Plus answers to yesterday’s Fun puzzle: Name these official stations.
Given that California Governor Jerry Brown has recently setup a website at the governor’s office basically telling skeptics to “shut up” I thought this would be a good time to publish this.
This is a paper that was presented at a climate conference by Jim Goodridge, former State Climatologist of California, titled Population and Temperature Trends in California at the Pacific Climate Workshop, in Pacific Grove, CA March 22-26, 1987.
In this paper, Jim presented what I believe to be the very first photos bringing attention to the issue of station siting. Yesterday, I published both of those photos on WUWT here: Fun puzzle: Name these official stations.
The answer to the first photo was correctly made by commenter “Hoser”:
Hoser says:
August 15, 2012 at 10:32 pm
It’s been a long time, but the top one might be Mt. Hamilton, Lick Observatory. That might be the astronomer’s dormatory behind the car. Yikes, 25 years since I’ve been there.
Yes, the official temperature at the Lick Observatory is measured on a concrete slab rooftop where cars can park and there’s a chimney nearby:
Surprisingly, that station is still in operation today. It has been converted to MMTS electronic thermometer, but from what I can tell, still appears to be at the same location as before. Note the walkway bridge and chimney shadow:
Interactive source map: http://binged.it/PscDx2
NOTE: Perhaps one of our WUWT readers in the Bay Area can make a trip up to the Lick Observatory this weekend to advise with a photograph if the station still exists on the same spot or not. You’d think that on such a hallowed grounds of science, they’d know enough to put the thermometer away from the chimney and concrete. Let’s see if they’ve figured it out in 25 years since then.
As for the other station near the incinerator, that is a Taylor max-min thermometer used by the Quincy, CA Highway Department, now since closed. Nobody got that one, but there were some good guesses. 
Siting issues aside, Jim made some important discoveries in this paper where he looked at rural -vs- urban temperature trends. He only has a paper copy left, as the Mac disks this was done on have long ago been lost. I took the paper copy to Staples and had it scanned into a PDF file, which is presented in full below.
This page 9 of graphs below, figures 4 and 5 tell the story for California Surface Temperature data:
Mind you, this is data that Jim used prior to the big range of adjustments that have been applied by NCDC. Jim provides all that data in the paper. It might be interesting to compare the data then and now to see what has been done to it. Another important distinction of note is that this paper was presented over a year before NASA’s Dr. James Hansen went before the Senate in June 1988, and touted his science and model predictions, deeming it so solid that they had to turn off the air conditioning in the hearing room for “theatrical effect”.
Figure 6 and 7 on page 10 are also instructive:
But this set of graphs from page 12 is really interesting:
The trend for rural stations is interesting, because Jim found a correlation for it:
Here are figures 15 to 18:
And here is Figure 19. Indeed the similarity is remarkable.
The other conclusion to Jim’s paper is that there is a correlation between population trend and temperature trend for inland urban stations, as seen in this graph:
Jim eventually went on to publish a letter in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society in 1996 on this issue. This one graph from that letter was a “light bulb moment” for me:
The reply from Kwang-Y Kim, published next to Goodridge’s letter is an interesting admission:
Kim had co-authored a CO2 regional modeling paper with Gerald North in 1995, suggesting that temperatures were on the rise to CO2, but Goodridge in his letter had suggested their base temperature data had been polluted:
I have to wonder, if somebody had put Goodridge’s 1987 paper in front of Jim Hansen in 1987 or early 1988, would it have made any difference in his claims made in June 1988 before the Senate?
Probably not, because as we’ve seen, there seems to be an unwavering belief system that climatic scale temperature is controlled only by Carbon Dioxide concentration, and anyone who presents a contrary view is immediately denigrated and labeled. For example, Hansen’s CRU compatriot Dr. Phil Jones already had formed a strong opinion of Goodridge’s work, which we see thanks to Climategate 2 (bold mine):
file 4789.txt
date: Tue, 25 Apr 2000 09:25:14 +0100
from: Phil Jones <p.jones@xxxx>
subject: Re: CA climate
to: Tom Wigley <wigley@xxxx>,Mike Hulme <m.hulme@xxxxx>
Tom,
Bryan Weare is at US Davis. He would know about some of the things you
mention. The jerk you mention was called Good(e)rich who found urban
warming at all Californian sites.
