UPDATED: Guess what this is?

14 09 2008

I’m back from my road trip today. It was a day of surprises, I visited 5 weather stations today, and each had a story to tell.

The one that was the most surprising is represented by the photo below, which I snapped with my Infrared camera. Hint: it’s not asphalt. The reading of 66°C for some elements in the scene is accurate. And it’s at an operating USHCN station, right under it in fact.

I’ll have more on this tomorrow, and a corresponding visible light photo that tells the story, right now I’m dead tired from driving 300+ miles today.

UPDATE: Lot’s of guesses, no correct answers. Click below to see what it is. You’ll be surprised. I sure was. Read the rest of this entry »


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Categories : weather_stations

Road Trip Today

14 09 2008

I’m on a road trip today, to the wilderness area of NE California to do a follow up on something I started last year. I’ll be offline for at leat 18 hours since I’ll have no net access. I’m chasing the cause of a temperature  anomaly and this time I’m bringing two of my USB temperature data loggers with me. Hopefully in about 60 days, I’ll have my answer.

So in the meantime. Our staff of moderators will keep the blog running smoothly. Thanks To Charles, John Goetz, Evan Jones, Dave Stealey, and Dee Norris for holding down the Fort. – Anthony


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Categories : Uncategorized

I am a Skeptic

14 09 2008

Posted by Dee Norris

skep·tic

One who instinctively or habitually doubts, questions, or disagrees with assertions or generally accepted conclusions.

from Greek Skeptikos, from skeptesthai, to examine.

The Thinker

The Thinker

I have been reading a lot of the debates that inevitably follow any MSM story on Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW).  In this story at the NewScientist, one of the comments stood out as a vivid example of the polarization that has developed between the those of us who are skeptical of AGW and those of us who believe in AGW.

By Luke
Fri Sep 12 19:15:22 BST 2008
The difference in response between skeptics and scientists is easily explained as the difference between inductive and deductive reasoning. Skeptics look for evidence to prove their conclusion and ignore any that does not fit what they believe. This makes it possible for them to believe in revealed religion and ignore anything that disputes it. I guess inductive reasoning can best be classified as deliberate ignorance. My condolences to practitioners of inductive thinking for your lack of logical ability. You don’t know what a pleasure it is to be able to think things through.

Read the rest of this entry »


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Categories : Science, climate_change, politics

More on the Santa Ana Rooftop Weather Station: comparison stations also problematic

14 09 2008

You may recall a couple of weeks ago I did an investigation of a COOP weather station in Santa Ana, CA prompted by front page article in the Orange County Register titled Urbanization Raises The Heat in Orange County. It was front page news that day, on Friday, August 8th.

The story focused on the 7.5 degree average temperature increase in Santa Ana in the past century. Most of the focus was on UHI, some was on AGW, but one thing that wasn’t mentioned was station siting.

Warming trend

A little bit of investigation on my part showed that the official climate station for Santa Ana was not only on the roof of the fire station there, but also near several A/C unit exhausts, and the station shelter door was facing the wrong way, west instead of north which would allow sunlight into the shelter, potentially biasing the thermometer at the times readings were taken. NOAA and the World Meteorological Organization both have specs that the shelter does must face North.


Santa Ana Station looking North.  Click for a larger image

And as we see from this photo, direct sunlight does indeed enter the screen when the door is opened. At certain times of the day and year it likely strikes the thermometer directly.:


Click for a larger image

The reporter that wrote the original story, Gary Robbins, also has a blog called “sciencedude”. I asked him to review the Santa Ana COOP station, and he reported again on it on Friday September 12th in a story titled:

Has Santa Ana been reporting wrong temperatures for years?

In that story, he enlists the help of the local NWS office to check out the issues I’ve uncovered. As a result, there is a quote from Noel Isla, from the NWS in San Diego, who is responsible for the Santa Ana COOP station:

“The weather station was moved from the ground to the roof,” Isla later told me. “And for an undetermined period, the door of the weather station wasn’t facing in the right direction. But I compared the Santa Ana data with other nearby stations (Fullerton, Yorba Linda and John Wayne Airport) and the data is consistent. The affect of the air vents and the relocation of the station appears to be negligible, if they had any affect at all. The temperature readings are good.”

I was curious about the three used for comparison, so I did a cursory check of the three stations Fullerton, Yorba Linda and John Wayne Airport using the tools available to me today. Read the rest of this entry »


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Categories : climate_change, weather_stations