Today I got a piece of delicious irony and satisfaction in seeing that one of the phantom operated climate blogs, Rabett Run, started using photos from www.surfacestations.org to make a point:
This contrasts to a few months ago when the phantom blog operator maintained that “pictures don’t matter” because, as he put it “they only show a snapshot of time”. Yet he’s using www.surfacestations.org photos to make his point. I’d qualify that as a success in proving the value of photos.
Now this phantom persona “Eli Rabett” is apparently a climate researcher at a major university, but like many other climate blogs, doesn’t use his real name for fear of hurting his tenure/funding/reputation. The exception is RealClimate who does publish the names of the principals. It seems some otherwise honest climate scientists participate in this online game of intellectual charlatanism by not revealing their names when used to make points or to attack others. Why they do it is beyond me, because science is supposed to be about truth. Nobody gets to publish papers in scientific journals anonymously, attend conferences anonymously, or belong to professional organizations anonymously, so why should their conduct online when engaging in science discourse be allowed differently?
By the way, since “Rabett Run” didn’t provide a source, to give proper credit where it is due, the photo of Alma, MI was taken by www.surfacestations.org volunteer Don Kostuch, whom is our most prolific and dedicated volunteer.
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I am a groundwater researcher, who has developed VERY large databases, as well as having had to incorporate large amounts of unqualified data. I was always very mindful of quality control issues. From what I have been seeing here and at climateaudit.org, if the standard set by climate “scientists” in collecting/using data was followed by other professions, there would be chaos. So, its a cooling effect… Are there enough of them to outweigh the heating effect, or the “Central Park depopulation” as found at climateaudit? Keep up the good work. Good science is good science – regardless of what the results end up being.
Halpern also posted a photo of farmington ME.
Funny, when I checked the TRENDS at that site versus the TRENDS at nearby sites I saw no RELATIVE cooling.
Both sites tracked each other.
Let Professor Halpern search the database for “cool” stations.
Here will be the outcome.
1. the number of stations by asphalt will be greater than those under shade.
I saw this when we were at 10%.
POINT: microsite bias LIKE UHI BIAS is not equally biased. Microsite BIAS is positive.
2. He will give us a pile of “cool” stations to test our methodolgy on.
3. The Rabbett was the one who defended Detroit Lakes, which led to the Y2K error. Give the bunny enough twine and he will snare him self again.
I like splitting hares.
Anthony/Stephen: Harebrain suggests for every asphalt site there is a shade site. Common sense tells me that relatively speaking asphalt will do a lot more heating than shade will do cooling. Are there any studies enumerating the differences? -lg
Anthony,
I think we have trapped a Bunny with this one.
Comparisons between Alma
Mount pleasant ( in a friggin rock garden) and Owosso Will show that
the “rural” sites are in alignment, while the rock garden at Mount pleaseant rises in temp relative to both.
More later
Didn’t you know that Rabett/Halpern, the folks at Real Climate, etc, are allowed to use double-standards?
So little time, so many baseless assumptions:
1) Eli’s point is that your material is basically self-cancelling within its own terms. If he were using it for any other purpose, you might have an argument. As it is, you don’t.
[MODERATOR NOTE – on #1 I get what he’s trying to say, but we’ll see when its all tallied. So far there does not appear to be a balance as has been suggested.]
2) Eli is a senior scientist (professor) in a hard science, but not climate science. If he used his name on this climate stuff, then e.g. a grants manager at NSF who decided to google his name would find mostly the climate stuff. This is undesirable for obvious reasons. It’s not that hard to find out who he is, BTW, if you really want to know (in contrast to the truly anonymous like the lovely John A. or even the first commenter above).
[NOTE From Moderator – thats really lame, if you are going to regularly author an opinion, stand behind it. ]
3) Steven Mosher: “Funny, when I checked the TRENDS at that site versus the TRENDS at nearby sites I saw no RELATIVE cooling. Both sites tracked each other.”
This is exactly the point. Most of these microsite effects will show absolutely no trend, regardless of whether they have a putative “cooling” or “heating” effect. If they show a trend, the record for that station can be treated appropriately (as is the case now). If they don’t show a trend, they can be ignored. BTW, don’t forget that shadows come from buildings (as are common mext to parking lots) as well as trees.
