Monday, July 30, 2007

There's a hot time in Marysville or how not to RTFR

Eli, as many others has been blogging about the surface station record. The pin up picture is Marysville
which "obviously shows spurious warming due to the urban heat island effect". Well, maybe not. Tamino has put up the numbers, using the GISSTEMP adjusted data that compares Marysville to nearby Orland, a rural station and shows they have the same trend over the last 30 years.


There has been lots of comment on these two stations, including Climate Audit from which the Orland figure was taken with a constant stream of stuff like this from another blog about Marysville

I can tell you with certainty, the temperature data from this station is useless. Look at the pictures to see why, and is it any wonder the trend for temperature is upward?
There are also micro mistakes
But let’s say that they got all their adjustments exactly right. What does that say about the quantum of UHI? Here’s a town of 12,000 which qualifies as “rural” in all the UHI studies.
sadly no. Steve blew that one, Marysville is NOT qualified as rural in GISS, and GISS is very clear about how rural stations are picked, by examining satellite data to find unlit areas where there are weather stations. The downside of this is that only ~250 rural stations are found in the US. Data for all the other stations is adjusted by
The urban adjustment in the current GISS analysis is a similar two-legged adjustment, but the date of the hinge point is no longer fixed at 1950, the maximum distance used for rural neighbors is 500 km provided that sufficient stations are available, and “small-town” (population 10,000 to 50,000) stations are also adjusted. The hinge date is now also chosen to minimize the difference between the adjusted urban record and the mean of its neighbors. In the United States (and nearby Canada and Mexico regions) the rural stations are now those that are “unlit” in satellite data, but in the rest of the world, rural stations are still defined to be places with a population less than 10,000. The added flexibility in the hinge point allows more realistic local adjustments, as the initiation of significant urban growth occurred at different times in different parts of the world.
Hansen, J.E., R. Ruedy, Mki. Sato, M. Imhoff, W. Lawrence, D. Easterling, T. Peterson, and T. Karl, 2001: A closer look at United States and global surface temperature change. J. Geophys. Res., 106, 23947-23963, doi:10.1029/2001JD000354
ONLY RURAL STATIONS CONTRIBUTE TO THE TREND IN GISSTEMP. Marysville has NO EFFECT on the long term trend in the GISSTEMP record.

You have to RTFR to understand what is happening. Let us look at the USHCN adjusted and the GISS adjusted data
The RAW data is below the adjusted. That means that the nearby RURAL stations are warming faster than that so called hot spot Marysville. We can also look at the simple differences to see the hinged corrections.

RTFRs folks, Eli has enough aggro.

UPDATE: Stephen McIntrye asks where it is specifically stated that only the 250 or so rural US stations are used by GISS to estimate trends. Referring to the 2001 GISS paper linked above we see in the introduction (Eli quoted this before)
Only 214 of the USHCN and 256 of the GHCN stations within the United States are in “unlit” areas. Fortunately, because of the large number of meteorological stations in the United States, it is still possible to define area-averaged temperature rather well using only the unlit stations. This is not necessarily true in much of the rest of the world.
There is also an interesting comment re land use (e.g. why not adjust for land use effects as well as UHI in Section 4.2
We provide one explanatory comment here about the rationale for trying to remove anthropogenic urban effects but not trying to remove regional effects of land use or atmospheric aerosols. Urban warming at a single station, if it were not removed, would influence our estimated temperature out to distances of about 1000 km, i.e., 1 million square kilometers, which is clearly undesirable. This is independent of the method of averaging over area, as even 5000 stations globally would require that each station represent an area of the order of 100,000 square kilometers, an area much larger than the local urban influence. On the other hand, anthropogenic land use and aerosols are regional scale phenomena. We do not want to remove their influence, because it is part of the largescale climate.
which should amuse Prof. Pielke a. D. but back to the points that SM asked about while torturing surface stations (Eli has the feeling he is not being treated well over their also). From Section 4.2.2
Indeed, in the global analysis we find that the homogeneity adjustment changes the urban record to a cooler trend in only 58% of the cases, while it yields a warmer trend in the other 42% of the urban stations. This implies that even though a few stations, such as Tokyo and Phoenix, have large urban warming, in the typical case, the urban effect is less than the combination of regional variability of temperature trends, measurement errors, and inhomogeneity of station records.
The bottom line is that since the urban and periurban stations have their temperatures adjusted so that the trends match those of the "nearby (500 km)" rural stations, the long term trend is only determined by the rural stations. The point raised in an earlier post, "Does GISSTEMP overcount rural stations"
The bottom line is that the ONLY stations which contribute to the overall trend are the RURAL stations. Moreover, rural stations near heavily settled areas will be more strongly overcounted because the trends in the few rural stations in such an area will dominate all of the stations in the area and the nearby points on the grid to which the temperature data is fit.
To put it simply, the grid point temperature anomalies may be an average over all stations in the neighborhood, but the data in the non-rural stations has been previously constrained to match the trends of the rural stations. Thus the rural trends are being added multiple times to the average. What is left is shorter time variations that average to zero over the hinged UHI spline adjustments.

