In 2016, the Netherlands Meteorological Institute adjusted temperatures at De Bilt, the country’s main climate station. Daily maximums from 1901 to 1950 were lowered by up to 1.9C, which removed 16 of 23 heatwaves from the record.
The altered data were then used to claim modern heatwaves were unprecedented.
Four researchers challenged the changes, but the institute dismissed the criticism, so the analysis went to peer review. In 2021, it was published, conclusively demonstrating the method systematically erased historical heat extremes.
Today, the Meteorological Institute has quietly changed its approach, and as a result, seven erased heatwaves have been restored, including the extreme summer of 1947.
Here again, we have a government agency caught rewriting climate history. The Netherlands Meteorological Institute erased heatwaves of the past, ignored critics, and reinstated the truth only when the evidence became impossible to ignore.
Policies were built on that manipulated record.
Dutch farmers lost livelihoods.
Industry and the wider economy paid the price.
But accountability is coming.
https://x.com/Electroversenet/status/2060375612045541411?s=20