Watts up Doc?
UPDATE from on the road: Eli has been off planet for a week. Ms Rabett has taken control, but she is fluffing in the shower and we are in a place with wireless. Anyhow, brief looking about shows that Steve McIntyre has found a mistake in some of the GISS adjustments (actually Eli does not even know if the mistake was with the GISS or the USHCN bunches, as Climate Audit appears to be off the air because of a DRDOS attack, or at least that is what they say).
However, junior management wishes to point out that as we pointed out below, the issue was not the physical layout of the stations, Tony Watts' and Roger Pielke Sr. thing. After going through the metadata about Detroit Lakes, Eli concluded there was a problem, but the problem had to be in the adjustments. Eli, being the lazy Rabett, and ear deep in work at the time left it at that without looking into the matter. McIntyre found one, which from the comment slipstream appears to have been fairly trivial (sort of like Spencer and Christy's minus sign), but, as Tony pointed out and is quoted below)
But hey, they can "fix" the problem with math and adjustments to the temperature record.They did.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Tony Watt's surface station watchers have landed a whopper, Detroit Lakes, Mn, a rural station in western Minnesota (ID: 212142)
As he saysThis picture, taken by www.surfacestations.org volunteer Don Kostuch is the Detroit Lakes, MN USHCN climate station of record. The Stevenson Screen is sinking into the swamp and the MMTS sensor is kept at a comfortable temperature thanks to the nearby A/C units.According to Don Kostuch, the AC unit was moved from the roof of the building 5/99 and the chart from GISS (uncorrected USHCN data) shows ~ 4C jump about 1999
This has everyone (well isn't Climate Audit everyone) jumping up and down and has even made it over to Germany
Much speculation.
Knashing of Hansen
We codda done it better
Ah, but little bunnies, if we actually go and get the data from GISS or from CDIAC (sadly in F) we see that the jump
| Year | GISS | CDIAC | Mo. Miss. |
| 1990 | 3.92 | 39.71 | |
| 1991 | 3.75 | 39.46 | 1 |
| 1992 | 999.9 | 38.81 | 7 |
| 1993 | 999.9 | 37.46 | 12 |
| 1994 | 999.9 | 38.94 | 6 |
| 1995 | 3.68 | 37.81 | |
| 1996 | 1.59 | 34.94 | |
| 1997 | 999.9 | 38.57 | 4 |
| 1998 | 6.4 | 43.52 | |
| 1999 | 6.93 | 44.72 | |
| 2000 | 7.58 | 42.73 | |
| 2001 | 6.54 | 43.71 | |
| 2002 | 5.7 | 40.71 | |
| 2003 | 5.42 | 40.36 | |
| 2004 | 5.52 | 40.21 | |
| 2005 | 6.37 | 42.04 |
really comes in 1997/1998. The lab bunnies, who do RTFR also noted that there were a whole bunch of months missing in 1997 and earlier in the decade, (USHCN fills in even long stretches, GISS 999.99s them out) so they went to the historical record for Detroit Lakes and they saw that the station moved from one side of the lake to the other August 30, 2002. The satellite picture shows no building near the old site. Thus the jump happened two years before the station moved to its current location near the air conditioner.
UPDATE: Eli and the bunnies want to drive a stake into that air conditioner theory. Detroit Lakes is in rural western Minnesota. They do not run A/C during the winter. It is too cold for a heat pump. If there were any effect from the A/C it would raise the temperature during the summer. Let us look at the difference between the summer (J-J-A) and the winter (D-J-F). Listening to the ranting anonymice there should be a jump when the A/C was installed (1999)
Guess not.Well what about that scuzzy Stevenson screen. August 11, 2006 the max/min thermometer was replaced by the MMTS sensor. Nothing under the screen, why pay any attention to it. One might speculate that when they put in the automatic MMTS they pushed it to the side and left it. The shelter has since gone through a Minnesota winter. Eli, a plush white Rabett, would look like that after one of those suckers.
So what DID happen in 97/98 according to the historical record?
Two things. On January 1, 1997 the station was moved to another management section and it looks like the time of observation changed from 17:00 to 7:00 and on July 16 1998 the observer changed.
