The National Climate Data Center (NCDC) has responded to the excellent report
Watts, A. 2009: Is the U.S. Surface Temperature Record Reliable? 28 pages, March 2009 The Heartland Institute [hard copies available from The Heartland Institute 19 South LaSalle Street #903 Chicago Illinois 60603]
which I weblogged on at “Is The U.S. Surface Temperature Record Reliable?” By Anthony Watts.
The NCDC “Talking Points” released on June 9, 2009 are available at
Talking Points related to: Is the U.S. Temperature Record Reliable?
Unfortunately, the author of the NCDC Talking Points cavalierly and poorly responded to Anthony Watts report. They did not even have the courtesy to cite the report! {UPDATE 7/3/09: They have now cited Anthony’s report, but retained the original date of the Talking Points of June 9 2009).
Below, I comment on their response.
NCDC Talking Point #1
Q. Do many U.S. stations have poor siting by being placed inappropriately close to trees, buildings, parking lots, etc.?
A. Yes. The National Weather Service has station siting criteria, but they were not always followed. That is one reason why NOAA created the Climate Reference Network, with excellent siting and redundant sensors. It is a network designed specifically for assessing climate change. http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/uscrn/. Additionally, an effort is underway to modernize the Historical Climatology Network, though funds are currently available only to modernize and maintain stations in the Southwest. Managers of both of these networks work diligently to put their stations in locations not only with excellent current siting, but also where the site characteristics are unlikely to change very much over the coming decades.
Climate Science Response
Their answer confirms what Anthony Watts and colleagues have carefully documented. An obvious question is why did not NCDC elevate this as a priority sooner? Moreover, if the current sites can be “adjusted” to be regionally representative, why does NOAA even need the new Climate Reference Network? The answer to that is that they have recognized for years that there is a problem with the siting of the surface stations, but deliberately attempted to bury this issue until Anthony Watts and colleagues confronted NCDC with the issue.
NCDC Talking Point #2
Q. How has the poor siting biased local temperatures trends?
A. At the present time (June 2009), to the best of our knowledge, there has only been one published peer-reviewed study that specifically quantified the potential bias in trends caused by poor station siting: Peterson, Thomas C., 2006: Examination of Potential Biases in Air Temperature Caused by Poor Station Locations. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 87, 1073-1080. Written by a NOAA National Climatic Data Center scientist, it examined only a small subset of stations – all that had their siting checked at that time – and found no bias in long-term trends. The linear trend in adjusted temperature series over the period examined was nearly identical between the stations with good siting and the stations with poor siting, with the stations having poor siting showing slightly less warming. The following questions address implications from that paper.
Climate Science Response
This is blatantly untrue and the author of these talking points know that. Tom Peterson, for example, was even a reviewer of the Pielke 2007a and 2007b papers, and was aware of the Pielke et al 2002 paper.
Pielke Sr., R.A., T. Stohlgren, L. Schell, W. Parton, N. Doesken, K. Redmond, J. Moeny, T. McKee, and T.G.F. Kittel, 2002: Problems in evaluating regional and local trends in temperature: An example from eastern Colorado, USA. Int. J. Climatol., 22, 421-434.
Pielke Sr., R.A. J. Nielsen-Gammon, C. Davey, J. Angel, O. Bliss, N. Doesken, M. Cai., S. Fall, D. Niyogi, K. Gallo, R. Hale, K.G. Hubbard, X. Lin, H. Li, and S. Raman, 2007a: Documentation of uncertainties and biases associated with surface temperature measurement sites for climate change assessment. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 88:6, 913-928.
Pielke Sr., R.A., C. Davey, D. Niyogi, S. Fall, J. Steinweg-Woods, K. Hubbard, X. Lin, M. Cai, Y.-K. Lim, H. Li, J. Nielsen-Gammon, K. Gallo, R. Hale, R. Mahmood, S. Foster, R.T. McNider, and P. Blanken, 2007b: Unresolved issues with the assessment of multi-decadal global land surface temperature trends. J. Geophys. Res., 112, D24S08, doi:10.1029/2006JD008229.
