Thanks to the work of dedicated volunteers, we continue to complete surveys of the 1221 USHCN climate stations in the USA. Last week thanks to a business trip, I was able to complete the final two stations in Nevada: Wells, and Austin.
You can see all the Nevada USHCN station surveys here in my online database. Note that in the map above, Wendover is in UTAH, not Nevada. Some interesting things to note about Nevada USHCN stations that I learned:
- With the exception of ASOS stations at airports, most USHCN stations are within a half mile or less (in some cases like Mina, less than 100 yards) from major highways and Interstates.
- Even the most remote stations, such as Austin, are within a few feet of a building. All stations in Nevada are very near some type of human influence.
- With the exception of some Stevenson Screens/mercury thermometers used as a backup all USHCN stations in Nevada have primary instruments converted either to MMTS or ASOS systems.
- As you can see in the map above, there is a vast area not covered by USHCN stations.
- Boulder City and Wells have closed in the last five years, but I surveyed them anyway to find out where the sensors had been placed.
- The Nevada Department of Transportation has an extensive network of automated weather stations with better coverage than USHCN, but most of the data is short term and in all cases, measured within 50-100 feet of the roadway.
Nevada was one of the toughest states to complete, due to it’s size and the remoteness of some stations such as Austin, which is an old mining town along the “loneliest road in the USA”, US 50.
Volunteer Russ Steele surveyed a good number of stations last summer, Craig Limesand got Golconda, Chip Edin did Battle Mountain, and I surveyed the remainder.
Despite such tedious trips, there are personal rewards to this work. For example I shot some great photos on the way to Austin. This is US50 in central Nevada looking east:
Click for larger image
And this superb sunset on the return trip after surveying Wells. I took this photo from the side of Interstate 80 just west of Lovelock:
Click for a larger image
Here is one of the Nevada DOT stations near Austin, on the mountain summit east of town within 25 feet of US 50. It was covered in rime ice and the anemometer and wind vane were frozen in place:
Austin Summit 7,484 feet- click for larger image
So even with the tedium of driving, there is always something new and interesting to find.
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NICE WORK!
Ummmm. Thanks for all your selfless work.
However….
I’m beginning to suspect that the GW phenomenon is manmade after all.
Sensors placed near: Airport runways, beside A/C exhaust, on top of buildings…ALL of these heat signitures are man-made…
DUH: man made global warming.
Anthony: What are your expectations for the kind of reception the survey data will receive – particularly from “Official Government Agencies?”
However it turns out, it appears (to me, a non-scientist) that you are uncovering some significant deficiencies in a system unquestioningly relied upon by researchers and policy makers.
You got it barbie butts – man made global warming. Entirely man made, by the man made global warming industry. And will also use data from last month, and the month before, and before,…
Anthony,
Ellen and I were glad to help. It was a lot of fun hunting for stations, a GPS aided treasure hunt. Sorry we by passed the Wells site when we passed through Well this summer. It was closed in 2004 and on private property, so we breezed right by. I am hoping we can pick up some of the Idaho sites this coming summer. My book on Cobalt mining in Idaho will be published next month and we are planning book tour next summer in Idaho, depending on the economy.
(A) First, some AG news from the northern tier:
12% lower spud harvests in Idaho: http://www.agweek.com/articles/?id=1507&article_id=12790&property_id=41
ND harvest stopped by weather:
FARGO, N.D. — The Agriculture Department says rain and snow halted row crop harvest progress.
The agency says in its weekly crop report that some farmers don’t expect to get back into the field until next spring because of heavy snow and rain last week in North Dakota.
The agency says the corn harvest was 23 percent complete, compared with 88 percent last year and the long-term average of 81 percent.
(B) Second, SOMETIMES the Nobel Prize Committees just SCREW-UP:
1935: The world’s first modern frontal leukotomy is performed in a Lisbon hospital by Portuguese neurologist Antonio Egas Moniz. [later refined and renamed “lobotomy”]
Although Moniz would share the 1949 Nobel Prize in medicine for his pioneering work in psychosurgery, the lobotomy had not only fallen out of favor by the 1950s but was being excoriated as a barbaric practice.
The Soviet Union banned the surgery in 1950, arguing that it was “contrary to the principles of humanity.” Other countries, including Germany and Japan, banned it, too, but lobotomies continued to be performed on a limited scale in the United States, Britain, Scandinavia and several western European countries well into the 1980s.
(c) Third: OTOH, The Goreacle does need some form of recognition that will out-live him. I propose “The Gore Minimum”. Tell Your Friends.
(d) Finally: HUGE PROPERS to Anthony for his selfless work in documenting the circumstances of USA weather stations. Too bad the (nominal) scientists responsible aren’t as diligent.
One corollary thought: with so many stations located within a few meters of buildings, I wonder if there exists a correlation between total installed A/C capacity and the rise of average temperatures? Intuitively at least the rise of temperatures correlates pretty closely to the rise of air conditioning, particularly in government and public buildings (which in the South started in earnest in late 1950’s/early 1960’s). Just a thought.
