By Jo Nova
Electronic sensors can pick up phantom electrical noiseIn the last thirty years the Bureau has installed electronic thermometers all over the country. But unlike the old glass ones, the new sensitive equipment can not only pick up freak gusts of hot air, they can also pick up electrical interference. Theoretically, electronic thermometers could report phantom measurements induced by large electric fields, like perhaps by an airport radar as it sweeps through the electronics.
Indeed as Lance Pidgeon points out, the cable that runs from the platinum resistance probe runs out of the Stevenson screen, down the pole, under the ground and pops up at the electronic data-logger some 6 to 10 meters away. This makes for a nice long aerial ready to pick up “noise” and feed it into the data-logger. Those airport radars produce huge electric fields — all it takes is slight induction of a voltage difference across the 10m cable and voila… the data logger records a “warmer” second.
Here’s the small forgotten airport radar at Heathrow standing about 12 stories high. Imagine the power that puts out?
David Monniaux
Electromagnetic interference could also be triggered by mobile phones or radio [...]