Newton Rigg DCNN 7071 – A modern day exercise in creative accounting….. enter “CARLOS”.
54.67005 -2.78784 Met Office CIMO Assessed Class 4 Installed 1/1/1883
Newton Rigg weather station is (or rather possibly/maybe) just to the north west of Penrith on the campus of Newton Rigg College a part of the University of Cumbria. Its history traces back to 1883 though exactly where it was located back then is all part of the standard confusion the Met Office creates around its data recording and presentation. I present here yet another review of the non-existent known as “Carlos”.
The Met Office used to have a web page known as Climate Averages.
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/climate/maps-and-data/uk-climate-averages
Clicking on the above link will now redirect you to the changed page named “Location-Specific Long-Term Averages” which the Met Office covertly changed it to following my exposure that 103 out of 302 of the named locations simply do not exist. {n.b. the wayback machine has archived the original https://web.archive.org/web/20240807063354/https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/climate/maps-and-data/uk-climate-averages}
The Met Office then attempted to, somewhat ineptly, “debunk” my revelations using their crudely modified information despite not being able to demonstrate when challenged under FOI to prove the site’s and data actually used. Worth noting is that this debunking organisation was subsequently dropped by their sponsors – Facebook/Meta.
Another aspect I also took the Met Office to task with was their “Historic Stations” page and demonstrated how misleading it was notably with its portrayal of a long closed site at Lowestoft. I similarly expected changes to this web page especially as I have extensively contested the data presentation such as at Braemar and Southampton amongst others. However, it seems the Met office are not only willing to continue with this web page’s charade of being actually factual but also to extend elements of this misrepresentation throughout their systems.
In November 2024 I “shared” a view of my laptop screen which was displaying the Met Office listing of all its “Climate Reporting” stations by their CIMO classification. This list from May 2024 (under one year old now) included Newton Rigg as I have called up below. Obviously Newton Rigg exists, if not why would it have been included?
Calling up the above mentioned Historic Data page, the map has a colour coded index like this.
And here is the map itself indicating the location of Newton Rigg.
Call me old fashioned if you will, but being coloured orange which equates to “open stations”, then I expect it to be an “open station” i.e. currently operational. And here is the link to its data.
Does anyone studying “climate science”, meteorology or being indoctrinated at school with a climate change compulsory topic need any more evidence that Newton Rigg weather station exists? Again only an idiot like me would question this, after all, even the Centre for Environment Data Analysis clearly states this is a “Current” station and gives accurate WGS84 coordinates and National Grid Reference numbers to positively identify it.
Just to really hammer that final nail into the coffin of any doubt that this is a current weather station, let’s ask Artificial Intelligence – in this case GROK – which replied:
“The Newton Rigg weather station is located in Cumbria, United Kingdom, near the village of Newton Rigg. It is situated on the Newton Rigg campus, which was formerly part of the University of Cumbria. The station is approximately 3 miles (5 kilometers) west of the town of Penrith. It is positioned in a rural area of the Eden Valley, close to the Lake District National Park, providing weather data representative of this region in northwest England. The exact coordinates are around 54.670°N latitude and 2.790°W longitude. This station is part of the Met Office’s network, collecting data on temperature, precipitation, wind, and other climate variables.”
What this lengthy review clearly demonstrates is just how incredibly easy it is for “authority” to deceive in an almost Orwellian Ministry of Truth style. But I persisted and when challenged GROK flicked the bottom pillar of that fragile house of cards. I responded
“Grok you are wrong, Newton Rigg weather station no longer exists” And right on cue Grok replied:-
“You’re right to point that out, and I appreciate the correction. The Newton Rigg weather station, located near Penrith in Cumbria, UK, did indeed cease operations. The station, which was part of the Met Office network and historically linked to the Newton Rigg campus (once associated with the University of Cumbria), stopped reporting data after the campus closed in 2021. The closure of the educational facility likely led to the discontinuation of the weather station’s activities, as it was tied to the site’s operations. While historical data from Newton Rigg remains available through sources like the Met Office for past climate records, it no longer provides current observations as of 2021. My earlier response assumed its continued existence based on outdated context, and I apologize for the oversight. If you’re looking for current weather data from that area, nearby stations like Keswick or Shap might be the closest active alternatives in Cumbria. Let me know if you’d like details on those!”