Respectfully,
HA Reynolds
Houston
Anthony, many of us are waiting for the analysis of climate (temperature) trend by station rating.
Any idea when?
REPLY: I’m waiting to get at least 75% of the stations surveyed, plus some significant infill in Texas, OK, KS, NE, AR, AL, and MS.
I want to ensure a majority sample plus broad distribution. Still a few months out before we get there. – Anthony
The Futile Quest for Climate Control
The idea that human beings have changed and are changing the basic climate system of the Earth through their industrial activities and burning of fossil fuels—the essence of the Greens’ theory of global warming—has about as much basis in science as Marxism and Freudianism. Global warming, like Marxism, is a political theory of actions, demanding compliance with its rules.
Marxism, Freudianism, global warming. These are proof—of which history offers so many examples—that people can be suckers on a grand scale. To their fanatical followers they are a substitute for religion. Global warming, in particular, is a creed, a faith, a dogma that has little to do with science. If people are in need of religion, why don’t they just turn to the genuine article?
—Paul Johnson
Climate change knows three realities: science reality, which is what working scientists deal with every day; virtual reality, which is the wholly imaginary world inside computer climate models; and public reality, which is the socio-political system within which politicians, business people and the general citizenry work.
The science reality is that climate is a complex, dynamic, natural system that no one wholly comprehends, though many scientists understand different small parts. So far, science provides no unambiguous evidence that dangerous or even measurable human-caused global warming is occurring.
The virtual reality is that computer models predict future climate according to the assumptions that are programmed into them. There is no established Theory of Climate, and therefore the potential output of all realistic computer general circulation models (GCMs) encompasses a range of both future warmings and coolings, the outcome depending upon the way in which they are constructed. Different results can be produced at will simply by adjusting such poorly known parameters as the effects of cloud cover.
The public reality in 2008 is that, driven by strong environmental lobby groups and evangelistic scientists and journalists, there is a widespread but erroneous belief in our society that dangerous global warming is occurring and that it has human causation.
http://www.quadrant.org.au/magazine/issue/2008/451/the-futile-quest-for-climate-control
it was addressed on another website as this:
“My other concern is that GW appears to have become a new kind of “secular religion” with all the elements of any other religion. It has a mythical history (man living in oneness and harmony with nature-never happened), Venal Sin (man driving an SUV), Redemption ( driving a Prius), Indulgences (buying Carbon credits-why didn’t I think of this scam?), Religious zealot terrorist (Greenpiece and Peta) and Heaven (man back living in imaginary harmony with nature). And a majority of it’s adherents maintain the same moral superiority of any other religions fundamentalist”
Anthony, how much is NOAA paying you to survey their
weather stations? Seems to me, NOAA should have been doing this.
Thank you Anthony! Great work, Great blog.
Hyon and Terry
Anthony, I took pictures of one of the whitewashed temperature boxes at the Lake Mead welcome station in Boulder City, NV on this past Saturday. It is a different location than the one you mention in Boulder City, and so, I assume, not a USHCN site. My picture shows that it sits adjacent to the parking lot, and was shaded by three large palm trees, until very recently judging from the sawed off trunks and debris. I’ll be happy to send them along if you want.
REPLY: Absolutely, I’d love to see those. Please use info [at] surfacestations dot org for the address to send to. – Anthony
Red State Blue State – Dot’s Up With That?
Still do not know, but would like to…?
I’m trying to understand:
“Here is one of the Nevada DOT stations near Austin, on the mountain summit east of town within 25 feet of US 50. It was covered in rime ice and the anemometer and wind vane were frozen in place:”
1. This station is substantially out of a small town Yes / No
2. It sits rather deserted “25 feet” from the “loniest” road with traffic hardly worth mentioning Yes / No
3. Thus aside of the wind vane and wind speed meter not working due frost, is there thought to be inadequacy on this station to provide reasonably proper temperature information Yes / No
I’d really like to see the inferences layer removed and get to meaningful facts.
thanks
Do you need volunteers in the southeast to check out weather stations? I’m a geologist and work for a consulting company. This has me traveling alot throughout the southeast (I’m based in Charleston, SC but I’m working at NAS Pensacola, FL for the week, for example). Let me know if you need any help in this area.
Jim
Sekerob – yes/no answers won’t cut it as they bias the answer, but here is my take on what you call the inference layer:
1. Yes, the station appears to be a substantial distance from any population centre – this is a Very Good Thing.
2. Yes, it sits within 25 feet of US 50. Lonely or not, the road is made from a material that absorbs heat energy during the day, then re-emits it at night (broadly speaking), and as 25 feet is a quarter of the recommended distance, then it’s likely this will have an adverse effect on temperature readings.
3. We can’t tell if it could provide “proper temperature information”, as it appears to be badly maintained. If we can’t rely on all parts of the weather station working as they should, we can’t rely on the temperature readings, can we?
Great posts on the “secular religion” element in AGW particularly by ed scott!
