In my 30 years in meteorology, I never questioned how NOAA climate monitoring stations were setup. It wasn’t until I stumbled on the Marysville California fire station and its thermometer that that I began to notice just how badly sited these stations are. When I started looking further, I never expected to find USHCN climate monitoring stations placed at sewage treatment plants, next to burn barrels, or in parking lots of University Atmospheric Science Departments, or next to air conditioning heat exchangers. These were all huge surprises.
I didn’t think I’d be surprised anymore. I thought I’d seen the weirdest of the weird, and that I would not be surprised again with bad station placement examples.
Then I saw this station, submitted from Fort Scott, Kansas:
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No, your eyes do not deceive you. That is an official NOAA USHCN climate monitoring station at a funeral home in downtown Fort Scott, KS
From a wider perspective, you can see all the things around it. Not only do we have a fountain (extra humidity), a nearby brick wall for heat retention at night, a large concrete driveway that curves around the station, a tree for shade in the late afternoon, a big brick building with a south facing brick wall, but we also have cobblestone streets and convenient nearby parking. The station is near the center of the city.
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This location has everything needed, except a BBQ. See the photo gallery here.
It seems that that station was moved into this location from the previous one about a block away on April 4th, 2002:
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Upon first examination. it appears that it “may” have been cooler at the previous location, once you get past the spike of the 1998 El Nino it seems the elevated step function remains. Though since the location was also downtown, about a block away, perhaps the UHI of the downtown has overwhelmed the station change.
From what I can tell of the towns history, most of the growth in buildings occurred during the first half of the 20th century. Many of the downtown buildings seem to date from that time. Certainly it appears cooler around 1900.
No worries though, GISS has “fixed” the temperature to reflect a cooler past:
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Of course, this GISS adjustment artificially increases the temperature trend of the last century. It appears to use the present as the hinge point.
Yes it probably was cooler in Fort Scott’s past, when it looked like this, when it was founded:
“A beautifully undulating prairie”. “An almost precipitous decent of fifty feet”. “A flat spur of high prairie”. “A small clear-water creek”.
In 1852, Assistant Surgeon Joseph Barnes used all of these phrases to describe the landscape surrounding Fort Scott.
reference here
Here is a recent view of downtown
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They also participate in wonderful international junkets. Take a gander where your hard earned tax will be going in 2009:
http://www.ipcc.ch/meetings/calendar.htm
culminating in the biggest banquet of all time in wonderful, wonderful, Copenhagen where they will be soon brewing extra Carlsberg and writing new pastry recipes. The little get together in Venice should be rather fun too – half an hour checking out the water level and 3 days checking out the sights and the restaurants?
Curiously, the 20th century portion of the Ft. Scott record (unadjusted) stands up well in a variety of comparisons with far better-located stations nearby. It’s the 21st century record that’s suspect and, thanks to hansenization, will undoubtedly produce the desired trend.
Dear Pablo,
I am duly chastened and genuflect to the ‘New Science’ per your admonition to be mindful of researchers whose well-being rides on the fraying coat-tails of The Theory.
I feel sooo much better. Yes. 4 is 5. Up is down. Cooling is Warming.
Thank you.
Cathy
Quite an interesting setup! Don’t see it being ‘moderately wooded’…
The use of a funeral home to measure the temps is (in and of itself) a good idea. They are typically manned most of the time and are good at turning in the information compared to say, a city-run operation where you don’t always have coverage. This is the case in our city. We get days where they report (on Saturday and Sunday) the SAME EXACT high and low temps. HMMMMMM…guess they come in Monday and push the min/max buttons and turn it in…..not good at all.
http://www.cookevilleweatherguy.com
“This location has everything needed, except a BBQ. See the photo gallery here.”
When I click on the link to the photo gallery, there’s only one image there. Perhaps I’m doing something wrong Help? Anybody?
Obviously, we need a better design for the MMTS shelters. Therefor, why not build and market a new base? I’m thinking that a Webber Grill incorporated into the station base would negate the need to have BBQ’s and MMTS a few troubling feet apart.
Or, for more decorative installations, I was thinking that the MMTS should look nice with a flaming Tiki torch on top??
Another dual-use design would incorporate yard lighting on the MMTS pole.
A final design could use the top of the MMTS shelter as a place to mount Citronella candles, to keep the mosquitoes away. Or, incorporate a light and a bug-zapper into the MMTS shelter itself.
