Santa Rosa USHCN – click for a much larger image
Or maybe with the lack of grass, “goat” might be more appropriate.
Every once in awhile (like once a week) I happen upon a NOAA USHCN weather station that leaves me wondering – what were they thinking?
From this NOAA USHCN COOP weather station #298107, which was located here on 6-14-2007 , we get climate data. Unfortunately there appears to be a lack of attention to details. For example, ignoring the obvious other things, look at the green garden hose at the base of the MMTS mounting pole. That garden hose was apparently used to bury the cable in underground to the residence. Only one problem. If the end of the hose is not sealed, water will wick right down the cable during rain and eventually fill the buried hose. Eventually the water will seep into the cable it was supposed to protect, causing some reduced resistance, perhaps a short later. With thermistor systems like this, the sensor often has resistance into the kilohms…and moisture induced resistance changes are easily masked and often go unnoticed in data.
But all that and Dr. Seuss aside, here is what the data looks like before and after NASA GISS adjusts it. These are the USHCN “raw” and “homogenized” data plots from the GISTEMP website. The before and after is quite something to behold.
Click for original source graph from GISS
And here is the data after it has been “homogenized” using the GISTEMP algorithm, I changed the color hues to help differentiate them visually:
Click for original source graph from GISS
Note that other than my applying labels and doing a hue shift, these are the exact graphs presented on the NASA GISTEMP website.
They also present the data used to plot these graphs on each of the above linked pages. You can download it yourself by clicking on the “Download monthly data as text” links at the bottom of the pages linked by the graphs above. I can’t provide direct links here due to the links being dynamically generated and as temporary files at GISTEMP.
I downloaded and plotted both of these datasets myself, plus did polynomial fit trend lines. Note that missing data from 1920 has not been plotted on this graph, but simply skipped.
The visual result of the before and after adjustments by NASA GISS speaks for itself:
Click for larger image
What was down, is now up. Note the hinge point in the near present. The GISTEMP data stops at 2006, it will be interesting to see what this new location does for the data in 2007 and 2008.
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Retired Engineer:
Yes, I found that Anthony was allowing us to vent like a couple of old farts. From an earlier thread:
REPLY: The spec is for silver coated copper cable, spec says max length 1/4 mile, given negligible resistance of shorter cable lengths compared to resistance of thermistor (10kohms or higher), doubtful there’s a bias. They do have a remote calibration check plug to ferret that out after install and when MMTS is checked later.
I also found a “lessons learned” on a NOAA site about a nicked cable.
That’s ok. It was fun to spark an old synapse or two.
Anthony, it’s ok to shut up the geezers when they start telling the same stories over and over.
How about checking on the NASA site what “homogenized” means before jumping to any conclusions: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/csci/discussion.html (the basic purpose is to eliminate any anomalies that a site may pick up from local non-weather influences like the well know urban heat island effect — or someone putting an object that interferes with measurement on the site) … you might also want to check every other major temperature data set such as HadCRUT3 as well. I’m sure you will find individual weather stations in every data set that are trending down. You’ll also find a lot that are trending up but ignore those. Data that disagrees with you is confusing and obviously wrong.
A conspiracy covering so many scientists and organizations would have to be so bizarrely complex that I doubt even Hollywood could cook up something on that scale. Just think about it: NASA allegedly is pulling off a massive scam using data that is in plain view, that anyone can analyze. And many people do. Yet thousands of scientists around the world are either in on the con or fooled by it; only a handful, mostly not working in climate science or retired from the field, have the capacity and integrity to see what is obvious to a redneck whose education runs to pointing a digital camera and posting on a blog.
But anyway don’t let me stop you. Science did nothing useful for the world, so you might as well keep working on shutting it down.
If any of you should uncover where Elvis is living or a space alien community in deep rural Nebraska, do let us all know.
The sensor cable could be Direct Burial Rated in which case it is impervious to moisture intrusion; often a gel is used to increase the environmental properties. But if the data cable was Direct Burial Rated it wouldn’t need a garden hose for protection! The shallow burial depth means the cable temperature itself will vary with the day.
Bern Bray
…it appears to be a sheilded twisted pair, but they are not even grounding the shield…
Opinions vary but I only drain the shield at one end of the cable run to increase noise immunity and be certain to not induce a ground loop current! Given the garden hose it is likely neither end of the shield is grounded!
You’re right. I can’t see that close without my cheaters and I didn’t bother to click on the larger image. I didn’t see the legs but I do now. However, if it didn’t have legs it is the same height and shape as a new well cap. A bit on the shiny side but I suppose the pipe and cap comes in different metal materials. Mine is rusted earth brown colored. Other than that, it could be this little gadget’s cosmic twin.
Wow Anthony!
How is this not criminal fraud? Are there any laws that scientists getting federal money have to abide by? I don’t want to limit free speech and free results in the science community. But this science is so bad, so political, so over the top biased it leaves me speechless. The GISS work has contributed in a significant way to skeptical scientists losing their jobs, etc. Do those who have lost their jobs, denied promotions have any standing to sue? Does RICO apply?
I’d like a lawyer to comment on this type of thing. S. Korea used the legal system during all their DNA fraud cases. I also note, the AGW types seem very eager to use the legal system to achieve their goals.
I think it is dangerous to inject criminal or civil legal issues into science. However, normally universities and science organizations zealously protect their reputation by firing anyone with bad science, or making up degrees on their resumes. I see the peer review process broken and the grey haired guardians of good science sitting on editorial boards, Ph.D. review committees, etc. shockingly AWOL.
