In my previous post I pointed out how when Warren Meyer asked a simple question; “is this chart representative?” of himself, he needed only one phone call to disprove that a chart in the newly released Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States from the National Climatic Data Center (see NCDC GCCI Government Report). The chart purported to show a threat increase to the national electrical grid due to severe weather was really not a weather trend at all, but a trend of increased reporting thanks to increased diligence by the owner of the data in getting electrical utilities to cooperate and send in their data.
In another recent post on the FUBAR climate records from the failed ASOS weather station temperature sensor at Honolulu International Airport, I showed a nearby comparison station, the Honolulu Observatory, that is a GISS station that apparently no longer reports. I wrote –
But the nearby Honolulu Observatory temperature record doesn’t seem to have much of a trend, though it no longer measures temperature for climate records, a pity:
Honolulu Observatory GISS surface temperature record plot – click for larger image
Yes it sure seemed like the Honolulu Observatory stopped reporting in 1981. It also looks like the station was moved about 1949, or something happened around the station environment.
UPDATE: I got this via email on the morning of 6/19
The Geomag operations of the Honolulu observatory were moved in 1947.
Jeffrey J Love
USGS Advisor for Geomagnetic Research
Steve McIntyre, who has pointed out on many occasions to NASA GISS how they can find some of their long long stations that are actually still running popped in today to ask a simple question about reporting. It was not unlike the question about reporting Warren Meyers asked:
Does anyone know why the Honolulu Observatory data ends in the 1980s? Did they stop measuring or did GHCN stop collecting the information from them?
It was a simple question, with a surprising answer.
A couple of days ago I had looked at nearby stations to the Honolulu Airport to use for a data comparison to see just how much bias the failed ASOS sensor had generated. My first choice was the Honolulu Observatory, but like Steve I quickly found it had stopped reporting, at least according to GISS.
But with Steve’s question today, and remembering that he and Climate Audit readers have found missing GISS stations that are not updated in the GISTEMP database, but are actually still live and reporting, I thought I’d check again. I reasoned that observatories don’t generally close or relocate, so why would they stop doing a science service like measuring climate?
When Warren needed to get an answer to his question, all he needed to do was to make a phone call (presumably after a Google search). In my case I did a Google Search and sent a single email to get Steve’s question answered.
My first stop was to NCDC’s MMS database of station information. I looked up “Honolulu Observatory”. Sure enough, there it was, and listed as “current” too.
Eureka, it is still in operation! It is an MMTS temperature sensor and it looks like they have a backup thermometer in a Stevenson Screen aka “Cotton Region Shelter”.
“That was easy”, I thought to myself. followed by, “OK, let me get a look at the data”. So I zipped over to the NCDC COOP data section where I could look at the B91 reports from the station observer which are raw data archived as PDF’s.
It was there I hit a brick wall.It looked like it had been long closed. After all that’s what GISS reported.
The closing dates on the two “”Honolulu Observatory” entries didn’t match, but I’ve seen plenty of fouled up dates and locations on station data in the MMS database so it didn’t raise an eyebrow with me. More on that later.
But oddly, I had the NCDC MMS database telling me it was open. So I pressed on. My next task was to locate the “Honolulu Observatory” and find out if it was still in operation. Some Googling turned up this:
I located the USGS web page for the observatory, and from there found the name of the curator, Dr. Jeffrey Love. Since this is a geomagnetic observatory, I figured our resident solar physicist, Dr. Leif Svalgaard might have some connections, and asked him for an introduction. He was happy to assist, and within the hour I had an email contact from Dr. Love. He asked what I was looking for, and I explained the NOAA COOP station setup. He immediately replied saying:
“We don’t operate that station anymore, NOAA does. We used to be part of NOAA, but became part of USGS in the late 1970’s”
I was initially worried until I read:
“It is now operated by the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center.”
Oh. Well, I still figured the station had moved, and was nowhere near it’s original location, which is why GISS couldn’t get any data from it. Then I noticed this on the USGS observatory web page:
“The observatory is operated for the USGS, under terms of a memorandum of agreement, by the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center of NOAA.”
Hmmm. A little more checking and I discovered that these two organizations do indeed share a common address. Better yet, the weather station apparently had not been moved. Both the USGS observatory and the PTWC were within a hundred yards of the station coordinates I got from NCDC ‘s MMS and plotted on Google Earth:
My first thought was that the location looked a bit cooler than the acres of asphalt surrounding the ASOS at Honolulu International Airport:
But I still had to find the data. My next stop was an email to the media contact for PTWC, Delores Clark, to inquire if she knew where to find it. A few hours later I had my answer:
Mr. Watts:
The data are available online at:
http://www.prh.noaa.gov/hnl/hydro/daily_rosa_archive/rosa_archive.php
If you need further assistance, please let me know.
Aloha,
Delores Clark
I was dumbstruck. Because, just a couple of days ago I had in fact looked at that very archive, trying to find the data I was seeking. Not finding “Honolulu Observatory” in the NWS COOP report, I didn’t look much further:
But at the time, I had no way of knowing that PTWC was the new name for “Honolulu Observatory”. Up until today after my roundabout search I never would have given that four letter acronym another thought.
The name changed when the jurisdiction changed, but apparently nobody notified NCDC, and the change never found it’s way into the GHCN database.
For all practical purposes, the station was dead to the climate world, known only to the local NWS office in Honolulu. Plus, their main interest is in rainfall, not temperature, since they place the data on their hydrology page:
A simple lack of interagency reporting caused a whole cascade down the line, and a climate station that was once “lost” has now been “found”. It wasn’t quite as simple as Warren Meyer’s phone call, but if a citizen outside of the governmental loop can figure this out in a couple of hours, why can’t agencies like NCDC and GISS? Especially when knowing this sort of thing is is their job? Are there no flags that go up anywhere when data suddenly disappears?
So from this point it was easy for me to find the data I was looking for and run the comparison between the “Honolulu Observatory” and the Honolulu International Airport ASOS station. First a geographic comparison from Google Earth:
Downloading each daily report from PTWC and PHNL individually, I manually collated the data from both stations and put them into an ASCII file for import into my Dplot graphing program. I’ve saved a combination file of the two datasets here as a PDF for inspection. PHNL-PTWC-June09-data If anybody needs the individual station reports, the source URL’s are in the PDF file, they’ll still be on the NWS server for a few days before they get rotated out.
Unfortunately, there were two days of PTWC data missing, though all days of the PHNL ASOS data were intact. Also, I had all of the false record event reports from the PHNL ASOS previously archived.
So I plotted the two high/low datasets side by side to get an idea of just how much bias there was between the two stations. Fortunately, the stations were only 3.9 miles apart, and about the same distance inland from the beach, though the airport station ocean exposure suffers a bit from the extra runway that was apparently added as ocean fill at some point. Geographically the stations seem reasonably compatible in their placement on the south coast of Oahu.
The data from the two stations, when plotted side by side, was telling. I marked missing data, the record high events, and when the ASOS was repaired.
Note when the highs (Tmax) converged for the first time this month to within one degree of each other, right after the equipment was repaired. The greatest separation is in the nighttime lows, which would be expected due to the runway asphalt influence at PHNL Lows tend to be affected more by heat retaining surfaces at night.
Note also that during the string of record highs from the 10th to the 15th, the two stations diverged mostly by six degrees F, The NWS originally admitted in their TV Interview to two degrees error, and that may be true from the HNL airport location since it is indeed a sea of asphalt.
“ASOS…placed for aviation purposes…not necessarily for climate purposes.”
Six degrees difference in the Tmax for at least 5 days. Many other days of record were 4 or 5 degrees difference. One day was 9 degrees difference.
But, which station is more representative of Oahu’s climate? The airport, or the observatory in the grove of native ground cover? I don’t think all of Oahu is paved yet.
So the big question to NOAA/NWS Honolulu is:
Do you still think these records are valid and worth keeping in the climatic database and record events database?
The big question for GISS is:
Would you like your lost station back so you can update the data?
I am totally amazed by Anthony’s ability to pick up the scent and run to ground important details like this, at the same time as putting in all the work needed to manage this fantastic website and the Surface Stations project, and running a business. You must have a good wife to support you too. You deserve a Nobel just for hard and dedicated work.