Looks like a lot of the new anonymice were wrong when they thought a photograph alone was important. Of course, we are depending on the station historical record available to everyone through the majic of the INTERTUBES. Still, there does appear to be a problem here, IEHO associated with an imperfect homogeneity adjustment
Currently all data adjustments in the USHCN are based on the use of metadata. However station histories are often incomplete or changes that can cause a time series discontinuity, such as replacing a broken thermometer with one that is calibrated differently, are not routinely entered into station history files. Because of this we are developing another step in the processing that will apply a time series discontinuity adjustment scheme described in Peterson and Easterling (1994) and Easterling and Peterson (1995). This methodology does not use station histories and identifies discontinuities in a station's time series using a homogeneous reference series developed from surrounding stations.Eli will let Tony Watts have the last word, because at least he got it right
But hey, they can "fix" the problem with math and adjustments to the temperature record.
Posts
61 comments:
It looks like Steve McIntyre is desperately trying to raise the level of discussion at Climate Audit (above Death Valley level, at least)
"The purpose of this blog is to analyze articles in detail and not to provide a platform for venting. For the next couple of weeks, I would like to declare a moratorium on people venting their own opinions about climate models, atmospheric physics and thermodynamics, however meritorious these opinions may be. If you want to comment on the model set out in the article below and identify shortcomings and defects in it, fine, otherwise please hold your fire on these topics."
So, are his efforts succeeding?
Here's the second comment down:
"When it comes to future Earth climate, it’s very clear that no objective knowledge is available. As regards AGW, no one actually knows what they’re talking about. The whole thing is a pious fraud."
Not a very propitious start, I'd have to say.
The first commenter (who mentioned Eli's spectroscopy posts) opined "The expertise is out there. It definitely is. Let’s see some of it here."
When they have the likes of John A scaring away the guests? Fat chance.
Actually, if you look at other nearby rural stations like this one, you also see a fairly large jump in temperature at the same time.
The temperature jump certainly appears to be real.
And so does the upward temperature trend that is apparent in the rural stations over most of the 20th century.
As far as that air conditioner goes, it is blowing air directly upward and since hot air also rises, it will continue upward. this will draw air in from the surroundings. In other words, the air will b drawn from the swamp past the temperature sensor, which could even cool the sensor. I doubt it will make much if any difference in the temperature, at any rate.
Since there seems to be so much concern about air conditioners (that apparently run all year, night and day), and BBQs (ditto), has there been any studies, scientific, ad hoc or otherwise, on the actual effect they would have on a temperature sensor based on placement. i.e. distance, upwind, elevation, etc. Certainly a "worst case" effect could be modeled by plugging in the variables. i.e. 3 moderate sized air conditioners operating at full load placed at X, Y, and Z, with wind blowing at the direction and rate as to make the most significant contribution to the measured temperature.
The efforts of the "surfacestations.org" crowd are beginning to look decidedly amateurish. Funny that, coming from a bunch of amateurs.
As an aside, I've no problem with amateurs in science. In astronomy and biology (to name a few) amateurs have provided incredible value to science. But, this doesn't mean that amateurs are likely to overturn decades of work (by amateurs and professionals alike). It also seems to me that many of the surfacestations.org crowd have difficulty drawing conclusions from their observations.
Thats some good detective work there Eli, but there's an assumption you made that is incorrect. The station did not move in 2002 "from one side of the lake to the other", but the lat/lon was in fact updated at that time.
From MMS's "Updates" tab:
[ 2002-08-30 ] --- B44 21 10. CHANGE UPDATE LAT/LON & SRC, EQUIP
I've seen this on a number of stations, where they have the COOP observer get a GPS fix (as we do in surveys) and then update the record. Unfortunately, looking at the Google Map they imbed in MMS it can give the false impression of a station move. I don't see any evidence of an observer change, the radio station was listed as the observer through that period and is currently.
There's a couple of other unknowns still. 1) You say Minnesota is "too cold" to run the A/C in winter. I beg to differ. Having been around TV and radio transmitters a good portion of my life, and seeing the transmisssion line to the antennas (looks like fence rail in photo) pass right by the A/C's It's a sure bet the radio transmitter and equipment room is right on the other side of the wall. From experience I've seen A/C's run even in deep winter to push that transmitter room heat outside. I'll call the engineer there to find out for sure.