In the long run it does make a difference over 100 years, but not such a large difference that it would swamp warming from forcings such as greenhouse gases, solar, etc..
The primary difference between the USHCN and the current GISS adjustments, given that the GISS analysis now adapts the USHCN time of observation and station history adjustments, is the urban adjustment. The GISS urban adjustment, as summarized in Plate 2, yields an urban correction averaged over the United States of about -0.15°C over 100 years, compared with a USHCN urban adjustment of -0.06°C. When only urban stations are adjusted the impact of our adjustment is about -0.1°C on either the USHCN stations (Plate 2j) or on the GHCN stations (Plate 2k) in the United States. When both urban and periurban stations are adjusted, the impact is about - 0.15°C.

The magnitude of the adjustment at the urban and periurban stations themselves, rather than the impact of these adjustments on the total data set, is shown in Plate 2l. The adjustment is about -0.3°C at the urban stations and -0.1°C at the periurban stations. In both cases these refer to the changes over 100 years that are determined by adjusting to neighboring “unlit” stations. The adjustments to the periurban stations have a noticeable effect on the U.S. mean temperature because of the large number of periurban stations, as summarized in Table 1.

69 comments:

Anonymous said...

So, what you are saying, Eli is that when the surfacestations.org people take pictures of non-rural stations, they are basically wasting their time? (at least from the standpoint of stations that went into determining the overall temperature trend)

It would certainly seem that when they say "We can't trust the warming trend because all these urban stations have been contaminated by blacktop and all these other problems" they are essentially arguing with a straw-man -- and may not even know it!

For half a century now, we have had the "Turing Test" to tell us whether we are talking to a human or computer.

Perhaps what some people need even more is a new test, the "Rabett Test", to tell them whether they are talking to a human or a straw-man.

Unknown said...

Eli, the full quote was:

"But let’s say that they got all their adjustments exactly right. What does that say about the quantum of UHI? Here’s a town of 12,000 which qualifies as “rural” in all the UHI studies. The non-climatic effect here is at least 3 deg C. In this case, we can estimate it because there’s a less bad station nearby. What does one do in China or Indonesia where nearly all the stations seem to be in large cities (even if they started out small, they’re large now)?"

The "UHI studies" being discussed at the time were the studies purporting to show that the UHI effect in GHCN data is less than 0.1 deg C per century (Jones et al 1990 and the like), which would have been clear to a CA reader at the time, but to minimize mischaracterization, I'll add a cite. Whatever the merits of the GISS adjustment, it is not used in the data considered in Jones et al 1990 or in GHCN data or in CRU data. In studies of the Jones et al 1990 type, a town of 12,000 (the population of Marysville) is typically considered "rural" (RTFR).

As I observed in the post, if one takes the GISS calculations at face value, they conclude, contrary to Jones et al, that there is a substantial UHI effect in GHCN data which requires adjustment. Thus, if the GISS adjustments are correct, Jones et al 1990 has substantially under-estimated the required urban adjustments. Or if Jones et al 1990 is right, then GISS is over-adjusting. If you think that there is some other alternative, do tell.

EliRabett said...

Stephen, as I said it was a micro mistake, you did say AL UHI studies. I am pretty fixed on GISS because it is the set I am most familiar with and it is fairly easy to access.

