Germany’s DWD reverses, annuls Lingen’s July 25, 2019 all-time 42.6°C record high temperature. Station siting was not up to standard, had caused inflated readings.
Media berserk over all-time record high
Back in July 2019, the German media and the German DWD national weather service went into overdrive when the Lingen-Germany station, located in northwest Germany near the Dutch border, smashed the country’s all-time record high as the ‘mercury’ rose to a scorching 42.6°C. Another sign of global warming.
The previous all-time had been a comparatively cool 40.3°C, so the margin was impressive – too impressive!
Criticism over lousy siting
Within days, independent meteorologists cast doubt over the heat record, pointing to serious station siting issues. The record-setting station station was located right near a DWD office building, shielded from the wind by grown trees and situated in a depression in the ground that trapped air and prevented it from mixing:
Heat trap. In a hole, shielded by trees, with no air movement. Image source: Jannes Wessels, WetterOnline
Good scientific quality measurement?
At first DWD officials dismissed the criticism, telling Bild daily it planned to stick to the record Lingen readings, deeming them to be of good scientific quality. The DWD insisted the siting had been found to have “no serious influence on the temperature measurements” and therefore “did not contradict the WMO standards.”
DWD then admits record high needed to be rechecked
But the criticism of the station’s integrity did not stop. For example, an NTZ summary of all the temperature readings recorded at the time at Lingen compared to those of 6 nearby stations showed how the Lingen readings stood out like a sore thumb:
On every single day, Lingen handily beat its neighbors, at times by large margins. Clearly something was amiss.
Eventually some 10 months later, in June 2020, the DWD was forced to concede the station was not optimally sited after all, and thus needed to be rechecked, read here. The DWD also noted the station would be moved as well.
DWD annuls Lingen’s record reading
Finally, just before Christmas, 2020, the DWD announced that the all-time record high temperature for Germany indeed had been scrapped, according to a recent Klimaschau report.
According to Uwe Kirsche, DWD spokesman and public relations head:
“We have re-examined the temperature data from Lingen for half a year – also using parallel measurements – and other older readings in this regard. The results are clear: Since 2017 temperatures in the surrounding area occurred again and again that were not representative of the region. That was the case on July 25, 2019. For this reason the German record value of 42.6°C measured in Lingen has been removed from the climate archives.”
Though the record stands, all the blaring media headlines remain. In today’s Internet world, falsehoods make their way 100 times around the world before the truth catches up.
Needless to say, there are no blaring headlines about the correction. The public information damage is irreversible.
Let’s say the instruments were accurate and you were sitting on the middle step (see photo) eating lunch, then the temperature reading of 42.6°C ( 108.7°F) would be the ambient temperature. Except for you and your rapidly melting ice cream, that’s not very useful.
The Climate Cult just loves this stuff, though.
Pierre, thank you for this post.
In another life, I was a US Air Force Weather Officer, and I was responsible for setting up and operating meteorological instruments at the German Military Artillery Test Range 91 near Meppen, Germany, in 1975 and 1976. The Meppen range is only 15 miles or 25 km from the poorly exposed DWD site at Lingen; this area is low, flat, and almost featureless. Our effort was part of the US contribution to a NATO applied research project called OPAQUE, Optical Properties of Atmospheric Qualities in Europe, during the Cold War. We were trying to characterize the atmosphere and atmospheric effects likely to be encountered by military systems should the Soviet Union have attacked across the North German Plain. I am quite familiar with the area. Like you, I criticized the DWD’s rapid claim of a new record high maximum for all of Germany, this criticism was included in my presentation to our climate study group, Cruces Atmospheric Sciences Forum, and a post at our web site, https://casf.me/the-2019-heat-wave-in-europe-and-beyond/ , specifically the paragraph, On the ground in the North German Plain military Avenue of Approach.
The World Meteorological Organization publishes standards for surface meteorological measurements, but who enforces the standards? The National Offices for Meteorology in the member countries are supposed to, and when they don’t, we have the goat-rope of the DWD claiming the record high temperature, only to have to retract that claim, a year and a half after it was made. You and I used the same photo of the Lingen site from Twitter; it is plainly obvious from the photographs that the Lingen DWD site plainly fails the WMO standards. Better late than never. Thanks again.
As the climate alarmists seem to be cooking the numbers at 42,6C, have a look at their playbook : (2 min musical excerpt) :
Die Hauptsache ist der Effekt!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHSFELOSCJI
The main thing is the effect of the recipe at the Haunted Inn at Spessart.
Note the wraiths in the attic !
And the electronic temp-sensors measure down to 1/10000! then it´s rounded off to the nearest 1/10… The sitings of Köln, Duisburg and Tonisvorsts are excellent??
You might be interested in taking a look at the official Gothenburg weather station is Sweden, very popular for heat records and climate scare stories, situated between a busy blacktop highway and an equally busy Railway, right next to a level crossing where cars line up with the A/C going full blast in summer:
https://www.google.se/maps/@57.7158003,11.9926711,3a,75y,228.32h,97.53t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sZvH9ESOMWJElVS_Si0ZDIQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656