2) The date of 5/5/99 to "move the A/C's off the roof to current location" is from the person Kostuch interviewed. What we don't know if one or both were moved or if that date is truly accurate. If one A/C unit was there for the transmitter room, and a second one joined it at ground level, it may have made a difference. Again I'll find out for sure.
On another interesting but unrelated note, it appears they changed from the CRS and mercury max/min thermometers to the MMTS due to fears of mercury contamination of the "wetlands". From the "remarks" tab:
REMOVE CRS/MXMN. OBSERVER REMOVED XMMN AND EQUIPMENT NOT AVAILABLE. RADIO STATION LOCATED IN MARSHY AREA AND MERCURY THERMOMETRS DEEMED POTENTIAL POINT POLUTION SOURCE. ADD MMTS TO REPLACE MXMN
Thats a first as far as I know.
Anyways' I'll find out from the radio station and get back to you. I want to know just as much as you do.
Ant'ny, while you're at it, have your guy measure the "temp" at the sensor while the A/C is going and while it's off. Probably want to do it with different prevailing "wind" speeds and directions too. I'm "sure" you have "standard" equipment to do this.
Also have "him" take a "number" of "samples" to gauge the chance of the A/C going when an "obs" is made, and the chance the wind is blowing toward the "sensor".
And what's the chance of radiant "heat" off the building "biasing" "temp" measurements? Better have your guy take a number of "data" points to get the fraction of the time of day where this may be an "issue" and winds are favorable. Hint: get the position of the bldg and the solar trajectory to help gauge the fraction. Say, where are your temp/wind data collection protocols? Better get those updated PDQ Ant'ny before some amateur auditors find your site.
Oh, wait: we have a piccie. Never mind, we have all we need. My bad. Data. We "know". Haha.
A side note: the prevalence of messy sites sure does lend credence to the observation that the entire human world is in a conspiracy to send those temps up, thus driving plants northward (must be for the benefit of the Socialist Republic of Canuckistan). And if these bad sites keep coming, boy those pikas will read all about it and keep scuttling upward, eh?
Best,
D
"many of the surfacestations.org crowd have difficulty drawing conclusions from their observations."
...but they seem to have no problem drawing observations from their conclusions.
"So what DID happen in 97/98 according to the historical record?"
You mean besides El Nino?
These surfacestations folks seem to assume that there is nothing natural (ie, nothing outside of AC's and BBQ's) that can cause a relatively large jump in the temp from one year to the next.
If the sun exploded today, they would duly note on their glossy photos that "the temperature increased across the world due to a mass 'cookout' ".
Eli:
Perhaps you would like to comment on the difference in tone and content of Anthony's comments compared to the others so far on this string.
By the way, your addition to the information about a surface station is much appreciated. We cannot have too much good quality information about these weather stations.
Bernie, you have it, you just don't listen to it. The metainformation is out there. Anthony is aware of it. Why is it not integrated into the web site. It would be a simple link
Bernie: perhaps some commenters are less kind than others, but would you not agree that what is important is the science.
Just out of curiosity, have you left a similar comment at - say for example - Climate Audit.
Regards,
John Cross
Eli,
No correction to your mistake in the post on the "one side of the lake to the other" move that didn't happen?
As for the link to the Metadata at MMS yes it would be easy....except you missed this one detail:
You have to login to MMS. Even as "guest" which expires after a time. For example your own links in you blog post don't work, they just take you to the MMS login page. Of course you would notice that if you kept your browser open and tried right away after makign the post. But come back again in an hour, or the next day, and the links are broken.
If MMS allowed direct links, they'd be connected to every site survey on surfacestations.org
Perhaps you can use some of that Bunny charm with Karl or Easterling to make that happen?
"boy those pikas will read all about it and keep scuttling upward, eh?"
All the pikas I have ever seen (or, more often, heard, since pikas were meant to be heard, not seen) were already at the very tops of mountains.
perhaps you meant to say "those naked mole rats will read all about it and keep scuttling upward," since they are traditionally subterranean dwellers.
Anthony,
No correction to this statement?
"The Stevenson Screen is sinking into the swamp and the MMTS sensor is kept at a comfortable temperature thanks to the nearby A/C units."
