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New doubt cast on Ireland's hottest temperature
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19-07-2022 5:20pm#1
https://www.thejournal.ie/research-kilkenny-castle-1887-hottest-temperature-record-5820271-Jul2022/
The below is interesting as the assumption from some on here was that the 33.3 was totally representative of conditions in Ireland and the UK at the time.
"The reanalysis also compared the temperature recorded in Kilkenny to six other weather stations, including in Birr, Phoenix Park, Roches Point, and Sheffield in the UK.
These stations have nearly complete records through to today, many of which have been digitised, according to the study.
The maximum surface temperatures of the selected weather stations for June 1887. The red point marker shows the maximum surface temperature recorded at Kilkenny on 26 June 1887.
“We can look at the modern day differences between those and when we look at the date in 1887, the Kilkenny Castle difference is either entirely outside the distribution of expected daily occurrences or right in the extreme of that distribution,” Thorne said.
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Here's a basic map showing the maximum temps at various available stations on 26 June 1887, the day of the Kilkenny Castle record. Given the variation we can see on a typical very warm to hot day in Ireland, it looks fine to me 🤷♂️ second highest out of these was 31.7C at Blackrock, Cork.
Photography site - https://www.sryanbruenphoto.com/
Weather photo portfolio - https://sryanbruen.myportfolio.com/weather-1
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Firstly, yesterday's 33.1 has been rejected and the earlier 33.0 has been confirmed.
It's in Thorne's interest to cast doubt on the KK value as it will help keep him well-funded into the future. I find it ironic that he says this:
“It would have been mercury and glass thermometers, and it probably would have been a maximum and minimum thermometer. [The weather station] is something that would look like a meteorological shelter that we see today, but it would have been probably smaller because the large shelters were an innovation that came around in the First and Second World Wars,”.
“It would have been smaller and the smaller size of that would have left it more prone to solar heating effects during the day, and then coupled to that would have been [questions about whether] it well sited, was it near a wall of the castle that might heat during the day and expel heat.
I wonder if he thinks the same about the 48-degree reading in Sicily last year, which was recorded using an AWS in a tiny radiation shield sitting a few cm above a thick metal arm in a small, dark metal fence enclosure near a stone wall in a bare field near a road. I don't expect he does. Or about the Shannon carkpark. Or the building beside the PP enclosure.
The Phoenix Park site has no doubt changed over time, both naturally (I assume the trees have grown) and artificially (that buildin a few steps away). Modern instrumentation does not distinguish between air that has been heated naturally or artificially, it will accurately measure the temperature just the same. Just as a mercury one will do. Using Thorne's rationale, we should reject many more old measurements because they were done before the standardisation of practices.
Post edited by Gaoth Laidir on7 -
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![MetCouncil1890large[1].jpg](https://us.v-cdn.net/6034073/uploads/4SED8N4AA5AW/metcouncil1890large-5b1-5d.jpg)
That is a very good question @fryup - the above image quoted from @StratoQ's Kilkennyweather.com site explains the following:
I have found a copy of the Report of the Meteorological Council 1890 which mentions the inspection that took place at Kilkenny Castle in August 1889 (Two years after the record breaking temperature was recorded). The report states that the instruments were all in good order. The maximum thermometer was checked against a known good standard thermometer and the correction to be applied was found to be 0.0° (i.e. the thermometer required no correction and was reporting the true value).
So, even two years after the record was taken, the same thermometer was checking out as being "spot on" and recording accurately.
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Yes - it does appear that they were perhaps a bit selective with the stations they chose.
It doesn't just appear so, they were without much doubt very selective in what they chose. Adding Sheffield in there was bizarre to say the least. I went through the flies they left on git hub, they included Galways 30.0c in their comparisons there but it never appeared in the chart on the final report - the one where they put a little red box to imply Kilkenny was way out of kilter.
![original[1].png](https://us.v-cdn.net/6034073/uploads/HIE7ECD3DIM1/original-5b1-5d.png)
The poor quality of this even shows Kilkenny incorrectly labeled on the plot chart, how can Kilkenny show a max of 29.2c for June 26th 1887 and also show 33.3c for June 26th 1887 marked by a red box? A very basic error to make on a paper entitled Reassessing Ireland’s Hottest Temperature Record, which is currently being peer reviewed and was resubmitted yesterday morning for what he hopes is the final revision.
Sryanbruen above spent a couple of hours pulling data from Met.ie and recreated a chart that is ten fold more professional than what this paper purports to show.
However, perhaps it's because these stations have the longest and most reliable set of records? I'm not sure.
If these stations have a most reliable set of records, why are they questioning the 33.3c, ignoring the fact that the thermometer used to record 33.3c was checked and found to be working! Are they investigating Markree's -19.1c recorded just six years earlier too? Or is it's validity overlooked just because it's a cold record?
"These stations have nearly complete records through to today, many of which have been digitised, according to the study."
Which is a good thing if the digitisation process is free from alterations such as homogenisation - i.e. just the raw data please.
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