GISS does not so much correct the other studies, as it ignores a large number of the stations used in those studies. Given that, the global/regional trends come out pretty much the same in all of the surface temperature anomaly constructions is a good indication that the net UHI effect is pretty small on the anomalies.

Anonymous said...

Still left unexplained is how adjustments are made on an individual site when there is no awareness of what contaminants are present at the site.

For example, it is not so much whether Marysville "matches" up to Orlando after adjustments, it is where is the data showing that the unique contaminants particular to the Marysville site have been uniquely factored into the adjustment applied to that site.

Anyone?

Unknown said...

Eli, you say:

"GISS does not so much correct the other studies, as it ignores a large number of the stations used in those studies."

What basis do you have for making this claim? Is there anything in the Hansen articles that establishes this? If so, can you identify an exact page for me (or any other references or data that establish this claim)?

Anonymous said...

Dr. Rabett:
Does your silence indicate that you are acquiescing to Steve's earlier point or are you looking for Hansen references?

Anonymous said...

it is where is the data showing that the unique contaminants particular to the Marysville site have been uniquely factored into the adjustment applied to that site.

Anyone?


What data are those, and what are the quantifications they reveal?

Best,

D

Anonymous said...

The picture of the parking lot is the data dano.

Anonymous said...

What quantification does the foto give to provide information on contaminants, and how do the foto data adjust the temp records?

That is, what evidence do you have that the record is contaminated?

The foto?

Haw.

Best,

D

Anonymous said...

Yes, the photo. Marysville violates minimum standards for surface sites.

Having violated these minimum standards that climate professionals themselves set up, it is their responsibility to explain how and why data from such an obviously contaminated site should be accepted as accurate.

They violated their own standards, now it is their professional duty to explain it.

Anonymous said...

The world awaits evidence that the site is inaccurate.

Upon receiving such evidence, plant and animal species will begin their return migrations southward and to lower elevations.

Seriously, where's the evidence. Collect some and write it up. The world awaits.

Best,

D

bigcitylib said...

Anon 3:38,

What are those minimum standards, and where are they written down?

I would seriously like to see a document where this is laid out. I have not found one yet.

Anonymous said...

""The sensor should be at least 100 feet from any paved or concrete surface.""

http://www.weather.gov/om/coop/standard.htm

Anonymous said...

As McIntyre diddles with has stats,
Curious John plays with his hats,
And Watts clicks with his Brownie Box,
And Steve Milloy appears on FOX,
And Inhofe says "Its all a Hoax",
What a rare collection of jamokes.

Anonymous said...

More very basic info.

Site the temperature sensor according to the following standards:

a. over level terrain (earth or sod) typical of the area around the station, and;

b. at least 100 feet from any extensive concrete or paved surface.

c. All attempts will be made to avoid:

(1) areas where rough terrain or air drainage are proven to result in nonrepresentative temperature data,

(2) areas where water tends to collect, and

(3) areas where drifting snow collects.

d. If the sensor is within a shelter, position the shelter so it opens to the north with
the floor 4 to 6 feet above the surface. Shelters should be located no closer to an
obstruction than four times the height of the obstruction.

e. In the case of remoted sensors not exposed in shelters, the air intake will be 4 to 6
feet above the surface. Remoted sensors should be located no closer to an obstruction than four times the height of the obstruction.

f. An object will be considered an obstruction if the object is greater than ten
degrees in horizontal width as measured from the sensor and within 200 feet of the sensor.

NWSI 10-1302 Instrument Requirements and Standards for the NWS Surface Observing Programs (Land) Page 17

http://www.weather.gov/om/coop/training.htm

Anonymous said...

"Having violated these minimum standards that climate professionals themselves set up, it is their responsibility to explain how and why data from such an obviously contaminated site should be accepted as accurate."

The whole point of this post is to show how data from urban sites like this that cannot for various reasons be ideally sited are not accepted as accurate, but are corrected to compensate for those inaccuracies.

Duh!

Anonymous said...

=="The whole point of this post is to show how data from urban sites like this that cannot for various reasons be ideally sited are not accepted as accurate, but are corrected to compensate for those inaccuracies."==

You can not apply corrections for contaminants that you are not aware of.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous @ 3:38:

You said "They violated their own standards, now it is their professional duty to explain it."

