This is a preliminary post to a much more detailed one coming from my friend Paolo Mezzasalma. who is doing a tour of Italy’s weather stations.
While there are significant and systemic problems with USHCN stations in the United States, there are also problems with stations worldwide. One of the problems is that a good percentage of GHCN stations are at airports. For example, Paolo sent along a photo of the weather station at the Ciampino Airport in Rome, Italy. It piqued my interest for obvious reasons.
The arrows point to three different weather stations. two are Stevenson screens, the third is an automated “ASOS” like weather station presumably used for aviation weather. Note the proximity to the parked jets and tarmac.
Paolo writes:
“You see two Stevenson screens: the official one to the East and an automatic Data Collection Platform to the West, which was added recently.”
But that’s not all, this weather station site has other heat islands nearby, like a nice semi truck parking lot. That’s always good for a warm boost.
In fact this weather station is caught between two modes of transportation. Trucking and aviation. I wonder which affects it more? I wonder if the jet parking area and the trucking staging area were always there?
Note also the red/white striped light pole missing in the older photo at top, but present in the annotated photo. You can view that photo interactively here. The jet on the right is also missing. The differences in photos underscores the fact that airports are hardly static places, and expansions, improvements, and construction is the modus operandi at most airports today.
Here’s the view looking south.
Here is the interactive view
I wonder how the jet blast affects the high temperature recorded at the airport weather station on certain days when they take it out for a spin? I wonder how much the tarmac adds, or the trucking parking lot adds? Or is it all swamped by Rome’s UHI?
UPDATE: for those that might question whether jet exhaust could reach the weather stations, this instructional video from United Airlines done at the San Francisco airport in 1993 might be helpful in visualizing the problem. (h/t to “Just want truth”)
The TV show Mythbusters also recently did a similar demonstration.
So what are we really measuring at those weather stations at Rome’s airport?
The ENVIBASE project reports:
In the [Rome] urban area, five meteorological stations continuously collect climatic data, such as temperature, relative humidity, wind velocity and orientation, rainfall intensity, atmospheric pressure, etc., and organised them in a database form.
Such stations are:
* Urbe Airport;
* Ciampino Airport;
* Rome-Eur (operating for the last three years);
* Collegio Romano (located in the historic centre of Rome and collecting data since 1782);
* Monte Mario (for a limited period of forty years).
So what we have at Rome’s Ciampino airport is in fact a climate station. I’ll have more on this and other weather stations in Italy soon.
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Just to alert you, AW, to a rather snotty allusion to this fine site in a letter to the Telegraph. Scroll down to “Arctic ice thinning”.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/letters/5062807/Better-inspections-could-help-to-heal-our-hospitals.html
The AGW crowd always claims that their measurements and models “allow” for urban heat island effects. Any idea how they actually do that?
Fairly large disturbed area coming into view on Sol at a little past 10:00. Not a spot, it is a light area, maybe some sort of precursor.
Is there a global conspiracy to prove abnormally high temperatures for political purposes? Or is pure incompetence at work? Or is there a more innocent reason: most people and institutions did not take temperature seriously enough in the past to be rigorous about gathering data? Perhaps today “conspiracy” is using “innocence” and the “bare beginnings” of the science of temperature data recording and gathering. Looking forward to more posts like this Anthony, and your paper that will help to set the record straight — of course, with the cooperation of real scientists around the world.
OT, except for the issues of temperature and AGW. Are the ocean experts on WUWT going to post on a Mar. 19 Nature paper by Pollard and DeConto re modeled West Antarctic ice sheets’ coming and going around 1.07 million years ago due to “warm currents and Milankovitch cycles”. According to psyorg.com they use ANDRILL ice core data and, most importantly, the nearest grid point with which to check data. Comments included info that the scientists do not believe that AGW is proven; the abstract was written by a proponent but the research and paper are well done; the CO2 reference is only tagged on at the end so as not to upset the grant givers [and also the editors of Nature]. The CO2 point seems to be that whenever CO2 reached ~400 the ice sheets on the west began(?) melting.
This could be verified by comparing the data from this site, to other local, more rural sites.
That’s only a start. The rural sites are likely as bad as the US rural sites. Thus, while there may be a difference, there would be less difference measured than the actual difference.
Same deal when driving. Yes, the temperatures drop as you leave town — but those lower temps are still being measured while passing over a concrete heat sink.
I suspect the difference in temperature from town to rural is more at certain times of the day, but nonetheless is significant.
Yes, esp. as Tmax and Tmin are the measuring points. Nothing else “counts”. And that’s when the differences really show.
UNRELATED:
Antony, could you put up a quick survey to ask people tow questions;
1. Did you shut all your lights during Earth Hour?
2. Did people in your neighbourhood shut their lights of during Earth Hour?
“Dan (04:46:20) :
The AGW crowd always claims that their measurements and models “allow” for urban heat island effects. Any idea how they actually do that?”
Well, you see, they say this because they claim they know everything : they know what climate will be 50 to 100 years from now, they say they know manmade co2 is bringing disasters to the earth, they say if we don’t do something now there’s no hope, they say what what they know is beyond debate and anyone who says it isn’t is a denier who is like the people who think the earth is flat, etc, etc.