Anthony, you’re enjoying this. I can tell.
🙂
I am totally amazed by Anthony’s ability to pick up the scent and run to ground important details like this,
Elementary my dear Wattsup.
Anthony does what every journalist should have been doing for the past 20 years or so – i.e investigating news stories. No wonder the media is dying – it deserves to.
Anyhow, you have my deepest respect for the work you’re doing with this blog.
Has anybody seen that IQ2 debate where Gavin Schmidt is puffing up his little chest, and boasting about how him and his fellow modelers are like the detectives on the CSI TV shows?
Who’s Horatio now Gavin?
It’s ridiculous that a there’s no federal agency that doesn’t already know this, and yet I’m not at all surprised. (I’m writing as somebody working in a central government agency in Australia.) It’s one thing to allow that corporate knowledge may have decayed to the point of oversight, but quite another that an apparently authoritative service lacks the due diligence to ensure the integrity of its data. I say Mr Watts needs acknowledgement for data integrity restoration, and the agencies responsible need to take a good, long, hard look at themselves.
Anthony, would there be a long term weather station in Hawaii, on the coast and free of UHI influence such as a light house like Diamond Head where you could get long term reliable data?
I’ve checked a few old light houses in Australia to find that whenever the data go back to the 19th century it is usually warmer back then.
Dittos.
Your propaganda is killing Polar Bears…… how can you sleep at night?
Well done, Anthony!
OT: Another Met office joke.
Anthony, you may have seen this new climate impacts report by the Met Office in the UK predicting a ‘mediterranian’ climate for the UK.
http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/UK-News/UK-Climate-Impacts-Report-Says-Droughts-And-Floods-To-Plague-Britain-Because-Of-Climate-Change/Article/200906315310858?videoSourceID=11a319b1e2d31210VgnVCM1000005d04170aRCRD&lpos=UK_News_Article_Inline_Player_List_1&lid=ARTICLE_15310858_UK_Climate_Impacts_Report_Says_Droughts_And_Floods_To_Plague_Britain_Because_Of_Climate_Change
What caught my eye was this claim by James Murphy
At Otter Farm in Devon, Mark Diacono has already started to grow peaches and apricots and even has a small olive grove.
He told Sky News Online: “It’s not often you get to look into the future and we’re absolutely committed to certain levels of climate change, so you’ve got to adapt to survive.
As it turns out Otter Farm is the UKs only ‘climate change farm’ and they have a good web site. It seems that the olives were planted in 2006 and are all but dead following 2 harsh winters and a cool summer, in fact all the ‘mediterranian’ species they’ve planted are either dead or nearly dead. There are some pictures of these poor plants in the snow on the Otter Farm blog here.
http://www.otterfarmblog.co.uk/2009/05/dull.html
I think Mr Murphey should have done a bit more checking before making this misleading claim.
The Honolulu Obs Oahu record plot is fascinating! Whether the station was moved in1949 is presumably not so interesting, as that the highest value was recorded in 1945. That was the year when the War in the Pacific ended in August, after four years naval war from the Aleutian to Coral Sea . Hawaii was extreme close to the scene. The naval war from Hawaii to Japan was something big that happened in the marine environment. The naval war in the Atlantic and Pacific could have significantly contributed to the global cooling which started in the early 1940s, as discussed in Chapter 4_11 at : http://www.seaclimate.com/
The previous post noted that when the faulty instrument at the airport was replaced there was an immediate 3 degree shift in the recorded temp. The site at the airport would probably rate a CRN 5 of +/- 3 degrees, which when combined with the instrumental error would match up nicely with the 6 degree differential between the airport and the observatory.
What? GISS lost a (seems to me) decent station and nobody noticed or cared?
I’m reminded of Lily Tomlin’s character, Ernestine, the telephone operator. Her character’s tag line was, “We don’t care. We don’t have to. We’re the Phone Company.”
Unbelievable. Your and my tax dollars not at work. These people should be shown the data, and then the door. Anthony, you rock. Keep it up, it is making a difference.
Who was that guy?
Amazing work!
(added the “B” to my name)
Another 6 miles or so to the northwest, still on the coast, is the old Barbers Pt. station, now Kalaeloa Airport (PHJR). NOAA weather station data:
http://www.crh.noaa.gov/data/obhistory/PHJR.html
looks like it runs closer to PTWC than PHNL.
Anthony,
You mentioned both MMS and a Stevenson screen. Is data available from both?
Would be an interesting comparison.
REPLY: Generally only one is used, the MMTS, with the Stevenson Screen used as backup in case the electronic sesnor fails. – Anthony
OT As a consequence of yesterday’s announcement by the UK Met Office, British insurers are already saying that unless the UK Government spends billions of pounds over the next decade on flood defences, then the insurers will have to drastically increase their rates for occupiers of properties shown as at risk in the new Met Office climate model.
When questioned on UK Channel 4 News, an insurance company spokesman refused to rule out pricing homeowners out of the market if the government failed to act.
This seems clear proof of the assertions made often on WUWT about the vested interests of “Big Insurance” in calamitous climate change.
Anthony, you are an amazing detective with the technological know-how and tools to follow the scent. I am grateful for your tenacity and ability to inspire others with the same desire for scientific truth. You not only deserve The Best Science Blog award, but a citizens’ Nobel prize for developing how investigative reporting can be done on the Web. Now if we, your readers, can only find a way to match income with value. I am late with my “subscription”, but it will be on the way very soon.
The joys of bureaucracy!
Anthony
Is there a way of organising all these posts such as into a list. In a month or so this particular post will have to be searched for as with all other posts. There is an astonishing amount of information, ideas and data flowing through this site. Is it possible to have a page listing all entries? Even as an unsorted list it would still be useful.
Brilliant post/article/blog…
Very well done! And I echo Gilbert’s suggestion .
Anthony:
Send that analysis to the EPA and your congressional delegation on the accuracy of the data on which future catastrophe is claimed.
Keith
Anthony “Bulldog” Watts, nice job!
Well done as usual.
I’m a little confused as to why one would be so quick to establish records with a site that had so much temperature “wiggle room” and was “placed for aviation purposes”. Are we so desperate to prove continued global warming? It was encouraging to see that they at least, for whatever reason, brought a calibration thermometer to check the high temp thermometer. Why they didn’t immediately compare with surrounding temperatures to see if what the one thermometer was reading was reasonable is worth questioning. Not to mention why you would ever use an airport thermometer to establish the temp for a city. With all of the problems related to land based measurements how can the data be used for anything other than trend (and even question the trend because of heat island effects)?
I suppose you could “calibrate” all of the sites by using a pair of thermometers that have been shown to track together and place one at the bad site and one at a site meeting temp measuring criteria. You could then see how they track for a few months. A bit costly and work intensive, but I would be interested in seeing what this sort of experiment would show for a site or two over a year. Just moving the site without doing this sort of work would make the historical error unknowable.
Sorry. Forgot ‘?’ after 1st sentence.
In previous posts relating to the weather station at the airport a number of commentators inferred that the jet age and therefore jet engines would have influenced the temperature readings. It is the tarmac alone. If the temperature sensors could pick up the heat from a jet engine they would have been blown over and any hot air from a jet engine dissipates rapidly. There just isn;t enough heat coming out of these engines. I have stood close to runways and felt the jet blast and the overriding sensations are the smell of parafin and the blast. If you go to Youtube and put in ‘jet blast st maarten’ you can see people standing at the end of the runway at St Maarten getting blasted by jet engines for the hell of it. I would guess that heat is not their main concern.
However, fixed jet engines have been used to dispell fog at airports. But bonfires have been used also.
If we were faced with a cooling planet and we had to find ways of keeping it warm, running all the jet engines in the world is not going to do it.
Investigative journalism at its finest.
And it’s a sad note for the journalism community that the term “investigative” is used to describe the term “journalism”. This is the era of news by press release where journalists mindlessly parrot what’s fed to them by press release.
None of these simple clerical & equipment failures would matter much in a world that was not caught up in a Pacific Tsunami of Mass Hysteria…
Anthony,
This is an amazing piece of work you have done here, and thanks to all those who assisted.
