Sometimes, words fail me in describing the absolute disregard of the placement of NOAA official climate monitoring sites. For example, this one in Clarinda, Iowa submitted by surfacestations volunteer Eric Gamberg:
Click for larger image
The MMTS temperature sensor is the short pole next to the half pickup truck.
For those of you that don’t know, this station is located at the wastewater treatment plant there. I’ve written many times about the placement of stations at WWTP’s being a bad idea due to the localized heat bubble that is created due to all the effluent coming though. The effect is especially noticeable in winter. Often you’ll see steam/water vapor in the air around these sites in winter, and more than one COOP observer has told our volunteers that snow sometimes does not stick to the ground at WWTP’s.
The larger pole appears to be a gas burnoff torch for excess methane. I can’t say how often it is activated (note the automatic ignitor circuit on the pole) but I can tell you that putting an official NOAA climate thermometer within a few feet of such a device is one of the worst examples of thoughtless station placement on the part of NOAA I’ve ever seen. Here is an example of a methane burn-off device at another WWTP.
We’ll probably never know what the true temperature is in Clarinda because untangling a measurements mess like this is next to impossible. How many days was Tmin and/or Tmax affected at this location by gas burnoff and to what magnitude? We shouldn’t have to ask these questions.
And, adding insult to stupidity, the GISTEMP Homogenization adjustment makes the trend go positive, especially in recent years:
According to the NCDC MMS database for this station, the MMTS was installed on October 1, 1985. Who knows what the data would have looked like if somebody had thought through the placement. Whether or not the temperature sensor has been significantly affected or not by this placement is not the issue, violation of basic common sense siting guideline that bring the data into question is. Anything worth measuring using our public tax dollars is worth measuring correctly.
Dr. Hansen and Mr. Karl – welcome, feast your eyes on the source of your data. You might want to think about changing this description on the NCDC website for USHCN:
The United States Historical Climatology Network (USHCN) is a high quality, moderate-sized data set of daily and monthly records of basic meteorological variables from over 1000 observing stations across the 48 contiguous United States.
I suggest to NCDC that “high quality” doesn’t really apply in the description anymore.
I really could use some help, especially in Texas, Oklahoma, Alabama, Mississippi, and Arkansas to get the USHCN nationwide climate network survey completed. If you have a digital camera and can follow some simple instructions, why not visit www.surfacestations.org and sign up as a volunteer surveyor. If you can’t help that way, donations to help fund trips such as these that I’ve been doing are greatly appreciated.
UPDATE 11/20 4:20PMPST: Some commenters such as Krysten Byrnes and Steve have suggested that the blink comparator above is wrong due to the fact that the scale on the left changes in offset. I realize that may create some confusion. A couple of clarifications are needed to address that.
First, these graphs are generated by the GISTEMP database, not me. I simply copied both from the GISTEMP website into my animation program. This includes the scale offset which is part of the difference in the original GISTEMP generated images. You can do the same thing also by visiting here: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/station_data/ and putting Clarinda in the search box. Use the pulldown menu to select either data set you want. The above is the “combined sources” and also “after homogeneity adjustment”.
Second what is important to note here is that the slope of the trend changes as a result of the adjustment applied by GISS. It becomes more positive in the “homogenized” data set.
Third, in the “homogenized” data set, the past has been cooled, the present also made warmer, making the slope more positive over the timeline. Here is the Clarinda GISTEMP Homogenized data plot overlaid on the “raw” data plot. Again these are the original unmodified GISTEMP generated graphs using a simple cut and paste with transparent background technique:
Click graph for full sized image
Note how the hinge point appears around 1980 where the data appears to match. Note also how the divergence between the two data sets increases either direction from this hinge point.
Oh, it could be worse. Like this USFS Fire Weather station that had the Local Weatherman scratching his head every night exclaiming “This cannot be right, folks” when referring to the daytime high of a mountain community exceeding that of Redding, CA, one of the hottest places in California. Anyone driving up out of that city to the hills immediately feels the temp drop 10 degrees. After stomping around for 3 separate trips, I finally found the sensor. Surrounded by masses of metal and itself encased in about 5 pounds of aluminum.
After explaining to the amazed USFS personell that I had found the location of the weather station that nobody had seen in 10 years, I got a call from a Tech who was going to replace the sensor, since they deemed it was acting erratically. The Tech brought a replacement sensor, not from a suppy of fresh ones, but from another failed station. The story read like a budgetary problem. And so, the 100 year history of one of the few rural mountain communities having a solid weather gathering record is tainted with 7 years of suspect data making it suddenly hotter than one of the warmest cities on the West Coast.
REPLY: Was this the sensor in Mineral, CA? – Anthony
UK to auction carbon permits
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7736005.stm
“But the UK led a revolt against the Commission’s plan and refuses to ring-fence the carbon dividend. A government spokesman said: “We are committed to reducing carbon emissions as our climate change legislation proves, but we do not hypothecate [specify the intended use of] revenues.”
