Issued: 2130hrs Thursday 14th December 2006
Duty forecaster: Simon Keeling
Be wary of facts and figures, especially in the media
The British Media have today been full of a story about 2006 going into the record books; as the Daily Express put it, "2006: Our Hottest Year of All Time". But the headline isn't telling the complete story, and a look at the statistics and record books reveals all.
The CET (Central England Temperature Series) was compiled and devised by Prof. Gordon Manley. He took the mean temperature between two sites, Oxford's Radcliffe Observatory and one in Lancashire which he hoped would be representative of the western Midlands.
The series goes back to 1659 and was maintained by Manley until 1973. After this, the Met Office continued to maintain the series, but crucially they changed the method of calculation to use a variety of stations in the Midlands. Oxford and the one in Lancashire were not used! A good reference source is Philip Eden's excellent web site.
So, to compare figures from 1659 with the present day is not strictly accurate. Using Philip Eden's recalculated series (which follows Manley's methods) the current year is, to 13th December at least, equivalent to 1990. With much cooler weather forecast during the coming week or so, this figure is likely to fall and may end up nearer to 10.5, in which case 1989, 1990, 1997, 1999, 2002, 2003, 2005 have all been warmer.
You see, one has to be very careful when interpreting data, as a famous politician once said, "there are lies, damn lies and statistics". Yes, things have got warmer, but we need to maintain scientific credentials throughout, otherwise who can complain when the media gets the story wrong? Simon