It has been awhile since we’ve looked at stations in the United States Historical Climatology Network. Last night I was doing quality control and updates to the database and came across this photo by Surfacestations.org volunteer John W. Slayton. He’s been surveying dozens of stations this summer and has been adding quite a number of USHCN surveys to the database. We all thank him.
This photo has been retouched to minimize the sun glare. Find the thermometer.
Give up? Here’s the photo labeled to point it out:
Here’s another view showing the rain gauge:
You can see more photos here at the Surfacestations.org gallery server
The tree shade and the junk makes for an interesting combination of exposure factors. This station is in the backyard of a private observer whom I won’t name. Certainly you can’t fault the observer for the measurement environment, people are free to do with and maintain their property however they wish. And as we’ve seen time and again, NOAA/NWS usually does not concern itself with the measurement environment. As long as the station produces data, they are generally satisfied. However, this sort of arrangement doesn’t always yield a controlled measurement environment.
For example the month the photo was taken, the observer missed only 7 days.
So the question in my mind is: how does the albedo of old tires compare to asphalt?
The surfacestations project is approaching the 90% mark now for the nationwide survey. I’ll post an update in a few days. Papers for peer review are still in process, but my goal is to have the first ready for publication by the end of the year. A combination of illnesses, business duties, and another paper by a co-author has slowed the progress.
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A picture is worth a thousand words. It describes so beautifully the state of the network — a pile of junk.
No. You find it. I want no part of it. I wonder how many of the local “readers” have died of snakebite?
Not far OT, but I’ve long been hungry for looking at US temperature trend graph(s), drawn with data only from stations of CRN Rating 1 or 1+2.
Have you ever published such graph(s) Anthony?
REPLY: They’ll be in the upcoming papers. – Anthony
Eyeballing the Fillmore data at NASA/GISS site:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=425724710080&data_set=1&num_neighbors=1
does not give me an impression that the temp trend there is very abnormal; the temp is in a slow oscillation mode with a pitch of 50 to 60 years………
“So the question in my mind is: how does the albedo of old tires compare to asphalt?”
I think in this case, tire albedo is not as relevant as thermal diffusivity and mass. Tires are good insulators, so they’re not very effective heat sinks, especially given that they are hollow. The trees, completely surrounding the site, are suspect. I wonder how much compost is under all that trash, perking away and giving off heat. And where is the BBQ?
I see Pure Poison picked up on my comment from last week when I spoke about the UAH satellite data set saying “what trend?”
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/purepoison/2009/10/27/trends-in-temperature/comment-page-1/#comment-15079
Crikey is a very pro-AGW site, but unlike Real Climate they actually let me post my views. I hope my response was roughly accurate – I was going off the cuff on my understanding of what I have read here and at other sites.
Oops forgot to thank them for drawing attention to my original comment BRB
tokyoboy (21:48:19) :
Not far OT, but I’ve long been hungry for looking at US temperature trend graph(s), drawn with data only from stations of CRN Rating 1 or 1+2.
Have you ever published such graph(s) Anthony?
REPLY: They’ll be in the upcoming papers. – Anthony
How do you get around issues of sample size and distribution? The CRN Rating 1 and 2 stations must (one would think?) be few and far between.
REPLY: With over 80% of the network surveyed, the sample size and distribution is not as big of a problem as it could be. This is why I didn’t quit at 30% as some suggested. Finding the best stations was really the most important part of the survey and that takes time. – Anthony
You may be a Redneck if:
your MMTS is in your backyard surrounded by old tires, beds, miscellaneous pieces of iron, wood, 50 gallon drums full of??? and other unrecognisable artifacts.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Pehaps they are just ‘streamlining’ the network?
After all, this current clunky and old fashioned network is so er uhm messy isnt it? All we need is a computer model and a shiny new super computer costing a mere billion dollars and it will be far easier to decide what the temperatures should be, hey presto! No messy network, no need to gather data from reomote locations, just tap a few keys and the shiny new billion dollar computer called ‘deep Gore’ will be able to tell you the ‘adjusted’ temperature anywhere in the world in a few milliseconds, now thats what I call streamlined! Of course no outsider will be given access to the raw data because there wont be any, just a secret special programme devised by that well known computer geek Mr Briffa for which a Nobel prize has already been bought.
To top this wonderful streamlining off beautifully perhaps a new shiny law making it a criminal offence to actually measure and distribute the old fashioned and clunky and far from streamlined temperature figures so the only source availible will be the deep Gore unit, what could be more streamlined than that?
