Aldergrove WMO 03917 – A clear view of the car park.

54.66381 -6.22511 Met Office CIMO Assessed Class 3 Installed 1/1/1926

This site is better known as Belfast International Airport. A reader of considerable expertise, “Lapogus” raised concerns in a comment on the review of Tyndrum regarding a “step change” in readings from Aldergrove compared to Malin Head. Looking in detail at Aldergrove it is hardly surprising there are noted problems.

Lapogus reported,  “I recently had a close look (on Google Earth) at two stations in Northern Ireland *– Aldergrove & Malin Head – and concluded that Aldergrove station has warmed by an average of 0.5C with repect to Malin Head since the long stay carpark was built around 2010. See https://x.com/lapogus1/status/1778314688893178207 “

(* Tallbloke Note – for clarity Malin Head lies in the Republic of Ireland)

An interesting point to note firstly is that the Met Office assessed Aldergrove as high as class 3 “only” being inaccurate due to siting by an additional 1°C. They seem to regularly high rate their aviation sites well above credibility as demonstrated by Dyce being rated Class 4 and Heathrow an even more absurd Class 3. Normally aviation site concerns are raised by proximity to the runway and engine blast areas but here in the case of Aldergrove it is the main large car park that raises questions. The screen compound to the right of the road is alongside an entrance gate system that will inevitably cause vehicles to pause alongside with engines running.

From the headline image the scale of the black tarmac area acting as a heat sink seems very considerable but the real scale of compromising area only comes from a wide angle image with the screen in the top left of the image. There is almost a square kilometre of heat absorbing artificial surface to the south east unquestionably absorbing daytime heat and elevating night time lows – classic heat island effect. The additional construction of the long stay car park simply extended the effect directly to the weather station and elevated averages. The only possible surprise is the recently noted average temperature elevation is only 0.5 °C since construction of the car park.

For comparison this is an aerial image of the Malin Head site – it really has not changed for a very long time. There is not a lot of tarmac and artificial built up area around it is there?

I find it beyond reasonably credible that the Met Office are unaware of such significant site area changes and the inevitable effects these have.However, despite Aldergrove indicating artificial warming, realistically the general public will have no idea whatsoever where it actually is and the causes of this incremental warming – must be Climate Change……..or not.