. Not all instruments at a station are necessarily collocated; for example, the anemometer mast may be at the end of a runway some distance from the enclosure, the pressure sensor may be in a separate building and the estimate of visibility made be made on a roof-top. Observations from all these sources may, nevertheless, be regarded as representative of a single location represented by the station. The concept of a station is reinforced by the way meteorological observations are grouped together into reports: the SYNOP, NCM, SREW or F3208 reports (see section 4) represent groupings of observations from a common general location. Each report requires an identifying number or character string which links it to the originating station. Several identifying systems that have evolved over the years are described in more detail in the following sub-sections.

“Over time certain instruments, or the whole enclosure, may be relocated some distance away from the original site. Where the distance moved is small, the observations obtained from the new site may have exactly the same climatological characteristics as previously and it makes sense to regard them as coming from the same source or station distinguished by certain identifiers. Where the distance moved is large, or, where the exposure at the new site is sufficiently different that a detectable impact on the measured climatology is judged likely, it is appropriate that observations from the new site are labelled by a different set of identifiers.“

That is the first indicator of a relocation, and then again there is the Met Office’s own admission of moving the site buried deep in their archives for very few people to actually look for.

In 1996 the Met Office themselves noted the site was moved sufficiently to require a new DCNN identification number because of “a detectable impact on the measured climatology is judged likely,“

If this otherwise covert detail is somewhat concerning a detailed look at the actual data for this relocation period is even more so. Below are the year file listings of temperature data available to download online.

There are no readings at all from 1988 to 1992. Looking even deeper it shows the last 1980s decade reading was actually just a single reading taken 1/1/1987. Note “end data”, the identifier DCNN 9169 and the “ob-hour” showing “24” which indicates a manual station taking one reading per day (24 hours) at 09:00 GMT.

The next available reading is not until 1/1/1992

Note now the new DCNN 9168 indicator and the “ob-hour” has changed to “12” this indicates twice daily readings (09:00 & 21:00) and with the “NCM” standing for “National Climate Messages.” The significant number of “NA” indicates recurring problems with the systems. Around this time additional features were added to the site and World Meteorological Organisation reporting began with the WMO numbering adopted.

All this evidence shows a significant move, a change in instrumentation from Liquid in Glass Thermometer (LIGT) to some form of Electrical Resistance Thermometer (ERT), a change in observational frequency and all with the new site subject to continually changing crop cover with the plantation growing in height to be suddenly reduced back to ground level. There was also a long term absence of data during site transition. How does the Historic Station Data file account for this apparent lengthy fallow period on no data from 1/1/1987 to 1/1/1992?

Where exactly this period data actually comes from is a complete mystery, it certainly is not published anywhere else. Perhaps it is “borrowed” from another site such as the Met Office (known but not corrected) 10 year false attribution of Holyhead’s data onto Valley before the latter was even built. The data is not shown as “estimated” but then again looking at the comparative Location Specific Long Term Climate Averages comparative stations for Ballypatrick we are directed to the nearest site (20 miles distant and on the coast) of Portrush and that shut down 22/1/2004 with all data fabricated ever since. Perhaps even more perversely Machrihanish is not even in Northern Ireland being located by the runway at what is Cambeltown Airport on the Mull of Kintyre.

Again the veracity of the above data is so spurious that it simply fails to meet any of the data transparency rules and standards the public is entitled to from its Civil Servants. Overall Ballypatrick Forest Weather Station is a yet another example of the wholly unacceptable standards and dubious practices of the Met Office. A complete failure of any integrity in either science or public service.

Source: https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2025/08/30/ballypatrick-forest-dcnn9168-dcnn-9169-wmo03916-totally-unacceptable-behaviour-by-the-met-office/