Right after they get done saying they know everything they say they need to do more study, because they don’t know everything, so they need more funding.
So…. does that answer your question? 😉
pyromancer76 (07:14:39) :
The reasons why this station was placed there is not necessarily the point, although it could be. What is the point is that there are many stations like it, contaminated by heat sources, and they have altered the temperature data.
Take them out and there is less warming in the data.
As a commercial pilot, perhaps I could add something. The heat behind a taxiing A320 or 737 is easily detectable at the distances involved. When an aircraft taxis into a stand opposite ours (a similar distance) you can feel the heat, which would equate (I suppose) to 50 – 60 oc. Damp surfaces dry out for a considerable distance behind the aircraft. An aircraft can often sit for 10 mins with the engines running, waiting for ATC clearance.
pyromancer76 (07:14:39) :
Did you know about this station in Arizona?
http://wanews.org/news/UHI_files/tucson_from_above.jpg
I’m still looking for the full story on this one.
.
>>The key temperature data is that a few feet above the runway
>>usually black tar.
I have often wondered this myself. The data we get is from a cool grassy site, and then we take off on a steaming black tarmac strip that is xx oc warmer.
Yes, there is a lot of fat in the calculation, but a lot of aircraft are more knackered than the data assumes, and we don’t get an engine failure every day. Now I am not saying that Western aircraft are as knackered as this ‘Vodka Burner’, but some get close. Imagine this dramatic take off with an added engine-failure to boot….
I have asked for data on the comparison, but the aviation industry does not like aircraft having to shed another 10 passengers. It generally works on the tombstone technology principle.
Not on this point, but today’s Sunday Telegraph has an article by Christopher Booker about the Work of Dr Mörner
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/5067351/Rise-of-sea-levels-is-the-greatest-lie-ever-told.html
The warmist crowd has always claimed global warming was man-made. Here’s proof positive.
OT about the oceans. I hope people will read a post by Procrustes, “Obama, the South China Sea, and LOST” on the therealbarackobama.wordpress.com.
Like the — probably global — problem of getting accurate temperature data for actual scientific study, real scientific access to the oceans could be in doubt if the UN becomes the governing body over all the oceans and seas.
Two comments.
I went to the Australian government Department of Climate Change website and found the graphs that go only to 2005. I sent a politely-worded note asking when the graphs will be updated in view of the fact that we are near the end of the third month of 2009.
And regarding the letter regarding ice thickness, I noted that the writer is at London School of Economics. I have noted that a number of economicsts stick their noses into climate matters, like Lord Stern. Why do they think that they know much about climate? I believe that most or all take IPCC pronouncements as gospel instead of investigating the background for themselves.
I once sent a polite note regarding climate to an AGW-backing economics prof at our local university and received back a terse message that he did not want to hear from me again. It must be nice to be so sure of oneself!
Ian
REPLY: Perhaps you should stop being polite. Greens aren’t known for this, and they seem to get the results the want. – Anthony
This is odd, the GCHN and GISS station list has the Ciampino station at co-ordinates 41.78,12.58 [decimal], which is actually on a golf course to the SW of the airport according to Google Earth. But slipups happen, so even assuming the station pictured is the GCHN Ciampino station [No 62316239000] the GHCN only uses data from 1961-1970. GISTEMP shows a negative trend over this short period.
So it seems the impact of the modern airport development at Ciampino upon the GCHN and GISTEMP networks and hence the estimation of the trend in global mean temp is likely negligible, and in the same context, the photo is of academic interest only.
REPLY: Certainly that can be one conclusion. But as Steve McIntyre has pointed out, GHCN and GISS seem to have lost track of stations that are still operating today and whose data we can find live posted on the Internet. This may be one of those. I won’t know until I investigate further. That being said, the placement is atrocious, and any researcher using the data from this station would not know of the site problems from the metadata posted on this site unless they did an investigation similar to Paolo’s.
The problem is that climate researchers generally don’t do this level of investigation, choosing to accept the data on face value. Hansen doesn’t do this, Karl doesn’t do this, and Phil Jones of Hadley is just now coming around to distance himself from the flawed Chinese data, though for the wrong reasons.
– Anthony
dearieme (04:23:46) :
Just to alert you, AW, to a rather snotty allusion to this fine site in a letter to the Telegraph. Scroll down to “Arctic ice thinning”.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/letters/5062807/Better-inspections-could-help-to-heal-our-hospitals.html
Here is the author of said snotty piece:
Policy and Communications Director
Bob Ward joined the Grantham Research Institute in November 2008 from Risk Management Solutions, where he was Director of Public Policy. He worked at the Royal Society, the UK national academy of science, for eight years until October 2006, where his responsibilities included leading the media relations team. He has also worked as a freelance science writer and journalist. Bob has a first degree in geology and an unfinished PhD thesis on palaeopiezometry. He is a member of the executive committees of the Association of British Science Writers and the World Conference of Science Journalists 2009, and is a member of the board of the UK’s Science Media Centre.