Yet you post a link to your own answer. If standards can not be met by equipment in place, the standards should be achieved as stations are changed, equipment is installed, programs are modified, or new stations are established.

I suspect that is why the new CRN is being established.

John Cross

Dano said...

ABSTRACT

A bunch of people took random photos that we categorized and pretended they were of import. These photographs we then showed to Heritage and CEI and they provided to us guidance, tips for invoking emotion, and phrases that outlets like the Globe and Mail will use to write an official-sounding paper.

[content unimportant]

CONCLUSION

There MIGHT be an issue, but since we didn't take measurements all we can do is infer, inveigh, and harrumph in loud, false outrage while we dine on Heritage catering and the usual cast of characters spread our message.

Oh...

Whoops.

Have I leaked someone's draft copy?

Best,

D

Anonymous said...

I am happy to see the CRN being established with proper QC (including pix) from the beginning John.

However, salvaging the integrity of the US historical surface site temperature record would be invaluable also. To attempt that, a root and branch review of every site would likely be required.

EliRabett said...

John Cross: Also ASOS and other systems, but the fact is that if you have a set of stations that are rigidly controlled, you can find corrections for other stations in the coop network. A point many people are missing is that the USHCN stations are mostly run by third parties in collaboration with NOAA

Dano said...

However, salvaging the integrity of the US historical surface site temperature record would be invaluable also.

This tired rhetorical template won't work. Assuming the integrity needs to be salvaged is what we did in freshman debate class. Your clown show hasn't shown any temp integrity problems. STFU until you and the clown show do.

Now. This is the best they can do: widdle wordy games.

Best,

D

Dano said...

""The sensor should be at least 100 feet from any paved or concrete surface.""

At this phrase, finally uttered aloud by the sensible crowd, the alpine glaciers reversed course and began their advance to the sea, the Arctic began cooling again and the permafrost cooled returning human infrastructure to where it was before the biased temp measurements, the northward march of plant and animal species ceased and returned southward, and the tiny pika, driven higher and ever higher in elevation, breathed a squeak of relief and skittered downslope.

Glad that's all cleared up.

Best,

D

Anonymous said...

Dano Glad that's all cleared up.

Odd, in your dozens of posts on this board I've never seen you once make an attempt to find any sort of information about what standards a station should abide by.

Someone does post the standards and you're ridiculing it. At least you're entertainingly predictable.

Dano said...

I've never seen you once make an attempt to find any sort of information about what standards a station should abide by.

Right. I've spent my time instead:

1. commenting on how the stunt can look legitimate, alas, to no avail.

2. Ridiculing the undereducated Googlers (their kingdom for a 'wisdom' button) and their wishy-wish that the pikas will move downhill and the butterflies will stay south in response to their evidenceless assertion that the record is biased.

I anxiously await your joke-like play so folks who don't need a wisdom button can bat it about like a kitten with a ball of yarn.

Really. This is the best they can do. Comments like yours give me hope, boy. You got nothin'. Now go get some solace in your Pam calendar. She understands your pain, boy.

Best,

D

Anonymous said...

= dano said: =
="This tired rhetorical template won't work. Assuming the integrity needs to be salvaged is what we did in freshman debate class. Your clown show hasn't shown any temp integrity problems. STFU until you and the clown show do."=

You can vouch for the integrity of the historical records for US surface sites dano? Thomas Karl couldn't.

Photos demonstrate surface site integrity problems, in violation of NWS standards. That in itself should be in a serious issue.

Next, I know you will regurgitate your statement that "pictures don't measure temperature", but that is about sensical as saying proxies don't measure temperature either. Both pictures and proxies can lead to more robust data.

What is it you did again in your freshman debate class? Take a nap?

Anonymous said...

The good news is, since "Dano" is nothing more than an Internet phantom, his comments and all the others are of zero importance in the grand scheme of things.

Unless of course, Dano wants to claim "peer reviewed flaming" as science publishing these days.

Ignore Dano, he's irrelevant. Use your time for better and more constructive things than replies to his rants. i.e. "don't feed the trolls".