In the second paper, we wrote
“Peterson’s approach and conclusions, therefore, provide a false sense of confidence with these data for temperature change studies by seeming to indicate that the errors can be corrected.”
The decision of the NCDC Talking Points to ignore these papers illustrates the state that NCDC is in with respect to Climate Science. NCDC, as led by Tom Karl, is not interested in an inclusive assessment of climate science issues (in this case the multi-decadal surface temperature trends), but are only interested in promoting their particular agenda and in protecting their particular data set.
NCDC Talking Point #3
Q. Does a station with poor siting read warmer than a station with good siting?
Not necessarily. A station too close to a parking lot would be expected to read warmer than a station situated over grass far from any human influence other natural obstructions. But a station too close to a large tree to the west, so that the station was shaded in the afternoon, would be expected to make the afternoon maximum temperature read a bit cooler than a station in full sunlight. Many local factors influence the observed temperature: whether a station is in a valley with cold air drainage, whether the station is a liquid-in-glass thermometer in a standard wooden shelter or an electronic thermometer in the new smaller and more open plastic shelters, whether the station reads and resets its maximum and minimum thermometers in the coolest time of the day in early morning or in the warmest time of the day in the afternoon, etc. But for detecting climate change, the concern is not the absolute temperature – whether a station is reading warmer or cooler than a nearby station over grass – but how that temperature changes over time.
Climate Science Response
The answer correctly reports on the variety of issues that affect surface temperatures. However, where we disagree is that the multi-decadal surface temperature trends and anomalies also depend on the details of the observing sites and how these details change over time.
This can be illustrated from our 2007 BAMS paper, where the set of relatively closely spaced stations shown in Figure 10 (reproduced belw) have significantly different long term trends, as summarized in Table 5 (reproduced below) from that paper. Despite being relatively close together, the variations in both the local enviroment and the station exposure result in distinctly different trends [Using the categories in the Watts, 2009 report, the stations had the following Trinidad (3); Cheyenne Wells (1); Las Animas (5); Eads (4) and Lamar (4)]. 
Even sites that are locally in a category 1 class, such as Cheyenne Wells, however, also have issues with the landscape in their local surroundings, as we documented for locations in northeastern Colorado in Figures 5, 7, 9, 10 and 12 of
Hanamean, J.R. Jr., R.A. Pielke Sr., C.L. Castro, D.S. Ojima, B.C. Reed, and Z. Gao, 2003: Vegetation impacts on maximum and minimum temperatures in northeast Colorado. Meteorological Applications, 10, 203-215.
Depending on wind direction, the air that reaches the observing site can have a different temperature. Changes in the wind directions over time can result in temperature trends that are due to this effect alone.
This local landscape variation as a function of azimith can be seen in the photographs for the Cheyenne Wells site in
Davey, C.A., and R.A. Pielke Sr., 2005: Microclimate exposures of surface-based weather stations – implications for the assessment of long-term temperature trends. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., Vol. 86, No. 4, 497–504,
where depending on the wind direction and time of year, the air that the temperature sensor monitors may transit a dirt road, crops, or other land surface varations, each with a different surface heat budget., before reaching the temperature observing site.
The NCDC Talking Points ignore informing us why all of these local landscape effects on multi-decadal surface temperature trends would be random and average out.
NCDC Talking Point #4
Q. So a station moving from a location with good siting to a location with poor siting could cause a bias in the temperature record. Can that bias be adjusted out of the record?
A. A great dealof work has gone into efforts to account for a wide variety of biases in the climate record, both in NOAA and at sister agencies around the world. Since the 1980s, scientists at NOAA’s NationalClimatic Data Center are at the forefront of this effort developing techniques to detect and quantify biases in station time series. When a bias associated with any change is detected, it is removed so that the time series is homogeneous with respect to its current instrumentation and siting. The latest peer-reviewed paper which provides an overview the sources of bias and their removal (Menne et al., 2009 in press), including urbanization and nonstandard siting. At the time that paper was written, station site evaluations were too incomplete to conduct a thorough investigation (that analysis is forthcoming). However, they could evaluate urban bias and found that once the data were fully adjusted the 30% most urban stations had about the same trend as the remaining more rural stations.