It makes you wonder how biased the whole temperature record can be.
I have this mental image of you poking a hornets nest with a stick. I think you know what I mean.
As we say in Aussie, ” good on yer mate ” , keep that stick a pokin.
Ian
Absolutely amazing work. Please keep it up. This is why the Internet was created.
Terrific!! Anthony at his finest.
To MR Watts,
I am a steadfast watthead since I first discovered this sight. Being the professional pain in the ass that I am, it has been a perfect resource to provide accurate data time and again for my efforts to drive every algorite I meet into a frenzy.
I will say on several occasions I have actually popped their AGW bubble, hitting them with FACT after FACT, and even making a convert or two along the way.
So I thank you again for the fine work.
well…time for to head down to the coffee shop and pick a fight with an Algorite, with new ammunition to boot.
Anthony,
Excellent work. Based on your contacts in this investigation so far, who might be the best person to provide comments to at NOAA? I think they should be flooded with emails and phone calls asking them (politely off course) to do their jobs…..I would also copy my own congressional reps.
REPLY: start with the people at the NWS office in Honolulu
Here is the contact email links (right off their web page, I’m not outing anymore) for the Meteorologist in Charge and staff at NWS Honolulu. I say we give them an earful.
James Weyman Meteorologist in Charge Richard Knabb Director of Operations Robert Ballard Science & Operations Officer Ray Tanabe Warning Coordination Meteorologist Kevin Kodama Hydrologist Bill Boone Electronic System Analyst Pam Fujiwara Administrative Assistant
Or if you’d like to write:
National Weather Service Forecast Office
2525 Correa Road, Suite 250
Honolulu, HI 96822-2219
Tel: (808) 973-5286
2 questions were asked:
(1) “but if a citizen outside of the governmental loop can figure this out in a couple of hours, why can’t agencies like NCDC and GISS? Especially when knowing this sort of thing is is their job?
(2) Are there no flags that go up anywhere when data suddenly disappears?”
they answers are simple.
(1) Because. They. Do. Not. Care. Not one little bit.
(2) Yes, the “job well done! Another annoying datapoint gone!” flag.
I am impressed. All we hear from the dying print newspaper industry is that their demise will kill investigative journalism. Ha! That was abandoned years ago with the only investigative remnants remaining focused on non-liberal political entities as the industry moved wholesale to advocacy journalism from a unified perspective.
Your investigation is impressive and interesting; more motivation to keep reading this excellent science blog.
It is not hard to understand why a dedicated volunteer like Anthony can outdo bureaucrats and civil servants. For Anthony, this is fun. For civil servants, they are just doing a job. Passion wins every time. No one can imagine government employees playing on a winning NFL team.
Speaking of the UK Met Office, the HadSST2 update is at least two weeks behind it’s usual schedule and their other products continue to lag into the second half of the month before being updated.
I guess their all busy playing Tetris and Breakout on that nice new shiny computer.
Anthony is, of course, absolutely amazingly tenacious. However, let’s be careful about recommending a Nobel prize. After all, Arafat, Jimmy Carter and Al Gore all got Nobel prizes. If that hasn’t debased the currency, one can’t imagine what will.
Good work Anthony.
This kind of “Basic Research” turns the entire AGW docrine into a house of cards.
The recent Government Climate Report is taking hit after hit and some of the critisism even has reached the Washington Post and the New York Times.
See: http://www.climatedepot.com/a/1461/Scientist-Obamas-climate-report-would-make-Pravda-editors-blush-with-envy-on-how-they-can-misconstrue-and-misreport-truths-for-a-propaganda-angle
In the mean time there are warnings that the world and her Governments are not prepared for a period of severe cold by 2012 due to the current solar minimum.
See: http://www.spaceandscience.net/id16.html
As the MSM continues to bobard the public with biased and unfoundet climate disasters, only to be prevented by quick action and a devastating climate treaty, the General Public has lost any interest in the subject.
http://tomnelson.blogspot.com/2009/06/breaking-global-warming-fails-to.html
This could be the biggest threat to us all.
If the public is indifferent to the subject, politicians are provided with a cart blanche to enforce their policies.
Let’s hope common sense prevails and we can prevent the shut down of our economies and the loss of our freedom.
Outstanding detective work, sir. Reads like Dame Agatha herself.
Stephen Skinner,
I have seen infrared photos (from above) of airports where jets are idling before takeoff (sorry, but I cannot remember where). They show the ground warmed for some distance behind the plane just as a result of an idling jet motor. If the ground is warmed by an idling jet engine, what would an engine at takeoff power do to the air around a runway? It would not have to run the temperature up high enough to bake a seagull. Even a single degree or half a degree would be enough to make temperature measurements invalid for climatic purposes. The volume of jet traffic at HNL has shown a steady increase, even in the last 15 years since I have been visiting Hawaii. Go to the library and check out a copy of that immortal Elvis film “Blue Hawaii” and watch the airport scene at the beginning. Look at HNL today on Google Earth. The traffic has grown amazingly. Hickam AFB shares runways with HNL, and jet traffic there skyrocketed with the Vietnam War. I would guess there is a record somewhere of the amount of jet fuel imported to Oahu. Compare the amount imported to the differential between the Observatory and HNL and you might test my hypothesis that jet exhaust can contribute to warm bias.
Kudos Anthony, well done.
I would also extend a note of appreciation to the government employees and others who WERE co-operative and forthcoming. This is a classic exhample of ‘admistrative drag’, to use an aviators’ term, that exists in large diverse organizations (read Goverment). I don’t see any enemies here, just human beings being human.
In spite of all of the misdeeds by our lovely beauracratic government employees, and the hog trough of money being used to pull well intentioned people astray, I have not lost faith. We will not surrender our freedoms in the name of some elusive climate security. These hijackers too will be beaten.
I am heartened because of the intrepid efforts of people such as you Anthony. People like Leif, McIntyre & McKitrick, Lindzen and all of the other scientists out there who are apparently immune to the political winds and groupthink that have invaded the mindset of our ‘scientific’ institutions.
You really do a yeomen’s work on this.
Thank you.
Fabulous work again, Doc Watts. I’m “green” with envy.
“Get your facts first, and then you can distort ‘em as you please”. Mark Twain
And the real shame here, wattsupers, is that nary a one of us is a MSM journalist/editor. Doc, et al have created, in summary over the past few months here, through investigation/contribution/analysis and summarization a “scoop” worthy of a Pulitzer. This last report is an exclamation point on a lot of that work.
A cub reporter with half a brain (and no agendaitis) could simply campout on WUWT “to get the facts” and daily write articles worthy of any front page. Unfortunately, editors ……… well, no need to preach to the choir.
Contrary to popular belief, print media isn’t dying (dead) because of the Internet, or because WE only want sound bite news that a 5 year old can understand. This site (and others) prove that’s not the case. Or even agendaitis. That’s just the overt symptom of – total laziness of corporate owners, editors and journalists to do this kind of intense work. AND they are PAID to do their jobs, Doc isn’t!
Keep it up, ya all. And send the good stuff to your local news media. Maybe some will get through…
The larger image of your Graph of PHNL and PTWC station data for June 2009 does not show the R labels and the repair label.
Well done chap!
Whats next on the agenda? Oh, your already working on it I bet!
Stephen Skinner (05:20:44) :
There just isn;t enough heat coming out of these engines.
Stephen,
Jet Engine Exhaust Gas Temperatures (EGT) can range from 400 F to well over 1000 F. Just like the exhaust from an air conditioner, the jet engines can affect the temperature record.
Joe S.
Send this report to the Honolulu tv station!! They would love this bit of news.
Lucy Skywalker:
“You deserve a Nobel just for hard and dedicated work.”
I think the Nobel has to be replaced too- its sensors are broken and unreliable.
Ya know, I’m beginning to think that the ol’ finger in the mouth then stuck in the wind is a better temperature guage than what we got for instruments.
I wonder if temperatures are collected just as carelessly in the rest of the world. Maybe one should start by looking at those regions that show suspiciously high temperatures? (Siberia anyone?)
Stephen Skinner (05:20:44) :
Check this out:
Tsunami of Mass Hysteria…
Indeed!