4) Steven Mosher also refers to a methodology. What methodology? Sounds like vaporware to me. But please do answer Larry’s question.
5) Larry Grimm: “Common sense tells me that relatively speaking asphalt will do a lot more heating than shade will do cooling.”
The air immediately above the asphalt will certainly get relatively hotter, but that’s not where most of the “problem” sensors are. Does common sense tell you that a sensor in an enclosure five feet off the ground and e.g. ten feet away from the asphalt will get significant warming?
Many of these supposedly well vetted, “rural” sites have had many microclimate changes. Some are due to station moves, some to microsite vegetation drift, some to nearby land use changes, and some to equipment substitution.
Each station has its own history, which can effect the “trend”. The MMS NOAA database doesn’t seem to track changes past 1948 and what changes it tracks can be incomplete and questionable (Esp. Lat/Lon translations between deg/sec and deg/decimal potentailly suggesting a location change that didn’t really happen).
Caveat Data (ab)User.
Stephen:
As you look at Alma check the adjustment, I eyeballed it and it looks very large back at the beginning of the record – almost 1C!!
So, two bad sites make good data, wonderful. I don’t like betting my life on crap like this.
Anthony and his volunteers are auditing. They’re waiting for the final results before coming to a conclusion.
I just checked the population of Alma. It should in fact be classified as Rural since its population has never reached 10,000 – the peak being 9652 in 1980 according to the Alma City Master Plan (http://www.ci.alma.mi.us/docs/AlmaMasterPlan10-9-02.pdf). The overall population density also argues against an urban designation – strictly speaking 10000 is the break point for suburban. The basic issue is that the classification scheme by population size to identify UHI and non-UHI effects is problematic to say the least, with much of the data being out of date. If adjustments are made based on this designation then even more issues lie just beneath the surface. ELi’s UHI cooling effect is what the rest of us might call the non-UHI effect!!
All this is said without scrutinizing the actual temperature record.
The Farmington Maine site that is photographed on surfacestations.org is at a new location as of earlier this year. Pictures of the new station will tell you nothing about how microsite changes have affected the temperature trends. The older Farmington site was in place for more than 25 years. The older site wasn’t particularly good. These stations that move around a lot are difficult, perhaps impossible, to use in climate change studies.
I just checked the population of Alma. It should in fact be classified as Rural since its population has never reached 10,000 – the peak being 9652 in 1980 according to the Alma City Master Plan (http://www.ci.alma.mi.us/docs/AlmaMasterPlan10-9-02.pdf). The overall population density also argues against an urban designation – strictly speaking 10000 is the break point for suburban. The basic issue is that the classification scheme by population size to identify UHI and non-UHI effects is problematic to say the least, with much of the data being out of date. If adjustments are made based on this designation then even more issues lie just beneath the surface. ELi’s UHI cooling effect is what the rest of us might call the non-UHI effect!!
All this is said without scrutinizing the actual temperature record.
I don’t believe that the site visits are an audit as much as they are a qualitative survey. Based on the survey interpretation, it should be possible to identify potential hypotheses to evaluate by delving into the details (current and past) of specific sites and potentially applying what’s learned to the other sites. From what I’ve seen, it would be better to focus our attention towards the future to see how all of these predictions turn out.
You know he’s using your bandwidth to link to that picture without permission, and not giving proper accreditations.
Re Jim Bilodeau
Is the photo hot-linked? Rabett should know better than that. It would really be a shame if the owner of surfacestations.org replaced that photo with something more fitting to the occasion. 😉 That mistake is usually only made once.
The reason that trees and buildings are supposed to be kept a distance of 4 times the height of the tree or structure has to do with mixing of the boundry layers. If the wind is blocked at the surface where the sensor is then the heat builds up in that area and introduces a warm bias.
Yep, its hot linked. Sure would be funny to see that picture changed…maybe the rabbit in a pot from “Fatal Attraction”?
Obviously Rabett Run is a weasel operation run by a coward.
Well I gave him a chance, from others comments and his own comments he was aware several hours ago.
