As we get more of the private observers in USHCN surveyed, we start hearing about stories like this one from Dufur Oregon, where the observers seem to have been pretty much “left on their own” for about many, many, years. The lack of guidance and QC on the part of NOAA is stunning. The station itself is even more troubling. I don’t blame the observer, but NOAA clearly failed this observer and the science mission to collect climate data.
Find the Stevenson Screen in this picture
Anthony, I wanted to share experience regarding Dufur with you because the station is on a private residence and the survey form does not allow for the frustration that one feels regarding the lack of oversight on the part of administering agency. The particulars are these:An 80+ year old gentleman, [we’ll call him Bob for privacy], has been curator of the Dufur station since 1968, having inherited these duties from his father-in-law as a death bed request. The father-in-law, had maintained the station since about 1908. However, it is very apparent that there has been little guidance or assistance, and almost no recognition for the efforts of these volunteers: In this instance, for about one century of effort.It is very disheartening to see the amount of effort that this family put into a project that is so badly out of compliance with the guidelines. Some of the problems with the station include:1. The Stevenson Box is 6 feet from the house and 6 feet from the exhaust unit of a heat pump.2. The box is dwarfed and almost swallowed up by a large yew tree on one side and a juniper on the other. Both trees tower over the box and access to the door on the box is now quite restricted.3. There are numerous other trees, shrubs and fences in this very small area that influence the air flow near the thermometers.4. Several decades ago, apparently concern about the top of the box weathering prompted either the curator or his father-in-law before him to sheath the top in what appeared to be aluminum sheeting. ( I know you’ve been experimenting with the effects of latex vs whitewash; what about metal sheathing?)5. The reported coordinates of the station are off by .14 miles, and have been out-of-date for 40 years. The lat/lon cited by NOAA also marks the precise location of his father-in-law’s house, where the station was located 40 years ago; coincidence? As I understand it, [Bob] moved the box 40 years ago, but NOAA was not aware of the change and did not physically check out the station during the 40 year period.6. Firewood, tools and bikes have been and are currently stored around and under the box.7. The curator indicated that in the past when he was away from home, a friend of his who lived a ways out of town, would simply record the temperatures at his (the friend’s home), and the curator would plug this data into his records.It would appear, that in 40 years no one has been by to check this installation and I wonder what communications are maintained between the curators and NOAA to encourage that the stations and procedures are kept in compliance.
To add insult to injury, when [Bob] was given a certificate for his efforts, NOAA shortened the number of years of service.
Here is the “metalized” roof of the Stevenson Screen:
Note also the condition of the wood and paint.
As you can see from this photo, the screen is in proximity to trees, bushes, and the house:
See the complete photo gallery here.
Yes, this is an active, official climate station of record for the US Historical Climatological Network. Data from this station and many like it are used in climate studies.
Every time I see something like this it angers me. In private industry we have demands for quality control. There are protocols like ISO-9000 put into place by industry voluntarily, to ensure quality products and services, yet it appears we have not even a hint of similar quality control in the measurement and collection system of the USHCN data set.
Which makes this statement from the home page of NOAA’s USHCN particularly laughable:
The United States Historical Climatology Network (USHCN) is a high quality, moderate-sized data set of daily and monthly records of basic meteorological variables from over 1000 observing stations across the 48 contiguous United States.
I am at an unusual loss of words. How could NOAA treat their responsibilities so badly. On one hand we have the time to help defend smoke stack painters, on the other hand to misuse hard working people. One cannot even mention the issues to these people whom have worked for close to a century on this project. It bothers me and I only pay taxes to support NOAA. I wonder if it bothers them at all.
If the box is over a mile from where records show it is, kudos for finding it. Obviously there is a valid mailing address, but someone’s not using it to send operation manual updates.
Well, when the data validates the popular meme, nobody thinks to look into it.