Well Done Anthony. I admire your ” sense of smell”. IMHO, the bottom line is that agencies that used to inspire cofidemce and pride, have been sullied with shoddy attention to detail. NASA and NOAA for two. I recall the 50s and 60s when someone worked for NASA, they were viewed with admiration and awe. Sadly that admiration has been replaced with ” so what”.
No question that this is an excellent site. I would like to support Lucy Skywalker’s suggestion, but agenda and total lack of honor have discredited the Nobel Peace Prize. You are certainly worthy of praise, however.
Anthony,
Are you sure FUBAR is the right term to use here?
Most of these people all these posts are meant for may not know what FUBAR means. You may have to be a bit more descriptive. HA!!
In adition to my last posting, altough entirely off topic, I would like to address the consequences of a reduction in food production caused by continuous bad weather conditions effecting the worlds major food crops.
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20090619/D98TO4B81.html
We are in a very vulenerable situation right now and it should top all political agenda’s world wide because we are heading for the biggest famine in human history. If agricultural production output falls below world wide demand, no money in the world will solve this problem.
I posted all this on the Houston Chronicle web page under a story about how May was the 4th hottest month in decades and it’s amazing how the story gets removed once someone presents hard evidence to the contrary. These people (journalists) are managing the message no question about it. I’m going to keep presenting the facts and questioning the answers that have now questions. Thanks Anthony for this forum, again, again,…..
Anthony,
I am a huge fan of your work. Please keep it up. Isn’t it odd how (almost) every bias I have heard about skews the “offical” temperature record upward, supporting the lie/hoax/fantasy of AGW?
But I must take exception with those who want you to be awarded a Nobel Prize. The Nobel Prize has been degraded to the point where I don’t think it is a desirable reward for excellence. Until the Nobel committee rescinds some of the prizes given to now-discredited “science”, especially the one given to the clowns at the IPCC and head-clown Vice-President Al Gore, I have no interest in who they give prizes to. Anthony, you deserve better.
SY
REPLY: I don’t want any prizes. I just want the data to be right, no matter what it says. – Anthony
Excellent detective work! A great example of how a persistent pursuit of truth in any field pays off.
Naturally they chose to keep the erroneous data gleaned from the faulty station and ignore the more meaningful data from the “lost” station down the road. Hopefully you’ve shamed then into correcting the record.
Damn, but you’re good, Mr. Watts!
OT but someone mentioned AGW doctrine, to me that means straw man and ad hominem in combo. On that note here is an article about Ian Plimers book Heaven and Earth, the moon landings are mentioned in the first sentence so you know there are no straw man arguments involved. : )
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,25433059-5003900,00.html
Thanks for being here Anthony, you are really doing a great service to humanity. In today’s maelstrom of climate lunacy, you offer terra firma to anchor sanity.
Great detective work Anthony!!
As I noticed on my preliminary survey of Olga, WA, there was no Stevenson Screen in sight, even though it was noted as backup equipment in the NWS database. See the pics here.
Their recordkeeping is truly horrendous.
Anthony, is Michael R. Fox still doing editorials for a Hawaiian paper? He’d be an excellent person to run this.
GISS provides its raw data, and its UHI adjustment methods. How about substituting this station for the other one, and seeing what the results are for that station?
GlennB that video was amazing. It brings all new meaning to the term “blown away”.
In the last Michigan gubernatorial race, Governor Granholm proclaimed; “and in five years you are going to be blown away!” Now I know what she meant.
The discrepancy on the lows is even worse.
J. D. Lindskog (07:03:52) :
Kudos Anthony, well done.
I would also extend a note of appreciation to the government employees and others who WERE co-operative and forthcoming. This is a classic exhample of ‘admistrative drag’, to use an aviators’ term, that exists in large diverse organizations (read Goverment). I don’t see any enemies here, just human beings being human.
J.D Lindskog,
Although I can agree that individual employees are cooperative and forthcomming we have to weigh the official reports to judge any (Government)organization.
This recent PDF produced by Joseph D’Aleo unfortunately provides us with a much different picture.
We can’t close our eyes to the facts, can’t we?
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/NOAAMAY.pdf
Another 6 miles or so to the northwest, still on the coast, is the old Barbers Pt. station,
Which was in GISTEMP, up until 1999. Its actually nearer than the Oahu station described above as ‘nearby’. Here is the data http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=425911780020&data_set=2&num_neighbors=1
BTW Honolulu is classed as an urban station. According to the GISTEMP methodology The GHCN/USHCN/SCAR data are modified in two steps to obtain station data from which our tables, graphs, and maps are constructed. In step 1, if there are multiple records at a given location, these are combined into one record; in step 2, the urban and peri-urban (i.e., other than rural) stations are adjusted so that their long-term trend matches that of the mean of neighboring rural stations. Urban stations without nearby rural stations are dropped.
Now the nearest rural station with coverage to the present day is Lihue, 163Km away, so it seems likely that the problematic ASOS station is not included in the GISTEMP estimate of global temperature trends. Here is the graph for Lihue, btw
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=425911650000&data_set=2&num_neighbors=1
With regard to Nobel prizes, they are not all the same. The Peace prize is awarded by a committee of the Norwegian government, wheras the science prizes (the “real” ones) are awarded by the Swedish Academy of Sciences.
No(bel) prizes for guessing which one is degraded by being politically correct…. (sorry, couldn’t resist)
This tale reminds me of the movie “The Hunt for Red October” when the US Secretary of Defense, near the end of the movie, responds to his Soviet counterpart “You’ve lost another submarine?”
Hi Anthony:
Sorry for the unrelated comment, but I thought you and your readers would be interested in this new short from the European Union. It uses the sport of Roller Derby to teach kids about science and electricity. It’s quick and is wildly entertaining!
Check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQ9G2OL9ERo
Thanks for your attention!
Mark
George DeBusk
“They show the ground warmed for some distance behind the plane just as a result of an idling jet motor.”
Can you find the IR photo please? I’m sure you are correct as this is also the case with a motor vehicle, but the detail would be how long after a jet had been idling and what was the temperature difference to the surrounding. However, to affect a temperature readings the sensor would have to be on the taxi way itself, or constantly downwind of idling jets, and if I wanted to get a temperature bias from the jets at NHL I wouldn’t put it where it is. In the image on Google earth the sensor is upwind of any jet activity that could affect it. Anyway, my main point was the higher temperature at the airport is to do with tarmac and concrete not the jets.
JoeS
“Jet Engine Exhaust Gas Temperatures (EGT) can range from 400 F to well over 1000 F.”
Hi Joe
Yes, this is the temperature at the point of exit from the engine as measured by the sensor in the engine. To measure these temperatures externally to the engine you would have to be very close, although it is likely the sensor would be destroyed by the blast. The tempeature disipates quickly otherwise the YouTube of those people in St Maarten should show burning clothes at least.
GlennB (07:45:56) :
Hi Glenn
Funny, I was showing this clip to a friend only yesterday. Yes, I am well aware but this is blast not temperature, but I think you just be sharing this with me.
All
Of course, if anything is giving off heat it will be part of the overall heat budget and this could affect local temperature readings, but it is a question of how much and is it. My initial reaction was to a previous commentator who considered the rise in temperature at NHL from the 50s was due to jets. I recall a UK person called ‘Swampy’ who was objecting to aviation and when his figures were challenged he replied “I don’t care about the numbers it’s the symbolism”.
Well Dr Wattsup; you should have been able to psych that one out as soon as they told you they don’t do temperature any more but concentrate on rainfall; everybody knows that when you get a Tsunami, you have this wave of rain rushing across the planet, as a result of an earthquake somewhere.
Clearly you aren’t British, or you would know the place is now the Pacific Tsunami Water Closet; hence you should have been looking for PT WC all along.
George
Anthony, how do you sniff out all these birds nests; do you have a little black cloud overhead that follows you around. This one was a gem.
BTW, I just downloaded the annual GISTEMP data for Honolulu, Oahu and Barber’s Point. Looking at the periods where coverage overlaps, from 1980-1999 Honolulu reads on average 0.2C higher than BP, and from 1949 to 1980 on average 0.8C higher than Oahu.