The curious thing to me is that AGW supporters apparently believe that Man is God-like (in that he can substantially alter the climate) yet every fervent AGW supporter I have met are Godless (by the definition of ANY organized religion).
Then I remembered this:
http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008/01/18/2-religions-that-their-parents-dont-belong-to/
White People are so strange. I hope they don’t take away the woodstove in my woodshop, looks like we’re gonna get an early and deep winter this year.
My people have been REAL environmentalists for three generations (my grandfather was a forester, “father of the town forest” and on the committee that created Yellowstone National Park.) I myself MAKE MY OWN DIRT for gosh sakes in one of those “cadillac” 3-bin composters I built from scrap wood. Frankly, we are flummoxed by this AGW crap.
Off topic:
NBC is purchasing Carbon Credeits to offset the travel of the correspondents et al they are sending to the ends of the earth. Last time I was on Kilamanjaro (1999) we had to pack everything out. There’s nothing fun about carrying your doo-doo down that mountain.
Dill Weed
Anthony I have no idea how to email you but the following is very interesting; an email from Harrison H. (Jack) Schmitt of Apollo 17 to The Planetary Society. Toward the end (about 75% thru) is his take re AGW.
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=29813
Seems to me that most of what I have read from astronauts, the people whom NASA correctly deemed as the best and brightest, generally don’t buy in to the consensus thing.
Which to believe: The scientist’s satellite data or the sorcerer’s computer algorerithm generated data?
Research further debunks warmism
The theory took a devastating hit in October when two warmists, David Douglass of the University of Rochester and John Christy of the University of Alabama at Huntsville, said their latest research revealed “variations in global temperatures since 1978 … cannot be attributed to carbon dioxide.”
For 30 years, Professor Christy has been in charge of compiling and analyzing data from NASA’s eight weather satellites, which daily take more than 300,000 temperature readings around the globe. The data show today’s average global temperature is the same as it was in 1979. An unambiguous cooling trend since 2004 has corresponded precisely with a period of reduced solar activity and radiance.
http://www.rep-am.com/articles/2008/11/16/opinion/380330.txt
I have a question. I understand that measuring temperatures close to buildings leads to a higher temperature than a station in the middle of nowhere. Measurements close to roads also have problems I think because of heat reflected by the ground.
So my question: is it really better to measure temperatures only in remote locations? Temperatures in cities, close to roads, etc. are also surface temperatures. They are affected by human activities, and then? If humans were heating the world by burning fires in every place, what would be the meaning of a temperature far from the fires?
My question also contains another one: in the observed warming, which part is supposed to be due to GGs and which could be due to “direct” heating of the atmosphere? I mean, if all the GGs remained constant and if we continue heating our homes with another source, wouldn’t the global temperature also increase?
REPLY: Q: “is it really better to measure temperatures only in remote locations? ”
The answer to that is yes. The newly active Climate Reference Network (CRN) which is run by NCDC went to great lengths to ensure UHI free and site bias free remote locations. The reason is that you want to capture the purest temperature signal possible, so that trends are not masked by other competing influences (such as building expansion, increased use of HVAC, more roads, etc ) on the sensor. – Anthony
Scare-Mongering on Steroids: NBC Warns Oceans Could Rise 200 Feet!
Kicking things off during half-time of last night’s NBC Sunday Night Football, Meredith Vieira put Al Gore’s alarmism to shame.
http://www.eyeblast.tv/public/checker.aspx?v=e4qGaGkUuz
As per the United States Geological Survey:
Climate-related sea-level changes of the last century are very minor compared with the large changes in sea level that occur as climate oscillates between the cold and warm intervals that are part of the Earth’s natural cycle of long-term climate change.
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/mark-finkelstein/2008/11/17/scare-mongering-steroids-nbc-warns-oceans-could-rise-200-feet
This is worth a look
Still, Beccaria points out that between 120,000 and 100,000 years ago, temperatures have been up to 5C warmer than today’s, at the upper end that is of the IPCC’s more catastrophic scenarios (or predictions). And just 20,000 years ago, the Earth was up to 10C colder (a negative record for the past 800,000 years, apparently). Barbante again:
“The cyclical nature [of temperatures] provides us with the right perspective concerning the climatic changes observed at the moment: if we don’t make the effort towards reaching a better understanding of the natural mechanisms [of climate change], it will be useless to keep trying to patch up predictions on what will happen in a century or two.”
http://omniclimate.wordpress.com/2008/11/16/two-mile-deep-antarctic-ice-core-reveals-stupidity-of-agw-catastrophism/
Anthony,
Some of your readers from earlier posts have expressed concerns about UHI and Barrow, AK data. There are many readers probably unaware that Barrow is the site of one of the USCRN (US Climate Reference Network) stations which has now accumulated data going back to August 2002. It’s very easy to print out data from both the USHCN and USRCN for comparisons. Although only four miles separate the two sites you’ll be surprised at some of the differences. Site photos are available for the entire network and the Barrow location is visible on Google Earth at 71.19.16.40N, 156.36.38.28W. Check out: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/crn/
Bill N.