Today has been electrically charged, first my interview with Andrew Bolt and Steve Price on their radio show in Melbourne, then rush to the airport, trying to do a radio interview on a cellphone while checking in, make a quick post on the skeptic blacklist, off to Hobart, then discovering your luggage never made the plane.
All was not lost though (well it might be if I don’t get my luggage). The first stop my trusty guide Alan made was to the Hobart Weather Station next to the Anglesea Army Barracks at Battery Point. He said, “you have to see this”.
Looks pretty nice doesn’t it? It is very picturesque looking out over the bay and the Wrest Hotel/Casino (the tall building).
This station was showcased by the ABC radio network om 30 May 2008, here and ABC supplied this photo with the story:
Notice anything interesting? I did, but nary a mention from the ABC. They write:
“The Battery Point site being the official site is where temperatures are verified against” said Malcolm.
Malcolm went on to explain that one of the limitations with the Battery Point site is that due to its location it will be affected by the sea breeze thus the temperature may not climb as high as places further inland such as Glenorchy or Brighton.
The major change in the operation of the site over the years is that where once a person would be on hand to measure the temperature, these days everything is done electronically.
In regards to the future of the site Malcolm said it is important from the Bureaus perspective that conditions remain as constant as possible as any major changes to buildings or even trees surrounding the site can influence the temperature readings.
Whilst such changes may only alter the readings by a tenth of one degree it is just such evidence that the Bureau need to establish long term trends in climate change.
They didn’t mention the most important feature – air conditioners. Lots of them. Here’s more of my photos:
Here’s a reverse angle, a composite of two photographs to take in the wide angle:
Here, David Archibald poses next to the Stevenson Screen and the A/C heat exchanger units:
The industrial sized unit in the foreground was working so hard it had iced up its coils. David scraped about an inch of frost off of it.
Here’s the aerial view.
Note that just measuring the distance to asphalt and the nearest building, the station is less than 10 meters away, making it a CRN4 station, which would be considered unacceptable by NOAA standards. It would fail by either the old 100 foot (30 meter) rule, or the new Climate Reference Network siting rule.I don’t know how much of the building built up around it or when, but it clearly fails.
Here’s the temperature data, via NASA GISTEMP:
The jump around 1970 may be of interest related to siting, but without more time to research that metadata I can’t speculate if it is related or not. Note the plunge though the last two years. Quite a drop.
And here is what the data looks like after GISS finishes with their “homogenization” adjustment:
While I don’t have time right now to do a full analysis as I’m due for a metting shortly, I can say it appears that GISS flattened out the could snap in the 1940-1960 period, making the long term slope more positive. I’ll look at that later.
The point here is, it seems no matter where I go in the world, I seem to find siting issues with official weather stations used for climate monitoring. Stations that are long period records of historical importance suffer the most from such siting issues, because their record is valuable. Worse, when the data is adjusted, it seems to add to the warming.
Typical. And it makes little difference whether the site is urban or rural. Rural microsites “average” even worse than urban (though they would be free of UHI).
Hope you are having a great time on your lecture tour. (Hope those graphs were useful.) And good luck with your baggage.
Yep, everybody added A/C in the 60’s, check the graphs! Coincidence?
Read the touching, re-assuring conclusion to the ABC radio story by Paul Mc Intyre and Yvette Barry
Sleep tight !
Well, it’s a darn good thing they’ve got all those airconditioners to “counteract”the effects of that off shore breeze. lol
Another case of Homogenizing that looks more like pasteurising !
Where’s the requisite barbee, for the shrimp?
On the other hand, seeing’s it’s midwinter in Tassie, the air conditioners will all be blowing very cold air right now (but lots of hot air in summer).
Remember that this is winter in Hobart, located at about 40deg S, approximately the same as Christchurch NZ, and those A/C units that David Archibald was scraping frost off would have been reverse cycling and pushing out rivers of dense coldair . In still air conditions these units may make a real difference to temperature measurement.
An Urban Cold Island effect?
Mike D, it’s barbie and prawns unless you’re filming a Fosters ad to air in the US 😉
No wonder that GISTEMP compared to HadCRUT features much less 1940 warm “blip” and cooling since 2002 is transformed into steady trend, allowing here and there claim of “hottest evah”.
giss manipula….homogenisation decreases the positive slope since 1960 tho’.
“Worse, when the data is adjusted, it seems to add to the warming.”