I’m away until today until May 5 in Nice and Geneva. I hope you can do
the temperature plots yourself and that Mike can do the precip ones.
Mike has the data as 5 degree grid boxes, so the it would be good if
you could define these for him. I think he’s back tomorrow.
It would be possible to use the 0.5 degree grid boxes but we’d have to
get Mark New to do that for us.
Cheers
Phil
At 12:13 PM 4/24/00 -0600, Tom Wigley wrote:
>Phil and Mike,
>
>I have to attend a meeting organized by EPRI and the California Energy
>Commission on June 12, 13. The focus is future climate scenarios and the
>implied impacts. It will include discussions of GCM results and
>statistical and LAM downscaling. They want someone to address observed
>climate (homogeneity problems; E-W and N-S contrasts; ENSO effects;
>changes in circulation — such as increased offshore cyclogenesis, changes
>in storm tracks; etc.), but they don’t have anyone invited yet. Chuck
>Hakkarinen (EPRI) says there is someone at UC-Davis who is an “expert” on
>CA climate. Who is this? Do you know any other Californians who are in
>the observed climate game and who you respect? (From memory, there are
>some nitpicky jerks who have criticized the Jones et al. data sets — we
>don’t want one of those. Wasn’t one of these guys called Goodrich?)
>
>For myself, I would like to have some monthly time series for the CA area
>average. I can possibly do this for temperature, but certainly not for
>precipitation. Is there any way you two could send me time series within
>the next day or so (before I leave for Australia)? For the regions, I’d
>like results for the following separate areas (as near as you can do it):
>(1) 32-36degN, 115-121degW
>(2) 36-42degN, 118-124degW
>(3) 32-42degN, 114-124degW
>(4) 36-42degN, 106-114degW
>The last one represents the headwaters of the Colorado River.
>
>Finally, if you had some PDSI time series for the region, I’d very much
>like these too.
>
>Many thanks,
>
>
>Tom
>
>
>
>**********************************************************
>Tom M.L. Wigley
>Senior Scientist
>ACACIA Program Director
>National Center for Atmospheric Research
>P.O. Box 3000
>Boulder, CO 80307-3000
>USA
>Phone: 303-xxxx
>Fax: 303-497-xxxx
>E-mail: wigley@xxxx
>Web: http://www.acacia.ucar.edu
>**********************************************************
>
>
Prof. Phil Jones
Climatic Research Unit Telephone +44 (0) 1603 xxxx
School of Environmental Sciences Fax +44 (0) 1603 xxxx
University of East Anglia
Norwich Email p.jones@xxxxx
NR4 7TJ
UK
—————————————————————————-
Tom Wigley and Phil Jones are some piece of work, aren’t they?
The entire 1987 paper by Jim Goodridge is available here as a PDF: Goodridge_1987_paper (16mb)
We owe Jim Goodridge some thanks, not only for the work he has done, but also for the abuse he’s suffered alongside us all from “The team”.
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.9 R!
Can’t possibly be climate science, way too accurate.
Excellent post. Bookmarked and flagged. Thank you.
From page 2 of the paper:
So what this paper is saying is that if you divide the weather stations into those with a low slope and those with a high slope, and call the high slope set “urban,” you will find that urban stations have a high slope.
That might explain why in his map of “urban” and “rural” sites many of the rural sites are sandwiched between or right next to urban sites. It also explains why
His method shares something in common with your surface station audit, Anthony: he is not blinded to the trend when he categorizes whether a station is rural or urban. But at least his method is objective, which can’t be said for yours
REPLY: You are welcome to demonstrate why the method we use, Leroy 1999 and Leroy 2010 in station categorization is biased. Just saying it is, doesn’t make it so.
Read up on it here:
Leroy, M., 2010: Siting Classification for Surface Observing Stations on Land, Climate, and Upper-air Observations JMA/WMO Workshop on Quality Management in Surface, Tokyo, Japan 27-30 July 2010 http://www.jma.go.jp/jma/en/Activities/qmws_2010/CountryReport/CS202_Leroy.pdf
-Anthony
meanwhile, down under, CSIRO have a new big scare:
17 Aug: ABC: Conor Duffy: Climate change sees tropical fish arrive in Tasmania
The CSIRO is warning climate change is having a big impact on the country’s oceans, with tropical fish turning up as far south as Tasmania.
