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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J Campbell (04:17:08) :
Usual suspects for takeoff problems are:
1. Improper loading – Total not CG position
2.Density altitude with temp being important 5C has given me a tight feeling in the rear
3. Donk problems
Disagreeable me, sorry.
1. CG (center of gravity) position is definitely a problem. All freight containers are weighed and known, but containers may still be loaded aboard in an incorrect order, and as I said, that makes the aircraft handle in unexpected ways, resulting in over-rotation and tailstrikes. An overweight takeoff will require more rotation, but at a normal rate and that shouldn’t get a tailstrike.
2. Airlines have temperature/pressure/gross weight takeoff charts computed for every runway they use at an airport; it’s all part of their certification for operations at an airport. Aside from the go/no-go aspect, pilots use the charts for reduced power takeoffs whenever they can, which is easier on the engines. Throttles are set for the highest temperature on a runway chart that allows safe takeoff, which produces more power than you actually need but less power than you actually have available. This leaves a good reserve of power in case of difficulty. The actual density altitude doesn’t enter in for reduced power, and for full power takeoffs, the pilots use their own ambient temperature gauge.
3. Not a clue what a donk is.
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ralph ellis (07:58:08) :
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.
That would be a bit over my 20 C above ambient estimate, assuming you mean actual temp and not 50 C above ambient. I don’t have my charts handy, but really hot temps as far aft as the Ciampino Stevenson screens are, would take higher power and damaging wind speeds.
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I guess I’ll hit the ‘Submit’ button, then check for typos.
Aircraft aside, what is the effect on the weather station of a 30,000 square metre x 4 metre thick slab of concrete on one side and a 50,000 square metre carpark on the other?
Good film clip. Yes it is true as I have seen it happen, with someone driving the vehicle as well. A good reason to use satellites to measure global surface temperatures.
My boyfriend was topside on the USS Constellation during Vietnam. A jet took off and blew debri someone had left on the deck into the side of his head, knocked him out, and broke his jaw. No cuts, just a bruise, and he didn’t know his jaw was broken (or his head banged around) till he got back from a night’s leave looking very sick. He ended up in the ship’s infirmary for 90 days. Afterwards he had developed left over traumatic brain injury changes in his thinking and emotional state, eventually leading to his decision to leave the military just short of 6 years. That truck is visible. A small wrench or rock can kill you just as surely. Now you know why swabbing the deck is probably one of the most important jobs on a carrier.
Oh no! This revelation might cause Italy to form a new government!
Could Paolo have meant WHO ID # 16239, not 16139? I find the former, but not the latter, in the WMO flatfile, NCDC station locate, and ECA&D list.
Michael Whelan (23:13:29) :
The Hugo-winning artist ?
Aircraft aside, what is the effect on the weather station of a 30,000 square metre x 4 metre thick slab of concrete on one side and a 50,000 square metre carpark on the other?
Concrete on the ramps and taxiways generally runs 2-3 ft ( <1 meter) thick on a base of crushed rock. I have heard of 4 meter thickness in the touchdown zones of some runways. Gonna be warming, though, holding heat into the night.
J Campbell (21:20:48) Not ‘wrong’ temperature data – cold temperature data. In general an incorrect reading saying that it is warmer than it actually is will not cause any problem in aviation excepting perhaps icing or something associated to freezing. Example, if you think its 10 degrees warmer than it really is then your TO distance will be shorter than you thought it would be, your load capacity will be greater, your engine performance better, etc.
No oil for pacifists:
sorry, I ment 16239.
WMO codex for Italy start from 160xx from the far North to 16490 for the southern island of Lampedusa. Sardinia has 165xx.