Climate Science Response
The failure of NCDC to correct for all of the recognized biases has been documented in
Pielke Sr., R.A., C. Davey, D. Niyogi, S. Fall, J. Steinweg-Woods, K. Hubbard, X. Lin, M. Cai, Y.-K. Lim, H. Li, J. Nielsen-Gammon, K. Gallo, R. Hale, R. Mahmood, S. Foster, R.T. McNider, and P. Blanken, 2007: Unresolved issues with the assessment of multi-decadal global land surface temperature trends. J. Geophys. Res., 112, D24S08, doi:10.1029/2006JD008229;
a paper NCDC has chosen to ignore [another surface temperature analysis group has been open to scientific debate, however; see].
NCDC has also ignored
Lin, X., R.A. Pielke Sr., K.G. Hubbard, K.C. Crawford, M. A. Shafer, and T. Matsui, 2007: An examination of 1997-2007 surface layer temperature trends at two heights in Oklahoma. Geophys. Res. Letts., 34, L24705, doi:10.1029/2007GL031652,
where we document a bias in the use of a single level surface temperature (the minimum temperature, in particular) to monitor multi-decadal surface temperature trends.
The NCDC talking points also mention the Menne et al (2009) paper, which, unfortunately, perpetuates the NCDC failure to adequately consider all of the biases and uncertainties in the surface temperature record. The Menne et al paper was weblogged in
Finally, we have several other papers in the review process, and look forward to communicating them to you when accepted for publication.
NCDC Talking Point #5
Q. What can we say about poor siting’s impact on national temperature trends?
A. We are limited in what we can say due to limited information about station siting. Surfacestations.org has examined about 70% of the 1221 stations in NOAA’s Historical Climatology Network (USHCN). According to their web site of early June 2009, they classified 70 USHCN version 2 stations as good or best (class 1 or 2). The criteria used to make that classification is based on NOAA’s Climate Reference Network Site Handbook so the criteria are clear. But, as many different individuals participated in the site evaluations, with varying levels of expertise, the degree of standardization and reproducibility of this process is unknown.
However, at the present time this is the only large scale site evaluation information available so we conducted a preliminary analysis.
Two national time series were made using the same gridding and area averaging technique. One analysis was for the full data set. The other used only the 70 stations that surfacestations.org classified as good or best. We would expect some differences simply due to the different area covered: the 70 stations only covered 43% of the country with no stations in, for example, New Mexico, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee or North Carolina. Yetthe two time series, shown below as both annual data and smooth data, are remarkably similar. Clearly there is no indication for this analysis that poor current siting is imparting a bias in the U.S. temperature trends.
Climate Science Response
This is a cavalier response. In order to show that there is little effect on surface temperature anomalies due to station siting, they need to assess the anomalies over time in the same region for each category of station siting. A national average which includes includes large regional variations (e.g. see Figure 20a in Pielke et al 2007a ) tells us little about the quality of the data.
Q. Is there any question that surface temperatures in the United States have been rising rapidly during the last 50 years?
A. None at all. Even if NOAA did not have weather observing stations across the length and breadth of the United States the impacts of the warming are unmistakable. For example, lake and river ice is melting earlier in the spring and forming later in the fall. Plants are blooming earlier
in the spring. Mountain glaciers are melting. And a multitude of species of birds, fish, mammals and plants are extending their ranges northward and, in mountainous areas, upward as well.
Menne, Matthew J., Claude N. Williams, Jr. and Russell S. Vose, 2009: The United States Historical Climatology Network Monthly Temperature Data – Version 2. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, in press.
Peterson, Thomas C., 2006: Examination of Potential Biases in Air Temperature Caused by Poor Station Locations. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 87, 1073-1080. It is available from http://ams.allenpress.com/archive/1520-0477/87/8/pdf/i1520-0477-87-8-1073.pdf.
