Last week we had quite a row about temperature and temperature adjustments in Wellington New Zealand. One of the stations cited was the Kelburn district of Wellington, NZ.
NIWA issued a response statement regarding the charges leveled by The NZ Climate Science Coalition here:
http://www.niwa.co.nz/our-science/climate/news/all/niwa-confirms-temperature-rise
They say:
Warming over New Zealand through the past century is unequivocal.
NIWA’s analysis of measured temperatures uses internationally accepted techniques, including making adjustments for changes such as movement of measurement sites. For example, in Wellington, early temperature measurements were made near sea level, but in 1928 the measurement site was moved from Thorndon (3 metres above sea level) to Kelburn (125 m above sea level). The Kelburn site is on average 0.8°C cooler than Thorndon, because of the extra height above sea level.
The NZ Climate Science Coalition responded with a series of graphs that showed how the temperature record of stations in Wellington looks:
And they write:
What’s interesting is that if you leave Kelburn out of the equation, Thorndon in 1910 is not far below Airport 2010. Perhaps that gave NIWA some confidence that the two locations were equivalent, but I’m betting Thorndon a hundred years ago was very different from an international airport now.
Of course we all know that airports tend to run hotter than surrounding areas due to the huge expanses of runway, tarmac, terminal buildings, and car parks they have become as aviation has grown in the last 100 years, so it is no surprise to see the airport hotter than Kelburn, which is higher in elevation and with a bit more greenery, owing to the nearby Botanical Gardens.
I had an interest in tracking down the Kelburn station, just to see how good it is. I was able to find it on Google Earth as an aerial view which you can see below. I was unsuccessful in my first attempts at finding a photograph to document the measurement environment of the Kelburn station. I picked up the hunt again a few days later, and found it hiding in plain site. Thank goodness for tourists.
You can see the Stevenson screen is surrounded by astronomical science, such as the historic Dominion Observatory and the Carter Observatory to the west (off screen). But from a climate science perspective, it is also surrounded by asphalt, with a car park to the east. According to the Google Earth measurement tool, vehicles are parked within 6 meters of the Stevenson Screen.
But I really really wanted to get a ground level view to absolute ascertain the placement of the Stevenson Screen. Lots of web searches turn up nothing. I found pictures of the observatories, pictures of the Krupp gun, pictures of the skyline, but no pictures of the nearby weather station. After all, other than myself and surfacestations.org volunteers, who takes pictures of weather stations while on vacation? Still I figured, this is a major tourist spot, within walking distance of the top of the famous Wellington cable car, surely somebody had snapped a photo?
Then I discovered something in Google Earth called “Panoramio”, which had a whole collection of tourist submitted shots around the observatories.
Bingo!
Here’s the full image from Panoramio, the Stevenson Screen is clearly visible. Thank you J. Baines, wherever you are.
The car park asphalt at 6 meters away puts the station rating at CRN4, based on NOAA’s site quality rating system used for their Climate Reference Network. I’ve found that the vast majority of historical stations in the USA have been affected this way:
One wonders how this area has changed over time, and how long the car park has been there, and how much it, and the tourist vehicles that park next to the fence have contributed to the Kelburn climate record. Someone familiar with the history of the observatory might be able to shed some light on this. Was the screen always in this location? When did the car park go in? How many tree have been cleared around the site over the years? How many new buildings (Like the Carter Observatory) have but put up nearby? These are all issues which affect the temperature record. Disentangling those influences is difficult without an historical context.
I don’t blame the scientists at the observatory for letting the climate measurement environment at Kelburn deteriorate, after all they are charged with looking upwards, not at the grounds around them.
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Bad siting???
Who’da thunk it??
GIGO + fudge factor
Why am I not surprised by this?
Neat!
May I suggest truncating the green curve at 1955 and splicing on the red line?
We have to hide the decline!
By using the “Time” feature for this image (which only goes back to 2002) it appears the Stevenson screen may not have even been there. It’s a little hard to tell because of the image rez.
What has happened, however, is it appears a new structure was built in the car park area just to the east.
“Unequivocal” – another warmist word that annoys me.
And from this real world of sited temperature measuring devices, we are supposed to infer changes of 0.2 deg. C per decade or less?
These weather stations were not designed or installed for this type of function.
They were designed to give day to day, week to week, day of year to day of year type weather information.
“Calibrating” them with mathematical functions to ascertain fractional temperature accuracies over many decades is a fool’s errand.
I should also note that temperature gauges at airports are used to guide pilots in safe takeoff and landing speeds at various aircraft gross weights.
As such, estimating high for temperature won’t get people killed, as hotter air is thinner, and causes lift to decrease in the aircraft.
Being biased high won’t get people killed, so I’d bet that the bias is there.