Since you have now been informed that
1) the stevenson screen is no longer being used
2) the jump in temp around 1999 shows up on most of the rural stations in that area.
If you have proof that the "MMTS sensor is kept at a comfortable temperature thanks to the nearby A/C units.", you certainly have not shown it.
Perhaps you might look at the data and metadata for a change instead of simply jumping to unsupported conclusions based on your photos.
actually, to be perfectly accurate,
I should have said above
"2) the jump in temp around 1997 shows up on most of the rural stations in that area."
because that's when it began (not 1999)
by the way, for anyone who does not believe other rural stations in the vicinity of Detroit lakes had their temp jump by a similar amount from 1997-2000,
just look at these:
Park Rapids (60km NE of Detroit lakes) jumped by about 4.5 deg C
Iasca U (66km NE of Detroit lakes) jumped by 4 deg C over the same time (1997-2000)
Ada (73km NW of Detroit Lakes) jumped by 4.5 deg C
Wapeton (81km SW of Detroit lakes) jumped 4 deg C over the same time.
you can look at other rural stations near Detroit Lakes from this site.
Don't just look at the photos. Look at the actual temperature data!
Bernie:
"But hey, they can "fix" the problem with math and adjustments to the temperature record." - that's the ranting of an anti-science troll, not someone who needs to be taken seriously.
Thanks for pointing out the other stations and the jump. For the future then, I'll be sure to check other nearby stations to see if such things are natural or manmade.
Thanks for helping make the process better.
Still though, the site is out of compliance with published NOAA siting standards due to its proximity to the building, and the marsh, and while magnitude of the A/C contribution, large, small, or none, to the temp spike is unknown, having them nearby would not be considered a suitable temperature measurment environment.
I have a call into the chief engineer "Jeff" at KDLM radio to answer the questions about the A/C units. He's out of the office today but is expected to return tomorrow.
Eli, any luck on getting direct links to MMS with your influence there? I see you blog links to MMS still don't work, I'd like to include MMS Metadata links in the surfacestations.org database. Because the more data we can put in the better each site can be analysed for potential micro-site impacts.
Marion, you can't mathematically fix bias problems at sites that you don't know about. You ahve to know about the problems and then quantify them first before you can apply an equation.
That's the purpose, to identify the potential problems. And, later to sort out what level of impact they may have. Some noted problems may have little impact, others may be large. I'm sure somebody will do a study on A/C exhaust and neaby temperature measurement someday, and I support such an effort, even if it proves my observations and ideas wrong.
You may not like what I'm doing, and that's OK. But at least I'm doing something rather than just venting on a blog about things I don't like. Its' easy to criticize, anybody can do it, but its much harder to make an effort to support your words, which is why many people choose not to do it and fall back into the comfortable role of being a critic.
"Its' easy to criticize, anybody can do it, but its much harder to make an effort to support your words,"
You mean like supporting these words with temperature data?
"the MMTS sensor is kept at a comfortable temperature thanks to the nearby A/C units."
I see.
= dano said: =
="while you're at it, have your guy measure the "temp" at the sensor while the A/C is going and while it's off."=
Better yet, let's have the climate professionals do it.
The climate professionals know some of their temperature sensors are next to parking lots, right?
The climate professionals know their sensors are on rooftops at some sites too, right?
The climate professionals know their sensors in certain instances are right next to buildings also, right?
And the parking lots, they know about those too, right?
Let's all get together and chip in for a 100' tape measure for climate professionals. And not a cheap tape measure, a good one.
How about it guys?
> mercury thermometers
Serious concern. I've long been doing a little botanical restoration project, that for quite a while used a mercury max/min thermometer (the "U-tube" type with sliding weight).
Lost the first one to a small forest fire in 2004, and replaced it.
Lost the replacement in 2006, apparently to one of those people who likes to shoot anything shiny.
End of temperature series for that site, til I find an alcohol-type recording thermometer if such is possible. (In the old type, the mercury pushes a little sliver of steel along the tube.)
Makes good sense to take out mercury thermometers anywhere, these days. Too many bulletholes develop in instrument boxes, highway signs, gates, spring tanks, and any gear left on site.
Re 10:55
I see, Eli and his mice is the only ones allowed to make a "tongue in cheek" comment on a blog post, all others are disallowed.
