The surfacestations project has now surveyed over 70% of the USHCN. I keep telling myself that there probably aren’t many surprises left. We’ve seen climate monitoring stations in parking lots, next to parked cars, next to burn barrels, near air conditioners, at airports, at sewage treatment plants, at industrial facilities, in people’s front yards, back yards, side yards, near BBQ grills, on top of telephone poles, on main street, next to houses, attached to houses, next to buildings, and yes even on the rooftops. One was painted blue, one brown, some hardly at all. Some were even found out of compliance in the Alaskan white north. We’ve seen them in the desert, on the DEW line and down under.
In all of those, it was either a Stevenson Screen or an MMTS type shelter, or the occasional Davis Vantage Pro weather station when the observer put in their own equipment. It was all within expectations, equipment-wise.
A couple of days ago, I had an IM conversation with Evan Jones, who has been surveying stations in New York state. A lot of them are hard to pin down. The one on Cortland NY particularly so, since it’s NCDC provided lat lon put in a residential area, but it is actually on top of a building downtown, which just happened to be the local newspaper office: the Cortland Standard. It looks like a place where weird things might happen.
The building has been there awhile, so has the weather station. NCDC gives this as the location:
Location Description: ROOF OF BLDG AT MAIN STREET & TOMPKINS ST WITHIN & 150 FEET S OF PO
Evan had called the newspaper editor and confirmed that indeed, it was on the rooftop.The NCDC equipment list was puzzling, because, well, why would they need a “Data Collection Platform – Other”? if they already had the standard MMTS and rain gauge?
| 2000-04-01 | 2006-09-11 | PRCP | SRG | PRIMARY | STANDARD RAIN GAGE | PRECIPITATION | — | — | COOP SOD |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| RIVR | ADR | — | ANALOG DIGITAL RECORDER | — | — | ||||
| TEL | DCPO | DATA COLLECTION PLATFORM-OTHER | |||||||
| TEMP | MMTS | PRIMARY | MMTS ELECTRONIC SENSOR | TEMPERATURE | COOP SOD |
I had a hunch about this station, so I asked him: “Is there any possible way you could get a photo of it?”. Being a “can do” sort of guy, Evan hopped a Greyhound bus there from NYC today.
I figured, well, he’ll just get a picture of the MMTS on the rooftop of the newspaper office, nothing we have not seen before.
Then, this evening, I saw this in my email:
and this:
and this:
Umm, its, ah its, uh…another “high quality” member of the US Historical Climatological Network on the roof of the Cortland Standard newspaper office.
Ok here are a few issues:
- On the roof, near chimneys
- Some sort of Amityville Horror shutters turned sorta Stevenson Screen
- Half painted
- Half open, half enclosed
- The MMTS shield is missing some plates, about half
- It is not a standard MMTS screen, it is something else
- Dirty darkened plates on the interior sensor housing
And I’m sure there is more. Here is the aerial view:
Click here for a live interactive view.
The tar roof makes for a nice albedo.
Oddly, NASA GISS modifies the temperatures circa the year 1900:
What we don’t know is what the plot above would look like if this station was properly sited and sheltered. I wonder how many high temperature records for Cortland are actually real or “roofed”? How many warmest overnight low temperature “highest minimum” records were set there because of this siting? We’ll never know.
In defense of the newspaper editor, Mr. Howe, who was kind enough to grant access for photography and reportedly was “puzzled” by the keen interest shown by Evan Jones in this station, he says that he “inherited it when he came to work there 37 years ago”.
37 Years? And in all this time nobody from NOAA/NWS spots this monstrosity of science and does something about it? Oh the shame. The NWS lack of responsibility makes a mockery out of the hard work these dedicated volunteers put in towards maintaining records.
My heart goes out to the volunteers who manned this station, they had no idea. As for the COOP manager of the National Weather Service Office in Binghamton, NY, who is responsible for this station. I’d like to shake your hand, then give you a well deserved smack upside the head and ask: “what were you thinking’?