Contact details: Room F5.20 New Academic Building
Tel: 020 7106 1236 Fax: 020 7106 1241
email: r.e.ward@lse.ac.uk
Grantham Research Institute of the London School of Economics and Political Science – Chaired by:
Chair of the Institute
Professor Lord Nicholas Stern, IG Patel Professor of Economics and Government.
Professor Stern is the first holder of the IG Patel Chair and also directs the Asia Research Centre and the India Observatory. He was Chief Economist of the World Bank (2000-2003), then Head of the UK Government Economic Service and led a Review of the Economics of Climate Change which was published in October 2006.
Contact details: email: n.stern@lse.ac.uk (Personal Assistant: k.quirk@lse.ac.uk ). Tel: +44 (0) 20 7955 7871
Perhaps they would care to receive emails`
REPLY: Not worth worrying about. – Anthony
dearieme (04:23:46) :
Just to alert you, AW, to a rather snotty allusion to this fine site in a letter to the Telegraph. Scroll down to “Arctic ice thinning”.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/letters/5062807/Better-inspections-could-help-to-heal-our-hospitals.html
Here is the author of said snotty piece:
Policy and Communications Director
Bob Ward joined the Grantham Research Institute in November 2008 from Risk Management Solutions, where he was Director of Public Policy. He worked at the Royal Society, the UK national academy of science, for eight years until October 2006, where his responsibilities included leading the media relations team. He has also worked as a freelance science writer and journalist. Bob has a first degree in geology and an unfinished PhD thesis on palaeopiezometry. He is a member of the executive committees of the Association of British Science Writers and the World Conference of Science Journalists 2009, and is a member of the board of the UK’s Science Media Centre.
Contact details: Room F5.20 New Academic Building
Tel: 020 7106 1236 Fax: 020 7106 1241
email: r.e.ward@lse.ac.uk
Bob Ward’s qualifications have a certain “Peter Sellers’ character” ring of quality about them, don’t you think? I am almost certainly misquoting: ” PhD, University of Bombay, Failed.”
Grantham Research Institute of the London School of Economics and Political Science – Chaired by:
Chair of the Institute
Professor Lord Nicholas Stern, IG Patel Professor of Economics and Government.
Professor Stern is the first holder of the IG Patel Chair and also directs the Asia Research Centre and the India Observatory. He was Chief Economist of the World Bank (2000-2003), then Head of the UK Government Economic Service and led a Review of the Economics of Climate Change which was published in October 2006.
Contact details: email: n.stern@lse.ac.uk (Personal Assistant: k.quirk@lse.ac.uk ). Tel: +44 (0) 20 7955 7871
Perhaps they both would care to receive encouraging emails from those who frequent this site.
Unbelievable.
What “intellectual” would put a station right behind parked airplanes?
Thank you Anthony for posting about Roma/Ciampino and more others later.
Ciampino is a weather station whose daily data are included in the ECA&D dataset and freely available:
http://eca.knmi.nl./
No doubt that the station above is Roma/Ciampino whose WMO codex is 16139.
The GHCN co-ordinates must be wrong.
Moreover, ECA&D has daily data till 2005 and I have got data till yesterday.
You can find real time daily data at the site of the Italian Air Force Met. Service.
For example, right now, at 20:00 UTC you can read Roma/Ciampino temperature extremes taken yesterday at this link:
http://www.meteoam.it/modules/tempoInAtto/infoStazione.php?icao=LIRA
Tmin was 8.4° at 01:50 and Tmax was 18.8° at 14:20.
These data are published every day at 09:00 UTC.
That page reports also today’s daytime high (published at 18:00) and nighttime low (at 06:00), that are different with respct to daily extremes.
Today’s low was 13.4°; the high was 20.0°, thanks to scirocco weather.
Before taking any climate information out from a weather station, there is no other way (at least a seriuos way) that doing that kind of work that Anthony started for the US.
Of great importance, of course, it would be also to know the station history.
Ciampino, for example, had for sure a lot of air traffic increment when was opened to civil air traffic and wide plane parking lot had to have been added.
Survey like this allows to discriminate bad or dubious stations from better ones.
I’m quite sure that when the station was put there, it was under WMO requirements.
Then times go and today you add a truck parking lot, tomorrow a taxiway and the day after a plane parking area and so on.
When a whole air field is compromised, often also by city espansion, I think nothing remains to do.
It doesn’t affect the main thrust of this article (pun intended) but I note that the truck being blown into the water by jet exhaust appears to lack an engine! Without that modification, it might have stayed on the ground…
I’d be sure to see a doctor about that if I were you.
That is a “Club of Rome” station!!
“Che bella cosa e na giornatta di sole!”
If you look at the link provided by Philip_B and at the Colour map of Australia,it seems that any warming trend in South Eastern Australia is either +0.5c or -0.5c over 100years, just where most of Australia’s population lives and where most of the sensors are. The ‘hot-spot’ in the centre may have been picked by one sensor!
This tiny SE change surely must be within measurement error.