Title with apologies to Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young.
In my last post, part 77 of “How not to measure temperature” I pointed out that the National Weather Service in Upton NY has a weather station that is way out of compliance due to the way it is setup and the proximity to bias factors such as the parking lot.
There are thousands of weather stations across the USA, some run by various agencies. Often we’ll see them at national parks with interpretive displays. This one I encountered in Ely Nevada on my last road trip to finish the Nevada USHCN station surveys was part of an air quality and environmental monitoring program jointly run by the Department of Energy (DOE) and the Desert Research Institute (DRI).
It is an impressive station with multiple state of the art sensors, solar power, and a datalogger with a satellite uplink to DRI’s HQ. You can look at hourly data from the station at the CEMP DRI website here.
It is located about 2 miles northeast of town on government property, BLM land:
What is unique about this station is that it has an interpretive exhibit with live data readouts. I applaud DRI/DOE for doing this. Here are what the they look like closeup:
Click for larger images to read the text on the interpretive displays
As I said, I applaud DRI/DOE for doing this. Taking the effort to make such a wonderful educational display is a good use of taxpayer funds.
Except, that is, when they miss one critical detail.
Yes, the expensive satellite uplinked state of the art interpretive educational weather station is sited in the middle of two asphalt parking lots. One is for RV storage, the other is the parking lot for the Ely District Office for the Bureau of Land Management.
Here is the the view to the northeast of how the temperature sensor sees the BLM land:
Here is the aerial view of the placement:
With the parking lots on both sides being active with cars and RV’s, I would imagine that a fairly variable albedo exists, especially on weekends and holidays.
This wouldn’t be so bad if it was only an educational station with an interpretive exhibit, as one could explain it was placed here for the convenience of viewing and science really doesn’t advocate measuring the temperature of parking lots.
Except that this station is used for an active science project. How much of the other data measurements and calculations for such things as Tritium dispersal, gaseous pollutant volumes, etc are dependent on the temperature, humidity, and dewpoint data gathered here, all of which would be affected by the siting?
Contrast it to the ASOS station siting at the airport across the road. The ASOS is about 1000 feet NW of the southern runway intersection which you can see here in Google Maps
Normally ASOS stations are much more poorly sited than state of the art stations, but this example illustrates how spending tens of thousands of dollars on hi-tech measurement gear can be undone by lack of simple planning.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
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“…They always invent a better fool.”
And
“…they come out with smarter idiots.”
Made my day – and it’s still morning here where I live… 🙂
Leif Svalgaard (22:18:41) :
…. a bit shaky the next few days as they upgrade their software for calculating the distance to the Sun [we have discovered a few minor problems in this regard, which they are fixing].
Interesting. What exactly is the nature of these problems? What was wrong?
Anthony and all readers, happy Thanksgiving.
These are truly astonishing reports!
Janama
thank you for the reference to the Chinese site. ( http://bcc.cma.cn/en/ ) Being China I would think that the Global information would be Chinese, not third party, can anybody suggest a program that could do a comparison with available non Chinese data?
Carsten,
haha, they had to put in a new if statement.
If some periodicity observed then add some barycenter nonsense.
Smokey (12:55:15) :
Good thought on Boy Scouts. Similarly for 4H. Propose the following:
Global Warming Science Project
Set up a Class 1 temperature weather station in a rural area and measure the Urban Heat Island Effect between that and a nearby Class 2-5 (typically urban) temperature weather station.
Report results to SurfaceStations.org
As I said, I applaud DRI/DOE for doing this. Taking the effort to make such a wonderful educational display is a good use of taxpayer funds.
Except, that is, when they miss one critical detail
A bit reminiscent of the station at Badwater in Death Valley reported by John Daly years ago — although Daly conjectured that the Badwater station seemed deliberately sited for terrain effects.
http://www.john-daly.com/stations/badwater.htm
Carsten Arnholm, Norway (02:25:07) :
[…]distance to the Sun [we have discovered a few minor problems in this regard, which they are fixing].
Interesting. What exactly is the nature of these problems? What was wrong?
