More examples of the nighttime heat sink effect of UHI. Asphalt, concrete, bricks and other infrastructure holds the energy from daytime solar insolation and releases it at night as LWIR. Anyone who has ever stood next to a sun illuminated brick wall after sunset can understand this. The authors talk about the temperature record at SeaTac (103 degrees at SeaTac), but look where the temperature is measured. More on that after the press release.- Anthony
From OSU: New study finds “nighttime heat waves” increasing in Pacific Northwest
CORVALLIS, Ore. – A new study has found that heat waves are increasing in the western portions of the Pacific Northwest, but not the kind most people envision, with scorching hot days of temperatures reaching triple digits.
These heat waves occur at night.
Researchers documented 15 examples of “nighttime heat waves” from 1901 through 2009 and 10 of those have occurred since 1990. Five of them took place during a four-year period from 2006-09. And since the study was accepted for publication in the Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology, another nighttime heat wave took place at the end of this June, the authors point out.
“Most people are familiar with daytime heat waves, when the temperatures get into the 100s and stay there for a few days,” said Kathie Dello, deputy director of the Oregon Climate Service at Oregon State University and a co-author on the study. “A nighttime heat wave relates to how high the minimum temperature remains overnight.
“Daytime events are usually influenced by downslope warming over the Cascade Mountains, while nighttime heat waves seem to be triggered by humidity,” said Dello, who is in OSU’s College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences. “Elevated low-level moisture at night tends to trap the heat in.”
In their study, Dello and co-authors Karin Bumbaco and Nicholas Bond from the University of Washington defined heat waves as three consecutive days of temperatures at the warmest 1 percentile over the past century. Using that standard criterion, they documented 13 examples of daytime heat waves during the time period from 1901 to 2009. Only two of those occurred in the last 20 years.
In contrast, nighttime heat waves have been clustered over the past two decades, with what appears to be accelerating frequency. A warming climate suggests the problem may worsen, studies suggest.
“If you look at nighttime temperatures in Oregon and compared them to say the Midwest, people there would laugh at the concept of a Pacific Northwest heat wave,” Dello said. “However, people in the Midwest are acclimated to the heat while in the Northwest, they are not. People in other regions of the country may also be more likely to have air conditioning in their homes.
On occasion, daytime and nighttime heat waves coincide, Dello said, as happened in 2009 when temperatures in the Pacific Northwest set all-time records in Washington (including 103 degrees at SeaTac), and temperatures in Oregon surpassed 105 degrees in Portland, Eugene, Corvallis and Medford. It was the second most-intense daytime heat wave in the last century, but lasted only three days by the 1 percentile definition.
However, that same stretch of hot weather in 2009 results in a nighttime heat wave that extended eight days, by far the longest stretch since records were kept beginning in 1901.
The latest nighttime heat wave began in late June of this year, and continued into early July, Dello said.
“Like many nighttime heat waves, a large high-pressure ridge settled in over the Northwest, while at the same time, some monsoonal moisture was coming up from the Southwest,” she pointed out. “The high swept around and grabbed enough moisture to elevate the humidity and trap the warm air at night.”
Dello frequently provides weather facts and historical data via Twitter at: www.twitter.com/orclimatesvc.
The Oregon Climate Change Research Institute is supported by the state of Oregon, U.S. Department of the Interior, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, and other agencies.
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The SeaTac ASOS, according to NCDC HOMR, is located below.
SeaTac is part of the GHCN network used for climate. But was it surrounded on three sides by heat holding asphalt in 1948 when the weather records began there?
Doubtful.
First Sea-Tac Airport Terminal, ca. 1946
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If I get a chance I’ll have to run the data on Washington State, see what it says, but I saw no real trend in nighttime cooling, nor a UHI effect. I think what is happening is that UHI changes slowly, and once added it mostly effects both day and night time temps about the same, so tomorrow mornings temp isn’t much different than today’s (other than the seasonal change in length of day).
These heat waves occur at night.