A major report on oceans and climate change, to be released today, says the damage under the sea is much clearer than when it released its last report on the subject three years ago.
As well as causing a southern migration, climate change is causing a decline in some temperate fish stocks and ocean acidification is beginning to affect shellfish…
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-08-17/climate-change-sees-tropical-fish-head-south/4203830?section=tas
Good research and comparative analysis, Anthony. Three atta boys and one excellent job. Hopefully this will shut the monkeys up (haha).
Or how about this little gem from page 3:
Wow! That statement really inspires confidence. No wonder this ‘paper’ never got published.
REPLY: It was never submitted for publication, it was presented at a climate conference. Please do try to pay attention. And observation of the station situation is in fact a way to quality control the metadata. For example, explain why the San Francisco station (on a rooftop downtown at that time) was classified as rural. – Anthony
Oh, the stupid…it burns, doesn’t it Anthony? You could try reading the articles, first. Just a suggestion. I mean, this is the second blog post today that you’ve completely whiffed on (the first being the helium article).
Feel the burn, bro.
REPLY: I only feel the haters, such as yourself and faustus. Hate on dude. You are welcome to answer the question I posed to him. – Anthony
RE: faustusnotes says:
August 16, 2012 at 4:26 pm
The comparison between counties with populations over a million and those under a hundred thousand are not so “arbitrarily selected.”
You are just looking for a reason to deny the facts glaring you in the eye. Sad.
These facts have been obvious from the beginning, as has been your ( and Hansen’s) dedicated will-to-ignore-the-facts.
Twenty-five years! A quarter century!
That’s a long time to stay stupid. Sad.
Pity he didn’t separate rural agricultural from rural non-agricultural, as Christy found California agricultural areas were warming, while nearby non-agricultural areas showed a slight cooling trend. Christy ascribed the agricultural area warming to albedo changes from increased irrigation.
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JCLI3627.1
The Team Says:
“His method shares something in common with your surface station audit, Anthony: he is not blinded to the trend when he categorizes whether a station is rural or urban. But at least his method is objective, which can’t be said for yours”
My,my, my!
You seem to have hit a raw nerve Anthony. Just typical National Socialist Warmista personal attacks. They are a [snip] that can’t really debate the issues. But then we don’t really expect much from them in the way of informed debate, sadly.
Thanks for sharing Jim’s interesting work.
Rich
One possible hypothesis for the warmer SST stations is their relationship to sewage water outflows, storm drain outflows, or power plants outflows.
[snip]
lol – yeah, probably right, but gezzz.
faustusnotes, you should have read past page 2. On page 3, Jim Goodridge wrote that, “In general the classification of the temperature records as urban or rural is fairly close to reality as the writer knows it from viewing most of the sites. (my bold)”
JG also mentions that both San Francisco and Vancouver BC are “well ventilated” coastal cities, in which local SSTs and air temperatures are well-correlated.
Even a cursory inspection of the station map in Figure 3 shows that your comment, “many of the rural sites are sandwiched between or right next to urban sites.” is wrong. Also, anyone familiar with the folded topography of California would not worry much about nearby spots on a map. The top of San Bruno Mountain, for example, is about 4 miles from the center of San Francisco, is almost completely rural (apart from broadcast repeaters), 1000 feet high, is constantly breezy and would overlap the spot for SF on that map.
Having spent some time in Cloverdale, this commenter can attest that it is indeed “rural”. (But don’t forget those orchard heaters!). It does suggest that the old-timers were right — it really was hotter in the ‘thirties.
I have always been suspicious – skeptical – of data acquired for a purpose, acquired with an objective in mind, for the potential of confounding corruption. This convenient data, predating our controversy, is doubly valuable.
I’m disappointed that I doubted my impulse to Lick Observatory for the architecture, but I honestly do not remember that spot, born and raised in Santa Clara Valley.
Phil M, visually inspecting the station is central to making the urban/rural distinction and to validating the temperature record. Your dismissal betrays ignorance. The other critical validation, of course, is regular field calibration of the instrument, but that’s another issue.
