The Temperature Of The UK Over The Last 100 Years (part 2)

A butcher's at daily maxima and minima over the last 100 years. Are things getting worse, and what does ‘worse’ mean?

I am now looking at an Excel spreadsheet of all the data I could squeeze out of this handy Met Office online resource. If any paying subscriber would like a copy please do ask - I’d like to think I’m delivering decent value for money!

Introducing Tmax

Tmax is where we shall start, this being defined as:

Just to make sure everyone understands how Tmax comes about, the absolute maximum temperature at each station is noted on a daily basis and at the end of every month somebody calculates the arithmetical mean (a.k.a. average) of these readings. Tmax is thus not a data record of the hottest temperatures recorded at each station and, if I am being honest, these are rather silly things to announce to the general public unless you are dead keen on climate propaganda.

There are several reasons for this silliness starting with the analytical reality that extremes of any kind are regarded as outliers by statisticians who will throw them away and/or replace them with interpolated, modelled or smoot…