I’m sorry, I’m creating a diversion from this excellent investigation and the point that the NHL temperature readings are unreliable for climate research.
According to the following records site, for the month of June so far, there have been 277 highest daytime max temp records (142 records, 135 tied), and a whopping 870 lowest daytime max temp records (638 records, 232 tied). Regardless of corrupt data, even bad stations are saying it is damned cold outside during the day! By the way, could it be cloud cover that is resulting in more nighttime highest low temp records versus lowest low temp records at the same time?
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/records/index.php?ts=daily&elem=lomx&month=6&day=0&year=2009&submitted=Get+Records#recs
Sam bailey (06:19:44) said :
To MR Watts,
I am a steadfast watthead since I first discovered this site. Being the professional pain in the ass that I am, it has been a perfect resource to provide accurate data time and again for my efforts to drive every algorite I meet into a frenzy.
EXCELLENT NEW COINAGE: “watthead”. I like it, and if I wasn’t one before, I am now. Quick, somebody design a bumper sticker!
This is some of the most fantastic (in all sense of the word) research I have ever seen. In one fell swoop, ALL of the foibles of our current climate “system” (which is to say bureaucracy) are laid to waste.
This puppy is getting printed out, multiple copies, and stored in my briefcase for later use as metaphorical 2x4s for the crania of the AGW population.
[Unfortunately, that may not be enough: Reynolds Rule says that in order to get some people’s attention, you have to wup them upside the head with a 2×4, but that for other people the 2×4 required would be so large that if you used it, you would kill them, so you have to let them go about their dim-witted business.]
I consider this iron-clad proof of that Reaganism “the best people don’t work for government; if they did, the private sector would steal them.”
Congratulations in advance for “Best Science Blog 2009”
Here in Western Washington the local temp and rainfall information is gathered from instrumentation at local schools, which they call Schoolnet.
I went onto one of the local news web sites (king5.com) and used their feedback form to ask what types of equipment were used at these schools, and whether there were siting standards to insure we weren’t measuring the temperature of school buildings instead of actual ambient air temperature.
Never got a reply.
As a former employee of FedEx, I can attest to the warmth of jet exhaust. While we not allowed to approach within a certain distance while the engines were active, it was always nice, on cold mornings, to be able to follow a plane taxiing to their gate. The jet exhaust was usually several degrees warmer than the ambient temperature, even if it did smell of Jet A fuel. FedEx provide great cold weather gear, but you still had to expose areas of your face to the cold, and that little bit of extra warm air a great bonus.
In this thread http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/10/25/feeling-the-heat-is-it-real-or-is-it-asos/#comments I posted this comment:
Håkan B (10:05:53) :
Hm is it really a good idea to use those airport based weather stations for science? I suppose the airports own meteorologist wants to have a word on the placing, and he is not there to do science, he’s there to help run the traffic as safe as possible. To do that I suppose he would be interested to get temperature, wind and moisture as close to the runway as possible. For other weather data he probably relies on radar and reports from a national weather center. I took a look in Google Earth at our 2 airports here in Stockholm Sweden and it looks about the same.
Nice to see the folks running those stations are catching up!
This is really good stuff. Records are made to be broken, but not with inaccurate equipment. The retract the records would mean a mistake was made. Do they have the guts to admit it?
It’s still not too late to do the right thing, NWS!
Elementary Watts!
You’re the Sherlock Holmes of climate science.
Just like in Iran, technology (internet/Twitter etc..) is going to keep the B honest no matter what (unless they start to “hide” ALL data from now on because of sites like these.. this is a warning to the Hadcrut and GISS data keepers that they will be held to account now and in the future. More inclined to trust the Scandinavian met offices.. It seem they are no longer prepared to on with the AGW charade and have seen the light. Thank you Anthony.
I think much of the problem arises from the widespread use of confusing acronyms. They could improve things by using acronyms that are more easily identified with the product. It would be much easier to identify the agency with its product if, for example, the acronym “NOAA” were to be changed to “GM” for Government Meteorology. Ownership of the trademark should no longer be an issue.
Milwaukee Bob (07:22:26) :
Fabulous work again, Doc Watts. I’m “green” with envy.
“Get your facts first, and then you can distort ‘em as you please”. Mark Twain
And the real shame here, wattsupers, is that nary a one of us is a MSM journalist/editor. Doc, et al have created, in summary over the past few months here, through investigation/contribution/analysis and summarization a “scoop” worthy of a Pulitzer. This last report is an exclamation point on a lot of that work.
The point is the discovery that FACTS such as those uncovered here by Anthony have a new found home. It is not in broadcast television, or radio or print media – it is in the uncensored, uninhibited “blogosphere.” And anyone with a brain can check the FACTS for themselves and then form an opinion. WUWT will continue to publish the true data and FACTS. An ever-growing body of the public will come here to view them, and go away wondering why their TVs and radios and newspapers refuse to do the same.
When I look at NASA and most science, I see a meticulous regard for fine precision and accuracy. It was disgusting before I found this site to learn how slopp they were on data gathering and instrumentation and then were extremely demanding we accept the models and forcasts.
In June i find every single day, our local daytime high is running between 5 and 19 degrees lower than forcast. The night time lows have not been as far off. In fact I recall sever nights the night time low was the same number as the forecast. In vector review, what if NASA wanted to go to the planet mars and was off by 1.2 degrees?
Stephen Skinner (09:24:09) :
“Hi Glenn
Funny, I was showing this clip to a friend only yesterday. Yes, I am well aware but this is blast not temperature, but I think you just be sharing this with me.”
This blast (from each engine) is likely to be around 500 C or more. Honolulu is one of the busiest ports in the US, and many hundreds of these “portable kerosene forced-air heaters” are running around that weather station day in day out.
This story raises several interesting questions:
1) If asphalt and cement affect nighttime temperatures more than daytime ones, would it be possible to detect a reduction in the difference between daytime and nighttime temperatures when something like a runway or sidewalk got built close to a sensor or when a sensor got moved close to cement or asphalt?
2) Are there a lot more ‘lost’ sensors out there waiting to be rediscovered? If so, maybe that could be the focus for another volunteer effort like the one to document siting for the temperature sensors.
3) Are records kept of when sensor errors like the one at the airport are discovered and corrected? If so, it would be interesting to see if more “running cold” sensor errors were fixed than “running hot” ones over the last two or three decades. Since people are expecting hotter temperatures because of global warming they would probably be less likely to question anamolously hot temperatures than anamolously cold ones, and would be less likely to discover sensors that are running hot than ones that are running cold. So you would end up with expectations of hotter temperatures biasing the data in the direction of showing hotter temperatures.
Just some thoughts for future research.
Not all government workers labor all day aiding gravity in keeping their chair from levitating. I know, I’m one. This latest scathing expose however, has me…um,…uhh…well…hiding in the fileroom.
Keep it up anyway Anthony, I’ll just change my name and use my laptop to keep in touch.
Anthony,
After that post, I couldn’t help but donate the money jar.
Excellent job!
Why not file a complaint against NASA/NOAA under the Data Quality Act? It seems like this would be a perfect use of the act for “ensuring and maximizing the quality, objectivity, utility, and integrity of information (including statistical information) disseminated by Federal agencies”
Where’s Flanagan telling us again about great the ground temperature record? He must have skipped over this article.
Anthony needs an outlet for these types of reports. Maybe Fox News. These are great stories that cast doubt on the entire AGW hypothesis. Reminds of the old stories about $20,000 hammers, etc. that I used to see on the news.
I think it’s better to show the failures of the “consensus scientists” than to claim alternate hypothesis.
Stephen Skinner (09:24:09) :
“JoeS
“Jet Engine Exhaust Gas Temperatures (EGT) can range from 400 F to well over 1000 F.”
“Hi Joe
Yes, this is the temperature at the point of exit from the engine as measured by the sensor in the engine. To measure these temperatures externally to the engine you would have to be very close, although it is likely the sensor would be destroyed by the blast. The tempeature disipates quickly otherwise the YouTube of those people in St Maarten should show burning clothes at least.”