Anonymous said...

Wow, an anonymouse lambasting a pseudonymouse for his lack of concrete identification. These folks really don't understand irony, do they?

Anonymous said...

Both pictures and proxies can lead to more robust data.

Ah. Equating pictures to proxies now. Sure pal. Of course, as I've been saying, if your heroes were serious, they would have done something other than simply and only pictures. But they're not, so the anonymouses defending the stunt look silly.

The stunt is easily apprehended, thus the ridicule.

Best,

D

Anonymous said...

Man, now I see what these surfacestation.org people are talking about.

This site is atrocious.

And its been collecting bad* data since 1892!

*from the standpoint of some people, at least.

bigcitylib said...

Anon 5:18,

That document I have seen. If I had writen more precisely, I would have asked for a document in which it is written that the price for not meeting these standards is that the data must be thrown out. But as a subsequent poster (John Cross) notes, this is not what is required.

Anonymous said...

How long would it take for an adult with a knowledge of arithmetic to learn enough math, physics, meteorology, thermodynamics, statistical mechanics, spectroscopy, quantum mechanics, and celestial mechanics to be able to understand and contribute to a discussion of radiative transfer, paleoclimatology, or planetary climate? Just list out the precollege and college course work required. Those in denial are almost certainly uninterested in, and probably incapable of, spending the required years. Those in denial who do have the background are a little harder to understand. I guess you don't change horses when you've tied yourself to the leader of the herd. Don Fontaine

Anonymous said...

== bigcitylib said: ==
="That document I have seen. If I had writen more precisely, I would have asked for a document in which it is written that the price for not meeting these standards is that the data must be thrown out. But as a subsequent poster (John Cross) notes, this is not what is required."=

Well which is it bigcitylib?

First you state you have never seen any documentation on surface site standards then you say you have already knew what the standards were. Are the standards important or not?

The Climate Reference Network will only provide a more accurate surface site record going forward. It does nothing to correct the tainted data from the past. Even the NOAA says so.

Anonymous said...

= dano says: =
="if your heroes were serious, they would have done something other than simply and only pictures."=

You did sleep during your debating classes, didn't you?

The pictures demonstrate gross violations of the most basic NWS standards at numerous sites.

Sure, they are only taking "pictures", and silly us, we thought the climate professionals were measuring temperature.

bigcitylib said...

What I was looking for was a document saying that below some minimum standard the data is to be thrown out. I did not see that in the one you ref (although I missed the paragraph John Cross mentioned as well).

Anonymous said...

anon 12:29 pm: "The Climate Reference Network will only provide a more accurate surface site record going forward. It does nothing to correct the tainted data from the past. Even the NOAA says so."

Really? Where?

Anonymous said...

Anonymous 7:47 AM

Your logic is bizarre. Hands up all the climate scientists who have had a course in celestial mechanics? Hands up those who took course in celstial mechanics and also took courses in "paleoclimatology"? Apart from you since you raised the claim, my guess is that there are precious few.

On the other hand, a good statistician, given access to the data and actual statistical procedures used, can readily tell when statistical tools are being misapplied regardless of his or her familiarity with the subject matter.

Anonymous said...

My post: "The Climate Reference Network will only provide a more accurate surface site record going forward. It does nothing to correct the tainted data from the past. Even the NOAA says so."

Steve Bloom ask: "Really? Where?"

I can provide the links Steve, but is it worth my effort?

NOAA states in one publication:

"Analyzing the climate record entails some uncertainty invoked by a history of changes in instrumentation, time of observation, standard exposures of instruments and quality of equipment maintenance."

and in the same publication they say:

"The USCRN Program helps reverse this decline in data quality for climate purposes."

http://www.magazine.noaa.gov/stories/mag142.htm

I've got more.

Anonymous said...

anonymous,

What climatologists are measuring isn't temperature, per se, but anomalous differences in temperature over time.

Whether or not the absolute measure of temperature of a given site is different from what the absolute temperature at that site would be if conditions at that particular site are or are not in accordance with standardized guidelines does not significantly alter the relative differences over time extracted from temperature measurements from that site unless the physical parameters of that particular site are themselves changed.