The errors are all at or below the ppm [parts per million] level [0.0013 W/m2] so have little practical importance, but since the precision of the SORCE TSI measurements is so high [they report to the 0.0001 W/m2], one should strive for removing all known sources of systematic errors.
The largest of these comes from the realization that the distance to use is that of 8 minutes and 17 seconds [varies a bit over the year] before the measurement, corresponding to the time when the photons actually left the Sun, rather than when they arrive at Earth. This amounts to a 1.6 ppm error. A smaller variation comes from the Doppler effect: during half a year the Earth is moving towards the Sun, during the other half away. This distorts the spectrum [shifts blue or red] and needs to be modeled correctly, using the full relativistic equations. An even smaller variation [0.25 ppm] is caused by the Moon perturbing the distance, leading to a bare detectable variation with a period of 29.53 days.
All of these very small variations are of little consequence for the user of TSI or for our discussion of the Sun-Earth distance, but are at a level where we expect possible variations due to internal processes [e.g. oscillations of the core] of the Sun to occur, so these systematic variations must be eliminated in order to search for these more subtle effects.
Mike McMillan (19:28:10) : The ASOS setups are primarily there for the pilots, who are concerned with wind and pressure, and temperature isn’t usually a concern unless you’re right around freezing.
Actually, “right around freezing” is only of concern to pilots in clouds, in wet snow, frosting, or if there is warmer air overhead which can lead to freezing rain. The key is the presence of visible moisture. I’m happy to say that I’ve only encountered icing only twice in my 20 years of instrument flying: once on the wings and once in the carburetor. Other than that colder is better. The opposite is true of higher temperatures. Density altitude problems are much more insidious than icing. Knowing the temperature on the runway is always preferred (but rarely gotten).
Back to the quality of the meteorological sensors. The rain gauge exposure looks to be poor, also.
Robert Gregg said:
You aren’t kidding, brother. (Warning: Rambling comment ensues.)
After a few years of flying numerous “Spook” missions out of the Athens International Airport in Greece, we deployed to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia in August of 1990 for a bit of fun and frolicking in that little slice of desert
Hellparadise. The runway that we shared with the Greeks, from our home at Hellenikon AB, was just a few tens-of-feet above sea level (ASL) (You could hit the water with a couple of good, long drives and a chip shot.). Our take-off runs out of Athens were a lot longer than any of the civilian aircraft that used the airport (Or just about ANY other aircraft, for that matter, due to the ungodly amount of weight jammed into the old RC-135 airframes. But, that’s another story for another time.), but we got used to the amount of time it took to reach S1 (“Go/No-Go” airspeed) and “Rotate” (“Wheels Up” airspeed).After we’d flown into Sand Land and flew a mission (en route), landed at Riyadh AB, found a place to sleep and had returned to the plane a few hours later, we got permission to taxi out to the runway and line up for take-off. When the pilots got clearance for take-off and started rolling down the runway, us “back-enders” (“Spooks”) tightened up our 5-point harnesses and said our usual prayers, asking for divine intervention that engines or wings didn’t fall off before got back. Well, after we’d been rolling down the runway for almost a minute without hearing “S1” from the navigator, we all started thinking “What the Hell is taking so long?”. After what seemed like another eternity, we finally lifted off the runway and, when we were cleared to talk over the intercom, one of my buddies pipes up with “D*mn! For a minute there, I thought we were going to DRIVE this mission!”. We’d found out, firsthand, why the runway was over 13,000′ long.
Thus ends the story of taking off at 2,000’+ ASL in 100°F heat, before sunrise, after years of taking off at less than 100′ ASL and less than 100°F.
Sorry for rambling on, Anthony.
*Sniff* Ah, the halcyon daze of youth.
Addendum: We did notice that it took considerably longer, in relative terms, to take off from Athens in the summertime than it did in the winter, due to the “density altitude” that Robert brought up in his original post.
