How not to measure temperature, part 59

16 04 2008

I’ve mentioned this before, but it is worth mentioning again. In the 30 years I’ve been involved in meteorology, I had no idea that water and sewage treatment plants were locations used for climate monitoring until I started the surfacestations.org project. Given the environment at these places, the idea seems simply absurd to me.

Yet thanks to volunteer Michael Caplinger, here we are again with another gem of a station that is a USHCN “high quality” climate station of record located at a water treatment plant. This is COOP ID# 461220 in Buckhannon, West Virginia:

Looking ESE – click for a larger image

In the above photo, note the placement of the NOAA MMTS temperature sensor. As we tally potential measurement biases we can see the ubiquitous air conditioner, brick masonry, concrete, a metal walkway just inches from the sensor, and of course, the big grey elephant in the room, the “tank”. Then there’s the “big valley” of wind shelter.

Summed up: variable shade, wind shelter, heatsinks, heat sources. Certainly not an easy environment to untangle the actual air temperature measurement from.

As I’ve mentioned before, water treatment plants pump massive amounts of water through, with a tank holding tens of thousands of gallons of water this close to the temperature sensor, it acts as a big heat sink. A sewage plant adds waste heat and humidity to the air, which can affect Tmins.

Here’s another view of the facility from the opposite end:

Looking WNW – click for a larger image

Let us look at the temperature record. Here is the unadjusted USHCN data for Buckhannon, as plotted by NASA GISS:

Click image for the original source plot

The trend looks flat. I did a curve fit to the station data and came up with about a .25°C trend over 100 years. With the temperature being measured so close to a nearly steady state heat sink (tens of thousands of gallons of water) is it any wonder there isn’t much trend at this location? The NCDC records for this location only go back to the mid 1940’s, but it appears temperature has been measured at this location since then.

One of the caveats listed in NOAA’s guide to station placement in addition to the 100 foot rule is that stations should “not be installed near bodies of water, unless that is representative of the area”. Good advice to avoid heat sink effects, I’d say.

Fortunately, the new Climate Reference Network, which is carefully designed and sites selected with care, will avoid such problems.


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Categories : weather_stations

Road Trip

16 04 2008

Craig writes:

“That painting could use more concrete, a building, and an air conditioner next to the SS, and it would be perfect.” – your wish is my command…


Original painting by Caitlin Schwerin (Weather station & accessories added)

In a couple of days, I’m heading off to a week long road trip. This road trip is something that you, my faithful readers have made possible through generous donations when I asked for some help a few weeks ago. I thank you, each and every one, who donated to make this trip possible.

The trip has two purposes:

1) To meet with a top tier climate oriented organization (at the directors invitation) to have a sit down meeting about the www.surfacestations.org project.

2) To get as many USHCN stations surveyed as possible while I’m on this trip, I’m spending 5 additional days driving cross country to visit stations. I’ve spent weeks planning this route to maximize station visits.

I have not revealed who the individual is or the organization is yet, and I’ll save that for the day I’m actually there. I don’t want the person who invited me to be lobbied in advance. Let me just say that this is a significant meeting with opportunity to bridge some chasms that have developed.

While I’m on the road, updates may be spotty. I’ll do my best to keep you all informed on what transpires during Anthony’s excellent adventure.

In other news, I’m preparing my Stevenson Screen Paint Experiment for a second data logging run at a different location. I was not happy wit the location used last year due to some tree shading issues, and I’ve found another location that is better. I want to be sure that what I observed last year in the data is truly repeatable and is not in any way location dependent.


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Categories : Uncategorized

Journalists pan Gore secrecy

16 04 2008


Photo: EPFL
Security agents were much in evidence as EPFL President Patrick Aebischer welcomes Al Gore to Lausanne.

Reporters take exception to a media blackout of the ceremony in the Vaud capital that confers an honorary degree on the Nobel prize winner.
Al Gore received an honorary doctorate from the Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne Tuesday but, like the greenhouse gases he is famous for combating, he was invisible to the media. Reporters were shut out of the ceremony where the Nobel Peace Prize winner accepted his degree, which honors the former US vice-president’s efforts to publicize the climate change issue. A select few journalists were invited to attend the affair on the condition they did not report on what was said and did not film the event or take photographs – an edict that went down like a lead balloon with local news organizations.
Thierry Meyer, editor-in-chief of the Lausanne-based 24 Heures newspaper, wrote a commentary piece today decrying the secrecy. Meyer said readers should have the right to an account of the exchange between Gore and the students come to hear him speak – and not just carefully selected extracts selected for a press release. The irony of the situation is that Gore has become a media guru and communicator, famous for his role as narrator in the documentary film, An Inconvenient Truth. In this case, his message at EPFL got lost in the hub hub over the media blackout, apparently ordered by Gore’s staff.

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Categories : Uncategorized