Climate Science Response
Their claim that temperatures have been “rising rapidly” over the past 50 years is based on the surface temperature record in which there are reported warm biases; e.g. see
Pielke Sr., R.A., C. Davey, D. Niyogi, S. Fall, J. Steinweg-Woods, K. Hubbard, X. Lin, M. Cai, Y.-K. Lim, H. Li, J. Nielsen-Gammon, K. Gallo, R. Hale, R. Mahmood, S. Foster, R.T. McNider, and P. Blanken, 2007: Unresolved issues with the assessment of multi-decadal global land surface temperature trends. J. Geophys. Res., 112, D24S08, doi:10.1029/2006JD008229.
NCDC also is misinformed with respect to the other climate metrics. For example, they write
“Plants are blooming earlier in the spring.”
However, a new paper in press (see)
White, M.A., K.M. de Beurs, K. Didan, D.W. Inouye, A.D. Richardson, O.P. Jensen, J. O’Keefe, G. Zhang, R.R. Nemani, W.J.D. van Leeuwen, J.F. Brown, A. de Wit, M. Schaepman, X. Lin, M. Dettinger, A. Bailey, J. Kimball, M.D. Schwartz, D.D. Baldocchi, J.T. Lee, W.K. Lauenroth. Intercomparison, interpretation, and assessment of spring phenology in North America estimated from remote sensing for 1982 to 2006. Global Change Biology (in press),
writes
“Trend estimates from the SOS [Start of Spring] methods as well as measured and modeled plant phenologystrongly suggest either no or very geographically limited trends towards earlier spring arrival, although we caution that, for an event such as SOS with high interannual variability, a 25-year SOS record is short for detecting robust trends.”
IN CONCLUSION
NCDC would be a much more valuable resource in the climate community if they worked to be inclusive in presenting all peer reviewed perspectives in climate science. Currently, they are only reporting on information that supports their agenda and not communicating real world observational data that conflicts with that agenda. The fault for this failure in leadership is with Tom Karl who is Director of NCDC.
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I was wondering when you’d pick it up Anthony! I put this in tips and notes days ago! 🙂
REPLY: Timing is everything. I chose today for a reason. – Anthony
We are in serious trouble…..or, is it all planned out? The start of spring thing is just plain stupid.
Thanks Anthony, it’s easy to see that you’re the correct one.
(11:02:07) :REPLY: Timing is everything. I chose today for a reason. – Anthony
Birthday?
Meanwhile, I’d reeeely like to find out whether they compared homo’d or raw CRN 1&2 stations with the rest of the country. Are we looking at that ourselves?
REPLY: Why not ask Thomas Petersen? I’ve sent him two emails and have gotten no reply. Volume always helps, here is the email address:
Thomas.C.Peterson@noaa.gov
This is a public email address, so I’m not “outing” him. – Anthony
This has been covered before but look at Peterson’s paper and look at the graphic that shows a world view of the sights. South America is void as well as only 7 to 10 covering Antarctica. It’s eye opening when you see the lack of coverage of surface stations.
This is a major Rift in the AGW’s story along with the “corrections” NCDC makes to the data for poor location and urban heat effects.
“First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win.”
Attribution of the above quote to Ghandi, of course.
Completely OT: An advertisement for the Scientology Church?
Quote: “Q. Is there any question that surface temperatures in the United
States have been rising rapidly during the last 50 years?
A. None at all. — ”
It is their question so I attribute the “rising rapidly” phrase to NCDC. Such phrasing ought not to be used even when they “cherry pick” the time frame – which they have, and when, in fact, it maybe rose slowly but maybe not, and now it simply is not rising. And the “None at all.” response. As phrased this is outright false! Of course there are questions about it – it is what all the kerfullel is about, is it not?
Nice of them to correct the attribution issue regarding the author and title of the report they were responding to. Foolish of them not to have done so in the first place.
Thanks to Pielke Sr. for the extra work making an issue of this and keeping it in their face. Likewise, for Anthony’s work.
Some of this stuff would be amusing if it were not so seriously misused.
Wow.
We have been so had.
Robert van der Veeke (12:17:41) :
Completely OT: An advertisement for the Scientology Church?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Just click on it. I do a Ctrl/click. It comes up in a hidden window and then I go and X it out.
REPLY: Timing is everything. I chose today for a reason. – Anthony
The anticipation is killing me… When will the reason be revealed?
