Bridlington MRSC WMO 03292 – A classic example of changes over time and comparison difficulties.

54.09395 0.17589 Met Office CIMO Assessed Class 5 Archived Temperature data from 1/1/1990

There have been weather stations at various locations in Bridlington since an original in 1908 at the Grammar School which ran up to 1943. The municipal water works took over from 1952 to 1980, then the screen was relocated to the Cemetery to run from 1981 to the end of 1989 when the current Coastguard station took over from 1990. All four sites were markedly different, all the first three were manually reporting as well as inland with the current site automated from the very beginning and on the extreme coast.

The assessment of the current site as Class 5 is hardly surprising even from just the Street View close up image. There is no site security with the screen in effectively a front garden. The building, fences and shrubs will all play a small part in altering the nature of the site but none of these are the real problems. The big issue is the dramatic change of what is now alongside from the above 2009 image.

In high summer Bridlington is a very popular seaside resort and a huge number of cars were able to park right alongside that front garden housing the screen. Clearly this was not a good site for reading accuracy and things most certainly did not improve. The car parking alongside on rough ground was turned into quality black tarmac and became Limekiln Lane Coach Park able to handle 24 large luxury and air conditioned coaches. It often takes a long time to load up the passengers onto a coach and they do not want to swelter in the heat. The engines will be running all the time to power the air con and simultaneously waft warm exhausts over the screen barely a few feet away. This totally unacceptable site now looks like this.

All these multiple site relocations and subsequent alterations to the latest site should render any bonding together of datasets an exercise in futility but that certainly never stops the Met Office. However, they may wish to dress it up with “Peer Reviewed Process” nobody can really take this seriously. To suggest they have data worthy of displaying realistic long term trends from such yo-yoing sites and the current Class 5 junk status conditions is frankly nonsense.

Interestingly on these “Climate Average” pages the data only ever runs from 1960 onwards. If you have ever wondered why they simply do not go back any earlier, it is not just , as some may claim, picking a cold period start point to emphasise recent warming. Those who lived through the winter of 1962/3 (I did) or that of 1947 ( I recall my parents telling me about it…..in 1962/3) would feel that those periods cold winters would have a lowering effect over quite a few years averages. However, there is also a point shown here at Bridlington by the old water works latest readings up to 31/12/1959.

Colums “I” and “J” are maximum and minimum air temperatures. Notice how “blocky” the numbers look – lots of 7.2s or 8.3s or 10.6s but never, ever say a 10.2 or 7.3 or an 8.6. This is simply because prior to 1961 readings were in Fahrenheit and just to the nearest degree at most sites. This means reported accuracy only comes in at 0.55°C as opposed to the subsequent 0.1°C. It is also worth noting that this 0.55°C unit also runs into the Met Office principle of rounding UP halves thus 33°F becomes 0.6°C. Whilst 40°F is shown as 4.4°C, 41°F converts 5°C. The conversion inaccuracy effectively expands itself at selected points with 1 degree Fahrenheit either 0.5°C or 0.6°C dependent on when rounding is applied. The quote “Every part per million and every fraction of a degree temperature increase has a real impact on our lives and our planet. Prof. Celeste Saulo, WMO Secretary-General” seems to have been rather missed. So much for making historic comparisons with this to work with for 30 year periods starting in 1940 or 1950. Ironically converting the modern Celsius readings to Fahrenheit instead might improve accuracy.

To summarise, Bridlington is a very low grade site not reflecting the surrounding area and considerably different to its relatively open inland predecessors variously at a school, waterworks and cemetery. It is prone to regular large extraneous heat sources (cars and coaches) most often likely at times of already warmer conditions. Yet again the Met Office has bonded separate datasets together to compile climate representations of dubious provenance. Bridlington is not a site that should be included in any historic national temperature record.