West Freugh WMO03130 – A site away from London-Centric assessments. Worse than being surrounded by a solar farm?

58.85913 -4.93541 Met Office CIMO Assessed Class 4 Installed 1/1/1943 Temperature records archived from 1961.

Unusually, the first thing I checked regarding this site was Tim Channon’s review simply because I immediately felt this was a reasonably good, if not perfect, site. Without inspecting detail, it is a long way from any buildings, the access roadway is of no significance and everything looks ostensibly good. Tim’s opinion largely agreed with mine, so what is the issue here?

Tim suggested a cautionary Class 2 based on changing ground cover failing Class 1

https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2012/09/01/wmo03132-west-freugh-scotland/

The benefit of subsequent StreetView images have reinforced the point commenter “Caz” made at the time that the surrounding agricultural use had rendered the area into a “sea of mud ” meaning Class 1 could not be fully met. In the absence of any other detrimental issues though I personally feel the site should rate Class 2 and be accurate enough for a long term data comparison. Here is a relatively long range view so be aware of the inevitable foreshortening effects in the imagery. {The best I could manage, any better imagery most welcome}

There is nothing causing a problem here, the site is flat with a large secure enclosure, no buildings, tarmac or anything else to worry about. It is a long way from any major aviation activity with the site now being only a test facility. The 100 metre radius circle for Class 1 looks like this – a good candidate.

It genuinely looks like an almost perfect site. So why does the Met office rate this as lowly Class 4 with its attendant large inaccuracy?

This issue of “ground cover” and its change over time immediately reminded me of the Met Office’s response to me regarding the extreme ground cover changes at Chertsey Abbey Meads in West London. This was originally a reasonably good site for immediate surroundings despite being to the immediate west of one of the world’s most intense urban heat islands. However, the sudden intrusion of being surrounded by massive solar panels (i.e.ground cover) was not met by that much of a downgrade to only Class 3 and “better” than their current West Freugh” assessment . I stand by my somewhat sarcastic response to the Met office at the time:

“Thank you for your interesting interpretation of the CIMO assessment ratings. This leaves me to wonder which part of “Ground covered with natural and low vegetation (

Very clearly this was not an objective assessment of the site alteration and suggests a reluctance to eliminate unquestionably corrupted future readings. An agenda driven decision.

This leads on to what the West Freugh “figures” say even allowing for the Met office’s inevitable torturing of basic data. With sites such as this safely well away from any urban heat island effects – there really is not anything for very many miles around to worry about. Even if the Met office insists on “homogenising” West Freugh data with genuine current near neighbours it is still unlikely to make a material difference. West Freugh is one of those still alive and genuinely long term sites in the area that still appears on the Location Specific Long Term Climate Averages data pages. So how does it compare with that West London set of numbers? After all the official claims are about a theoretical ability to produce a global average temperature and indicate how much it has risen over recent time. Should there be any significant difference between the West Freugh “gridded cell” and that of Chertsey, almost surreally, represented by the Met office using the Royal Horticultural Society’s wholly unnatural micro-climate at Class 4 Wisley ?

The average daily maxima and minima at West Freugh for the 30 year rolling average period of 1961-90 were 12.13°C and 5.52°C. These rose to 12.88°C and 6.03°C for the 1991- 2020 period. Increments of 0.75°C and 0.51°C respectively {n.b.these are Met Office figures which I do not endorse until such time as the Talkshop has run its verification checks}

The comparison with the south west London cell was quite remarkable with the increments there noted as 1.22°C in average maxima and 0.79°C in average minima. Thus over the same period even the Met Office themselves have noted discrepancies 0.45°C and 0.28°C in temperature uplift. It would appear this well mixed CO2 has strikingly different effects depending on exactly where it well mixes!

I shall be doing further research into West Freugh to confirm there have been no significant site alterations but as it stands at the moment I feel this site should be a good representative one for long term historic temperature record use.

Source: https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2025/06/17/west-freugh-wmo03130-a-site-away-from-london-centric-assessments-worse-than-being-surrounded-by-a-solar-farm/