And not a cheap tape measure, a good one."
I'd bet that the tape measure I just bought at Home Depot for 5 bucks works as well as any $500 tape measure that the government uses (maybe even better, if Haliburton made it)
I regularly measure things to 1/16 inch, so I'm sure it would be just fine for measuring to the nearest foot.
To be sure, my tape measure is only 25 feet long, but it's easy enough to measure off a string 100 feet once and then use it to ensure the proper distance time after time.
By the way, it's also easy enough to take the temperature at the sensor location and at the 4 primary compass directions 100 feet away (using my 100 foot string to measure off, of course) to see if there is any difference, which is certainly something that Watts' volunteers should be doing when they visit the sites.
Little extra effort and it could dispense with a lot of the speculation about (at least the general magnitude) of the effects of AC's, blacktop and the like.
I think if Watts does not do this, he is going to regret that he did not because the main effeort is visiting all these sites. Why not get as much data as possible?
Note that i am not talking about challenging the actual temperatures measured by the on site instruments (wince that would require careful calibration), but if all one is interested in are temperature differences (between the sensor location and the surroundings), one need not worry about the calibration issue, as long as the thermometer one is using is not completely broken.
Anon 11:15 said "I see, Eli and his mice is the only ones allowed to make a "tongue in cheek" comment on a blog post, all others are disallowed."
So you are saying that Watts' posts on surfacestations.org are intended as a joke?
Oh, now I get it.
John:
Absolutely. And at Real Climate too. Bad taste and bad manners are bad taste and bad manners, regardless of the position of the offender.
"By the way, it's also easy enough to take the temperature at the sensor location and at the 4 primary compass directions 100 feet away (using my 100 foot string to measure off, of course) to see if there is any difference, which is certainly something that Watts' volunteers should be doing when they visit the sites.
A little extra effort and it could dispense with a lot of the speculation about (at least the general magnitude) of the effects of AC's, blacktop and the like."
The trick there would be to buy or develop a battery portable hand held IR and sun shielded temperature sensor. Just doing it with a OTS consumer device wouldn't do.
But its worth looking into, I'll see what I can find that would do the job. Ideally something that would link to the GPS so a plot could be drawn by tracing expanded radius circles around the sensor. Another option might be a thermal imaging camera but the least expensive one I know of is about $10K.
Of course such spot checks won't answer questions about mixing ratios due to wind variance etc. that would have to be a much more detailed study.
Its easy enough to return to many of these sites and do follow up and add that info to the database. And that doesn't have to be me or the volunteers, its open to anyone. Does anyone here wish to help out?
Right now we are concentrating on site surveys emulating methods Pielke has done. He didn't do spot checks of temperature in his site survey studies.
Anthony Watts wrote:
"That's the purpose, to identify the potential problems. And, later to sort out what level of impact they may have."
This is your stated purpose, but whenever someone like Hannity talks to you, they later claim that your purpose is to challenge the science behind the global warming hoax, or some other similar formulation?
Oooh, we get a politness lecture from denizens of CA who snivel about Gore's weight and accuse Dr. Judith Curry of fraudlent stupidity.
But, seriously, take it easy on them. They are getting bludgeoned and humiliated by the facts as it is.
WHAT I MEANT TO SAY:
Anthony Watts wrote:
"That's the purpose, to identify the potential problems. And, later to sort out what level of impact they may have."
This is your stated purpose, but whenever someone like Hannity talks to you, they later claim that your purpose is to challenge the science behind the global warming hoax, or some other similar formulation.
Why is that?
"The climate professionals know some of their temperature sensors are next to parking lots, right?
The climate professionals know their sensors are on rooftops at some sites too, right?
The climate professionals know their sensors in certain instances are right next to buildings also, right?"
They don't belong to the climate professionals. Their main purpose has been for weather forecasting. They belong to someone else, but those people very kindly let the climate professionals use their data. That's why the climate professionals do work on the data.
Anthony Watts: "Right now we are concentrating on site surveys emulating methods Pielke has done. He didn't do spot checks of temperature in his site survey studies."
And does Pielke put captions like yours on his photographs?
"the MMTS sensor is kept at a comfortable temperature thanks to the nearby A/C units."