Perhaps its the treasury that sites weather stations?
What I would support would be a tax on emissions from coal seam fires. These fires are allowed to burn because the cost of putting them out is higher than the value of the coal being burned. If those fires were taxed to such an extent that it would be cheaper to put them out than to allow them to burn, then global CO2 emissions could be greatly reduced. Any by greatly, I mean the fires in only four countries amount to all the emissions of all the automobiles on the planet.
It is Not “Historical” Data for Temperature and GASES
It IS “HISTERICAL” Data for Temperature and GASES
Get Real.
But this is quite amusing.
Except for the government control and wasting $40 Trillion.
The Earth is Billions of years old.
You are all arguing over “TRENDS” based upon an
infinitly short stretch of time.
Basing any decisions on such a nano data sample is moronic.
Acknowledging that GISS, Gore, Hansen, et al have been incompetent and fraudulent in data sampling, collection and decimation is material. – They ALL should be PERP walked.
OT, but interesting BBC article:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7733509.stm
Under-ice flood speeds up glacier
By Jonathan Amos
Science reporter, BBC News
Byrd Glacier (Nasa/Landsat)
The Byrd Glacier is about 135km long and 24km wide
Great floods beneath the Antarctic ice sheet can now be linked directly to the speed at which that ice moves towards the ocean, scientists say.
Diffidently the truth is acknowledged:
Scientists have known about subglacial lakes in Antarctica for half a century. There are more than 150; and the biggest, Lake Vostok, is the size of Lake Ontario in North America.
Despite being capped by, in some cases, several kilometres of ice, the lakes’ contents stay liquid because of warm spots in the underlying rock.
It was always thought, however, that these lakes were stagnant bodies, containing waters that were perhaps unaltered for millions of years.
Warm spots, not to be named as volcanic activity.
But also encouragingly:
Cause and effect
It should be stressed the events seen at Byrd are not of themselves climate-related. The lakes probably flood and drain on a regular basis that has nothing to do with atmospheric or ocean warming.
But:
However, the scientists say the mechanisms involved need to be understood so the knowledge can be applied to those ice masses which are being exposed to warmer temperatures, such as in Greenland.
Obama is in agreement with Hansen and Gore. We have not done enough and we need change. We need to roll back CO2 by 80% in the year 2050. Forget physical reality only political reality counts. Great work, who would have believed such a crazy placement but then who would have believed in the current U.S. death wish.
I lived four years in Tucson…in my younger years. I kept in shape by jogging around the city park in the central part of town. There on the corner of 22nd street….was a sponsored weather station. I jogged by it over 1,000 times in four years. The temp gauge was about four feet away from the AC unit on th side of this RV trailer. The entire arrangement was surrounded by concrete and pavement. The gauge had to be showing a temp that was three degrees hotter than reality. Twenty years have passed…and I doubt anyone ever changed anything.
Oceans are warmng!!
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=1158
Correcting ocean data:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/OceanCooling/page1.php
Umm…about the y axis on the chart…. could be get a gif that compares the two data sets with a range of 6.5-12.5? That way the visual comparison will be valid. I agree with TerryC, we need to avoid this kind of thing. This is what the AGW crazy guys do. We have to behave better than them.
Tom Carter (08:53:13) :
“Has anyone performed an analysis of USA temperature trends (1950-2008 ?)using the untainted, unadjusted, temperature data available from ACCURATE weather stations . . .”
This issue has been discussed before. See http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/11/13/gistemps-gavin-schmidt-credits-wuwt-community-with-spotting-the-error/
John V compared the anomalies of CRN 1&2 stations with the GISTEMP anomalies and came to the conclusion that for some reason, the adjustment algorithm in GISS produces the same outcome as quality stations do. A few notes on this. First, John V has been very open about his data, procedures, and potential pitfalls. Second, I do not know if anyone has verified or duplicated John V’s work which should not be difficult for a modeler to do. Third, pitfalls include lack of geographic dispersion, U.S. focus, and small sample size — on the sample size issue, I understand that John V initially used CRN 1&2 stations which numbered only 17 at the time and that sample size does not produce statistically valid results; so he then included CRN 3 stations, bring the sample size to 50, with the same results.
Fourth, given that GISS procedures are so bizzare, lacking quality control, and producing counter-intuitive results, John V’s conclusions are unexpected, and I would love to see an audit on John V’s work. In contrast to GISS folks, it seems that John V would welcome an audit.
Every time I read this, “The United States Historical Climatology Network (USHCN) is a high quality, moderate-sized data set of daily and monthly records of basic meteorological variables from over 1000 observing stations across the 48 contiguous United States,” or Anthony post’s a site review, I am prompted to ask how many for real high qualtiy sites are required to evaluate the surface temperature trends in the U.S.? Is it 100, 13, 86,133, 167? Do 1,000 sites, even if they were perfectly sited and maintained, give us a better answer than 500 or 200 sites of the same quality?
