Posted by Dee Norris
Can you figure out what happened at Mohonk Lake, NY?
Get out your slip-sticks and put on your thinking caps, gentle readers. We need to solve the mystery of the temperature record at at Mohonk Lake NY.
On Monday, the New York Times had this to say about the temperature record at Mohonk Lake:
The record shows that on this ridge in the Shawangunk Mountains, about 20 miles south of the better-known Catskills, the average annual temperature has risen 2.7 degrees in 112 years. Of the top 10 warmest years in that time, 7 have come since 1990.
Now I just happen to live in the Catskills (the Shangra-La of New York State, IMBO) and a 2.7 degree (I am assuming F, not C) increase sounded pretty high for the ‘Gunks’ so I turned to this handy tool at www.CO2Science.org for a quick look-see at the USHCN data for the Mohonk Lake (41.77.N, 74.16W; 379m) site. Here is what I found:
Since I live in the general area, I have previously used the data from a site in nearby Maryland, NY (42.52N, 74.97W; 363m) in a local lecture. I was sure I remembered that the station in Maryland had not exhibited a trend like this. Double checking the ol’grey matter, I got this graph:
Both sites are at the same altitude and in the same general vicinity. I know that climate change can’t be that localized, so it has to be something else.
I hope to get down to Mohonk Lake this weekend if possible for a closer inspection, but in the meantime, here is an opportunity for all the climate sleuths out there to take a shot at solving The Mystery at Mohonk Lake.
UPDATE: The Mystery Deepens
In a converstion today with Paul Huth at Mohonk Preserve, I was assured that the station did not have the latest electronic MMTS measurement system and that they still used the original system installed in 1896, but an inquiry at NCDC provided the following equipment:
An appointment for a site inspection has been set up for the middle of next week.
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Well my guess is they build a tennis court around the Stevenson Screen,
Clay or grass? #B^1
Hmm, they look pretty distinguishable to me. The three graphs I posted from the GHCN network all with the same time frame showed the two closest sites (Walden and Poughkeepsie) with a flat to slight downward trend, and Monhonk Lake with an upward trend.
Does it mean anything? Maybe, maybe not. The point is you can’t look at one site and take global or even regional meaning.
Walden and Poughkeepsie:
Walden has a gap in the data – perhaps the station was moved and is therefore not consistent over the long term. See:
NASA data:http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=425725030070&data_set=0&num_neighbors=1
or
NOAA data:http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/climgraph.aspx?pltparms=GHCNT100AJanDecI188020080900110AR42572503007x
The NASA data for Poughkeepsie looks like this:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=425725040050&data_set=0&num_neighbors=1
Poughkeepsie and Mohonk Lake are quite similar if you compare the anomalies:
http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/climgraph.aspx?pltparms=GHCNT100XJanDecI188020080900210AR42572504005x42572504006x
The fact that 5 of the 6 stations (i.e. not Walden) look very similar indicates there is probably nothing very special about Mohonk Lake in the long-term.
Odd how the reporter made it sound as if the weather observer had to trek out to this isolated Stevenson screen, uphill both ways, blah blah… Just like the old days.
It looks to be a mere 40 ish? feet from the office, under the comforting shade of a well established tree.
http://www.mohonkpreserve.org/index.php?weatherdata#warmtrend
Then again the picture on that page doesn’t show it’s relation to the long term parking or the green technology visitors center. Or the victorian maze added to the resort in 1998. Or the new 30,000 sq ft spa with a 2000 sq ft green roof garden terrace, heated outdoor mineral pool and of course no mention of the Six hundred tons of quartz conglomerate stone excavated from the site and recycled into stone walls, fireplaces and retaining walls throughout the spa.