Leif, for the sake of the discussion about small changes in the Sun (heat, brightness, magnetic field, solar wind, cosmic rays, sunspots, plasma ejection, etc), what is the temperature change in the heat source that occurs in water between non-boiling and boiling (or any substance that is being heated)? Up to the boiling point there seems to be nothing much happening ‘cept steam and increasing heat from the source. But then the substance being heated reaches it’s boiling point with only a small change in temperature from the heat source. Might there be something about Earth and its atmosphere that reacts the same way to just a percentage change in one or more of the above factors of the Sun? Maybe the answer isn’t in finding some big change in the Sun. Maybe it’s the small change in the heat source that creates the big change in some cascading trigger factor related to climate (atmospheric and oceanic) here on the Earth.
Leif Svalgaard (07:21:44) :
The errors are all at or below the ppm [parts per million] level [0.0013 W/m2] so have little practical importance, but since the precision of the SORCE TSI measurements is so high [they report to the 0.0001 W/m2], one should strive for removing all known sources of systematic errors.
Thanks for the explanation Leif, it is appreciated. Yes, adjusting for finite light speed is sometimes an issue.
Pamela Gray (09:03:56) :
But then the substance being heated reaches it’s boiling point with only a small change in temperature from the heat source. Might there be something about Earth and its atmosphere that reacts the same way to just a percentage change in one or more of the above factors of the Sun?
Boiling is a very distinct phenomenon and its physics is very different from what goes on in the atmosphere. Once the Sun swells to a red giant in 5 billion years time, that physics will be applicable to the Earth’s atmosphere. Before then I don’t think we can compare the situations, not even for the ‘sake of the argument’. What is so strange is that people so desperately want to Sun to be the culprit, when this is really not necessary as the climate system is complex enough for internal oscillations to happen without direct external drivers.
Carsten Arnholm, Norway (11:15:43) :
Yes, adjusting for finite light speed is sometimes an issue.
and also for the finite speed of gravitational effects…
Anthony,
I’ve been reading your website entries for some time and commend you for your excellent work! I have spent part of my meteorological career dealing with the NWS and their erroneous temperature readings, including those from the infamous HO-83 devices. The HO-83’s were replaced, eventually, after persistent complaints and peer-reviewed articles in BAMS, etc. What has been the response from NOAA regarding your complaints about the data quality from the climate network? Any articles forthcoming?
REPLY: HELLO Robert, thank you for the kind words. NCDC invited me out to do a presentation in April 2008. See it here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/04/23/road-trip-update-day-1-at-ncdc/
But other than that there has been no response. The NWS doesn’t really much concern themselves with the issue I believe because the main purpose of the network is forecast verification, with emphasis on hydrology/rainfall.
Climate is a secondary or tertiary consideration. As you have witnessed with the HO83, there is a huge inertia involved which resists change.
-Anthony
Smokey…
Great Idea To Get the Eagle (Boy) Scouts to come to the rescue…
If Anthony will detail all of the plans down to the last item… including Operations Oversight as that seems to be a major issue here.
The Boy Scout Troops could monitor the stations and we might get a bit better data set.
I remain concerned that we are dealing with an infinitely tiny data set relative to the earths age of 4.5 Billion years – but it should be fun anyhow.
Wow, this one win’s the prize. Gavin Schmidt corrects for this with light levels. With 100 plus billion spent on global warming, why can’t we have a good measurement system?
Chalk this up to bad planning for sure. If these things were 50m in the air we could at least consider them.
Our politicians are lining up for some serious global warming legislation.
http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2008/11/28/democrats-preparing-for-big-push-on-co2/
I’ve just discovered a discount source for a professional weather station. (This is probably a close-out item, like most of its stock.) The source is American Science and Surplus. (It’s been in business for about 71 years.) Here’s how the item is described in its catalog and website:
The Ultimate Weather Station
Digital, wireless and absolutely full-service. This P3 Professional Weather Station lets you read the indoor/outdoor temp, humidity, rainfall amounts, wind speed (including a 24-hour history for wind and temps) barometric pressure, moon phase, sunrise and sunset times, time and date without getting dressed and leaving the house. Then you can just look at the little icon on the display to see what he’s wearing and dress the same way. The outdoor sensor has a 6″ dia anemometer, a 6″ x 5-1/2″ rain vessel, and is on a 6-1/2-foot pole. The cool-looking indoor display module is 8-5/8″ x 6-3/8″ with a 5″ x 3″ LCD. Some calibration required. Takes a total of (7) “AA” batteries, not included. A fully-functioning weather station at an affordable price, which you don’t find everywhere or, in fact, almost anywhere.