I really don’t mind people using the imagery, that is what it is there for. But credit should be given when it’s used. Supposedly this fellow is an academic, and he knows he should attribute others work. The fact that after being advised of such, chose not to do a simple edit speaks to his credibility.
So I changed the photo to a chocolate bunny with an admonition.
On second thought, after a few minutes, I just changed the photo back to the original, but added our logo. Better to push the brand than to pay attention to phantoms lack of courtesy, since they don’t care and won’t do it anyway.
I’m happy to Answer Bloom.
There are several methods for determining homogeneity.Half a dozen or more
Runs test is one taught at Columbia ( hansens) shop.
There are others.
BUT for Bloom, we keep it simple. dirt simple for flowers.
The ALMA site posted by STARTS in 1948. The concern is that the shading, YES THE SHADING documented by our visit, might cool the site.
Actually the trees MAY impair the measurements in two regards. Shading and wind shelter. This is why CRN requires that a site be clear of these kind of obstructions.
SO… lets look at ALMA.
1. Michigan. Been there 18 years done that. The trees in the photo would be leafless sept through March. April is the cruelest month. Shadin is an issue 1/2 of the year.
Still, that is an issue.
2. The shade is in the early morning ( after Tmin) and late afternon, after TMAX. Have a look at
at the Site survey notes. One benefit of visiting a site ( as opposed to night lights) is that you can ASK THE OBSERVER when the temperature guage is in the shade. you can document the time of your visit. this visit was at 930AM. Typically for ALMA TMIN happens right before dawn. Early mrning shade MIGHT ( read carefully) not be an issue.
3. BUT SHADE CAN COOL A SITE! Lets not be microclmate sceptics like Bloom, denying all of the published science about microsite effects.
So, how do we look at this?? Is ALMA cooled by shade?
If the Microsite effects cool this site, then we should see RELATIVE effects when compared to nearby sites.
That is Alma should show a cooling TREND… RELATIVE to nearby sites. Now, HAnsen considers sites within 1200km when he “adjusts” things in his climopractology. I’ll just look at sites a 100km away.
Places I know. Cities I know. Places I’ve been to.
Go to GISS Temp web site.
Select GISS RAW. enter alma.
Get the files for the following
1. Alma.
2. Mount pleaseant
3. Midland
4. Owosso
5. Big Rapids.
Look at data from 1948 onward. WHY 1948? well thats when the ALMA coop site starts.
Now, if ALMA has some radical microsite cooling you will see it diverge from the others.
If ALMA cools more than the others, then that tells us something.
Bloom wont check this. He doesnt know how.
You all have a look.
If you have troubles let me know. I’ll Shoot Watts a file.
Otherwise, let the rabbett dig a hole.
So, mosh, rather than apply some fancy set of algorithms to the site configuration based on the information in the photos, you prefer to compare the data. As you say, it’s just what the scientists do. But since I may have missed it the first time, please do explain to me again exactly how it is you’re using the information in the photos.
I thought the reason for the rabbit hutch was to afford every surface station with constant shade.
By the way I only use an alias out of habit and for continuities sake. There are many people who look at the name “papertiger” and have a feel for what to expect. It wouldn’t be nice of me to start sneaking up on pthem by using the psydonym “Jim”.
Known times of observation from 1977 to present are from 0730-0800. The tree’s shade probably wouldn’t have been much of a factor during that period. Consider, too, the tree’s growth throughout the period of record. Then, there’s the building just east of the CRS. No doubt, there are other human-introduced biases, as well.
He has another image up, btw. Looks like he’ll do one daily. I guess he’s a believer in microsite bias, too.
please do explain to me again exactly how it is you’re using the information in the photos.
From a layman’s perspective, there are a couple things that I noticed about the photo. First, you can’t see how tall the tree is, but it appears to be around 50-75 feet away, and the portion that’s visible doesn’t appear to contain dense folliage. It’s shade effect would only come into play if it were to the south of the monitor, and, even then, probably only at the cooler times of year when the sun is lower in the sky. If the tree is anywhere but to the south of the monitor, it may have no effect at all.
Second, regardless of the orientation of the picture, the bush isn’t likely to provide any more shade than the taller building immediately to the left of it. I can’t imagine the “cooling” effects of the bush and tree in this photo even being measurable.