Locating a temperature station close to the tarmac at an airport is a GOOD THING from a safety point of view. Maybe that’s why many of them are located there.
Cross purposes, folks.
My understanding of calibration tells me that Kelburne and the AIrport are nicely calibrated, occupying portions of the same time frame. Thorndon is calibrated with nothing. Is is separated by BOTH time & space, and flaps in the breeze.
the placement of the weather stations appears to have played a bigger part in getting the desired fraudulent temp results than people realise.
on any given hot day where i live, the media will make a point of going out to check the temp at the car parks of shopping centres and report the much higher temp. it’s done as a reminder to people not to leave their children/dogs in locked cars.
if only the media would inform them this happened with the weather stations used for proving AGW, people would understand how easy it is to fudge figures.
It is PanOramio. I got few my pics on Googlegate Earth as well 🙂
Great stuff anyway.
Enjoy!
[snip – Besides this being waaaayyy off topic to this thread – for the gazillionth time, we don’t post Hitler parody videos here – we don’t like people calling us “deniers” related to that period in Germany, so I’m not about to stoop to this level.
Let me make it really really clear people: STOP SUBMITTING THIS VIDEO TO WUWT – Anthony]
I lived in Wellington from 1998 to 2003 and the car park was there when we first got there (I know because we spent nearly every weekend up at the botanical gardens with the kids exploring etc).
Mailman
I can almost feel the cool ocean breezes as they waft across the parking lot and cars thereon so recently having climbed the hill.
Sorry, about the posting. I did not know that was not allowed. Please accept my apologies.
Bad siting quite possibly. Another interesting question is has Kelburn and the airport station diverged significantly over the period of overlap. Just eyeballing it looks as though they do diverge.
Dare to dream…
Dont know if anyone has seen this ourageous news:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/dec/06/copenhagen-editorial
I agree with Splice, the airport and Kelburn seem to diverge. How is the Wellington record actually constructed? It looks like from the GISS data that it has been dropped. Am I reading this wrong?
Again, the word “Unequivocal”. The report did not need it. Why not report the data and be done with it. It has an arrogance about it. Definition: allowing for no doubt or misinterpretation. “The debate is over”? It smells of a victory dance, the sound of a poor winner rubbing things in the loser’s face. That is what is driving me in my readings. It reads just like the emails, the exclusive club of elitists.
Check it out./ Even the digital thermometer in my car notices parking lot’s are hotter than open country readings.
For non UK residents can I just give you a slight measure of one of the ‘World Leaders’ attending Copenhagen.
Gordon Brown the British Prime minister can’t even measure economic growth properly his alleged speciality let alone world temperatures.
Yet he feels qualified enough to call you and I ‘Flat Earthers’.
We Brits have identified a trait in Gordon Brown which we call ‘The Jonah effect’ where everything he touches turns to sh*t.
Lets hope he can work his ‘Magic’ at Copenhagen.
I’m surprised how well the data from Kelburn and the airport track each other.
A difference plot would be interesting. How far apart are the sites? Has the data been homogenized?
There is also the unusual practice of adjusting modern temperatures to normalize historical readings far in the past when the stations have moved. The adjustment becomes purely arbitrary because there is no way to measure the differential at the time of station movement . In 5 out of 6 instances NIWA made adjustments that were totally unfounded, but always served the past was colder , the present warmer meme. Instead the thermometer readings should have been kept and a note made. When this is done, all warming virtually disappears.
NIWA Seasonal Climate Outlook Dec 09 – Feb 10:
El Niño strengthens, with conditions likely to be cooler in south and drier in northeast
The El Niño in the equatorial Pacific has strengthened during October and November, and is expected to persist at moderate intensity through the summer of 2010 before weakening during the autumn. According to the latest outlook from NIWA’s National Climate Centre, mean sea level pressures are likely to be higher than normal to the north of the country and lower than normal to the south, resulting in stronger than normal south-westerlies over New Zealand.
The Centre says summer rainfall totals are likely to be in the normal or below normal range in the north and east of the North Island, and in Nelson-Marlborough, but near normal in other regions.
Temperatures for the coming 3-month period (December, January and February combined) are likely to be below average or average in all regions. [Global Warming?]
P Gosselin:
Alvin:
I agree with you about the connotations of the word “unequivocal”.
However, as I read it, the word “unequivocal” is from a quotation by NIWA which was used by NZ Climate Science Coalition, and then quoted by Anthony. At the very least, it was used by NZCSC itself.
If that’s the case, then it would be improper for Anthony to change it.
(Or maybe it has already been changed, and I’ve not seen the article as originally posted.)
OK, I misread: the quote is directly from NIWA.
(Shortage of sleep doesn’t help.)