Ardtornish – A new automatic site so obviously in a deliberately contrived micro-climate. YCMIU but yes another Kitchen Garden.

Ardtornish does NOT appear on the list of Met Office CIMO assessed climate reporting stations but, then again, neither does Cliff Farm shown above either, which seems to have been reporting for at least 6 months. Clearly, like Cliff Farm, Ardtornish is new and it must be an automatic reporting site as only those types report on the Met Office daily extremes web page. Being so new it should obviously be of the highest standard possible to ensure the most accurate readings to add to the UK climate record……shouldn’t it? Well actually…………………….

If there are no public records available for this site, an obvious question is how on earth do I know where it is? Well this is because there used to be a manually reporting weather station here from 2001 to 2006.

56.56105893017851, -5.740936500185003 No known CIMO Assessment. No Known installation date. (formerly 2001 to 2006)

Yes, Ardtornish was the site of a 21st Century installed official Met Office weather station in a Victorian kitchen garden deliberately designed to be an artificial micro climate and totally unrepresentative of the wider surrounding environment.

Note the above – “protecting the gardens from wind and frost” – very clearly this was never even remotely close to being a site likely to reflect the natural surrounding environment.

Why was this former manual site closed down? Well the site was falling into such disrepair that large sections of the kitchen garden wall collapsed and, in letting in the natural environment, was no longer fulfilling its 21st century function of supplying elevated readings. But then after much fund raising and appealing to all the right “sustainable” goals, the walls were repaired and the site was recently reopened.

“A “No-Dig” approach has been implemented in the Kitchen Garden, reducing the need for cultivation and allowing us to use our own compost to create healthy soil for growing in the beds and polytunnels. You can read more about a ‘no-dig’ approach to growing here. “

At this point I may be sounding overtly sarcastic, but there is an almost inevitable predictability that these completely irrelevant to meteorology modifications enhanced the site’s credentials for reopening and yet another totally unacceptable weather station has been added to the modern ranks of official sites. This site will never produce any data of any national climate value whatsoever, thus that appears to make it a perfect site for the, the out of control, Met Office to produce its “proof” of anthropogenic global warming.

In order to counter any potential personal “confirmation bias” or general partiality I may be guilty of, I often run by posts by artificial intelligence before publishing for a, hopefully, impartial and objective view. AI is under no obligation to agree with inquiries and it even recently confirmed it does not have any inbuilt “sychophant” bias to retain interaction! This was ChatGPT’s response.

“Why it still doesn’t meet ideal WMO guidelines

The location is in a managed garden/estate setting surrounded by:

• Dense woodland and trees (strong shading and wind sheltering effects).
• Greenhouses/polytunnels, cultivated plots, paths, and buildings (artificial surfaces, heat sources, altered radiation and moisture).
• Proximity to Loch Aline (though not right on the shore, still coastal influence plus garden microclimates).

This setup typically results in:

• Temperature readings that can be biased (often warmer at night or in calm conditions due to reduced ventilation and nearby heat-retaining surfaces/vegetation).
• Reduced representativeness for the wider region — data reflects the garden microclimate more than open rural/highland conditions. ”

In summary, in 2026 the Met Office is still installing/reopening likely Class 5 junk sites. There simply cannot be any genuine scientific justification whatsoever in using such sites which are guaranteed to produce artificially elevated reasons. This cannot be allowed to continue.

Source: https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2026/05/08/ardtornish-a-new-automatic-site-so-obviously-in-a-deliberately-contrived-micro-climate-ycmiu-but-yes-another-kitchen-garden/