http://www.mohonk.com/pdfs/New30000squarefootSpa.pdf
Now, I would assume the resort and the preserve are two different entities with enough seperation to avoid contamination of the data from all the new additions, however we have all seen how land use changes can contaminate data from quite a distance. Other than the addition of the Victorian maze in 1998, I found no dates for the other rennovations mentioned above but they sound fairly recent. They also would seem to require quite a bit of clearing of established vegitation for the construction…
In any event I hope the links and the picture of the Stevenson screen help in some way. Enjoy your outing.Odd
Alan Cheetham (20:30:34) says:
nothing very special about Mohonk Lake in the long-term
I downloaded the data in text form from here:
http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/ghcn/daily/readme.txt
and averaged daily differences for TMAX for available decades up to the present. A small percentage of records are either missing or flagged as inconsistent in the data files and were left out of the calculation. Here’s what I get:
FALL VILLAGE – MOHONK (col 1)
POUGHKEEPSIE – MOHONK (col 2)
WALDEN – MOHONK (col 3 1973-)
TMAX deg C Average by decade
1919-1928 1.6
1929-1938 2.3
1939-1948 1.8
1949-1958 2.1 2.0
1959-1968 1.9 2.2
1969-1978 1.9 2.2 2.3
1979-1988 1.8 1.5 1.7
1989-1998 1.7 1.8 0.9
1999-2008 0.1 0.7 0.2
The only way to solve this would be to switch the equipment between the sites and see what that shows. It would either prove or eliminate any equipment or siting issues.
Aerial photo of the area taken in 1994. Hope it saves the coordinates.
http://terraserver-usa.com/image.aspx?T=1&S=10&Z=18&X=2850&Y=23122&W=3
I was going to guess that something changed about 1990, Anthony’s post mentions it went to MMTS in 1991. I am curious about Dee’s comment re: the tannic acid production, inferring that the area was once forested in oak, probably very old oak, and then replanted in maple. I wonder what the differences in the two types of forests might be. Oaks tend to sprawl out horizontally and maples grow more vertically.
Reply – In a forest where their is competition for sunlight, oaks will be vertical as well and eventually tower over the maples. In an open pasture, both will get pretty wide. – Dee Norris
Building permits should show construction dates for these various additions and changes. I would check there before going up the mountain.
Since the resort is crowded around the lake, waste or cooling-water discharge into it could be a factor since warmed water will float on the surface affecting air temp above it — perhaps more so in the winter (when it’s not frozen).
I repeated some of my earlier calculations on the raw data for individual months. The increase at Mohonk Lake relative to nearby Falls Village in recent times is evident year-round, but is most marked in June and July. In these months Mohonk Lake temps have increased nearly 3 deg C relative to the nearby station over the last 20 years.
Note Mohonk is at elevation 380m. Falls Village is at 168m and 38Km away. Over the last decade Mohonk is the warmer in these months.
Falls Village – Mohonk Lake
(diffs in max daily temp, averaged over decades)
June/July only
1909-1918 2.6
1919-1928 2.7
1929-1938 3.2
1939-1948 2.9
1949-1958 3.1
1959-1968 2.7
1969-1978 2.8
1979-1988 2.3
1989-1998 1.8
1999-2008 -0.4
Note the ground cover in this picture:
Is that mulch or some other natural gound cover? I wonder if they started landscaping the area around the weather box with yearly fresh mulch somtime in the late 90s.
dipole:”The increase at Mohonk Lake relative to nearby Falls Village in recent times is evident year-round, but is most marked in June and July. In these months Mohonk Lake temps have increased nearly 3 deg C relative to the nearby station over the last 20 years. ”
Seems like the Sun heating the lake water could be the culprit here. However, we have been told the Sun has very little effect on climate which is ridiculous.
It’s called local warming. Mohonk has a fever and we must save Mohonk. We need to call Al Gore and then have a big rock concert. Or raise taxes. Or both.
FWIW, the Maryland, NY, weather station changed locations several times.
One of those changes occurred in May 1947. The new location was
estimated to be about 1.5 F cooler (annually) than the old location.
That estimate is implied by the USHCN SHAP adjustments for Maryland data.
Well, no MMTS as of December 21, 2006 according to this article. Also it was a 2.3 deg F increase over 100 years reported at that time.
http://www.mohonkpreserve.org/pdf/NPTimes12-21-06DSRC.pdf
Something to check on…
One of the least expensive ways to add air conditioning to an old structure, besides individual ac units is: Chilled water from the lake, which is then warmed.