REPLY: oh it’s nothing earth shattering, just my knowledge of blog traffic cycles tells me when certain things are better placed online than others, and I wanted this one to get maximum exposure. – Anthony
Did they really say “Mountain glaciers are melting” ?
This tells you a lot about the organisation’s scientific credentials.
Kudos to you, Anthony. You were Pielke’s student, weren’t you? Must be very gratifying that your major prof speaks up for you. Says to me he’s proud of you and what you’ve done, as we all are.
Special occasion? CSU is inviting you back to receive an honorary Ph. D.? Well deserved!
REPLY: No Dr. Pielke is a professional acquaintance. There’s no special occasion on placing this other than I know it will get more views on Sunday than Friday/Saturday of this week. – That’s all – Anthony
Although it’s “weather and not climate”, that start-of-spring acronym (SOS) worked REALLY well this year. Canada is saying they have no Spring/Summer this year and Australia & NZ had no Autumn. The migratory birds cannot breed http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/opinion/westview/big-chill-in-churchill-47992231.html
and the crops are stressed. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/5525933/Crops-under-stress-as-temperatures-fall.html
Here is a response to Thomas Karl quoted as saying: “Such major (weather) oscillations are part of a bumpy road toward global warming.”
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/opinion/letters_to_the_editor/extreme-weather-through-the-ages-48416987.html
So the migratory birds and farmers this year are messaging “Dit dit dit, dah dah dah, dit dit dit.” Global Warming? Bah bah bah.
There is danger in both pushing NCDC into a corner and in letting them paint themselves into a corner.
We need to reach across the aisle – to give them a face-saving escape route.
They are at least acknowledging (through clenched teeth) the work done in the surface stations project.
We need to be generous to them – maybe even ask their advice on how to improve the surface stations project.
The way forward for everyone, rather than a pointless fist-fight, is to work together to answer questions like these:
1) How to best use historical data.
2) How to best collect data going forwards.
The answers to Q1 might involve more research into the exact history of f the sites including when things were moved, when nearby roads and buildings were built, when thermometers were replaced, who did the readings, when did other people do the readings. I can picture a tall person and a short person getting different readings from a mercury thermometer – just imagine if Bert used to do all the readings, then Bert does the weekday readings and Sally at weekends then Bert dies and Sally does all the readings for 10 years. This could create a ‘trend’ that just did not exist.
Q2 might involve some parallel collection of data in the old ways – eg re-installing a mercury thermometer and taking the readings in the morning as well as using the modern equipment and schedules. We cannot travel back in time and get the 1960s readings with today’s technology and methods – but we can do the reverse which is to get today’s readings with yesterday’s methods.
If we are looking to detect very small trends then we really do need to isolate as many other factors as we can and measurement error is one of the simplest things to eliminate.
I would then go on to build well-sited stations and run these AS WELL AS running the old stations.
There has GOT TO be a budget for this fundamental research. The whole AGW concept rests on the notion that there is/was a temperature trend. It’s got to be worth spending a few million dollars on checking this out properly. With some pukka statisticians and meteorologists.
Just a little group of small ideas. Pielke wrote about the influence of irrigation and it’s effect on rainfall. In this colorado example, there have been water rights litigation with nearby kansas and that could effect the number of acres under irrigation. Irrigation fields, especially the sprinkler variety (circles) can do a tremendous cooling. A hot angry warming enthusiast that lives in the concrete jungle of a city would have no idea.
This by the way wouldn’t show up on a picture of the house and the yard in which the pictures show the thermometer. It does show up in the satelite pictures. Again a variable is Colorado lost and was forced to let more water continue down the Arkansas river to kansas.
Jack Hughes (13:55:26) :
The ice-makers in our refrigerators have nothing on Mother Nature.
http://www.iceagenow.com/Open_letter_to_Congressman_Dave_Reichert.htm
Jack Hughes (14:19:32) :
There has GOT TO be a budget for this fundamental research. The whole AGW concept rests on the notion that there is/was a temperature trend. It’s got to be worth spending a few million dollars on checking this out properly.