One photograph cannot provide that information.

Additionally, just because the physical parameters of a site may be altered, without quantitative measurements of what effect those changes actually have on the absolute measure of temperature at that site, to make a qualitative judgment that the data is 'tainted' is not demonstrated.

Anonymous said...

= lumens said: =
="One photograph cannot provide that information.'+

Of course it can. Photographs have already demonstrated sites violating NOAA/NWS rules. I assume the "100 foot rule" was developed for scientific reasons, and not aesthetic ones, so sites in violation of this rule, need be reexamined.

Anonymous said...

Here's one more for Steve Bloom.

"NOAA, DOD, and the FAA also operate a network of approximately 1,000 automated observing sites, mostly at airport locations, that measure hourly temperature, precipitation, humidity, winds, and other variables.

With some exceptions, these sites have become only marginally useful for documenting climate variability and change over the last decades because of problems with changes in location, instrument technology, data handling systems, and operating procedures.

These changes occurred without consideration of multi-decadal climate monitoring."

Adequacy of Climate Observing Systems (1999)
Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate (BASC)

Anonymous said...

The pictures demonstrate gross violations of the most basic NWS standards at numerous sites.

Sure, they are only taking "pictures", and silly us, we thought the climate professionals were measuring temperature.


What are the effects of these "gross violations"? They make your F-stop go up one decimal?

Shake your pom-poms some more, son:

Don't wait! Participate! Validate Envirohate!

Take a picture! Snap snap snap! Assert bias! Just like that!

Rah rah sis-boom-bah!

Yaaaaaaaay!

Anonymous said...

Whoops. That was me at 4.34

Best,

D

Anonymous said...

Those are very fine bolded quotes, but they do not support the claim. Link to something that does?

Just to be clear, the way one corrects the old data is to run a given CRN station "in parallel" with some adjacent existing stations and look for sufficient matches in anomaly trends. The ones that match well are the ones whose past data can be considered reliable.

I should add here that some of the "auditors" are perhaps confused about absolute temp readings versus anomalies. The latter is what we care about. Note that even the paired CRN stations don't match very well in terms of absolute temps. I suspect that most of the micro-climate effects will influence absolute temps rather than the anomalies.

Hopefully the foregoing explains why the photos are unimportant.

Anonymous said...

= another anony said: =
="What are the effects of these "gross violations"? They make your F-stop go up one decimal?"

f-stops don't go up by decimals, they go up by stops.

Effects?

As the Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate has stated, the historic data from surface sites is at best only "marginally useful".

Anonymous said...

I agree with lumens' more thorough explanation of absolute temps vs. anomalies.

Learn to read and research, anon 4:39. The BASC reference is to the ASOS network only rather than to the much larger number of USHCN/Co-op sites. But I suspect that plenty of the ASOS stations will turn out to have good data after comparison with CRN data.

I spent hours researching what was going on with the CRN project before feeling like I could make an intelligent comment on these issues. Your conflation of the ASOS network with all pre-CRN surface stations would seem to indicate that you need to do the same.

Anonymous said...

F/4, F/4.5, what's a decimal between friends?

Anyway, none of the cheersquad has evidence the temps are affected by this egregious not following of protocol.

After the blockbuster paper is written sans temp measurements, there will still be no evidence the temps are affected.

Until temps are measured, there will be no evidence temps are affected.

In short, there is no evidence temps are affected.

I hope this helps you understand that folks know that surfacestations.org is not contributing data that will determine whether temps are affected.

Best,

D

PS: this is not to say anyone arguing as I have thinks that no one should look into the matter. Folks arguing as I have are stating these people and their methods ain’t gonna do it.

Anonymous said...

At the danger of repeating myself ad nauseum. . .

". . . the Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate has stated, the historic data from surface sites is at best only "marginally useful".

"marginally useful"

"marginally useful"

"marginally useful"

Dano said...

My, my, my.

All that pom-pom shaking for something that's marginally useful. The mind reels.

Tsk.

Best,

D

Anonymous said...