Basically, I think that if useless data is the goal (and from the station sitings, it sure appears to be) then why not make the stations fill a dual role? 🙂
Seriously though, thanks for busting so many bad stations. As for this one…
That siting is a thing of beauty.. it’s in the the apex of an L shaped building with the open sector orientated to the SW. There is no better way to maximize solar heating, not that I know of.
BTW, in some of the photos, I see what appears to be a crematory chimney. Those kick out loads of heat.
Doesn’t surprise me. After finding a USFS FIre Weather station for a meteorologist who couldn’t believe that mountain temperatures rivaled valley temperatures, and accompanying the sole technician they had left, it goes downhill from NOAA fast.
Figured WHY Yellowstone is shaking.
It’s the cold, poor old place is shivering.
WHY OH WHY DO THEY NOT LOWER CURRENT TEMPS???????
My dear fellow! The USHCN makes adjustments to the 20th century trends. We are assured that they are quite accurate.
— There is the adjustment for TOBS. Upward.
— There is the adjustment for fill-in data of missing (FILNET). Upward.
— There is the adjustment for station history (SHAP). Upward.
— There is the “MMTS adjustment”. Upwards.
But fear not. they knock off 0.05C for 20th-century urbanization.
All in all it comes to c. +0.3C to the 20th century trend.
Well, that USHCN-1, and the NOAA posted these remarkable admissions on its adjustment page. (And it is one of the most-quoted pages by skeptics.)
NOAA didn’t make THAT mistake twice. The USHCN-2 page is filled with reasonable-sounding explanations. But it somehow doesn’t get around to tell us what their adjustments actually are.
Though posters on this site have calculated it to about +0.42C to trend.
And that is why they do not adjust current temperatures lower: they adjust them higher.
Your tax dollars at work. Sleep easy.
And I think it would do to point out that the “raw” data in the graph above the trend which GISS is pumping up is not actually raw data.
It is NOAA/NCDC-adjusted data.
So the GISS exaggeration in trend will have been ON TOP OF the NCDC adjustments.
Consider that.
Someone needs to write this up.
The Heartland conference is in March.
Section 1 – Surface Station Nightmare
Section 2 – Hansenizing the Data
Section 3 – Pulling a Global Temperature out of the Hat
Appendix: (Witch) Dr.’s Secret VooDoo Data
etc.
I have postulated the theory for several years that we will all ultimately receive “ration cards” of x tonnes of CO2 per person per annum.
Everything that we purchase will have a “carbon debit” against our ration card, relative to the item’s particular carbon footprint.
When our card runs out, we cannot purchase anything.
It will then be necessary to purchase unused carbon rations from cave-dwelling hippies, through a grand national (or even international) carbon credit exchange.
Of course, the swampies will constitute the democratic majority, and they will be able to vote themselves all sorts of exemptions and subsidies. Hansen has accidently exposed the true intent of all this bullshit – the transfer of wealth from the middle class to the swampies.
I used to think that those “New World Order” and “One World Government” conspiracy theory kooks were dangerous loonies. Now, I’m having second thoughts……..
Dear Anthony,
I’m a brazilian climatologist and I’m writing a book about the non man-made global warming. I love your story and I’d like to include it in my book with the your blog’s reference. May I?
Thanks for your information. It’s very important to show the real state of art of weather monitoring.
Best regards,
Gustavo
REPLY: Be my guest, use as needed- Anthony
I just did an analysis based on this, comparing the slope of GISS global to the slope of UAH over the entire measurement period. I was surprised at the difference.
http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2009/01/03/giss-temp-slope-is-exaggerated/
GISS has some serious problems to work out.
I’m copying this because the BBC loves censorship especially of comments criticizing the BBC no matter how true.
In response to this piece of backslapping patronization from Richard Black I replied:
ah! Makes lots of sense why the forcast claims to be 38 and it’s only 29 where I live!
Jordan.
http://www.theriverjordan.net
Noting Ed Scott’s comment about government advisors.
In the days when Australia had a population of less than 10 million our government set up the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, (CSIRO), a government body set up to provide critical mass to research in an economy where few firms were big enough to effectively go it alone in research. It worked marvellously well as both industry and science turned to the CSIRO for support when their own resources were insufficient.
