Sean Greer’s post criticizing these conclusions seems far more a reflection of this info not fitting his personal view of global warming. It is not necessary in scientific debate to recommend alternatives, a simple statement of fact that points out a flaw in data is all that is necessary as long as that statement was based on widely accepted information. Heat islands are a fact, Air Conditioning is a heat transfer system and rejects heat to the outside. These are facts with no known dispute. A good example is that I would not have to point out alternatives to the cold fusion failure to prove it does not provide output data as published.

Hmmm, so I have.

Appologies.

-Matt

I didn’t say that we are in the “data gathering stage.” Anthony did. I just posed a few questions about the stability or instability of the environment in which the stations exist compared to the historical record.

The key phrase there is “should be.”

It doesn’t look like they are doing that. It also doesn’t look like they are in start-up and debugging mode, or they have any intention of tossing out any compromised data (or even have any intention of determining to what extent there are problems).

But I haven’t been looking at this stuff for long, so if someone can direct me to where they EXPLICITLY state any of that AND how they are applying it, I would appreciate it.

So far it just doesn’t look like they are adhering strictly to their protocol.

And, if it were up to me, I would have 2 sets of stations. Those in heat islands, and those remote from them: the better to quantitate the effect. But then I’m just picky that way.

Re: “If anything is beside the point it’s that the building belongs to a paper that is owned by the New York Times.”

Perhaps I haven’t been clear. Unless some privacy issue is at stake why not mention who is responsible for a site? Sean Greer insists that to so mention represents a form of political bias creeping into the science.

Let me be absolutely “to the point” — the notion that mentioning ownership of a particular site is evidence of political bias is absurd. It is complete, utter nonsense and has all the the earmarks of political desperation grasping at straws for the purpose of diversion and calumny.

Where is the science? Good question! Where is the adherence to NOAA standards any reasonable researcher should expect?

Mr. Greer’s notion of what is worthless and what is not in the scientific debate is likewise nonsense and does not merit a response other than to note it is nonsense.

With regard to what makes a suitable site –

Why should Sean Greer, or anyone for that matter, need Anthony Watts to hold their hand and tell them what comprises good station implementation? Anyone can read the standards set by NOAA for themselves.

Nevertheless Anthony has already done as much but some, evidently, do not choose to listen. I guess political theater is more important to some folks.

With regard the specifics on the effects of site characteristics, my understanding is evaluations are in the works. Nevertheless, NOAA set standards, they had a reason to set standards, and the standards are not being enforced nor are stations even inspected for compliance.

Perhaps Mr. Greer should ask NOAA how they decided what were to be the standards, why such standards should be established, and why they even bothered to make a set of standards since they do not, evidently, expect them to be followed.

If I understand Anthony’s comment about this, then that could be restated as, “Right now they are in the biased-baseline setting mode, and we’ll stay that for a long while to be sure to lock the errors in place for the forseable future.”

And that bias will never be erased as long as it is in the database. Eventually it may be mitigated but that could take a long time, depending on how fast they normalize data collection to as close to neutral input as possible. But to do that, they should probably do pilot-studies to determine the best way to do that and which, as sloppy is this all seems, have doubtless not been done.

The real problem is that allegedly “scientific” conclusioins and policy initiatives based on them are RIGHT NOW being hatched based on faulty data: data which anyone with an ounce of common sense can see are faulty.

This is NOT science, and pretending it’s o.k., just because we are “only collecting data” (the most critical aspect of the scientific process) makes no sense whatever, especially given the potentially devastating economic consequenses these errors could have.

Now, about the mention of the NYT. Forget politics. I would take that to mean the SR paper has deep pockets, and access to top scientists who could have given proper advice on (re-)location of that station. And they could afford to move it, and maintain it properly.

As far as stability of the error due to surroundings, a new roof is usually required about every 15 to 20 years while the color (reflectivity) changes continually, air conditioners are serviced annually, and often the &%*# covers are replaced incorrectly. Also, they degrade in performance (efficiency), requiring replacement about as often as a roof, and so on. Nothing stable there.

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/uscrn/

The CRN is not yet complete, and it won’t solve the bias problems that have crept in to the historical near surface temperature data.

As for NYT being “paid” as far as I know, the answer is no. The NWS Cooperative Observer Program relies solely on volunteers, just like my project to document the stations does.