OT The latest BBC programme on Climate Change, apparently the definitive scinetific version by a Scotish geologist from Plymouth, Devon, entitled Climate Wars, has been screened. That Scottish brogue lending an air of working class credibility to the narrative as against a boring southern English upper class accent. It started well as expected, & then turned “GREEN” rather rapidly, equally as expected from Aunty Beeb. Looks like the main “scientific” contributor/advisor was one Professor Naomi Oreskes from California! Well, well. No news there then! Lots of lovely tinted film of billowing gases from “steam” towers, etc, you know all brown/red & dirty for maximum effect, the sun has limited effect on the climate etc, etc. About as impartial as an alcoholic bartender, a little unfair I know but really this takes the biscuit on neutrallity? One begins to wonder why one pays a TV licence!
Time to support crime in the UK, destroy careers, make movies, and hold thousands of press interviews, but no time to actually do their job.
This makes me think of a bad NOAA Infomercial – Just site it and forget it!
I can just hear some cocky desk jockey data adjuster justifying such lack of attention by citing an established practice of ‘adjusting’ data, so that any possible problems with data from this station would be fixed by the computer program.
Seeing how they handle the present network, what guarantees are there that the quality of the new network will be any better? Will they continue this practice of Just site it and forget it?
The really sad thing about this is that NOAA will now close this site and tell poor Bob, his friend and his father-in-law’s memory they’ve wasted their time.
And NOAA will blame it all on you Anthony.
As they say, Bob will likely forget most of the details about what actually happened, but he’ll never forget how they made him feel…
All sacrificed to the biggest global fraud since the Yalta Agreement.
Anthony,
I don’t know what to say, my father records rain and jots it down in a calendar. He has been doing it for several decads. He is 83. He, like this gentleman, is a breed apart. They “just do it”.
Does this gentleman know that his information is tainted and perhaps of no scientific value? This is way beyond neglect. It is disrespectful. This should be put out into the news.
HEADLINE:
“Neglected Father & Son team kept useless temperature record for a 100 years! NOAA continue to includes their data in climate science research.”
STORY:
“The father, who started to record temperatur for NOAA in 1908 asked, on his death bed, his son “Bob” to continue to record the data. Bob has diligently done so since 1968! A group of volunteers at surfacestations.org found that the temperature measurments are hopelessly tainted by local conditions, including an air conditioner within feet of the station, trees and repairs made to the stations that did not follow guidlines….” etc. etc. etc.
There has to be SOMEONE, bigger than a local news station that will report on this!! I bet WSJ would.
P.S. Isn’t there enough information here to take some action too? In my opinion, this is enough to get someone fired.
Now I am even more miffed!
Looking at the picture, this man is taking care of his own yard in an impeccable manner. I know, my father does exactly the same thing.
If asked, these kind of people would maintain records with unerring steadiness and unfailing accuracy.
Shame on NOAA.
As I said on another posting, the USHCN needs a complete overhaul, top to bottom. And NOAA may too for that matter. The real problem is, straying OT here, that Dow Jones lost 500 points today. Merrill Lynch got bought by Bank of America, and Lehman Brothers is going to be carved up like a Christmas ham. Plus, both presidential candidates favor a cap-and-trade system that is destined, if implemented, to do widespread damage to the entire energy market and thus the economy. I am afraid the USHCN ranks somewhere way, way down the list of priorities for the government, even while its bad and freely “adjusted” data justifies James Hansens lunatic cries and his advocacy for British eco-terrorists as a key scientific witness during their trial that earned them a not guilty verdict from the jury.
There are perilous times ahead.
I work for a company that currently contracts to a large multinational chain of electronics stores. There are hundreds of stores, each of which gets daily email and direction on what items to display, pricing, where in the store to put product, etc.
STILL, every time I’m in one, they’ve done SOMEthing wrong, something different, something that seemed to make sense at store level but makes no sense from the perspective of the chain.
The worse/best in this regard are smaller cities, populations under, say, 100,000. Or 50,000. They will improvise anything and everything. They’ll make things work without contacting us for the support we are already being paid to provide. They’ll buy their own parts and bring things from home and use duct tape.
I recognize the same spirit in this station. As I understand it, this was the same type of spirit that settled North America and made it what it is!
PS. Sorry about the inaccurate measurements. Then again, I expect they can simply be “adjusted” to give the desired… er… correct results.
Makes me think about science fiction stories where rusty robots are still doing their futile chores while the humans have moved on long ago. But how do you tell a 80+ year old human that all the data he and his father in law have been collecting for a century are now completely useless? Heartbreaking, truely.