No, EGT is higher than 400 F, by about 500F for a rough number – 500C. Of course this temperature will be dissipated in the air, but just claiming “quickly” doesn’t provide any weight to your argument. And the people in your video wouldn’t have to have burning clothes, just feel a degree or so warmer. And likely they felt a blast of very warm or hot air. Have you been around airports and jets??
OT-Sorry, would like to see the crew tear this apart.
CO2 Levels are Highest in 2.1 Million Years
Bärbel Hönisch, a geochemist at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, and her colleagues have assembled the most detailed look at atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) levels over the last 2.1 million years by analyzing shells of single-celled plankton buried under the Atlantic Ocean. Ice core CO2 data only goes back 800,000 years ago.
According to the results from the study, peak CO2 levels over the last 2.1 million years averaged only 280 parts per million (ppm), but today, that number is now up to 385 ppm. These results also tell scientists that they will have to look farther back (beyond 2.1 million years ago) to find an analog to modern day CO2 induced climate change.
This is also the latest report to rule out a drop in CO2 as the cause for earth’s ice ages growing longer and more intense some 850,000 years ago since CO2 levels were relatively flat during that period. But it also confirms many researchers’ suspicion that higher carbon dioxide levels coincided with warmer intervals during the study period, according to the EurekAlert article.
This study is posted in the journal Science.
Anthony;
In the small hours of this morning I posted a comment to this thread in which I neglected to add my thanks and congratulations, although it seems to me your main point was that no heroic efforts or special ingenuity was required to accomplish the task. In fact, to me, what was most glaringly illuminated by this post was that, if any of the minions who are charged with collecting and maintaining this data had any real dedication to the quality and integrity of the data set, they could have done exactly what you did between showing up in the morning and their first coffee break on any day in the last decade or three. That none of them ever has should tell us all we need to know about the level of respect we should award this data and how completely insane it is that the political class should be using it as a basis for formulating any kind of public policies, let alone ones as immediately and egregiously deleterious to freedom and prosperity as what they are intent on inflicting on us now.
Regarding the suggestion that you be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, as perhaps the only one here who can even semi-legitimately claim to share with Algore the now dubious “honor” of being a recipient that award ( in the late Seventies an organization of which I was then a fairly active member was awarded the Prize) I would like to offer my thoughts. In the years immediately after I felt a certain pride in my admittedly slim connection to the award and would occasionally find an excuse to insert it in conversations. For a time I even included it at the bottom of my resume, mostly as a check of whether interviewers had actually read the thing. But , with the reprehensible nature of so many of the recent awardees I have long since ceased having any pride in my association with the prize and now find even thinking about it will fill me with an uneasy sense of embarrassment, a feeling that is growing even as I write this. My overly long winded point is that you deserve something much more meritorious than a Nobel and though it is far beyond my power to grant that, I will offer this. I have spent my entire life with an almost ironclad rule not to embrace belief in anything based on what someone says, but when you state that you are not in this for awards but to seek the truth, that is something I believe with a firmness that is exceeded by few things in my life. The train of events of recent years has often left me struggling like Sisyphus to keep from sliding into despair and though I have other resources to support me, I am amazed, in thinking back, how often a visit to this site has provided the glimmer of light I needed to keep the darkness from engulfing me. For that, no words of thanks could hope to express the depth of my gratitude, but I hope that this comment will help you understand, if only in a small way, how deep that gratitude really is.
REPLY: Thank you for the kind words, really it is no big deal. Truth is the simplest of rewards, but often the most gratifying. – Anthony
This demonstrates the level of ‘global warming’ that the city heat island effect can generate. If a simple tarmac strip can generate four or six degrees of temperature increase, then many of the met stations that have been swallowed up by urban sprawl will be giving completely erroneous readings.
I think a trial is in order – several identical sensors in different environments within the same locality (next to water, tarmac, grass, air-con units) to see the variability in temperature.
>>>If the ground is warmed by an idling jet engine, what
>>>would an engine at takeoff power do to the air around a runway?
I can tell you it is hot! Even a considerable distance behind the runway (i’m not a spotter honest) you can feel a ten degree or so increase in temperature. The increase is transient, of course, but the thermometer would no doubt register this rise.
In addition, the tarmac around the runway threshold dries out very quickly, unlike the rest of the runway and the runway edges, indicating a retention of heat by the runway which could be reradiated later.
Simple to test, I would have thought. If you have a local (busy) airport with a met station near the runways, you could place an identical sensor in a nearby field and note the difference. Ideally, the sensors would also need to be adjacent to each other for a few days, to make sure they are reading identically.
Pamela Gray (07:36:11) : “Ya know, I’m beginning to think that the ol’ finger in the mouth then stuck in the wind is a better temperature guage than what we got for instruments.”
Uh…no comment.
GlennB (12:57:49) :
“No, EGT is higher than 400 F, by about 500F for a rough number – 500C. Of course this temperature will be dissipated in the air, but just claiming “quickly” doesn’t provide any weight to your argument. And the people in your video wouldn’t have to have burning clothes, just feel a degree or so warmer. And likely they felt a blast of very warm or hot air. Have you been around airports and jets??”
Glenn
Yes I have, and I have felt those blasts of warm air, but not 500C. I can cook pizza at 200C so there is a pretty rapid drop from 500 or whatever the temp is down to warm. Incidently the Google maps of NHL shows the jets taking off to the East and a ship just to the West indicating the wind is right down the runway. A wind from this direction would make it very difficult to influence this particular NHL weather station.
Sorry
…to influence this particular NHL weather station on this particular day.
Actually, something does not quite add up here, in fact I’m not convinced that the station that GISS lists as Honolulu Obs Oahu was located where the PWTC is now, at least prior to 1960. I think it is more likely to have been nearer the station in the NCDC database as EWA KALAEOLA AIRPORT or possibly Barber’s Point. We know about the station move in 1949, however the USGS tells us that…
The Geomagnetism Program established an observatory at Honolulu in 1902, when the Program was part of the Coast and Geodetic Survey and under the leadership of Drs Louis A. Bauer and John A. Fleming. The present observatory site was established in 1960.
http://geomag.usgs.gov/observatories/honolulu/
The three buildings in the photo from the freshly-cleared site in 1960 look mightily similar to the three in the aerial view of the PTWC, allowing for vegetation growth. They also give the coordinates of the current location as 21.32°N and 158.00°W So where was the GISS ‘Observatory’ site prior to 1960? Note also a discontinuity in the GISS data that resumes in 1960. Another station move?
Consider also the list of GISS stations by proximity to Honolulu airport:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/findstation.py?lat=21.35&lon=-157.93&datatype=gistemp&data_set=1
Note that Honolulu Obs and Barber’s Point share the same Lat/Long (to 1 dp) and have the same GISS Id, apart from the lst 2 digits. I am no expert on GISS metadata but I believe that the last digits indicate the degree of proximity to the WMO Station identified by the 5 digit Id?
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/findstation.py?lat=21.35&lon=-157.93&datatype=gistemp&data_set=1
This is where GISS/GCHN thinks the three stations concerned are (or were)
42591178001 HONOLULU OBS OAHU 21.30 -158.10
42591178002 BARBERS POINT/NAS 21.32 -158.07
42591182000 HONOLULU, OAH 21.35 -157.93
While NCDC locates PWTC at 21.31528, -157.99917
So the Lat and Long GISS has for ‘Honolulu Obs’ is actually a few km to the West of the PWTC and adjacent to the runways at Ewa Kalaeola, while NCDC locates the Ewa Kalaeola airport station at 21.31667 -158.06667. Also, according to NCDC the WMO ID for Kalaeola airport is 91178 which matches the GISS Id for the station listed as ‘Honolulu Obs’ Station of 425911780010.
A little more detective work needed to tie up these loose ends?
http://www.wrcc.dri.edu/summary/Climsmhi.html
Plenty of monthly data available here:
http://www.wrcc.dri.edu/summary/Climsmhi.html
example:
http://www.wrcc.dri.edu/summary/Climsmhi.html
HONOLULU WB AIRPORT 703, HAWAII
Monthly Average Temperature (Degrees Fahrenheit)
(511919)
File last updated on Jun 11, 2009
*** Note *** Provisional Data *** After Year/Month 200902
a = 1 day missing, b = 2 days missing, c = 3 days, ..etc..,
z = 26 or more days missing, A = Accumulations present
Long-term means based on columns; thus, the monthly row may not
sum (or average) to the long-term annual value.