The only positive thing I can say about this station is that the station stopped reporting to NCDC in December of 2000. The last B91 form from NCDC’s database is here (PDF). Maybe the decision was made to close the station, but the NCDC database didn’t catch up with that until a 9/11 of 2006.
| [ 2006-09-11 ] | 9999-12-31 | 2006-09-11 | NWS | CSSA | 9 | — | INACTIVATE A STATION |
|---|
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Anthony…I must agree with you on the last paragraph…the observer had no idea…but the COOP MANAGER must be ASLEEP at the wheel….pathetic…
“Amityville Horror” ::snort:: Thanks for the laugh, Anthony.
By the way, the first two pictures of the Cortland, NY temperature sensor are both captioned as “looking east”. I suspect the first picture is looking north.
Bizarre,
Society spends $Billions on super colliders to find the Higgs Boson, but can’t spend $Millions to establish a functional temperature measuring system that will underpin policy decisions worth $Trillions.
Go Figure?
It seems to me that many weather stations around the globe are reasonably adequate for measuring ‘weather’: is it hot today or cold, is it rainy or dry, is it windy or calm, what is the current air pressure, etc.
The real problem is when these ‘weather’ readings are used to measure ‘climate’, and particularly changes in the climate. For this purpose they appear to be woefully inadequate, for all the reasons cited in WUWT and the surfacestations project.
If it wasn’t so serious it would be hilarious. Come to think of it, it IS hilarious!
Anthony,
“Some were even found out of compliance in the great white north.”
So when did Alaska leave the Union and join Canada. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_White_North
Just wondering eh?
A big thank you to Evan Jones for your effort and success in adding another fascinating piece to the puzzle.
Anthony, thank you for persevering with the blog. I know that it is a lot of work, some of it unpleasant, but you are doing an amazing and wonderful thing here at WUWT.
I wish I’d known more about weather stations when I was working my farm in NNNW Montana (39-day growing season, testing vegetables for seed companies) — I had a thermometer and kept a log for years, but I now see how much more I could have done. If I ever move back to the mountains I’m setting up a station in the lower pasture. How do you keep moose from scratching against the things and wrecking them?
Directions are correct. The peaked roof access is in the SE corner of the building. The station is a hop, skip, and half a jump to the west. The roof angles out to the southwest leaving just a few feet of roof south of the station.
There was no safety wall or anything else at the roof’s edge–just a sheer 50′ drop. And a nice slick coating of ice over the black tar. It gave me the willies doing the shots facing north, let me tell you!
A classic…how many surprises are left?
Potential problems with estimating temperature are one reason for looking more to integrators of climate. I study lakes–there we can look at long term trends in temperature and the number of days of ice cover. Botanists in Europe are studying the invasion of plants from the south (e.g. Spain) into northerncountries, while ornithologists are studying advances in bird migration timing and egg laying. Glacier melting is another good integrator. Presumably, the kinds of changes that I listed above are not dependent on the placement of weather stations.
The award for the best study by a Ph.D. student at a conference that I recently attended in the Netherlands, went to an excellent study that combined a green house experiment and field data to show that plant species that have recently invaded the Netherlands from the south are more resistant to generalist (insect) herbivores than closely related species (congeners) that are natives. This paper was already published in Nature, which is the most prestigious scientific journal (along with Science). The study included a very elegant experimental design with very convincing results. The importance of generalist predators is that species that are expanding their ranges often leave their specialist predators and pathogens behind.
It was an interesting project finding the place. I located the post office and traced 150 ft. south using Google erth map ruler. That told me what building it was on, and the names of the streets it was on. So I called the P.O and they told me it was the Cortland Standard. But telephone information gave me a non-working number. So I called City hall and they came up with one for me.
Kevin Howe, the publisher, was extremely nice and accommodating and his staff was polite and helpful (but only the boss could let me onto the roof). He climbed up the stairs with me and stood around in the freezing cold in a sweater while I shot the site. Then, when I came dashing back into the building asking if I could photograph the indoor data collection equipment, he climbed back up the stairs again and showed me where it was.
Before the final climb to the roof, there was an old area over the offices that reminded me for all the world of the aerie from Men of Iron. I commented that I’d have loved hanging out in that place when I was a kid–and he said his own kids used to.
I want to thank Mr. Howe for being so kind helpful and commend him for his civic mindedness (a common thread among all the volunteers who maintain these records).
