Below is a photo of the USHCN climate station of record in Pascagoula Mississippi. Note the location of the MMTS temperature sensor. The phrase “industrial nightmare” comes to mind.
But the MMTS didn’t always have this sweet location at the water treatment plant. It was moved there after Hurricane Katrina. Craig interviewed the curator and writes:
“Moved to current location after “the storm” (Katrina), which took place in Aug. 2005. Previous location was over pavement. When I told the plant employee that there were problems with the instrument location, he said the NWS guy didn’t think there was anything wrong with it.”
Well, it’s a tough call; pavement or pipes?
Craig describes the location in his site survey report as:
“MMTS is 6’ north of big water pipe, 12’ east of the brick control building, and 10’ west of a concrete canal. There is a metal track with several hoses attached about 10’ overhead.”
Here’s another photo that shows the “brick control building”:
A reminder for the NWS employee from NOAA’s reference on the siting of temperature sensors might be helpful.
The location certainly doesn’t fit the “representative of the area” specification for siting a Cotton Region Shelter in the NOAA/NWS COOP Observers Handbook (PDF available here).
3.1 Shelter Placement. The ground over which the shelter is located should be typical of the surrounding area. A level, open clearing is desirable so the thermometers are freely ventilated by the flow of air. Do not install on a steep slope or in a sheltered hollow unless it is typical of the area, or unless data from that type of topographic location is desired. When possible, the shelter should be no closer than four times the estimated height of any obstruction (tree, fence, building, etc.). Optimally it should be at least 100 feet from any paved or concrete surface. Under no circumstances should a shelter be placed on the roof of a building as this may result in extreme temperature biases.
This aerial view looks representative of the area, right?
There’s two large heat sinks and plenty of humidity via the aeration ponds to go with that tanks and piping.
While GISS hasn’t caught up with the 2008 record yet, it looks like the new location may already be registering. The above is the USHCN data from that location.
Fortunately, NASA GISS knows just what to do with that temperature data from the waste water treatment plant
– spread it around a bit!
There, that makes the historical temperature record in Pascagoula all clear now, right?
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
It amazes me that the quality of these temperature sensors is so suspect.
How in their right mind could anyone have placed them where they are?
Then they massage the data till they get a ‘statistical’ reality that they can use to promote their agenda?
” dearieme (04:01:26) :
Lucky that they didn’t have a steam line to site it by.”
They did try but it was too far from the sewage plant 😉
DaveE.
Of course we, the disposable 50%, will just walk quietly into the fires. Just got to love Profs of (X) – they really do believe that they will be part of the remaining 50% when the carbon settles.
Profs! .. its called GENOCIDE and it is a precursor to WAR
http://www.optimumpopulation.org/
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article5950442.ece
schnurrp (06:22:43) :
It appears to me that much of the problem with siting of temperature sensors may have to do with accessibility. In this wireless age why can’t we develop a standardized remote sensing package that can be installed properly, independent of easy human accessibility, and monitored remotely. We could even use solar power cells to power it or a little windmill on top. This would also solve the time-of-day problem.
Good use for some of that stimulus money I think.
The problem with that is that if the government actually got ‘real numbers’, they wouldn’t use them anyway because it would probably reduce their justification in raising taxes on every form of energy in the name of reducing co2 to stop imaginary AGW
It’s clear that it’s not Open Science if the specific methods of data collection and massaging (statical games with the data) are not FULLY specified with all the steps clearly spelled out for all to see.
@Gary Young Plyler (06:54:47) :
“[…] Being from Washington state, this is my favorite:
http://gallery.surfacestations.org/main.php?g2_itemId=19357
Port Angeles, Washington. It’s a hoot! […]”
OMG!!! (G = Gaia, in newspeak)
I think it may also have the record for area of surrounding blacktop. It looks like several hundred feet of blacktop in any direction you care to go from the… well, I was going to call it a surface station, but it’s up so high, I think its data may be part of the satellite record ;o)
Nice one!
Combining Katrina and another recent post about galactic cosmic rays, any thoughts on whether the massive huricane season of 2005 could have had anything to do with the massive space/cosmic ray explosion December 27 2004
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/02/060221084628.htm
schnurrp (07:53:24). I thought about the wireless options, too, but then I read an article about the ease of hacking into the Smart Grid wireless electric power system that Obama is funding, and I decided not even to broach the subject.
My guess is there is probably a stockpile of the equipment and cable for surface stations somewhere in a warehouse and what is lacking is the motivation and/or means to travel the country and repair or re-situate the stations. With luck and more hard work, Anthony and his volunteers may just turn that tide and inspire the various agencies to care about the quality of their data, let alone the data collection devices. One can hope.
In the meantime, I’m striving to learn enough to understand the posts here (and the comments — Leif takes a few readings and then I look things up and read again…) so I can, if the opportunity arises, do my part.
Sylvia (22:37:49) :
I’ll have to read up on the Smart Grid. Not familiar with that. As for remote wireless temp sensing, it’s not exactly a national security issue on par with the power grid and I don’t yet believe that there is actually a conspiracy to shift temps up to promote AGW. I still tend to believe that laziness and indifference and lack of initiative is behind most of the errors. I hope I’m right.
Think how valuable continuous weather data from properly sighted sensors fed into computers would be. Well within our technical capabilities IMHO.
3×2 (16:18:45) :
The only proper way to communicate such sentiments, IMHO, is in a suicide note.