Which is exactly why it will not be done. The emperor will not give you the funds to buy him a mirror to show that he is “clothing challenged.” They fixed the Hubble’s mirror of course, but they knew it was pointed outward.
climate is about temperature “anomaly” not absolute temperature.
So you have the photos, you have rated the stations for accuracy. I assune you have proof that the anomaly is also in error?
A station of grade 1 100 metres above another grade 1 will be about .65°C cooler
Does this make the higher station invalid although it may be local to the other?
A Grade 1 station in a frost hollow will similarly be in error to a local Grade 1 station not in such a hollow. Does this make its temperature readings invalid?
What about siting with respect to water (sea / lake) etc. etc.
A station in the centre of London measures the local environment temperature in exactly as accurate a way (UHI will not have change significantly). It is the local temperature and therefore as valid as the one up a hill/in a frost hollow/by water. The all measure the local environmet temperature.
If you think centre of habitation readings should be ignored then isn’t this cherry picking? Isn’t a town is just as much a part of the environment as the country?
Adjustments can be applied to correct for changes in that environment (a new car park asphalted around it etc) . Most places will not slowly drift upwards/downwards – it should be an abrupt change over a couple of years.
If you consider this not to be the case then do you have proof that the site will wreck the anomaly?
If this can be proved then adjustments need to be entered for other environmental aspects – height/water/frost hollow etc.
bill:
Really?
Is NCDC required to include a reply in their material, when they write about a specific publication? Do NCDC publication or transparency standards require identification of authorship or agency approval?
Interesting that the NCDC chose a 50 year time frame for temp change. That puts the start point at 1959. Go back another 20 years to 1940, and of course, the US lower 48 would show the 40’s as hotter than the recent decade.
Why politicize the institution? Why not just let the numbers speak for themselves and others draw the interpretations? If the temp anomalies continue to unravel, then the credibility of the NCDC/NOAA will be damaged for decades to come.
I would like to see a comparison of raw, unaltered data from the 70 best sites compared with raw, unaltered data for the entire data set. If these two lines match as closely as Peterson claims in his presentation, then I will be willing to accept his position (knowing that it still could be circumstantial but nevertheless it is what it is).
I am extremely skeptical, however, of any data base that has been altered, manipulated, adjusted, massaged, what ever label you wish to put on it. Particularly when the data comes from an organization that has an agenda which many of us believe is to promote a cause, not to present objective and factual data.
They need to understand that the general population is not exactly in a mood to accept government scientists and administrators at their word. If these fine folks are truly NOT manipulating they data, then they should be bending over backwards, doing back stands, doing whatever it takes to respond to the “data credibility questions” of the AGW skeptics.
It would be so easy for them to win over a number of us simply by opening up and putting our minds at ease that the data that they are presenting is accurate and unbiased.
To date they haven’t and therefor I shall continue to remain a skeptic.
Cotton region sheltetrs compared to MMTS
http://ams.confex.com/ams/pdfpapers/91613.pdf
A coop recorder’s view
http://njwo.net/cotton.htm
bill (15:10:56) :
“Climate is about temperature “anomaly” not absolute temperature. So you have the photos, you have rated the stations for accuracy. I assume you have proof that the anomaly is also in error?”
Bill,
I believe it is fair to say that Anthony has effectively demonstrated that the stations being used are so compromised they cannot measure an anomaly as small as is being claimed. If UHI around a station were constant you would be able to measure an anomaly as you claim, but UHI cannot be constant for the majority of urban, airport or even most stations listed as rural. The US population has been increasing over the measurement period and with it the number of roads, buildings and other human structures that do not transpire like natural vegetation.
The raw USHCN data was posted on a previous thread, and shows no anomaly. It is only after adjustments that warming is shown. The plots shown for the various adjustments raise serious questions. Why is the correction for data infilling not random around 0.0 degrees? Why is the site change adjustment fully positive, when it is known that man made structures have encroached on station sites over time? Why does the site adjustment plot not evidence the MMTS short cable issue? Why does the equipment change adjustment not show an adjustment for the introduction of latex paint on Stevenson screens? Why are UHI adjustments so small, and apparently not used in USHCN 2? And what’s with TOB adjustments that do not reference actual recorded station TO data?