Edinburgh Goggarbank WMO03166 – An example of Met Office dual standards and failure to meet their own claims.

55.92832 -3.33418 Met Office CIMO Assessed Class 4 Installed 29/12/1998

Edinburgh Goggarbank lies in a rural area some 6 miles west of central Edinburgh. This area (an agricultural college) had the possibility of being a good quality reliable site. However, the modern Met Office seemingly struggles to meet its own stipulated standards and managed to ensure a very poor quality and compromised site. The Met Office claim this is a Class 4 site with additional inaccuracy due to siting of 2°C, I disagree – this is yet another Class 5 site.

To understand my highly critical view of Goggarbank, I refer back to my report of the Class 4 Carlisle site. Here the Met Office removed a small “green cabinet” (located almost 8 metres away from the Stevenson screen) for the stated reason:-

This is what Carlisle weather station looked like prior to removal of one cabinet.

The image below is Goggarbank with a significantly larger “green cabinet” that the Google aerial images measuring tool locates at just 3 metres from the screen.

This is not my nit picking, the Met Office has seen fit to remove an 8 metre distant cabinet that is approximately 1 metre high and likely a base area of just 400 mm by 600 mm to “Reduce heat sources” at Carlisle. Conversely, the Goggarbank cabinet is at least twice as high and appears to be in the region of 1.2 metres by 1 metre at the base. Furthermore the aerial image in close up indicates far too much paved area within the enclosure itself.

Tim Channon did a detailed review of this excessive paving within enclosures and how it effectively emulates UHI effects. I strongly recommend reading his work on this to put Goggarbank in context..

Met Office synoptic station paving and emplacements

Clearly Tim demonstrated significant effects from the paving alone which I have also noted at many other sites where the Met Office has admitted to removal of slabs in order reduce heat sources such as at Milford Haven, Nottingham Watnall and Isle of Portland amongst many others.

Taking this “heat sources” issue further I reported the bizarre example of the likes of Winterbourne No 2 where a tiny low power transformer was removed from the screen stand on the basis that it may affect readings whilst neighbouring massive electricity sub stations to Amersham and Bingley were not considered relevant.

2024-10-14

Current

SITE INFORMATION

THERE IS NOW ONE JUNCTION BOX ON THE EAST SIDE OF THE STEVENSON SCREEN STAND TO REDUCE THE NUMBER OF HEAT SOURCES.

In the case of Goggarbank, the excessive enclosure paving and close proximity of the large cabinet added to the neighbouring roads and junction and the railway line all rather contrive to render the site Class 5.

Curiously in Tim’s original Goggarbank report he emphasized the point “most likely does not get as cold as it ought which will have little general effect.” Tim may not have realised back then just how much rising nighttime temperatures from both Aitken Effect (Googarbank likely very prone to) and changes in reading protocol (Gogarbank’s predecessor site at East Craigs was manually once daily reporting) were to be contributing to the overall increase in daily means.

In summary, whilst Goggarbank superficially may look to be an acceptable rural site it is in fact realistically Class 5 unrepresentative Junk. The Met Office must do better than this.

Source: https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2025/11/05/edinburgh-goggarbank-wmo03166-an-example-of-met-office-dual-standards-and-failure-to-meet-their-own-claims/