By the way, do you actually believe that improves your credibility?
Among what crowd? Junior high students?
Of Gas Grills and Grass Hills
There's a funny thing about heat: it rises.
anthony watts:
no. you people are pseudoscientific harassing trolls. I refuse to pretend your little photo harassment campaign is ANY sort of data gathering process, let alone a useful one. You're providing cover for AEI denialists. Period. And no one should be polite to you or pretend you're anything other than you are.
Sorry if this pops your wingnut bubble.
By the way, some of this is OUR fault, sort of.
We NEVER go back, virtually, and drag in the previous denialist campaigns and really rake them over the coals. I think that's a productive thing for me to do, so I'll look into it.
It seems the feeling is "So few people defending science, so many pressing issues, what's the point of bringing up discredited pseudoscience campaigns, instead of dealing with the current, pressing campaigns."
But first of all, the same characters come back over and over, and secondly, the same memes reoccur over and over.
That said, I'll admit this surface stations campaign is somewhat novel. Therefore, we should log every claim these people make. In particular, get them to commit to the importance of it. What a big difference it makes in the statistical measure of temperature. How SIGNIFICANT it will be in correcting evidence for global warming. Get em on the record. Gather it all together. Then hang them with it in about a year or two. And hang the corpse of this nonsense around the necks of the next wingnut harrassment project.
I agree with you Marion, but there is nonetheless a funny part about all this.
Watts thinks he is making a name for himself when in reality, he is just making a fool of himself.
He can't even take pictures and post them on his website without including snide unsupported captions:
"the MMTS sensor is kept at a comfortable temperature thanks to the nearby A/C units."
His project is unprofessional to the max.
Sure, volunteers are taking a lot of the photos, but he is supposed to be a professional meteorologist -- so what's his excuse?
If this project were done right, it might actually add something of value, but the way he is doing it? Doubtful.
Who (other than Sean Hannity) is ever going to take him seriously after this?
"No correction to this statement?"
"You mean like supporting these words with temperature data?"
etc
"the MMTS sensor is kept at a comfortable temperature thanks to the nearby A/C units."
Never read a joke before? It doesn't seem a big deal to me, getting my panties in a wad about it is a waste of time and effort. Let him undermine hisself. Who cares.
And this is illogical?
"That's the purpose, to identify the potential problems. And, later to sort out what level of impact they may have. Some noted problems may have little impact, others may be large. I'm sure somebody will do a study on A/C exhaust and neaby temperature measurement someday, and I support such an effort, even if it proves my observations and ideas wrong."
So it's a nonsense project, it's worthless, it's wingnut denialst crap. That doesn't explain why you care so much. Let him be fodder for radical conservative talk show hosts. They gotta find somebody.
"Let him undermine hisself."
That would be "himself" to those of us who graduated from high school.
make that junior high.
The CRN criteria are very clear about the importance of good quality sites:
"to document long-term climate behavior in accordance with the 1999 Climate Monitoring Principles certified by the National Research Council. USCRN scientific success is based upon front-end careful and rigorous selection of appropriate instrument monitoring sites."
and "siting criteria: proper instrument and site exposures; land use and land tenure stability; avoidance of built-up areas and areas of future development;
avoidance of agriculture, irrigated areas, and large artificial water bodies; regional climate representativiness with respect to temperature and precipitation; avoidance of localized microclimates"
http://ams.confex.com/ams/pdfpapers/71817.pdf
If surfacestations.org shows a substantial non-compliance with their own guidelines, it's the CRN who must explain why siting quality isn't important after all.
Pay attention, ianrae. No such thing has been purported to be shown.
C'mon Steve, you can't tell me all of those sites are compliant.
The 100 foot rule violation is the most obvious.
- Paul G
Watts seems to have a tendency to just look at graphics/photos and not read the text.
Here's a comment he made over at Open Mind.
"Isn’t just showing part of the record misleading? I’m not trying to pick a fight, but I would like to know why your [Tamino's] presentation does not include the entire record." -- Anthony Watts
Anyone who had read the post could see that Watts' accusation was baseless and that Watts had simply looked at a single graph and not read the accompanying text, as Tamino pointed out:
"Response: Look again. The presentation *does* include the entire record; always has. The first graph in it which was created by me covers the entire time span of the data from Marysville and Orland, plotted on the same graph and on the same scale."
