Leuchars (WMO 03171) Versus Heathrow (WMO 03772) Double standards demonstrating deliberate bias.
RAF Leuchars 56.37738 -2.86194 Met Office CIMO assessed CLASS 5 Installed 1/1/1921
Heathrow Airport 51.47919 -0.45054 Met Office CIMO Assessed CLASS 3 Installed 1/1/1947
I am proposing to do a series of reviews on the Heathrow Airport site regarding many different aspects of readings that the Met office regularly highlights from this flagship station. In this comparative view I cover the double standards the Met Office uses to classify the “quality” of their stations.
In reviewing Coningsby, for context, I recommended viewing a short Youtube clip of three Typhoon jets taking off – this would be equally applicable to RAF Leuchars though it is no longer continuously operational. For further context regarding Heathrow Airport I recommend viewing this short video.
The Met Office regularly proclaims temperature records from Heathrow Airport claiming the site is rated CIMO Class 3 accurate to within 1°C for representation of the wider surrounding area. They regularly defend its credibility beyond any logical view that an independent observer would judge reasonable. Conversely RAF Leuchars is deemed to only meet the lowest possible standard Class 5 which is in effect unregulated
“2.6 Class 5 (additional estimated uncertainty added by siting up to 5 °C)
Site not meeting the requirements of class 4.”
Rather than try to copy many others who have analysed the Heathrow site using their own rationally applied logic all in one review, I feel a better critique would be to demonstrate its shortcomings using the Met Office’s own admissions in separate reviews and how these demonstrate appalling double standards in this case by comparison with another aviation site – RAF Leuchars.
Firstly to consider that CIMO rating of Leuchars. The image above indicates only a small part of the 30 metre circled radius to the south east is intruded upon by the low rise Fire Station building with the slightly taller control tower a further 30 metres away. Of the twelve historic images on Google Earth Pro, none indicate any level of shade even remotely close to the screen enclosure. As an airfield the site is obviously flat confirmed by viewing the Ordnance survey area contour mapping. There are no other compromising structures or hard standing areas and as airfield sites go this one is reasonably okay. The local area view as below:
Pulling out to a wider area view indicates a typical rural/coastal located RAF location with much less surrounding development than examples such as alleged Class 3 Coningsby.
Bear in mind the Met Office assess this site as the lowest possible standard for area representation even though it is typical of its surroundings in Fife and is unquestionably not subject to any Urban Heat Island effects – Dundee is seven miles to the north west with its own airport.
Moving on to Heathrow the headline image indicates the 30 metre delineated area is heavily compromised by the often extremely busy, even gridlocked, Northern Perimeter Road West, the northern runway access road and the buildings to the west. Ground cover, whilst possibly typical of the environs of a busy commercial airport, is anything but natural being tarmac and concrete. However, moving in for a close up street view indicates screening to the roadway extensively concealing one side of the enclosure.
I fail to see which part of WMO CIMO siting and enclosure standards allows for a concrete parapet and blast screening wall to the north effectively creating a south facing wall in front of the temperature sensors in the Stevenson Screen. This screening will entrap any warmed air between this road side and the blast screening in the area identified and depicted by Tim Channon in his site review that is well worth reading.https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2012/08/30/wmo03772-heathrow/
Switching to the wide area view reveals just one element of an exceptionally large Urban Heat Island adjoining and additional to the already established massive London UHI effect.
The total area encompassing runways, taxiways, hangars, aprons, buildings and all associated paraphernalia is over 12.3 square kilometres of totally unnatural environment which is further surrounded by roads, hotels, shops and on and on. This is 100% not representative of anywhere other than Heathrow airport itself. On top of this the whole site sits to the west of the Greater London urban heat island identified as one of the world’s most intense.
“London’s urban centre has the joint-fourth most extreme urban heat island (UHI) “hot spot” of six major cities around the world, with temperatures 4.5°C hotter than rural surroundings, according to new research by global sustainable development consultancy, Arup.”
Any easterly/south easterly air-stream reaching West London originating from the warmer continental landmass of Europe (and possibly originating over North Africa/Sahara) will have substantially warmed in transit. This probably explains the remarkable concentration of eleven weather stations in just 113 square miles of West London demonstrated in reviews of Buxton and Iver.
In summary of this part of siting classification, the Met Office is applying one set of standards to Leuchars and a demonstrably completely different set to Heathrow. This does not conform to the spirit of the CIMO standards which were designed to create a uniform worldwide standard for comparison purposes. The Met Office is not even providing a uniform standard within the UK
I would welcome any comments regarding further aspects and information regarding future review angles of the Heathrow site. I was proposing, among others, discussing UHI in more detail, the effect of aircraft movements on the site, changes in the site and aircraft using it over time, overall developments around the area and some of the bizarre justifications the Met Office comes out with to defend their ongoing use of the site’s readings. Any suggestions, information or hard data would be most welcome.
Source: https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2025/02/07/leuchars-wmo-03171-versus-heathrow-wmo-03772-double-standards-demonstrating-deliberate-bias/
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