REPLY: They’ll be in the upcoming papers. – Anthony
Any word on when they will be released?
Man, someone needs to report that location to vector control. Look how green that place is. That means there is water. That means those tires are full of water and probably mosquitoes and other vermin. Sure, a person can keep their property how they wish but they don’t need to be a hazard to the local community. Cement plants will often take old tires for use as fuel and there is one relatively close to just about everywhere.
The photographer, John Slayton, traveled to Idaho and Washington this past summer also. Via e-mail we corresponded about several locations that seem to have disappeared. In one case John went to the end of a road that overlooks Case Inlet (in the S. Puget Sound area) with the Lat/Long indicating the station was just a ways out there! Neither John nor I have been able to find out where the equipment got taken to – if it was re-stationed. Likewise for a station in South Cle Elum, although I did speak with the lady that had that one in her back yard – so at least we know it is gone.
It is amazing to me that so many of these places have been found and documented. Folks such as John S. are to be congratulated.
Cheers, John H.
Simply flabbergasted.
I thought it was inside a burning tire. 😉
Do you know what a panda cub is doing when the tropical forest is burning? …
…
It’s also burning. 😉 (A joke from the Czecho Slovak Superstar, our Pop Idol.)
So the observer missed 7 days? Can he just miss whichever days he wants? Like if it’s cold & miserable, he just won’t bother?
Anybody who keeps their backyard looking like this isn’t going to be concerned about the met station. As well as missing many of the recordings, he (she) probably hangs things on the equipment, especially when bbqing.
I am flabbergasted, in fact my gast has never been so flabbered! Seriously this is appalingly bad for a national network of “anything” should be so poorly maintained! Cassandra King is right, although her Deep Gore is not as good as our Deep Thought, naturally enough, the French-polishing on the oak side panels is quite something you know, & as for the porcelain!
May I be the first to use the standard response: “It doesn’t matter because we adjust for it!” (sarc)
More great work from an incredible community project. I am in awe that a bunch of volunteers have produced such a huge effort right across the nation. No wonder “team” people get nervous and embarrased that the blogosphere can penetrate “settled science” and ask basic questions that can no longer be brushed off by the standard response.
Anthony – I trust that you will peerreviewpublishinrecognisedjournals your work. May I also suggest a comprehensive review by the CA team to make it bullet proof? The slightest punctuation mistake will no doubt be sufficient to render any results null and void.
I guess the homeowner is just too safety conscious to keep a barbecue in that yard. Once lit, tires don’t extinguish easily, after all.
As you point out, the direction of the site bias is completely non-obvious. I think this kind of thing is at least part of the reason for all those detailed siting specs that were ignored so often. If the instruments are sited per spec, then no one has to argue about the bias introduced by a pile of moldering tires.
I look forward to the reports on the finished project.
Andrew. You ask: “So the question in my mind is: how does the albedo of old tires compare to asphalt?”
An observation. I bought one of those laser temperature measurement devices from Bunnings (the Oz equivalent of Home Depot). On the day of the tragic fires in Victoria, I measured the air temperature at our place in the country (far away from the fires) by pointing the device at the sky – 35 deg C. I then pointed it at the ground surface – 65 deg C. We had some tyres sitting there. I pointed it at those – 75 deg C. Really! I was amazed. Presumably asphalt has a similar behaviour.
Re mondo (00:35:20) :
I was watching the Malaysian MotoGP on Eurosport.
The commentators noted something along the lines of Air Temperature 31C, Track Temperature 51C!
That was just beforethe heavens opened and the contents of Lake Huron landed upon the track in about a minute.
Rather than the warming/cooling effects of the environment I suspect that the bigger problem is that the environment changes, if the site is to have any value for recording climate changes. Clearly, it doesn’t look like the owner cares much about keeping the vegetation (or junk) the same over the years.
It looks like there is a rain gauge there as well. Its siting looks even worse than that of the thermometer. Clearly, the dense vegetation will make the rainfall measurements highly suspicious.
Elsewhere in the world the temperature is usually measured 2 meters above the ground. That makes the readings somewhat less affected by the ground albedo. Why not also in the US?
The biggest problem at this site is the forest regrowth. I bet overnight minima have been rising like mad.
Not clear if 7 days of readings were missing or if the reader was missing for 7 days…
“Dr. Livingstone, I presume?”
“NOAA/NWS usually does not concern itself with the measurement environment. As long as the station produces data, they are generally satisfied”: so they can have no intellectually serious claim to be pursuing science, then.