MAXIMUM ALLOWABLE NUMBER OF MISSING DAYS : 5
Individual Months not used for annual or monthly statistics if more than 5 days are missing.
Individual Years not used for annual statistics if any month in that year has more than 5 days missing.
YEAR(S) JAN FEB MAR APR MAY JUN JUL AUG SEP OCT NOV DEC ANN
1949 —– z —– z —– z —– z —– z —– z —– z —– z —– z 77.34 74.07 73.63 75.01
1950 72.29 74.27 73.66 73.82 75.97 77.13 77.95 78.97 78.68 78.47 75.38 72.00 75.72
1951 73.00 72.07 72.61 74.42 76.50 77.73 79.58 79.65 79.70 78.55 76.82 74.13 76.23
1952 72.63 a 72.95 a 72.85 73.34 a 73.71 76.50 78.02 79.06 78.43 77.03 76.09 a 73.63 a 75.35
1953 72.45 73.29 73.66 74.75 76.77 77.68 78.32 79.32 a 78.77 77.60 75.24 a 72.77 75.89
1954 71.82 72.96 71.52 74.58 74.94 78.28 a 78.22 a 79.42 a 79.24 a 78.08 76.88 72.95 75.74
1955 72.52 70.50 70.52 74.03 a 74.94 75.84 a 76.85 a 76.82 77.00 75.94 74.75 73.47 74.43
1956 73.31 72.34 a 73.82 73.85 75.79 76.69 a 78.39 79.26 79.43 77.87 75.38 74.23 75.86
1957 72.69 70.54 a 71.60 a 73.02 75.62 a 78.42 79.48 79.56 79.77 79.13 77.36 a 74.00 75.93
1958 71.55 72.45 71.00 73.80 75.05 77.70 78.08 79.35 79.63 77.39 74.67 71.95 75.22
1959 72.44 71.84 75.13 74.42 76.69 79.02 79.74 80.05 80.88 78.84 76.92 74.29 76.69
1960 72.81 72.41 73.68 74.87 77.05 79.10 79.81 80.44 79.77 79.24 76.83 74.42 76.70
1961 73.58 74.55 75.68 75.90 77.96 c 78.33 79.10 80.34 79.83 79.13 76.32 74.97 77.14
1962 74.61 72.29 73.13 76.42 77.19 78.62 79.15 80.00 79.08 77.21 77.42 72.69 76.48
1963 71.05 72.16 72.31 75.25 76.44 79.15 80.65 81.42 80.98 79.68 77.05 73.94 76.67
1964 75.03 74.62 74.63 75.65 76.32 77.90 79.31 80.37 80.22 78.27 76.37 74.87 76.96
1965 71.92 69.80 72.11 74.95 77.02 79.10 79.82 79.71 79.95 78.24 77.02 73.29 76.08
1966 72.58 71.93 75.18 75.12 77.08 80.47 80.81 82.00 82.43 80.87 77.20 74.61 77.52
1967 72.45 73.89 73.74 74.68 78.16 79.68 81.45 82.02 82.33 80.60 77.62 74.00 77.55
1968 73.00 73.31 —– z 76.72 78.40 80.40 81.45 82.85 81.93 80.60 78.73 72.73 78.19
1969 69.03 73.82 73.55 74.67 76.69 79.03 80.84 83.23 81.95 80.48 78.73 76.47 77.37
1970 74.19 73.23 76.90 78.33 80.40 81.10 82.16 83.76 79.03 78.42 75.80 74.65 78.17
1971 71.66 74.36 73.89 75.55 76.23 77.27 78.82 79.50 79.10 77.95 75.68 73.29 76.11
1972 70.39 70.60 72.77 74.95 77.21 78.92 80.39 81.10 80.50 79.27 76.65 71.55 76.19
1973 72.89 72.57 76.08 75.48 77.06 79.20 80.42 81.18 80.92 79.40 77.00 73.74 77.16
1974 74.52 74.39 73.98 77.37 78.15 79.23 79.85 81.16 79.93 79.50 75.65 75.74 77.46
1975 72.35 72.79 72.94 74.50 75.65 78.07 78.94 80.06 79.35 79.08 77.12 73.02 76.15
1976 73.63 71.98 73.58 75.10 77.45 78.15 79.76 80.81 80.68 79.10 75.23 75.23 76.72
1977 73.71 75.55 76.19 76.30 77.55 79.42 80.82 82.16 81.58 81.03 78.60 75.10 78.17
1978 74.15 73.21 75.63 76.77 78.16 78.70 78.95 80.48 80.45 77.73 74.65 72.40 76.77
1979 69.87 72.12 72.79 74.75 78.00 79.98 80.94 80.40 81.02 81.00 77.35 75.26 76.96
1980 71.89 72.34 75.00 76.07 78.24 79.48 80.89 81.00 81.60 80.13 77.97 74.32 77.41
1981 73.19 73.61 74.71 75.92 77.24 80.57 79.69 80.10 80.72 78.29 76.72 73.95 77.06
1982 73.16 71.71 73.98 75.35 78.26 79.55 80.61 81.40 81.37 79.34 75.65 72.02 76.87
1983 71.90 71.27 73.40 74.62 75.63 78.85 79.65 82.32 82.27 81.11 80.12 75.06 77.18
1984 74.56 74.60 75.73 77.00 78.68 79.33 80.97 81.68 81.27 80.16 78.95 74.11 78.09
1985 71.34 73.88 74.47 74.53 76.48 79.22 81.55 81.90 81.07 79.76 75.07 73.23 76.87
1986 72.79 72.52 76.50 77.50 78.26 80.02 81.52 82.87 82.10 80.53 79.18 75.03 78.23
1987 73.35 71.12 73.97 75.92 75.63 80.33 82.06 82.69 82.90 81.39 78.73 75.74 77.82
1988 73.06 74.74 75.97 77.25 78.90 80.78 81.74 82.10 82.07 80.08 79.87 75.55 78.51
1989 74.48 73.54 75.23 74.47 78.37 80.85 81.58 81.40 81.85 78.58 76.70 72.90 77.50
1990 74.65 71.48 73.06 76.55 78.05 79.95 80.73 82.34 82.25 80.90 77.28 74.11 77.61
1991 72.35 73.39 72.90 75.85 77.79 79.35 81.13 82.42 81.47 80.02 79.53 76.15 77.70
1992 72.84 73.17 74.90 75.62 77.77 81.27 81.47 82.21 81.30 79.37 77.00 76.66 77.80
1993 70.94 71.09 74.02 77.40 77.21 80.18 80.58 81.26 81.10 79.73 76.27 74.95 77.06
1994 72.00 73.57 73.15 75.95 79.27 80.90 82.92 84.34 83.93 82.42 80.82 76.55 78.82
1995 74.19 73.39 75.56 76.38 78.53 81.32 83.23 83.34 83.18 82.65 80.17 79.08 79.25
1996 76.13 74.02 74.29 79.88 78.98 81.22 82.11 82.81 81.40 81.71 76.93 73.08 78.55
1997 72.27 74.68 75.29 76.32 76.19 81.08 81.53 82.55 82.65 80.60 76.40 74.00 77.80
1998 72.44 72.77 75.13 75.12 76.58 78.28 79.66 81.08 81.03 79.71 77.73 74.74 77.02
1999 73.34 73.70 74.60 75.38 77.10 78.72 79.27 80.81 80.15 78.34 76.83 74.08 76.86
2000 72.55 73.60 75.39 75.32 78.24 80.42 81.03 81.37 80.53 80.39 77.52 74.69 77.59
2001 75.44 74.09 74.98 76.60 78.16 79.68 81.47 82.19 82.12 79.85 77.33 76.37 78.19
2002 74.15 73.07 74.06 76.65 78.11 80.78 80.97 82.15 81.20 80.16 77.48 75.42 77.85
2003 72.50 73.73 75.68 77.28 78.97 80.45 82.34 83.19 82.03 81.03 78.77 75.65 78.47
2004 73.60 75.93 74.97 77.10 79.40 81.32 82.68 82.73 82.77 81.39 77.50 75.23 78.72
2005 72.69 73.84 73.77 78.70 81.31 82.67 83.13 83.63 81.10 78.55 77.12 73.45 78.33
2006 74.24 72.07 73.56 74.78 75.27 80.05 80.69 81.15 80.18 79.11 78.12 76.06 77.11
2007 74.82 73.43 74.23 76.65 78.34 80.68 81.58 82.03 81.55 80.16 76.62 75.53 77.97
2008 73.55 74.76 77.29 77.23 79.24 80.45 82.16 81.60 80.45 79.68 77.23 75.19 78.24
2009 72.53 73.36 73.71 74.67 78.11 83.11 u —– z —– z —– z —– z —– z —– z 74.48
Period of Record Statistics
MEAN 72.92 73.02 74.15 75.69 77.37 79.40 80.46 81.27 80.85 79.47 77.10 74.37 77.17
S.D. 1.32 1.28 1.42 1.34 1.41 1.38 1.43 1.45 1.34 1.38 1.46 1.39 1.00
SKEW -0.28 -0.27 -0.18 0.72 0.07 -0.30 -0.29 -0.54 -0.43 -0.10 0.29 0.38 0.13
MAX 76.13 75.93 77.29 79.88 81.31 82.67 83.23 84.34 83.93 82.65 80.82 79.08 79.25
MIN 69.03 69.80 70.52 73.02 73.71 75.84 76.85 76.82 77.00 75.94 74.07 71.55 74.43
NO YRS 60 60 59 60 60 59 59 59 59 60 60 60 58
Stephen Skinner (17:04:57) :
GlennB (12:57:49) :
“No, EGT is higher than 400 F, by about 500F for a rough number – 500C. Of course this temperature will be dissipated in the air, but just claiming “quickly” doesn’t provide any weight to your argument. And the people in your video wouldn’t have to have burning clothes, just feel a degree or so warmer. And likely they felt a blast of very warm or hot air. Have you been around airports and jets??”
