The MMTS system introduced by the National Weather Service in the mid 1980’s continues to be the Achilles heel of the surface observation network. Intrepid surfacestations volunteer Don Kostuch finds another poorly sited USHCN station in America’s midwest.
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Here we see measuring the official temperature for use in the US Historical Climatological Network, in Crosby, ND station ID # 321871, just 5 feet from a building. Yes it’s in the shade, which is great for keeping the sun off the sensor and tempering Tmax, but also traps the longwave IR at night due to the tree canopy, not to mention the effect of building proximity, which boosts Tmin. Then there is the wind sheltering effect.
I keep hoping that we’ll find better stations in the midwest, and while we’ve found a few, stations like this still keep popping up regularly. The MMTS cable issue forces the sensors closer to buildings.
Could the sensor be placed further away from the building? It certainly looks like it. Why didn’t they; Laziness? Obstacle? Mom’s Garden? Who knows.
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According to NCDC metadata, the MMTS was installed on May 27th, 1987. Here is what GISS shows for their temperature plot.
Click for source image.
Our nation’s USHCN climate network is a mess. Stations like this are now the norm, not the exception. I’m continually amazed and disheartened at the systemic lack of quality control on the part of the NWS deployment of the MMTS system.
Evan:
Ground doubly fine…
Is this true and if so, is this taken into consideration in AGW models?
Probably. There is a very large CO2 exchange each year. C. 200 Bil. Metr. Tons Carbon per year is exuded by natural sources and absorbed by Ocean, vegetation, soils, etc.
Industry puts out c. 6.5 atmospheric BMTC. About half of this gets sucked up by the system. But the other half remains in the atmosphere. The Atmosphere contains about 750 BMTC, so that means atmospheric carbon increases by c. a half a percent per year.
However, this is spit in the ocean. CO2 is currently less than 1/25 of 1% of atmosphere. Or as the inestimable Cyrano Jones put it, “Twice nothing is still nothing.”
Counters,
The documented biases of individual stations are only the tip of the iceberg. What did these stations look like 10, 50 and 100 years ago and what were the biases back then? How accurate were the instruments and diligent were the observers?
Crosby North Dakota currently has a population of about 1200 people. The 1910 census lists Crosby Village with a population of 206. Who was taking measurements and how accurate were they? It was probubly the the guy who was the town clerk, store owner, postman, census taker and farmer. I don’t doubt his integrety but he had better things to do then measure the temperature twice a day exactly 12 hours apart to an accuracy of a tenth of a degree for what he probubly considered to be more of a hobby or civic pride then anything else.
He didn’t imagine that 100 years later scientists would be using his journal to help determine the fate of the world.
the climate debate, which is about the source of CO2 over the last 150 years. IMO there is no issue that the increase (or at least most of it) over that period is due to human activities.
Not only is that debateable, it is highly unlikely. Man’s contribution of total C02 is a mere 3% or so. Not that it matters in terms of temperatures, but it is just one more falsehood the alarmists like to use to try to frighten people.
I just read the instructions posted above. I think these must be for a different type of instrument tower from the picture, but even so, if the principles remain true about site factors, the installers were WAY off.
I particularly like this extract:
The most desirable local surrounding landscape is a relatively large and flat open area with low local vegetation in order that the sky view is unobstructed in all directions except at the lower angles of altitude above the horizon. The area occupied by an individual instrument site is typically about 18 meters × 18 meters (~60 feet × ~60 feet).
Whereas none of the above has been complied with, plus there is a piece that reads the site must be approved by the USCRN
Oh, and unfrotunately, I don’t know French, despite France being a few hundred miles away. I’d be ok if it was in Spanish. :s
Evan Jones (12:10:36) :
“However, this is spit in the ocean. CO2 is currently less than 1/25 of 1% of atmosphere. Or as the inestimable Cyrano Jones put it, “Twice nothing is still nothing.”
Yeah, that’s the trouble with those tribbles, and let’s face it, we’ve got tribbles right here in River City. Tribbles with a Capital T and that rhymes with C and that stands for CO2.
Oh, aren’t I supposed to be working now?
Is it possible to get a schematic of the MMTS guts? I can find lots of outside photos, but no details. They seem to be produced by a company in NH that doesn’t have much web presence. The control unit looks rather simple, still requires someone to record data for each day.
My analog design curiosity is aroused.
Any reason for not including hygrometers in these newer devices? In other words, why not take air humidity measurements concurrent with temperature data? The digital hygrometers I’ve seen aren’t an extravagant expense.
http://www.calright.com/_coreModules/common/categoryDetail.aspx?entityType=6&categoryID=68&gclid=CPjp2-6esZQCFQ-kiQodsUGV0g
… Don’t know what wrinkles the additional thread of data would add to the temp records.