93576 WEATHER STATION $179.00
93576 is the item number–just plug it into the “Express Shop” or “Search Our Site” box when you get to http://www.sciplus.com. Or go direct to the item with this deep link:
The catalog also has all sorts of cheap oddball gadgets and “novelty items.”
REPLY: Roger, that weather station is one I once evaluated for my own online store at http://www.weathershop.com and rejected. If you’ll notice, it does not have wind direction, only wind speed. So much for “ultimate”. Another cheap POS from China I’m afraid. I’ve dealt with the P3 company, that is all they sell, Chinese imports. Like the Oregons Scientific, it won’t last and the accuracy is dubious. – Anthony
Oops–my tag on the deep link didn’t work. Here it is in plaintext:
http://www.sciplus.com/search.cfm?utm_source=internal&utm_medium=search&utm_content=cf&utm_campaign=celsearchtest&term=93576&btnHand.x=0&btnHand.y=0
Anthony: Thanks for the correction. If anyone finds good-quality items on sale, they should post info. on them.
Leif Svalgaard (11:26:21) :
Carsten Arnholm, Norway (11:15:43) :
Yes, adjusting for finite light speed is sometimes an issue.
and also for the finite speed of gravitational effects…
Indeed. I have recently considered that that precise issue, as I have been making a 3d simulator of the solar system based on Newton’s law of gravity. It works well assuming infinite speed of gravitational effects, but I realise it is more correct to adjust for the actual, finite speed. But as you say, the difference is quite small.
You’ll be waiting until hell freezes over for the Chinese to join in Kyoto or Kyoto like measure to limit so-called greenhouse gases…I’m sure they are watching with amusement as Al Gore, James Hansen and the IPCC pull the puppet strings of western governments. They are smart enough to know better and practical enough to care less about trendy junk science…
Actually, “right around freezing” is only of concern to pilots in clouds, in wet snow, frosting, or if there is warmer air overhead which can lead to freezing rain.
Not quite correct.
On the ground, OAT at or below 6 C, with less than a three degree temp/dew point spread can cause inlet icing due to induction cooling.
Also, if the airplane had been flying at high altitude, under the same conditions, cold soaked fuel can cause clear ice to form on wing surfaces.
ASOS locations are good enough to make anti- and de-icing decisions, but I doubt anyone installing them cared about anything other than that.
But Leif, cosmic rays monitored here on Earth change with cyclic changes from the Sun. Levels of CO2-14 change as a result of the Sun. A slight change in the tilt of the Earth changes climate. Particles that Earth or the cosmos sends into orbit creates a changed climate. All are reactions of the Earth to the Sun. Are you saying that there are NO instances where the Earth is sensitive to the small changes from the Sun and that it is all internal? I don’t argue that the Sun appears to be stable over time, in both cycles and substance, but I do think that the variables here on Earth react to the Sun in ways that can explain temperature and climate changes. I think the Sun could be an indirect and powerful driver of Earth’s climate. And maybe that is what we quibble with. If I asked you about indirect relationships, what would you suggest were possibilities yet to be experimentally studied? The argument that CO2’s reaction to the Sun is the only variable that can heat the planet seems terribly flat Earth to me and is the same side of the coin that says the Earth is the stable entity to changes from a variable Sun.
So here is my partial list of possible variables that when given Sun time (and all its attributes, not just sunspots, heat or brightness), change weather and climate to a far greater degree than man-made CO2. I am asking: Would these things change themselves thus having effects on weather and climate without any influence from the Sun, or must the Sun do its thing as well? I find it rather simplistic to think that the Sun’s only weather influence, direct or indirect, is nighttime vs daytime temperatures. My hunch is that we would not quibble over indirect influences that work in tandem with a variable Earth.
Ozone layer
Water vapor
Cloud formation
Dust
Ocean cycles
Jet stream and pressure changes
Stratosphere temp changes
Long term tilt/orbit wobbles