Since they have such good records, I wonder what the water temps look like over time? and how that compares to the air temperatures. Maybe the water is hotter causing the air to be hotter? Yeah, I know this is not Yellowstone, but just a thought.
Cooperstown (42.70N,-74.92E) is about 50Km from Mohonk Lake at a similar elevation (366m) and has a similarly long record. According to Google Earth it’s the birthplace of baseball! It’s next to Otsego Lake, also with a big resort-style hotel.
Mohonk shows some recent warming relative to this station, but not as pronounced.
Cooperstown – Mohonk Lake
Diffs of max temp, averaged over decades.
All Months (col 1) June/July (col 2)
1899-1908 -1.2 +0.1
1909-1918 -1.4 -0.8
1919-1928 -1.5 -1.0
1929-1938 +0.1 +0.9
1939-1948 +0.5 +2.1
1949-1958 +0.1 +1.0
1959-1968 +0.3 +1.0
1969-1978 +0.1 +1.0
1979-1988 -0.3 +0.0
1989-1998 -0.8 -0.6
1999-2008 -1.3 -1.5
Reply – Cooperstown is right next to Maryland, NY and has experienced a LOT of growth due to the Baseball Hall of Fame and other attractions. While I have the IR camera here, I hope to get to both Coopertown and Maryland as well as Mohonk and Walden. – Dee Norris
Anonymoose gave me an idea.
At the beginning of the interglacial, the world was not a very green place. Over the last 12,000 years it has grown progressively greener, especially with fire suppression in our forests. Now, I understand that since the industrial age, globally, we have lost about 50% of our forests for crops and other land uses. However, most of the warming of the last 30 years has been in the Northern hemisphere where many developing countries are seeing reforestation due to environmental measures.
Deforestation is occurring in the topics and in the southern hemisphere, and temperatures have not risen as much there.
Obviously, a greener planet or hemisphere has a much different albedo than a not so green planet, and add to this the heat absorbtion in urban areas, it is clear that less sunlight is being reflected back to space and we are absorbing more heat from the sun than 5-10,000 years BP.
Also, the increased mass of the trees seems likely to absorb more heat and reduce the rate of heat loss from the surface, especially in the evening when it is pumping out CO2.
Maybe this is why Hansen is suggesting using trees as fuel (obviously he does not want to say trees are causing global warming, since too much has been bet on CO2).
It might be that trees are causing the warming we have had, or at least contributing, and thats not necessarily a bad thing. I still remember the blizzard of 78. Brrrrrr.
Dee-Of all the trees I climbed in Mass, prior to 1965, I never saw a sprawling maple. Tapped a lot for syrup though.
Reply – I have both forested and pasture land on my property. Maples will sprawl to some degree if there is no competition for sunlight as in the pasture. – Dee Norris
Is there a single public source for all the USHCN data? This “challenge” was interesting but I spent most of the time grabbing data for each individual site and then converting it into something Excel could use. I’d like to tinker w/ this in my spare time but I have no interest in pulling the data from each individual site a piece at a time.
Pete Mc
The hcn_doe_mean_data.Z file at
ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/ushcn/
includes USHCN “raw” temp data, as well
as with two “adjustments”, time of observation,
and station change.
See the readme.txt file for format descriptions,
station.inventory.Z for station number cross
reference, and station.history.Z for station
change info.
Thanks, Jerry
Oh, that’s a complicated issue.
Most of the U.S. (maybe most of the Americas…and Europe) were savanna — grassland with tall or scattered trees before European exploration.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_savannas_of_the_United_States
Over 90% of the native americans died from 1492-1550, so the savanna-required burning was greatly reduced. Buffalo population boomed and they moved into the eastern savanna. Some of the woodland along the Atlantic east coast became overgrown into forest; the Pilgrims arrived in a “virgin” forest which may have been 100 years old. Much of what we now call “old growth forest” was cut when railroads and industrialized sawmills reached them in the early 1900s. However, North America and Europe now have more forest than in the early 20th century, which was more forest than in 1492.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afforestation