OK, here's the whole paragraph:

"NOAA, DOD, and the FAA also operate a network of approximately 1,000 automated observing sites, mostly at airport locations, that measure hourly temperature, precipitation, humidity, winds, and other variables. With some exceptions, these sites have become only marginally useful for documenting climate variability and change over the last decades because of problems with changes in location, instrument technology, data handling systems, and operating procedures. These changes occurred without consideration of multi-decadal climate monitoring. In particular, the automated systems replaced manual observatories without sufficient overlap in operations to relate the data characteristics from the two methods of observation. However, with adequate sensitivity to their future operations, many of these sites have the potential to build a very useful climate record for the future." (For more of this in context, see here.)

So the "marginally useful" bit does refer just to ASOS and resulted mainly from the failure to undertake an overlap procedure of the sort I described above.

From which we can conclude that anon's input was less than marginally useful.

Dano said...

From which we can conclude that anon's input was less than marginally useful.

No, no, no: they must make sh*t up and mischaracterize to have an argument. Always. This is most useful to remember.

BTW, I happen to know intimately the issues behind the paragraph Steve quotes. The data quality is lower with automated observing sites. Humans are much better observers, if I may say so myself. Data quality.

Best,

D

Anonymous said...

You are correct Steve, that particular paragraph is referring to ASOS sites. I was mistaken.

It does raise the question, however, of whether we can rely on ASOS data for years past.

Comments?

Anonymous said...

= dano said: =
="BTW, I happen to know intimately the issues behind the paragraph Steve quotes."=

Sure Mr. Debater. By the way, there's an Adam Sandler movie starting on TV right now. If you hurry, you won't miss a minute.

Anonymous said...

"Steve McIntyre has spoken"
'The Hockey stick is broken' "
"And even if it's not,
The surface temps are snot.
So get it through your head,
That Global Warming's dead."
How can we contest
Such logic? It's the best.

Anonymous said...

If the AC units in the Marysville picture are also heat pumps, then the air exhausted during the heating season is refrigerated and skews winter temps colder, especially as the cooled air will tend to stay near the ground and the temperature sensor, unlike the heated air in the summer which will tend to rise up and away from the sensor.

EliRabett said...

Anyanon who wants a good example of why a single set of photos is not enough should go read Watts up Doc

Dano said...

It does raise the question, however, of whether we can rely on ASOS data for years past.

Comments?


It raises the question of why people raise questions rather than go do some work and collect data to show.

Or find nothing, which is why it's easier to infer.

BTW, I was a weatherman for a living likely before many of the undereducated commenters were born.

Best,

D

Anonymous said...

= eli said: =
="Anyanon who wants a good example of why a single set of photos is not enough should go read Watts up Doc."=

Then why is a single nighttime photo taken by satellite enough to determine is a site is rural or urban?

Anonymous said...

To add to my comment directly above, eli, I think the photos you criticize have already contributed to the debate, and the science.

First, we see a messy site, probably in violation of NWS standards.

Second, we see you gather further data of surrounding sites which would seem to indicate the spike in temperature affected all those sites.

Good science involves a lot of detective work and sleuthing around. The photos can lead to dead ends and they can also lead to understanding that NWS practises are routinely being violated which could detract from the confidence levels in the historical temperature record.

In either case, knowledge and the science advances.

Anonymous said...

Regarding ASOS, the same linked document says that data gathered after the break(s) is fine. I suppose it's possible that a nearby USHCN station with a continuous record could be used to knit to gether the two data sets for a given ASOS station, but I have no idea whether such a procedure would be recommended. Probably it's not even necessary given the large number of USHCN/Co-op stations that don't have this problem. Also, it sounds as if the ASOS automation may have occurred something like 20 years ago, which means that that there would now be some reasonably long data sets relative to current climate trends.

But as Dano notes, why ask the question if you can easily find the answer yourself? It's as if you care more about the questions than the answers.

Anonymous said...

anon 11:10 wrote: "The photos can lead to dead ends and they can also lead to understanding that NWS practises are routinely being violated which could detract from the confidence levels in the historical temperature record."

You don't *want* to get it, do you? The CRN is a far more reliable way of achieving the highest possible level of confidence in the historical data. That is why scientists are not trying to develop a new set of corrections based on photographs and on-site tests, since that could only lead to data in which there would be less confidence than with the CRN.