“Yes I have, and I have felt those blasts of warm air, but not 500C. I can cook pizza at 200C so there is a pretty rapid drop from 500 or whatever the temp is down to warm.”
Huh? Because you can cook pizza there is a drop in temperature? I don’t get it. Are you comparing an oven to a jet engine exhaust?
“Incidently the Google maps of NHL shows the jets taking off to the East and a ship just to the West indicating the wind is right down the runway. A wind from this direction would make it very difficult to influence this particular NHL weather station.”
Wind is not always right down the runway, nor the same speed or constant direction, and other factors are at play in the atmosphere that could have a significant influence, such as shear, wing vortices, obstructions, taxiing/taking off/landing aircraft. I just can’t take your word and anecdotal evidence that a temp sensor couldn’t be affected by all this hot air.
>>>No, EGT is higher than 400 F, by about 500F for a
>>>rough number – 500C.
Incorrect. Most jet engines have an EGT of about 900 oC (centigrade, not F) for take off – considerably hotter than you thought. That’s a lot of hot air, which is being produced by burning 80 kg of diesel per minute (just for a little 737 or A320).
Beats having a barbecue next to the met-station sensors. All that heat has to go somewhere.
Stephen Skinner (09:24:09) :
Hi Joe
Yes, this is the temperature at the point of exit from the engine as measured by the sensor in the engine. To measure these temperatures externally to the engine you would have to be very close, although it is likely the sensor would be destroyed by the blast. The temperature dissipates quickly otherwise the YouTube of those people in St Maarten should show burning clothes at least.
Stephen,
There are temperature probes that can be mounted in the exhaust path of Jet Engines, without being destroyed.
Jet engines can range from 20,000 to 115,000 lbs of thrust. They are moving lot of hot air.
The 737 at takeoff thrust still has an Exhaust Gas Velocity of 35 mph at 1900 ft from the aircraft tail. The exhaust gas temperatures will be 200 F at the tail, 150 F 80 ft from the tail, and 100F 255 ft from the tail. The exhaust gas wash area fills the area behind the aircraft to these distances.
If you still think jet engine exhaust gasses have no affect on the temperature record please post data to support your assertion.
Joe
ralph ellis (06:32:10) :
>>>No, EGT is higher than 400 F, by about 500F for a
>>>rough number – 500C.
Incorrect. Most jet engines have an EGT of about 900 oC (centigrade, not F) for take off – considerably hotter than you thought. That’s a lot of hot air, which is being produced by burning 80 kg of diesel per minute (just for a little 737 or A320).
Beats having a barbecue next to the met-station sensors. All that heat has to go somewhere.”
I agree. But jets are not always taking off, which is why I used a “rough number”, what may be closer to the average of all taxiing, landing and takeoffs in the area. And the jet in the video was not taking off, although I would not be surprised that it would have been reading EGT over 500C.
Having served in the military on flight status for several years it always amazed me at the numbers of ground crew that would congregate to the rear of the aircraft during cold weather. By the same token during summer operations you would usually only have one or two ground crew any where near the rear of the aircraft. It is also amazing to me that there are many sites where the weather sensors are located near what they call the run-up area. While the wind conditions may not move the exhaust toward the sensor all the time we have radiant heat from the metal parts of the engine to contend with also. It only takes a small temperature increase to skew the record and an airport is a good place to get those small increases. Air operations demand for safety reasons the proximate location of the temp sensor near the runway. They must have very localized information for take off weights and power. This isn’t a good sight for establishing climate records because of the extremely localized effect of the aircraft exhaust on the temperature down the runway. That is the only area that they are interested in. The temperature down the runway. the ambient air temperature is one of the determining factors controlling lift which is critical at take off when the aircraft is at its greatest weight. IN my poor opinion NOAA and GISS made a grave mistake when they began using airports as a location to study climate temperature change.
Just my 2 cents,
Bill Derryberry
“REPLY: I don’t want any prizes. I just want the data to be right, no matter what it says. – Anthony”
Spoken like a true scientist!
Great job Anthony!
It’s silly to talk about rewarding Anthony’s expose with a Nobel Prize. What he’s given us here is good journalism through detailed detective work. The appropriate reward would be a Pulitizer Prize. The site in general should be considered for a Pulitizer if they give them for weblogs. It’s a great site and it puts the drivel I read regularly in the Washington Post to shame.
theduke (17:55:01) :
It’s a great site and it puts the drivel I read regularly in the Washington Post to shame.
You actually read the WaPo?
AGW = Asphaltogenic Global Warming??
Anthony– I hope you have a wife to make sure all this fulsome praise doesn’t go to your head. (Not that you don’t deserve it.)
Tim Clark (13:19:42) :
CO2 Levels are Highest in 2.1 Million Years
Wouldn’t that study be measuring CO2 in the ocean, rather than atmospheric CO2? Did they use the former as a proxy for the latter? If warmer temps cause outgassing of CO2, what relationship does that imply, other than higher CO2 does indeed “coincide” (correlate) with warmer periods?
I vaguely recall this paper being discussed earlier, either here or at Climate Audit.
Many commenters seem amazed that a government agency could be so negligent. But it’s probably because they don’t work for the government. Government agencies are fundamentally different from private businesses: they get their money before they do any work. Businesses have to do the work first and then get paid. Imagine yourself as a thermometer maintainer who works for NOAA. You’re happily surfing the web at your desk, and a colleague points out that GISS is listing a certain station as missing, although he thinks it’s still in operation. You have two choices: immediately get to work as Anthony did, track down the source of the discrepancy, report it to superiors, attend meetings with your agency and NASA, reconcile past records, travel to the site of the faulty (or non-recorded) station, verify its existence, possibly arrange to have it calibrated, repaired, or do it yourself, etc. Or you can just continue surfing the web. In either case, your paycheck (in these days of direct deposit) will automatically appear in your bank account every two weeks. Which do you think the average bureaucrat will choose? Government workers have two primary goals – one short term and one long term. The short term goal is to leave the office as soon as possible at the end of the day to avoid the afternoon rush hour. The long term goal is to stay alive long enough to retire. That’s it. Anything else is just unnecessary aggravation to be avoided as assiduously as possible.