With reference to Alan the Brit.
I watched the programme Climate Change as well. It was presented in a manner that gave it a feel for balance.
However, it was noticeable that the intrerviews with the “Sceptics” were shown as if they were seen with an IR camera. This gave a sublimal impression of danger and weirdness. Oddly this technique was not used with the people on the other side of the argument
There was a quick interview with Christopher Monckton that let him raise objections but did not give the reasons for his objections to the hockey stick and the odd manner of its publication in IPCC documentation, against all their rules and with no peer reviewers alowed to check the stats. This made him seem like an oddball who believes in conspiracy theories with no justification for maligning noble scientists like Mann. There was a 10minute discussion of the Hockey stick with no mention of Steve McIntyre. There have been so many other confirmations of the graph, according to the programme!
The Great Global Warming Swindle was mentioned with reference the link between sunspots and temperature. He mentioned that it stopped in 1980 and extended it to 1990 because it then did not show that the link did not continue. Interesting it was not extended up to 2008 to show the relative temperature fall since the 1990s.
Unfortunately it was presented well for such a populist programme.
It even said that all discussion of sceptics is designed to delay action in any way. Oil companies and Big Business were mentioned as you would expect!
There was a comment on Greenland as used by sceptics in their arguments. He then went on to “show” that many scientific studies had shown that the medieval warming did not happen. But did not go back to mention why Greenland was then colonised, nor why the burial grounds are under permafrost, as the dead were not buried in permafrost in the medieval period.
Sorry, we keep hearing that the argument is moving in the sceptics favour, but I don’t think that will happen until debilitating taxes hit home, and there is no difference in climate. No doubt it will be blamed on China, India, Russia etc who are polluting the atmosphere so much that we are getting a temporary Global Dimming effect.
And the response from the local NOAA / NWS office will be: Call Washington.
Holy Cow! ….I believe the recording of the temperature would have to be HIGHER than actual due to the various things that INTERFERE with the screen.
We must do better.
http://www.cookevilleweatherguy.com
I’ve joked before that the only weather measurements I trust are those I took when I was a boy, covering for the schoolteacher who normally took them when he was on holiday. Many a true word is spoken in jest.
By the way Anthony, always enjoy the postings on here. Very informative and balanced.
I have passed on much to our school geography department. The last few weather station posts on Stephenson boxes have made an impression on them to the extent that the Head of Geography has already done a Powerpoint for students on siting a weather station, using images and information from here.
Thanks again.
It’s as if they intentially put these moniters near heat from air condition units or asphalt or where some source of extra heat may be.I believe they want to get a higher bias reading to be in line with all the global warming .Even though the media will try to hide it the truth will eventually come out on bias and phony temperatures readings.
Hadcrut data is now out for August: 2008/08 0.387
http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcrut3/diagnostics/global/nh+sh/monthly
O/T: Hadcrut’s out: 0.387 for August.
Dang.. Sudbury beat me. 🙂
No way to tell which way the bias went since there are so many competing bias factors. I figure the aluminum top can’t help but raise the daytime temps markedly, if my memories of living in corrugated steel Quonset huts in those less than appealing areas of South East Asia I had the joy of occupying in my youth .
I don’t see how anyone can possibly ‘trust’ the GISS numbers if 30% of the stations are like this.
Anthony, when you have 90% of the stations cataloged you need to get this in front of Congress. Simply sending it to NOAA will result in a massive CYA coverup.
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denis hopkins (05:20:41): “…Head of Geography has already done a Powerpoint for students on siting a weather station, using images and information from here.”
The power of the net; the “Global Village”; inspirational. Thanks, denis. Go Anthony!
Anthony, here is an article in today’s New York Times about the Mohonk House weather station in NY. They even mention that some stations around the country, but not that one for the reasons they mention, have to have the data adjusted for urban heating effects.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/16/science/earth/16moho.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ref=science
REPLY: Thanks I saw that in JS Today, I’m going to ask if anyone can survey it.
Anthony
Reply – I am a couple of hours from there. So is John. And we both wanted to meet for lunch. – Dee Norris