Great Dun Fell numbers 1 & 2 – A high level of disappointment.

Above annotated map from 2004.

Tim Channon reviewed this station in 2012 when there seemed to be confusion over the location of the screen and its CIMO rating. Tim had identified Great Dun Fell (original) in his report but that had already closed down by then. Commenter Caz correctly identified the rather dingy screen of Great Dun Fell 2 but the surroundings of that site have since significantly changed rendering all previous site assessments way off the mark. The site is now a very poor Class 5 despite the prestigious nature of the setting. Hopefully I can offer some clarification of the very peculiar goings on here.

Great Dun Fell (1) weather station was originally installed in 1958 alongside the National Air Traffic Services (NATS) Radar serving northern England and southern Scotland air traffic control. This is the second highest point in England so whilst it is a very good location for weather forecasting services it really is not a good indicator for climate reporting purposes. It is an exceptional rather than usual site with an unrepresentative climate for the wider surrounding area.

This original site (annotated as GDF1) in headline image from 2004 has digital archived records taken from 4 six hourly observations by staff at the site. This should be at least good for consistency of readings – only it isn’t. The observation recording has regular gaps and missing entries, the scale of which are quite remarkable. There was a period from 1976 to 1994 when there were no readings at all. Rather than being a useful record for the site itself it is largely useless with so little retained data. The diminished data file sizes indicate large numbers of missing readings.

Great Dun Fell Number 2 was part of the Manchester University “Centre for Atmospheric Science” which established its own separate station in 1993. Whether or not this prompted restarting readings from the original site is not known but for a period of 8 years, up to the closure of the original station, there were records for both sites running simultaneously under 50 metres apart. I have not compared the overlapping data sets on the basis this is not a site I was proposing to have any future interest in regarding constructing an alternative historical temperature record. One point to note though is that even the new site does not offer comprehensive data and there are regular gaps in the observations record. Given the Air Traffic Control nature of the site I would hope these recording gaps were not due to “comms errors” often noted in Met Office archived “Remarks”.

The current problem with this site now comes down to its CIMO rating. Whilst Tim Channon was debating Class 2 or 3 ( I disagreed with him on that as it really had to be ruled out simply on its unrepresentative nature) the Met Office rates it as Class 5 (complete Junk) simply because it now looks like this.

The Met Office almost certainly will NOT relocate the screen despite its completely compromised position directly alongside whatever it is that has been built there. The site will now almost certainly achieve their prime objective of elevated temperatures to fulfill their politically motivated, anti–science agenda. After all they have this charade below to maintain for the averaging period from 2000 to 2030 in a few years time – and note how they refer to it as Great Dun Fell No 2 deliberately omitting the site change and non-existent data data from 1976 to 1994. It is obviously beyond ridicule for the Met office to claim filling those observations gaps with averaged readings from “well correlated” other sites. Apart from Little Dun Fell where there is no weather station – where is likely to be “well correlated” with this unique setting?

This should have been a review of an interesting research centre site but, as is so often the case, rather depressingly ended up being yet another example of remarkably poor standards. I find it incredibly worrying that a University research centre is so poorly managed. Meteorologists that I have come to know through this project are mostly very diligent and careful people, but it rather appears this amorphous blob of a subject going under the oxymoron of “climate science” accepts any old nonsense as long as it conforms to its preset conclusions.