The head of the CSIRO was always a leading scientist.
In the 1980s the Hawke government put the national president of the Labor Party in charge of the CSIRO. He was not a scientist, he was a lawyer politician, the retired premier of the state of New South Wales. They put their own political scientists in charge of the real scientists.
Hawke was from the same side of politics as Al Gore.
It is from the CSIRO that much of our Global Warming propaganda now comes.
It is a fact of life that science tends to find what it is looking for. These scientists were sent by our government to look for Global Warming. But it appears very much to me that they had to change the rules of science and the language to “find” it.
Kaboom
You are way behind the British Government whose parliamentary committee on climate change has suggested this and it is currently being discussed as a genuine option. The first phase of this was inmcorporated in the recent climate bill which sets legal limits on our emissions.
TonyB
It’s highly probable that those of us who comment here, will have lists of other favourite sites which they visit on daily. basis. One of mine is http://www.seablogger.com/?cat=22 It’s run by Alan Sullivan who has an abiding interest in volcanoes.
He is focused on Chaiten and Yellowstone at present and being a clever chap, his science links include WUWT, CA & Marohasy and as well as http://volcanism.wordpress.com/ and http://eruptions.wordpress.com/ where additional information about global volcanic action is available.
I’ll bet Hansen et al take no notice of CO2 from volcanoes, but we should.
Where Thermometers Go To Die
In Scotland we would sum that up by saying, “Pure dead Brilliant”.
MikeMcMillan (12:58:48) wrote:
“To demonstrate the ham-handedness of the one-size-fits-all GISS homogenization, I did a blink of SurfaceStation.org’s home page poster child for good siting, Orland, CA. Same location for a century, no problems, but it needed GISS adjustment.
Orland”
Great demo Mike!
The station that turned me on to the farce that are GISS adjustments is the Western Maine metropolis (sarc) of Farmington (pop 7,500), a college town with a 100+ year climate record. The trend over the century was showing cooling (see http://www.john-daly.com) which I guess was inconvenient. Additionally, the warmest years were the 1930’s. Well, that couldn’t stand, so a little adjusting here, a little there, and voila’…problem solved. Another government solution to our outdoor air pollution!
Considering the fact that many of these towns in Maine have been slowly reverting back to forest from abandoned small farms that existed years ago, cooling made a lot of sense. These “adjustments” are enough to make an old man cry.
It seems to me that it might be possible to model the thermal impacts on a temperature station of the local environment in response to wind, sun, and precipitation variations and heat generation sources like barbecues and home heat lose, etc.
Perhaps do a numerical model and a physical scale model. Better yet, measure an actual site with the ultimate goal being an improved site or site type specific adjustment. Site geometry probably can’t be too complicated and it might be desirable to do a site which also has wind, sun, precip data.
Anthony. I am curious about the current thinking within NOAA about the work of WUWT. A WUWT report in 2008 advised that NOAA was grateful about the review of the stations as a learning experience BUT I am not seeing any attempt to make any changes at all. Are they absolutely convinced of their methods still or are conversations happening within the cone of silence? What do your little birds tell you?
Off thread, have you seen this: Soot reduction ‘could help to stop global warming’ at http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/soot-reduction-could-help-to-stop-global-warming-1224481.html Here is one quote from the article that is based on a paper by GISS: “Black carbon, the component of soot that gives it its colour, is thought to be the second largest cause of global warming after carbon dioxide.” Methinks that even the worst AGW alarmists are looking for a way out!
Last time I looked at climateaudit, John V (and others) were comparing the time series between CRN123 sites and the official temperature record, resulting in a pretty good fit.
These snapshots of stations located near (or moved to) warm spots are anecdotal. How’s the analysis coming?
Could you please provide any information you’ve investigated about how and why the temp record for the above station was adjusted. Is there a link?
If you have no information, we’re left to speculate (unless one’s mind is firmly sealed against inquiry) on the physical history of the Fort Scott station.
Is there an update on the numbers part of the project? Last page I checked was
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2201
There wasn’t a thread number at the bottom of that one like the previous. Are there similar threads at this site?
Mostly, I’ve found the inquiry very impressive.
REPLY: John V’s inquiry was premature, he only used 17 CRN1/2 stations with poor spatial distribution. A new comparison will be done when a majority of stations with good spatial distribution has been completed, likely sometime this spring. – Anthony