Pat Frank says:
August 16, 2012 at 5:34 pm
‘faustusnotes, you should have read past page 2. On page 3, Jim Goodridge wrote that, “In general the classification of the temperature records as urban or rural is fairly close to reality as the writer knows it from viewing most of the sites. (my bold)”’
Sorry, Pat, but the Warmists will not be able to understand what you have written. For example, you quote: “the writer knows it from viewing most of the sites.” The vast majority of Warmists will assume that the reference is to viewing photos on the internet. It will never occur to them that Goodridge traveled to the sites or that he could classify them by visiting them. It is all too practical for the Warmist. /sarc off
Figures 10 (urban) and 11 (rural) have the exact same abscissa values. The latter appears to show rural stations with 22 and 26.5 million populations.
[I’ve lost this comment twice, already, when I clicked on a chart while trying to verify something, and was sent off to yaya land. I hope it didn’t end up posted.]
Reblogged this on Is it 2012 in Nevada County Yet? and commented:
This is an important paper for all California readers. It clearly shows that rural areas are cooler than urban areas.
You’ve just convincef me that AB 32 will indeed fix global warming in California. As the cost of doing business rises, many businesses and their employees will leave and the state population will decline. The de-urbanization should lead to lower temperatures. Those folks at CARB are brilliant!
“from viewing most of the sites”
yep.. like actually removing your butt from in front of the imagination model on the computer, and viewing reality.
Maybe a warmist… just one, somewhere, will try this…. eventually……maybe, perhaps
nah.. not a chance..
The PDF of the “Comments on Regional Simulations of Greenhouse Warming Including Natural Variability” – Goodridge (1996) is available here:
http://pt.scribd.com/doc/67524224/PDF-1996-Goodridge-Comments-on-Regional-Simulations-of-Greenhouse-Warming-Including-Natural-Variability
and Fartsus.. if you want to prove the categorisation is wrong, then go and do a history and site check on each and every one of the stations used.
Until you do that.. you got NOTHING !!!
The small-population counties in the “light bulb moment” graph shows a distinct cooling trend if one removes the first 15 years of data.
This, alone, completely falsifies the warmists’ cherished belief that increased atmospheric CO2 causes warming.
If the warming-due-to-CO2 is valid, it must be consistent. It cannot act arbitrarily nor capriciously.
I always ask the warmists, “How does it know which cities to ignore (or counties, or states)?”
Thus far, there has been no reply.
So Anthony, no comment on the methods of the paper? Do you agree that the classification method makes the argument tautological, and if so are you going to update your post to include at least an acknowledgement of the tautology?
Pat Frank, “viewing most of the sites” is not objective. No doubt the US Census Bureau or the Post Office (or the CDC) holds a database of urban/rural classifications for every settlement and location in the USA, and that data could be used to classify the stations as rural/urban. Note also he says “most” so he doesn’t make clear how many of the sites don’t match his (regression-based) classification. Even his chart of population-based classifications isn’t objective, since it doesn’t use established definitions of urban/rural and it appears to rely on pooling data from multiple sites, some of which could be rural and some urban.
Richdo, there is no personal attack in my comment, which is purely a criticism of methods. It’s ironic that your own comment containing this complaint had to be snipped because of … a personal attack.
Goodridge has clearly divided the data set into two at the median regression slope (this is why there are 39 sites in each group). The median regression slope is >0, so that means that at least half of the stations had a warming trend in 1987. This means some of those classified as “rural” by his (regression-based) method probably have a warming trend. Given that Goodridge’s arbitrary classification system places some rural stations into the “urban” category, this means that warming trends were being observed in both urban and rural stations in 1987.
I would be interested to hear why anyone thinks that the station shown in the picture would be contributing to a misleading understanding of global warming. If AGW is not happening, by what mechanism is that station showing a warming trend that would mislead naive scientists into thinking warming is happening? And how could that mechanism be replicated across a majority of such sites in the contiguous USA?
REPLY: “Goodridge has clearly divided the data set into two at the median regression slope (this is why there are 39 sites in each group).”
Umm nooo, you can’t read or do simple math apparently. Figure 4, 35 Urban stations, Figure 5, 39 rural stations. Note that on page 2, he identifies 74 stations in his dataset.
39×2= 78, not 74.
35+39 = 74
So much for your argument. – Anthony