Yes, it does seem strange how that seems to happen in so many cases.
great interview Anthony (with Andrew Bolt)
If you have time to do any reading on the net check out http://kenskingdom.wordpress.com/2010/05/12/the-australian-temperature-record-part-1-queensland/
link there to part 2 NT and W A
he’s comparing the BOM’s high quality data (homogenised) with the raw data
and Warwick Hughes (an earth scientist) who I hope you will meet in Canberra at http://www.warwickhughes.com/blog/ has an interesting article on Distortions being spread about Australian meteorological history
Those outside units would be blowing very cold air in the winter and warm/hot air in the summer yet the graph shows steady winter and summer warming from 60’s onwards. Begs the question.
I downloaded both datasets, and did a linear regression of both from 1893 to 1992 (last year in record). I started in 1893 to because of missing data in some of the years before that year.
Raw: (0.0039010 +/- 0.0023075) degrees/year
Homogenized: (0.0062088 +/- 0.0021730) degrees/year
No correction for autocorrelation were applied.
Note how the trend estimates are only 1 standard deviation apart from each other.
The trend for the homogenized data is higher but it is only signifikant at the 1-sigma level.
hehe And notice how the buildings enclose the area nicely ! Trapping all that exhaust heat !
The data only go to about 1993. What happened after then?
Whatever the exhaust vents are for in pic 3, they’d be venting *warm* air year-round. And they’ve been there a few years, too…
I attended Anthony’s Newcastle presentation and have high praise for his and his co-presenters. I do find David Archibalds book extremely useful.
It seems the reason for BoM and GISS to fudge the data and homogenise is that without fudging and homogenising there would be nothing to show. Now if David Archibald is correct and we are headed for two below average solar cycles the drop in temps will be even more startling. As shown in the graphs above temps were falling a decade ago. I can’t wait for the spin that will shortly come from the warmers, the lazy journos and the politicians who have staked their futures on AGW.
Perhaps a stupid question, but… has anyone done a careful study of the effects of these outside factors on thermometer readings inside a Stevenson screen? How much distance does it really take for the exhaust from an A/C unit to fade to ambient temperature? Are we sure that 8m isn’t enough?
I guess it’s a good thing the 30.48 Metre rule doesn’t apply to the Australian BOM. However, perhaps it should be acknowledged that BOM doesn’t quote this as one of their Reference Climate Stations (RCS). But then who knows what adjustment/homogenisation alchemy they derive from it, with its long period of record (commencement date 1882)? According to BOM data the Hobart (Ellesmere Road) station maximum summer recorded temperatures are: 40.6 C 1897, 40.8 C 1976, 40.1 C 1899.
By the way Anthony were you able to see the BOM Melbourne Regional Office weather site during your recent visit. Interesting siting.
Several decades ago, a friend of mine walked up to an American Airlines ticket counter in Chicago and checked his bags. The lady behind the counter mentioned his ticket indicated his destination was Los Angeles and he stated “Yes, but I’d like my bags to go to Dallas”. Looking somewhat confused, the lady protested, saying she couldn’t do that. My friend argued his case by saying “Why not? That’s what happened the last time I flew with American Airlines!”
Being as you’re in Australia, Anthony, hopefully you’re not flying with that carrier. Oh, and good luck on your Aussie tour!
Anthony it looks like what is needed are many perfect locations for temperatures to be reliably taken and recorded. What could be more perfect than the thousands of golf courses all over the place. Many clubs are situated in congested urban areas but have the required green space without pavement and air conditioners while other more rural clubs offer a huge area that can be covered. Here in Ontario there are more than a thousand clubs with a few right in downtown Toronto or seemingly in the middle of nowhere! As long as there are golfers there are clubs to play.
Most golf superintendents already keep such information for their forecasting of disease pressure and water use. Many clubs have sophisticated weather stations while others less so. There are local, regional, provincial or state, and country wide associations that have excellent member participation along with websites that can spread info rapidly. With a little guidance as to what kind of equipment, where to place it and how to forward it I would think this is an excellent resource to use. I am upgrading our weather station along with a lightning warning and would be happy to add to the accurate keeping of the data…ed
It seems the temperature of the sea breezes are not as relevant as inland temperatures.
Rather strange thinking when the earth surface is 70% ocean.
Sounds like the Battery Park weather station in NYC when I was growing up in NJ in the 1950s. NYC was a heat island but not as bad in the 1950s. Batteru Park is at the very tip of lowe Manhatten next to the ocean (sort of) between Manhatten and Statten Island. The radio stations, etc. reported the Battery Park temperature. 9 mi inland in NJ you automatically added 5 degrees in summer and deducted 5 degrees in winter to compensate for the buffering effect of the water on the temperature. Bah!