—————————————–
Proof that the sun is not a major influence in global warming – it is the fault of nocturnal CO2 molecules.
I did not read anything about how Jet powered aircraft traffic has also increased at day and night or how Commercial Jet travel was not around before the 1970’s Prop powered aircraft put off way less heat.
Jet engines are Giant blower heaters so having a temp gauge reading station anywhere near a runway will NEVER be accurate.
Please consider SeaTac opened a 3rd runway in 2008, arguably increasing the paved area surrounding the GHCN station by more than 50%.
Could they find anything less scary to be scared of? It’s like being worried about being attacked by stuffed animals.
Do they use homogenized data?
in 1967 Columbia, Maryland was a newly established, planned community designed to end racial and social segregation. Climate researchers following the city’s development found that over a period of just three years, a heat island of up to 8.1°F appeared as the land filled with 10,000 residents. Although Columbia would be classified as a rural town, that small population raised temperatures five times greater than a century’s worth of global warming. If we extrapolated that trend as so many climate studies do, growing populations in rural areas would cause a whopping warming trend of 26°F per decade.
Erella, E., and Williamson, T, (2007) Intra-urban differences in canopy layer air temperature at amid-latitude city. Int. J. Climatol. 27: 1243–1255
UHI effect will be payed grudging lip service (it cannot be discounted, as even the least savvy layman can easily grasp and accept it) but otherwise ignored or marginalized as long as it serves the warmists’ agenda. “We have adjusted the model to account for UHI. Trust us scientists. Move along, now.”
“n their study, Dello and co-authors Karin Bumbaco and Nicholas Bond from the University of Washington defined heat waves as three consecutive days of temperatures at the warmest 1 percentile over the past century. Using that standard criterion, they documented 13 examples of daytime heat waves during the time period from 1901 to 2009. Only two of those occurred in the last 20 years.”
That is not a heat wave. the human body cares nothing about the “percentile” of the temperature.
Sorry a bit OT: Is there any historical lightning data available online anywhere? I’d like to look at solar activity and Lightening storms, but I cant find any good publicly available data.
Over here in the UK we are enjoying (?) a heat wave too, but guess where the max temperature was measured today? Yes, Heathrow airport – several square miles of concrete and tarmac blasted by jet exhausts almost 24/7! And they call this science?
” Five of them took place during a four-year period from 2006-09.”
Stalled weather systems and heat waves are caused by stationary blocking high pressures systems. As they acknowledged, ““Like many nighttime heat waves, a large high-pressure ridge settled in over the Northwest,”
However as research has shown ocean oscillations are the major driver of such events. “The average number of blocked days during El Nino winters was 12, compared with 31.2 and 27 for neutral and La Nina winters, respectively.’1 That these researchers do not account for the effect of ocean surface temperatures caused by the Pacific Decadal Oscillation and La NIna but instead simply offer “A warming climate suggests the problem may worsen, studies suggest” suggests they have a hidden political agenda and have failed to truly educate the public about the basic causes of climate change.
1. Carerra, M. et al. (2004) Downstream Weather Impacts Associated with Atmospheric Blocking over the Northeast Pacific. Journal of Climate, vol. 17, p. 4823-4841.
Dello describes the 2009 weather event as “Like many nighttime heat waves, a large high-pressure ridge settled in over the Northwest, while at the same time, some monsoonal moisture was coming up from the Southwest,” she pointed out. “The high swept around and grabbed enough moisture to elevate the humidity and trap the warm air at night.” Now many of the other 14 “nighttime heat waves” had a similar weather pattern? How many times did this weather pattern develop but no “nighttime heat wave” occurred? Was there a similar grouping of “nighttime heat waves” in the past? I hope the study answers these questions.
Dr. Cliff Mass just posted on this topic with his own hypothesis of why night warmth appears to be increasing, attributing it to changes in measuring instrumentation:
http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2013/07/are-nighttime-heat-waves-increasing-in.html
On the Phys.org press release regurgitation of this “study” I commented: Washington state has been rapidly cooling for a century. Well, that’s true if you only consider October, a month in which neither nearby heating or A/C use taint nearby thermometer stations:
http://www.ncdc.n…mp;div=0
This is devastatingly true for nearly all American states.
Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2013-07-nighttime-quadruple-pacific-northwest.html
Repaired link: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/temp-and-precip/time-series/index.php?parameter=tmp&month=10&year=2012&filter=1&state=45&div=0
April is also colling in Washington State. April 2013 is only 7.5F colder than April 1934.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/temp-and-precip/time-series/index.php?parameter=tmp&month=4&year=2012&filter=1&state=45&div=0
This may be one of many effects of land usage which could have some regional effect on weather. (not climate) For instance in the midwest much of the land has been tiled and swamps and marshes drained, Thus there is no holding of water and therefore a likely anthropogenic cause of flooding. Alarmists might attribute an increase in flooding to climate change.— Doubtful, to any significant amount. However, there may be some synergy among land use changes, Some such as UHI alone are probably minor, but effects together may have some localized effects.
Also, considering how GCM’s are made, local data could create a small bias in them
These are just thoughts stimulated by flying at night and seeing human’s greatest contribution
to our vision of earth – light – and with the light; concrete etc.
Sounds like this is clearly linked to UHI effects for land based temperatures.
Steven Mosher says:
July 22, 2013 at 3:05 pm
That is not a heat wave. the human body cares nothing about the “percentile” of the temperature.
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exactly Mosh….what are they calling a ‘Heat Wave’……….instead of freezing/it’s one degree above freezing?….they didn’t say
…..I hate these weasels and their weasel words
CIA to the rescue!
21 July: UK Independent: Rob Williams: CIA backs $630,000 study into how to control global weather through geoengineering
Study part-funded by the CIA to investigate national security implications of geoengineering
According to US website ‘Mother Jones’ the CIA is helping fund a study by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) that will investigate whether humans could use geoengineering – which is defined as deliberate and large-scale intervention in the Earth’s climatic system – to stop climate change…
The cost of the project is reported to be $630,000, which NAS is splitting with the CIA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and NASA reports say…
A CIA spokesman refused to comment on the NAS study but told Mother Jones: “It’s natural that on a subject like climate change the Agency would work with scientists to better understand the phenomenon and its implications on national security.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/cia-backs-630000-study-into-how-to-control-global-weather-through-geoengineering-8724501.html
OT @Sparks “I’d like to look at solar activity and Lightening storms, but I cant find any good publicly available data.”
I think it will be hard to tease apart solar contributions due to other confounding factors, however I have two PDF’s, one on correlations between El Nino and lightning and a 2013 paper “Suitable regions for assessing long term trends in lightning activity” Although that paper concludes “The efficiency and stability of global lightning data are not yet sufficient to provide accurate estimates
of long term trends in lightning activity,” their comments cited literature may help your search. Send me your email address at landscapesandcycles@earthlink.net and I will email those two papers.
The airport is located within an incorporated area called City of SeaTac with a land area of 10.21 square miles (and a small amount of water surface). Much of the land is airport, streets, service parking, and buildings. The wiki entry claims 40,000 employees and parks with paved walking trails, tennis courts, and a soccer field with synthetic turf.
A street – S 156th Way – shows at the NW corner of the runways. Use Google Street View near the thick shadow extending onto this street. Pivot around and see the wall of the airport, the road, and the greenway on the west.
Then see here:
http://www.kingcounty.gov/environment/watersheds/central-puget-sound/miller-walker-creeks/photo-tour-walker.aspx
Chris @NJSnowFan says:
July 22, 2013 at 2:09 pm
“Jet engines are Giant blower heaters so having a temp gauge reading station anywhere near a runway will NEVER be accurate.”
Aircraft rely on accurate temperature readings at airports. They are accurate, just not designed
or suited for taking the Earth’s temperature.
Repeat with me “For our Sins each night a Black Sun is sent onto us, made of Carbon” until you can visualize its dark rays right behind your eyelids and feel the heat in your very bones.