When Watts draws conclusions from photos and other graphics without reading, it makes him look foolish.
Steve Bloom,
Thanks for the response. Yes surfacestation is not finished and it's foolish to be jumping to conclusions. That's why I said "If" it shows non-compliance on a significant scale.
My larger point is the logical inconsistency of some commenters here who state that nearby buildings and A/C units have _no_ significant effect on measuring units. Then they say we should leave things to the 'climate professionals'. Yet those same professionals clearly state that proximity to buildings is a problem.
It doesn't add up. Either the pros are right and should therefore fix their own non-compliant sites. Or they're wrong, which means we should not listen to them. I suspect the former.
Inrae said: "My larger point is the logical inconsistency of some commenters here who state that nearby buildings and A/C units have _no_ significant effect on measuring units. Then they say we should leave things to the 'climate professionals'. "
Anyone who actually reads through the comments above can see that you you are just making things up -- like Anthony Watts did on Tamino's blog (see comment immediately above yours)
I suggest you actually read the comments before you draw conclusions
Otherwise, you just look like an idiot.
Anonymous, please stop being rude -- it makes you look juvenile.
I re-read the comments and here are several statements refuting the notion of A/C and buildings having an effect on temperature measurement:
"since hot air also rises, it will continue upward. ..which could even cool the sensor. I doubt it will make much if any difference in the temperature, at any rate."
"the speculation about (at least the general magnitude) of the effects of AC's, blacktop and the like."
"There's a funny thing about heat: it rises."
"I refuse to pretend your little photo harassment campaign is ANY sort of data gathering process, let alone a useful one."
These commenters appear to feel they know better than the CRN guidelines. They are mocking the very professionals they want others to listen to.
These things have left the "oughta be refuted" building and are on the "let's see how much time can be wasted with our spam" bus to FUDville.
Lets go take a at Oke's study march 2006 on MICROSITE effects.
Journal of Climate
I'll quote a couple relevant passages.
"
Gradual changes in the immediate environment over
time, such as vegetation growth, or encroachment by
built features such as paths, roads, runways, fences,
parking lots, and buildings into the vicinity of the instrument
site typically lead to trends in the cooling ratio
series. Distinct régime transitions can be caused by
seemingly minor instrument relocations (such as from
one side of the airport to another, or even within the
same instrument enclosure) or due to vegetation clearance.
This contradicts the view that only substantial
station moves, involving significant changes in elevation
and/or exposure are detectable in temperature
data (G91). It is not surprising that small station moves,
even without changes of elevation or exposure, are capable
of introducing inhomogeneities into the record,
because there are often several confounding changes
occurring at the same time. For example, a station
move often coincides with screens being repainted,
cleaned, or replaced, new instruments installed, and observers
being reinstructed about their practices. Further,
it is common for the new instrument site to be
without grass for a few years, and there are many indications
of muddy conditions around the instruments
until grass is both planted and properly maintained.
These factors, combined with subtle changes in the immediate
surroundings (such as moving away from a
parking lot or building), appear to be a significant cause
of inhomogeneities in temperature records. As isolated
occurrences, activities such as painting, cleaning, or
releveling screens or instruments do not frequently
cause significant changes to cooling régimes."
And
"
the potential biases of microclimatic site influences are
commonly underappreciated because the focus of the
work is on larger scales (Peterson 2003; Oke 2004) or
the researcher only relies on available electronic databases
of population, night-lights, NDVI or similar indirect
signs of potential site disturbance by humans. Since
seemingly minor microscale alterations to the environment
of a temperature screen are capable of rendering
series inhomogeneous, it has to raise skepticism about
the criteria used to accept stations into some global
datasets. Even the most well-regarded sets accept stations
based on evidence as loose as having no more
than a few tens of thousands of people living nearby, or
the lack of bright lights in the area, or pixels with low
NDVI. Such criteria fail to recognize the possibility that
the immediate microscale environment of the screen is
critical. Such evidence can only be gained from a visit to
the site or a detailed metadata file."
Climate professionals like Peterson and Parker claimed that urban sites were probably located in parks because of siting requirements.