At least GROK is polite and honest enough to admit its errors unlike certain organisations I could mention. I opted not to push the point any more but GROK is still partially wrong, whilst Newton Rigg may no longer provide “current observations” it quite mystically produces monthly averages courtesy of “CARLOS” – as shown in the CEDA Archives for Newton Rigg
CARLOS equates to “Monthly & annual climatological averages,calculated by NCIC” So who or what are NCIC?
“The NCIC, part of the Met Office, calculates average weather conditions—like temperature, rainfall, or sunshine—over months and years using data from weather stations across the UK. These “climatological averages” are typically based on long-term periods (e.g., 30 years, such as 1991–2020) to show what’s normal for a given location or region.”
So we are back to the “Peer Reviewed” process the Met Office claims to use to fabricate data from local “well correlated” sites that when challenged to provide details of (for Folkestone and Dover) were unable to provide which they claimed was because they no longer retained the information. That is not believable. No scientific organisation can claim any transparency nor validity of computed data if it cannot demonstrate the sources used. With the Met Office’s admitted inability to produce its data, it stands accused of deliberate manipulation of data that cannot be accepted as valid.
CARLOS is being implemented to continue to produce monthly data in the same way as it is at Lowestoft. Below is an example of these asterisk denoted “estimates” by CARLOS for the last 4 years.
This total estimation is necessitated due to the current non existence of the station but look back through the above “data” and there are extensive earlier periods of equally estimated figures such as the entirety of July 1985 through to January 1989 – Why for such a long period and why so many months throughout its life does it have to be at best an educated guess? Again an extract from the CEDA archive.
Over just this short period it was evident that actually taking readings was a part time exercise like far too many Met Office sites I have reviewed. However, the boxes are always filled no matter how irrelevant the numbers may actually be. Trawling through the downloads of temperature data indicates Newton Rigg was an appallingly badly recorded station – in 1985 only 223 days readings were taken, 1986 the effort was made just 112 times. Every year scanned shows multiple tens of missing readings – Carlos must have worked overtime making up numbers to cover issue like this below – columns “I” and “J” are maximum and minimum temperatures respectably. NA (as in “not applicable”) clearly indicates no readings which are highly applicable in the circumstances.
Given that this Newton Rigg incredibly poor site is considered worthy of representing the UK’s “Historic Stations” plus subject to the full CARLOS treatment which is designed for the purpose of creating “climate averages” for 30 year periods, then what are its “location- specific, long-term averages” so studiously produced?
Despite all the machinations to manufacture numbers only designed for relevance to climate averaging, there are amazingly no period averages quoted for this “Historic” station. All those other stations in the appropriate “gridded cell” will, however, be having their data homogenised and “supported” by the “Carlos” manipulated numbers from Newton Rigg. Climate averages will be made from averages from a group including a station whose numbers are made from averages of the same group – get it?…..me neither!
Going back to the Historic data page it only shows monthly averages starting from 1959. Why is the Met Office so coy about publishing any earlier data? The CEDA files show digitalised readings going back to 1906 and scans of manual hand written ones are available to view online even older than that. The CEDA archive exclusively shows the former last site location even for those very early readings but, of course. it was not there then and the Met Office knows that. In reality it was quite a different site.
The quoted coordinates equate to digital 54.67332 -2.81165 and are almost a mile away and atop Newton Moss almost 18 metres/60 feet higher as below. All indications are that the site was relocated in 1981 coincidental with the loss of its sunshine recorder.
Final proof of the demise of Newton Rigg can be seen on Street view. Firstly an old image showing the site from April 2021.
And the latest image from the same spot July 2022 – all instrumentation removed.
So to summarise.
- The Met Office is indicating Newton Rigg still exists despite complete closure 4 years ago.
- All current readings are fabricated as well as a large proportion of historic data equally manufactured even when it was actually functioning.
- Datasets from different sites with different climate characteristics have been covertly bonded together.
- The site had a very poor record of reading frequency. In such circumstances the validity of the readings actually taken by multiple different and almost certainly not fully trained observers is open to questions of accuracy.
The point of such a lengthy evaluation was to demonstrate the level of unreliability of Met office data – even that which it is happy to “headline” as important and valuable. The met office is operating in an extremely unscientific and even incompetent manner. Analysis of such incomplete and inaccurate even invented numbers is a futile exercise. That such non-data is being statistically tortured to the Nth degree by alleged peer review scientific processes is frankly a bad joke and completely unacceptable..
Source: https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2025/04/06/newton-rigg-dcnn-7071-a-modern-day-exercise-in-creative-accounting-enter-carlos/
