Mylnefield DCNN1351 – Relocation, incorrect scale conversions, questionable climate averages and dubious ideology.

Original site: 54.456875 -3.0732783 No known Met Office CIMO Assessment Records from 1/1/1954 to 25/5/2021

Current Site: 54.455.99 -3.0701 Met office CIMO Assessed Class 4 Records from 26/5/2021.

Mylnefield weather station is just to the west of Dundee and is hosted by the James Hutton Institute (JHI). I suggest its data is not only wholly unreliable but also grossly misrepresented by its own hosts who now seem to be more concerned with making exaggerated claims of climate alarmism than objective science.

The above BBC article was part of their annual “COPFest” climate hysterical propaganda that is now, allegedly, the subject of an, “in depth”, but internal review. Paul Homewood (NALOPKT) and others (including myself) led the protests against this article resulting in the following correction.

“Correction: This story has been amended to give the right average monthly temperature for February and make it clear that the report says extreme weather events – rather than specifically storms – are becoming more likely because of climate change.“

The original “Paper” that this report was based on was a frankly risible piece of nonsense from the James Hutton Institute proclaiming the typical future climate Armageddon considered necessary to fund grant applications. The “Summary for Policymakers” i.e. the dumbed down, schlock horror comic strip looks like this.

Given the “summary” discusses issues of how “Scotland’s climate has changed since 1960” it is appropriate to examine the quality of the raw data that this report should have been based on……their own weather station records.

Firstly, the current site is very poor and rated by the Met office as CIMO Class 4 with its attendant “Class 4 (additional estimated uncertainty added by siting up to 2 °C)”

However, poor as it is, this is not the site from which the JHI has its long term climate record from 1954. The original site would unquestionably have been rated Class 5 (if deemed acceptable at all) being within a few feet of massive areas of heated greenhousing, buildings and totally unnatural surroundings. Its standard of inaccuracy was “Class 5 (additional estimated uncertainty added by siting up to 5 °C).

Consider the above factual basis on which to start research with these sorts of conclusions.

“There has never been a more important time to understand the scale of the threat and how fast we need to act. The acceleration of climate change and biodiversity loss on a global scale could push us beyond key tipping points, which if crossed will be irreversible” Dr Mike Rivington”

Perhaps Dr Mike Rivington may wish to visit his own institution’s weather stations on which he bases his claims and reconsider his “findings”………… I say this almost certain that he never has.

Looking further into the site history, Mylnefield site originally recorded readings in Fahrenheit. The conversion of these records onto Celsius was clearly somewhat creative.

As I reported in my report on scale conversions there are only specific conversion points in celsius if the “round up” process is correctly followed. In the above Mylnefield conversion of 1954, “round down” was applied resulting in completely different data points for comparison. The difference recorded in Celsius from 31°F to 33°F is seemingly 1.2°C at most sites but only 1.0°C at Mylnefield…….. and yet the Met Office quotes climate averages for UK sites to the 2nd decimal place. Remember JHI states

“In some parts of the country, temperatures in February, for example, have risen 2.5°C, since 1960. This observed change is……..“

It does rather seem irrelevant what “This observed change” may originally have been when botched scale conversions take over such as in 1960 when the “round up” was correctly applied and all those represented numbers almost magically changed.

Suddenly that 2°F difference of formerly just 1.0°C has now “global warmed” to 1.2°C.

This may not seem relevant to the comparison of data as made by Dr Rivington, as most Met office stations converted to Celsius reading in 1961, but Mylnefield did not. In fact it was not until 1970 that readings were taken in celsius as evidenced by the crude conversion persisting in the CEDA records in this 1969 archive.

If all this seems somewhat sarcastic of me, I make no apology whatsoever. Not only do I find it quite risible to have such inaccurate conversions, I would argue it is irresponsible to such an extent as to make any claims based on such data potentially of dubious legality. On a practical note ask any mechanical engineer to work to such tolerance variability and see the response you get!

So far we have data from an artificial micro climate that is likely unrepresentative of the wider natural environment by up to +/-5°C which has also had previous data scale-converted quite whimsically. Then again it is also dependent on readings actually being taken.

Column I is daily maximum temperature and NA is no reading, a prerequisite for a daily mean to be calculated. The omission of 90 days readings in one year alone seems mere bagatelle compared to some other sites, such are the Met Office accepted poor standards. Presumably another unspecified station makes up the gaps but which station that actually is/was is seemingly a state secret. Mylnefields observation standard was far from the best.

Now those 1961 to 2020 climate averages that Dr. Rivington feels are so indicative of impending doom…….for his own institution.

Firstly, as ever, I shall eliminate the creative fiction from the possible fact.

BLAIRGOWRIE – Temperature readings ended on 1/1/1977 (1 maximum reading only taken to complete the year of 1976) No real data for almost 49 years – just state secret computer simulations.

PERTH – Temperature readings ended 31/12/1979. There was a separate weather station at the old aerodrome which continued to 2000 but this was over 5 miles distant, out of town and with a completely different climatology. 47 years of no comparative raw data – just more state secret computer simulations.

Forfar No 3 – Temperature records started 1/4/1985 and ended 1/9/1994 so less than 10 years worth of raw data for a 60 year climate period. No real data for 50 out of 60 years – yet more state secret concoction.

Is there a shortage of available operational weather stations to use in Scotland? There are, in fact, 114 of them which begs the question why other more suitable sites with real world numbers could not be used.

Thus apart from Mylnefield itself, the only other “comparative” station is Class 5 RAF Leuchars. I seriously doubt many of the general public would accept that comparing an agricultural research centre west of Dundee with a North Sea coastal and exposed major military airfield is reasonable.

This leaves the homogenised data for Mylnefield itself.

My MK 1 eyeball sees a quoted 1.0°C increment in maxima and just 0.42°C for minima claimed from remarkably inaccurate raw data over a 60 year period. This very small change in overnight minima likely reflects the continuous manual, once daily reading regime continuing to double count cold events and also the artificial overnight heating of the surrounding glass houses.

Given the known inaccuracy levels of all instruments, the instrumentation change from LIGT to PRT in 2017, the known additional uncertainties by siting and the somewhat perverse scale conversions in the recent past, then most rational analysts would say this data indicated precisely nothing reliably at all. It certainly cannot be claimed to indicate any significant change warranting doom laden predictions. This data is typical of most of the 320 sites that I have reviewed so far. The exceptional good sites stand out quite noticeably.

In summary going back to my start-point regarding the James Hutton Institute, their weather station site is, and always has been, of an unacceptably poor standard for accurate climate reporting. That their senior academic staff are producing such reports based on the likes of their own data, as I have highlighted, is more testament to grant chasing and headline clickbait than any genuine scientific rigour. At least they got in the news and that is probably more important to them as genuine scientific research – i.e. more lucrative.

Mylnefield’s data is not suitable for any accurate historic temperature reconstruction.

Source: https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2025/11/13/mylnefield-dcnn1351-relocation-incorrect-scale-conversions-questionable-climate-averages-and-dubious-ideology/