Quoting parker:
Furthermore, Peterson (2003) found no statistically
significant impact of urbanization in an analysis
of 289 stations in 40 clusters in the contiguous United
States, after the influences of elevation, latitude, time of
observation, and instrumentation had been accounted
for. One possible reason for this finding was that many
“urban” observations are likely to be made in cool
parks, to conform to standards for siting of stations.
The problem is
1. Peterson looked at 289 sites
most of which are not in USCHN
2. He didnt check to see if they
were in "parks"
3. Both Parker and Peterson ASSUMED that the sites followed siting guidelines.
4. Neither one imagined that rural sites could have microsite
contamiation. As the first CRN study showed, ashphalt in the vicinity of the ASOS site resulted in a DElta C of +.25C.
Last time I looked in USHCN metadata I did not see an asphalt = true flag.
Peterson explicitly states that there microsite effects in rural sites, as a matter of fact he says that this one reason why there is so little disagreement with urban sites on average.
However, he also understands that microsite effects include cooling (tree shadows, etc.) as well as warming, and that what you get is a wider distribution of results with a mean not much displaced.
Eli, until an inspection is done on each and every site, you can only speculate as to what effect microsite contamination is having on the data as a whole.
I have no doubt Peterson and other experts understand microsite effects implicitly; what I do not understand is none of the professionals ever looking at sites to see what affects there are yet using the data regardless.
- Paul G
Thus the Thermometer becomes the new Hockey Stick.
Go, little bots! Go! Rah rah! Sis-boom-bah!
Best,
D
Eli,
We would like to thank you for making detroit lakes an issue.
Because of your inspiration, SteveMc found a Y2K error in GISS!
The error in the US record, according to Ruedy is
around .15C for the 2000-2006 period!
"Although trying to eliminate those steps should have little impact on the US temperature trend (much less the global trend), it seems a good idea to do so and I’d like to thank you for bringing this oversight to our attention.
When we did our monthly update this morning, an offset based on the last 10 years of overlap in the two data sets was applied and our on-line documentation was changed correspondingly with an acknowledgment of your contribution. This change and its effect will be noted in our next paper on temperature analysis and in our end-of-year temperature summary.
The effect on global means and all our tables was less than 0.01 C. In the display most sensitive to that change - the US-graph of annual means - the anomalies decreased by about 0.15 C in the years 2000-2006.
Respectfully,
Reto A Ruedy "
So, you helped cool the US by .15C I think the bunny has earned his lifetime carbon offset!
Mosh pit.. Hi TCO!
They went looking for Air conditioners and found a Y2K error.
What else is hid in the bunny hole.
PS. I was glad to see that Hansen and Ruedy admitted the error. Lets call it a Kristen moment. Please do not beat them up.
FYI,
Here is the new USA temp anomaly plot, corrected for the Y2K boo-boo.
I can't believe how ignorant you are, who not considering the addition and influence of due to the rles not allowed "air conditioners (that apparently run all year, night and day), and BBQs (ditto)" and just asking "has there been any studies, scientific, ad hoc or otherwise, on the actual effect they would have on a temperature sensor"
LOL!
Well... The rural stations in US have no upward trend in about 120 years, but the sities have an 2-3 degree upward trend. How strange!
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=1859
LOL!
The barbeques is probably rare at the countryside.
:-P Sh-t (pommes frites)!!!
..._are_ probably rare...
Me from sueden in Scandinawia...
I think you might want to check the data again or update this post since the data for this particular site had some errors around 2000.
Seems I read about that somewhere... Had you checked it with diligence you would not have made a error worthy of a 15 year old. Professor?
It sucks being wrong about the omniscience of Nasa, doesn't it, especially when one has been condescending about the failings of a 15 year old.
Mr. 7:54
Maybe you guys should stop going to a 15 year old for your science if you want to spare her the public airing of her failings. Nobody would have paid attention to her if rightiwingers everywhere hadn't been in an ecstacy of ignorance over her work.
I didn't fall all over her.
Don't be fooled again:
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1446868
Sorry Eli; What are you up to your ears in now?:)... You long ears have been consistent with your views and attitude towards others, I give you all that. Trick a little here, trick a little there and pretty soon you got a hole lot a trickin going on.
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