Are not ‘normal’ Stevenson Screens made with a double thickness air gap roof? The one on this is hard to see, but it looks like a single bit of plywood with roofing on it (assumed roofing, or the plywood would not hold up…).
IFF that’s true, there will be significant radiant heat from it at noon in the summer…
Sidebar: Nightly News reporting 8 inches of snow on Mt. Hamilton and spousal unit reports more snow on Mtn. lower than she’s seen before (lived here more decades than she will let me say in public 😉
For a good time, take a look at:
http://mthamilton.ucolick.org/techdocs/MH_weather/
How weather ought to be reported for a ‘station’… with lots of ‘toys’ 😉
We are definitely back to getting cold air and a low pressure zone is off shore north of Pamela’s feeding us storms… Why Did I Ever complain about the lack of rain… 😉
A classic…how many surprises are left?
We’re checking!
Evan Jones,
Did you ware your Batman suit to get that?
we had to ask………………………………….
A big thank you to Evan Jones for your effort and success in adding another fascinating piece to the puzzle.
Not at all. Agent 00 et al. is on the job.
But credit is due Anthony on this one. It was he who sniffed out the inconsistencies in the data record and it was his unerring instinct that caused him to decide that an onsite inspection (as opposed to a virtual survey) was the way to go.
So does this station get a rating of 5?
That question was a joke, of course.
Have the people running that station ever heard of the word “maintenance”?
And have the people using the data ever heard of calibrating instruments, and checking their accuracy? This is a ISO QM requirement for even small companies. It’s obvious the NOAA has no clue about assuring the integrity of its instruments. It’s running an operation that’s at least 5 levels below what I would term as “shoddy”.
Sylvia
Put an electric fence around it.
Perhaps you could install a solar powered unit.
Hi Anthony and everybody,
To see a station on a building roof is always a surprise for me… and I’m surprised more and more often these days.
I know we are numerous here in France to read WUWT.
You make a great job, keep continue.
Thanks.
REPLY: thank you for the kind words. -Anthony
DJ and Mary Hinge.
Comment please.
In boxing a man is nocked down for the ten count, to give him the benefit of the doubt. Mud slinging is what happens before and after the match. Here is a chance for ya’ll to prove your point.
Sorry, OT.
Lifestyles of the Rich and Alarmist:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1145127/The-Prince-hypocrites-Charles-embarks-16-000-mile-green-crusade–aboard-private-jet.html
*sigh*
From such stations are computer models made. A real-world concrete example of the first part of the expression, “Garbage In, Garbage Out”.
And they propose to forecast the climate 100 years out? Try getting the forecast right one day out!
On Wednesday (2/11) the forecast for Thursday’s storm was for snow starting around noon with 3-6 inches snow plus an additional 1-3 inches Thursday night, for a storm total of 4-9 inches.
The reality?
The snow started around 5 am and, while heavy at times, the final result of over twelve hours of heavy wet snow was — 1 inch! Plus, to really make my mood extra dark, one commuter aircraft impacting a house 4.5 miles NNW of my location at a cost of 50 lives. Early indications are – icing.
Forget that $140 million funding for those never cursed enough computer models. Pour those funds into a major upgrade of all the weather and climate monitoring stations. And this time, get their siting done right.
OT – so sorry.
Poll:
“Is GW to blame for the current Australian heat wave”
See the following German link:
http://www.eike-klima-energie.eu/?WCMSGroup_4_3=6&WCMSGroup_6_3=1247&WCMSArticle_3_1247=472
The ABC unfortunately does not view free speech as an important element of democracy. The poll results WERE TAKEN OFF ITS WEBSITE.
Leon Brozyna wrote:
And they propose to forecast the climate 100 years out? Try getting the forecast right one day out!
It would be useful if they even had some good notion of what it was today, or yesterday, or last week.
The site was showing warmenising. Hey, no maintenance or checking required. Ever.
What’s going on with the blinker? Is there any info on the GISS adjustment? I have to say that the adjustment doesn’t make much sense. There could be legit reasons, but I don’t see what. It can’t be adjusting UHI because surely, you would see that kind of adjustment throughout the data.
Good work Evan and Anthony.