How to Measure Temperature, Part 1

4 07 2007

After showing a number a stations where poor siting and thoughtless local influences may have biased the temperature records for a weather station, I decided I’d show some examples of well sited and non locally influenced climate monitoring stations for comparison. The picture was provided by the National Weather Service in San Diego.

This is Cuyamaca, in southern California. It is an official USHCN climate station of record.
Cuyamaca.jpg

While Cuyamaca isn’t 100% local influence free due to nearby roads, it is well away from buildings, exhaust fans, air conditioners and other such influences. It is near Lake Cuyamaca, and is well away from the major cities of southern California.

Here is its yearly average temperature record from NASA GISS:
Cuyamaca_stationplot.gif

You can see the Google Earth Map of its location near Lake Cuyamaca here



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3 responses

5 07 2007
jeff

Wow, that’s a HUGE spike from about 1902 to about 1912. That’s got to be an anomaly.

Interesting to see that temp since then has been pretty flat. Would love to see a mean line.

5 07 2007
Anthony

That spike probably ahs to do with thermometer exposure or siting. If you discount everything past that, it’s fairly flat, perhaps with a slight warming trend.

7 07 2007
gingeroni

When was the road put in? Maybe the spike correlates with a new paved road.