Dano said...

The bots got nothin'.

I say, bring on the blockbuster paper.

I'll wager that the paper will influence policy in less than 1% of offices, zero at the national level, maybe 1 state office (AL, MS).

Any decent staffer won't brief their boss on a paper like this.

Best,

D

Anonymous said...

= Steve Bloom says: =
="That is why scientists are not trying to develop a new set of corrections based on photographs and on-site tests, since that could only lead to data in which there would be less confidence than with the CRN."=

And what of the historical US temperature record?

Dano said...

And what of certain commenters beating their wives?

Come now. Step up your game and stop the later, rinse, repeat the false premises. A cr*ppy PR campaign won't save the blockbuster paper from the circular file.

Best,

D

Anonymous said...

Talk about proving my point, anon 6:30 pm. Let's see:

I said: "The CRN is a far more reliable way of achieving the highest possible level of confidence in the historical data."

You replied: "And what of the historical US temperature record?"

Note the order.

Anonymous said...

Steve, the CRN only measures the temp from the last few years forward. It may confirm a continuing trend, but in and of itself, does not perform an audit function on decades old data from a seperate network.

The strict siting standards for the USCRN network means that the NOAA considers microsite factors to be of critical importance for proper temperature measurements.

And if the science behind the siting requirements for the CRN are valid, then they are also valid for the USHCN.

Anonymous said...

anon 12:03 am, let's try again:

See the discussion above about the failure to stitch together the ASOS data. The exact same method can be (and is being) used to match CRN data to USHCN data. If you look at the CRN documentation, you'll see that the availability of suitable adjacent USHCN stations was part of the CRN siting criteria. This stitching process is the only valid method for confirming older data. The photos really are useless.

Wanting to eliminate the microsite factors as a possible issue for the CRN doesn't equal deeming them to be of critical importance for the USHCN. Bear in mind that the CRN network is very small and so cannot benefit from "the power of large numbers" as can the USHCN network.

Something to bear in mind is that the CRN network wasn't needed in order to get a better U.S. overall temp trends. The existing network is fine for that purpose, although likely the CRN data will knock dowm the error bars a little. The CRN's main purpose is to get the best possible data at regional scales, which is an obvious prerequisite for doing accurate regional climate modeling.

Finally, let's not lose track of the fact that a necessary assumption on the part of the photo auditors is that the scientists running these programs are fools and/or conspirators. Much though the auditors try to keep a straight face, the telltale snarks have a way of slipping out. As with McIntyre, so with Watts, although the latter is a bit less polished.

Anonymous said...

Steve, you're beginning to sound like a government bureaucrat with expertise at obfuscation.

You say: =="This stitching process is the only valid method for confirming older data."==

New data from the CRN is not able to confirm decades old data from a seperate network. It is simply a method to provide some overlap with the USHCN.

You go on to say: =="The photos really are useless."==

Then the CRN is wasting its time documenting photographically every site every year. Has anyone told them??

As to the "power of large numbers", can you refer me to any NOAA documents that state they are using this mathematical principal of guessing to obtain their data?

Your biggest misstatement though is: =="The CRN's main purpose is to get the best possible data at regional scales, which is an obvious prerequisite for doing accurate regional climate modeling."==

No, the CRN is coming into being because of the chronic uncertainties and lack of enforced standards in the USHCN has led to the conclusion that it is best to start over, albeit with a smaller, standards-enforced network.

Finally, you say: ==". . .let's not lose track of the fact that a necessary assumption on the part of the photo auditors is that the scientists running these programs are fools and/or conspirators."==

Conspirators? I highly doubt it. Fools? Probably not that either. But careless? That is in the realm of possibilities.
- Paul G

Dano said...

No, the CRN is coming into being because of the chronic uncertainties and lack of enforced standards in the USHCN has led to the conclusion that it is best to start over, albeit with a smaller, standards-enforced network.

Rah, rah everyone! Yaaaaaaay! Clap louder! Sis-boom-bah! Yaaaaaaay!

I like it that every time I look at a denialist argument, it consists of making sh*t up, misunderstanding, malunderstanding, and cut-pastes of obfuscationing and mendacicization.

It's very reassuring.

Best,

D