Anyone? Anyone? Buehler?
M White
“Perhaps its the treasury that sites weather stations?”
Where are the UK weather stations?
Have you any idea where they are?
I downloaded a list from MET OFFICE.
The list had more weather stations in Lerwick than there are in the USA.
Where are all the UK sites?
Can anyone help?
The gas flare here is not the only issue. The cylindrical tank to the left is an anaerobic digester. These are typically heated to 95 degrees F using the biogas generated by the digestion process. As this gas is a free byproduct, and would be flared if not used to heat the digester, these concrete walled tanks are typically not insulated. The tank here looks to be about 500,000 gallons, and in my part of the world (northern Illinois) on the design coldest day, heat loss from a tank like this would be around 300,000 to 400,000 Btu per hour. That is quite a bit of influence on the surrounding area.
I don’t know if lawns require watering in Clarinda, Iowa but if some of these site are, like this one, out in the middle of a lawn and under a automatic sprinkler system.
I would guess the average annual temperature is near mainline water temp….well, cept when they have the flame thrower stoked up.
, I am prompted to ask how many for real high qualtiy sites are required to evaluate the surface temperature trends in the U.S.?
60 ‘randomly’ located stations would be sufficient to determine the temperature trend for the whole of the USA or any area for that matter.
BTW, the main problem with the current network is that none of the stations is ‘randomly’ located. It doesn’t matter how many non-random sited stations you have if you don’t know what biases the non-random siting introduces. Which is the surface stations problem in a nutshell.
All accurate temperatures are computer generated, using GISS algorerithms.
Heritage Foundation Blasts Obama’s Climate Message
“Few challenges facing America and the world are more urgent than combating climate change,” Obama said. “Many of you are working to confront this challenge. But too often, Washington has failed to show the same kind of leadership. That will change when I take office.”
http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/Heritage_obama_climate/2008/11/19/153043.html
@george E. Smith (10:19:58)
Good points on that business of blink comparators. What we’re seeing in that image is not so much about temperature trends but about types of adjustments. I suppose if someone was really curious, they could go back to the source and do their own temperature comparison.
And extra kudos to those volunteers who document sites located at wastewater treatment plants. Some days those facilities can be quite aromatic.
“” Steve (12:36:28) :
Umm…about the y axis on the chart…. could be get a gif that compares the two data sets with a range of 6.5-12.5? That way the visual comparison will be valid. I agree with TerryC, we need to avoid this kind of thing. This is what the AGW crazy guys do. We have to behave better than them. “”
Steve I have to disagree. what is missing is the underlying assumption that the vertical scale, is actually a temperature scale; it isn’t it’s an “anomaly” scale, and the units just happen to be in degrees. the numbers are quite arbitrary since they refer to some baseline that itself was never measured accurately in terms of something real like the internationally recognised SI units of temperature.
So you can’t believe that the numbers are real, other than relative to the same plot; the scale difference is nothing more than a readjustment of some baseline.
Mike C. the lights=24 datum is NOT used to adjust data. That is the brightness index which is not used in any processing step. The datum you want to look for is the unlit/dim/bright field. Unlit stations ( regardless of population) are used to adjust dim and bright stations ( rregardless of population)
GISS. Where homgenization meets pasteurization.
The .gif that keeps on giving.
GISS. Where homgenization meets pasteurization.
The .gif that keeps on giving.
hehe
The temperature anomaly map for Oct 2008 from UAH is out.
http://climate.uah.edu/oct2008.htm
Interesting that it’s got the hotspot in western Russia, but no equivalent to the massive dark blotch in Siberia.
c.f.
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/gistemp_after_october_correction.gif
Chris,
There is nothing alarming about the UAH anomaly map. I wonder how NASA would respond to questions about this disparity?
Mike
I think that “crosspatch (10:08:21) :” raises and interesting point wrt the double bind for Hansen.
If true, he will be strongly motivated to continue his behaviour. The problem for Hansen is that the real world appears to have stopped warming and may even be entering a cooling phase of unknown extent. If the cooling continues the disparity between his data/models/pronouncements and peoples experience of cold weather will begin to be too wide – and people will begin to notice.
If Hansen’s credibility drops as a consequence, so will the credibility of GISS data which is the foundation of a lot of the AGW meme.
I would not be suprised if AGW does get exposed – that Hansen will become the patsy/fallguy of the politically well connected AGW proponents who will simply claim that they were “deceived” by Hansen’s “scandalous medacity” – Hansen will be crucified.
The stakes are very high for someone playing Hansens game.
If Hansens’ head ever rolls – so will those who work for him.
REPLY: He’d be more useful to society if he recognized the limits of the surface system and produced a product that was not fraught with so many issues, and took more external influences into account. As it stands now he uses questionable data and methods as a soapbox.- Anthony