There is one point that I don’t see mentioned here.
That boat is sitting right next to the station and doesn’t look like it gets moved much. On a sunny day it will absorb and store a lot of solar heat, far more than a patch of grass. It will then release it over time in the late afternoon and evenings.
The difference to the surrounding temperature can be quite dramatic especially on calm days.
Rick BS, MS but no Mrs. (17:31:50) :
It could be the specs allow direct burial, but the homeowner might have decided to use an old hose so if the cable needs to be replaced he wouldn’t have to redig the trench.
This could explain the boats:
Santa Rosa, City of Natural Lakes
http://www.santarosanm.org/city_map.PDF
Google Earth shows this station to be located mid-way (3-4 city blocks each direction) between a bend of the Pecos River and El Rito Creek, which forms the border of an extensive wetland reserve just to the east. On the attached map, it’s at about 4th Street and Smith Road.
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=s&utm_campaign=en&utm_source=en-ha-na-us-sk-gm&utm_medium=ha&utm_term=map
If this were located here in 2007 it could account for some of the uptrend. Reminiscent of Tucumcari discussion, the quesion of humidity affecting temps. I still wonder if hygrometer readings could be taken concurrent with temps in a running record of both.
Oops. Above link doesn’t zero in on Santa Rosa as I hoped. To see the river and wetland terrain around this desert USHCN site, just zoom in on Santa Rosa (eastern) New Mexico. The station, as mentioned above, is at approximately 4th St. and 5th Road, which are labeled in satellite view.
John Christy’s research on the irrigation-caused warming of the San Joaquin Valley in California was covered and referred to here several times, although Anthony’s 2007 post had only 3 commenters.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2007/02/13/irrigation-most-likely-to-blame-for-central-california-warming/
I’m citing the study, too, though I don’t have the time to do additional research on it. The assumption is that desert soils don’t absorb much heat during the day unless they are wet, whereupon they soak up heat like a sponge and relinquish it at night. I’ll try to find out more about the theory.
“Theory”? I thought this was all settled science…
Doug,
I should be clearer. John Christy’s theory hypothesizes that irrigation, not AGW, is the cause for a “significant rise” in June – November minimum temperatures in the agriculturalized San Joaquin Valley. He completed his study in 2006. If you know of more recent work done to confirm his, perhaps you could post a link. Even so, I don’t know of anyone who is calling this “settled science”.
Christy’s own language in his conclusion is careful:
The entire study is here, as it appeared in the online Journal of the AMS:
http://ams.allenpress.com/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1175%2FJCLI3627.1
Christy’s hypothesis attributes the warming to the albedo effect caused by changing land used. I’m merely wondering if the same effect is possible here.
A different theory on the hose… Maybe it’s Weed Whacker protection?
I have trouble thinking they would thread a cable through 30 feet of garden hose, but a 2 foot weed whacker preventer… I could see that being attractive.
Ric-
Pulling a cable through a partially collapsed rigid conduit is practically impossible from my field experience. A garden hose would be analagous to a completely collapsed conduit rendering pulling a new cable impossible. All cables also have a maximum pull force to protect the cable integrity which is violated in such a pull if the cable ever came through the garden hose….but the owner may have other thoughts.
Some information regarding the MMTS (Nimbus) NWS COOP equipment…
1. Yes, the temperature sensor is an armored thermistor with resistance at 77 F of
20 K ohms. The resistance at 122 F is around 7.12 k ohms, which would ‘swamp out’ the resistance of the cable wires (outdoor qualified 4 conductor copper wire telephone cable), as long as there is no corrosion or similar contamination. Most Coop station visiting people carry a plug, which can be inserted in place of the thermistor, to check whether there is a problem with the cable/MMTS (Nimbus) unit. Most of them are very interested in the system working within specification.
2. The cable, according to the unofficial installation manual can be up to around 500 feet, without effecting the reading, providing there is no leakage due to water, or breaks.
3. One of the main problems with siteing is that the installer has to bury the cable, usually without any cable ditching equipment. This is a time consuming, labor intensive job, which can be wiped out with just one lightning hit near the cable afterwards 😮 …
JH…
Yes Anthony, you really are onto something here …
Pick out *one* single picture of an *alleged* weather station, and purport to show data from it corrected and uncorrected. A great little *anecdote*. I’m sure the scientific method could do with much more *anecdotes*, even if they are hoaxes.
Don’t report it directly to GISS for investigation either, just release it directly to the entire world on internet so the skeptics can lap up all the unsubstantiated nuances and spread it around the world via other websites.
However there is one thing that bothers me. What all of my clever scientist/engineering colleagues on this blog apparently neglected to notice is that your clever graphs had displaced y-axis measurements relative to each other.
So in fact, the second graph which *appears* to show unjustified warming in the latter parts of the adjusted segment of the station data, has in fact been obviously corrected so that the *earlier part* has been adjusted downwards. Look at the absolute numbers along the axis, not Anthony’s clever axis shift.
And I bet you guys call yourselves experts in your fields! Ha! How about you correspond directly with GISS on this?
MJT
Reply: Yes, the GISS algorithm often cools (adjusts downwards) the past creating an artificially induced warming trend that does not exist in the raw data. At this point more the 70% of the network has been surveyed and once 75% is reached, formal analysis will begin. Did you have a point? ~ charles the moderator, answering for Anthony.