Tribbles with a Capital T and that rhymes with C and that stands for CO2.
We are too old. Yet too young.
The Trouble with Tribbles is the positive feedback loops . . .
Ground doubly fine…
I don’t mind so much that they homogenize it. But do they have to pasteurize it?
Evan Jones wrote: “Ground doubly fine… I don’t mind so much that they homogenize it. But do they have to pasteurize it?”
You’re on a roll today!
Jack Koenig, Editor
The Mysterious Climate Project
http://www.climateclinic.com
[…] How not to measure temperature, part 66 The MMTS system introduced by the National Weather Service in the mid 1980’s continues to be the Achilles heel of […] […]
Not only is that debateable, it is highly unlikely. Man’s contribution of total C02 is a mere 3% or so. Not that it matters in terms of temperatures, but it is just one more falsehood the alarmists like to use to try to frighten people.
It annoys when people pretend to counter a point but refer to something different. It is a far too common debating trick used by both sides of the climate debate.
I assume the figure of 3% of CO2 in the atmosphere is the amount directly attributable to human activities and ignores the vast quantities of CO2 being constantly cycled in and out of the oceans. CO2 in the atmosphere and the ocean surface are more or less in stable equilibrium over the short term. So whether x% of CO2 comes directly from human activity or from the oceans is irrelevant, because it is in the atmosphere because human’s put x% of CO2 into the atmosphere. The fact the x% is subsequently exchanged with CO2 from the oceans is, as I have said already, irrelevant to why the CO2 is in the atmosphere.
If you don’t understand this distinction, you need to take some chemistry and physics classes.
It would be really nice if we could use satellites to measure temperature and not have to worry about ground station siting, heat island effects, and so forth. Oh, wait…
You’re on a roll today!
You’ve been a fantastic audience.
Oh, wait…
Heh-heh.
Well, it keeps ’em honest.
Sort of.
But only after 1979.
Philip B wrote: “I assume the figure of 3% of CO2 in the atmosphere is the amount directly attributable to human activities and ignores the vast quantities of CO2 being constantly cycled in and out of the oceans. CO2 in the atmosphere and the ocean surface are more or less in stable equilibrium over the short term. So whether x% of CO2 comes directly from human activity or from the oceans is irrelevant, because it is in the atmosphere because human’s put x% of CO2 into the atmosphere. The fact the x% is subsequently exchanged with CO2 from the oceans is, as I have said already, irrelevant to why the CO2 is in the atmosphere.”
Although I rarely talk like this, I’d suggest you put your brain in gear before you put your mouth in motion. Do you realize you said nothing in the above paragraph? Can you cite any sources to back up your absurd statements and numbers? You always have a proclivity to rattle off at the mouth without saying anything of substance. Claims here, claims there, but nothing but [snip]
Jack Koenig, Editor
The Mysterious Climate Project
http://www.climateclinic.com
Hansen went to the G-8 and gave them his spiel July 4:
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/07/402555.html
Tilo: Lucia at the blackboard has falsified all IPCC projections including Schmidts RC ENSO adjusted. see http://www.rankexploits.com
Approximately 90 to 100 Pg of carbon moves back and forth between the atmosphere and the oceans, and between the atmosphere and the land biosphere. Although these exchange rates are large relative to the total amount of carbon stored in the atmosphere, the concentration of CO2 was constant
http://www.waterencyclopedia.com/Bi-Ca/Carbon-Dioxide-in-the-Ocean-and-Atmosphere.html
In respect of site problems I have referred to this paper by Runnalls and Oke before;
http://ams.allenpress.com/perlserv/?request=get-abstract&doi=10.1175%2FJCLI3663.1
On that occasion Dishman straightned out a few misunderstandings on my behalf; the paper looks as though it offers a solution to the microclimate biases that AW is discovering; is it being looked at?
Tilo; great stuff, as usual; you go back to ’98 with HadCrut; wouldn’t the temp decline be even greater if you removed the ENSO effect from UAH and RSS records? I note Tamino interjects at the Real Climate debate on this and refers to a GISS graph from 1880; this graph is a textbook record of PDO flipping over the period.
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2008/01/09/dead-heat/
Leebert, did he go as a NASA employee or on his own dime?
Evan Jones (14:54:17) :
“We are too old. Yet too young.”
“The Trouble with Tribbles is the positive feedback loops . . .”
And the Club of Rome’s “Limits to Growth” rolled up into one.
Philip_B and McGrats:
As Dr. Spencer put it at the Heartland conference, my paraphrase, “The anthropogenic CO2 fluences are 1/24000th that of the natural.”
These are vector quantities, in real time. ‘Balanced’ equations employing flux terms in scalar arithmetic are snap-shots at the end of a chosen time period, and have no other useful function, except to confuse and mislead.