I know many of you have wondered when I would post an update about the www.surfacestations.org project. That wait is over.
You can now download the PDF of the publication reporting on what the project has found with 70% of the network surveyed, See the link at the end of the article.
I’ve been exceptionally busy in the past few months. Since November 08, I’ve made 4 trips in the US to get more stations surveyed in areas that were lacking, and these trips have been funded entirely by donations from individuals.
Evan Jones and I have been actively working on logging new aerial surveys. Plus there has been a lot of review and quality control taking place to make sure that surveys and ratings are correct. Google imagery has now improved in many places, and it is now fairly easy to spot some stations from the air. To make certain that we’ve actually got the right station location, telephone calls are made to the curator and descriptions and measurements compared to the aerial photos. I also have 4 digital cameras that have been sent to station curators for them to “self survey” with and mail the cameras back.
With additional aerial surveys done plus a few new hands-on surveys that have now come in, we are now at about 79% of the USHCN network surveyed. The sample is large and representative, with good spatial distribution and broad coverage.
The figures below from my Spring 2009 report represent coverage @ 70% of the network surveyed.
See the PDF report below for references on how the surveys were done and how the site rating system was arrived at, based on original work at the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) new Climate Reference Network.
For those WUWT readers that want to survey stations, there is still time to do so before my final report is issued in late summer/fall 2009.
My advice is to visit the Surfacestations Gallery and see what stations remain in your state, or states you may be traveling through.
I realize that we’ll never get 100% of the network surveyed, as over 30 stations have been closed, and some are inaccessible, but with a sample size exceeding 80% and broad spatial distribution as shown above I am confident that we’ll have the character of the network quantified and representative. Sure, there will be critics, but with an 80% or more sample size it will be an uphill battle to criticize the sample. Thousands of peer reviewed papers have been written with much smaller sample sizes. I prefer a “brute force” approach to getting the maximum sample possible compared to statistical extrapolation of a small sample.
The push has been on to get as many surveys done as possible, so I haven’t had a lot of time to update web pages and the like. WUWT itself has been becoming a black hole of time, sucking up more time than I care to admit. My email load has become huge also. Just a note to everyone who has emailed me. I read everything, but I can’t always respond, especially when I’m asked to do additional research to answer questions.
I’m also a bit under the gun as like many of you, my business has taken a financial hit due to the economy, and I’m short a person who is out for extended medical leave. So I’ve been doing 4 jobs instead of my usual 2 or three 😉 Even so, progress is being made.
Finally, I want to take a moment to thank Evan Jones, a frequent WUWT commenter and sometimes contributor. Evan has been working tirelessly to help me with this project, and now like many of you, is unemployed thanks to our current economic situation. Even through this, he has worked very hard to help me on all levels, doing everything from hands-on surveys himself, to QC checks, to aerial surveys, to data analysis.
Without Evan, this project would be a lot further behind. Please give him your thanks. He is truly a “screeching mercury monkey, first grade“. Evan, download your patch and wear it proudly.
Sadly, the alternate weekly that coined the phrase is now out of business.
Since Evan suffered the same fate as the alternate weekly editor (unemployed) and still doing a yeoman’s work for this effort, I have an offer for interested readers to help him out.
I have 25 professionally glossy color printed and bound copies of the report which I’ll provide signed, postpaid via US mail, to anyone who wants a copy that donates $30 or more. Just use the PayPal button at right, and I’ll make sure he gets it. (NOTE: SOLD OUT BACK IN STOCK Thanks to everyone who helped!)
For those that just want to read the report, please feel free to download and read the free copy here (PDF, 4 MB).
I also offer my sincere thanks to everyone who has helped make this project go from an idea to now near completion. The data analysis report will determine once and for all if station siting matters or not.
– Anthony
Great work you guys! Citizen bloggers, like you, are the ones who actually speak “truth to power.”
It’s absolutely amazing to me that public policy that could cost trillions of dollars and change our society forever is (at least partially) based on data collected in such a haphazard, sloppy manner. It’s frightening. Also with the addition of “adjustments” by NASA, et al.. it’s even worse. I hope that your fine work somehow finds its way to the public, outside of the internet.
Congratulations on your fine work. Just donated $30 as requested – if possible, would appreciate a copy of the report.
Hi Anthony,
Congratulations !…
I just made a donation. I would really appreciate to get the book. However, I understand that the mailing to France may not be included in the “price”. In this case, the book could be sent to my son who lives in USA. Now that I have american grand-sons, I am there several times a year !…
Please let me know by e-mail so that I send you the address.
I can’t wait to see the details of the analysis !… Thanks very much in any case.
Anthony…quick question. How important is it for you to document ASOS stations, if at all?
Global Warming Humor
It’s rather like that other item floating around, that shows that the declining content of women’s underwear is causing global warming–strictly intended as humor. Members of the global warming cult are wrong (or at least, not clearly correct), but at least the real scientists do actually use multivariate correlation analysis–not stupid bivariate correlations.
http://www.claytoncramer.com/weblog/blogger.html
Hi Anthony,
This is a second trial, the first proved unsuccessful, maybe an error on my side.
I just made a 30 $ donation as required and would really like to have the book. Now, my address is in France and I understand that this may be a problem for delivering.
If the French address is a problem, the book could also be sent to my son who lives in USA. Please let me know by mail so that I send you the address.
In any case, congratulations and many thanks for this piece of work!…
[Reply: Your previous post didn’t vanish into the intertubes cloud, I left it unapproved so Anthony would be sure to see it. ~dbstealey, moderator]
Has anyone mentioned that Glen Beck mentioned this blog the other day on his radio program?
Anthony,
Your website and efforts on this issue are the best. I look forward to reading WUWT every day. I certainly visit the websites on the “other side” (Realclimate, etc.) to make sure I’m considering both view points, but yours is the best. I just donated $50. Keep up the good work.
I have been making the claim to many AGWers that the UHI has been the largest contributor to the increases in the temperature date base over the past 50-100 years or so. Warming from the UHI is the cause of high minimum’s, not CO2! Yet higher minimums are being claimed by AGWers as proof of AGW. While I don’t doubt that “human released” CO2 may be causing a very slight increase in global temperature, it is trivial compared to the “dirty” land based temperature records.
Thanks,
K-Bob
The Third International Conference on Climate Change will take place in Washington, DC on Tuesday, June 2, at the Washington Court Hotel, 525 New Jersey Avenue NW, Washington, DC.
http://www.heartland.org/events/WashingtonDC09/index.html
Speakers
last updated: May 7, 2009
Nearly two dozen speakers will make keynote presentations or participate in panel discussions at the Third International Conference on Climate Change. The following speakers have been confirmed:
JOSEPH BAST
President
The Heartland Institute
ROBERT (BOB) M. CARTER, HON. FRSNZ
Research Professor
James Cook University
(Queensland, Australia)
CRAIG D. IDSO, PH.D.
Chairman
Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change
JEFF KUETER
President
The George C. Marshall Institute
BEN LIEBERMAN, J.D.
Senior Policy Analyst
The Heritage Foundation
RICHARD S. LINDZEN, PH.D.
Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
PATRICK MICHAELS, PH.D.
Senior Fellow in Environmental Studies
Cato Institute
LORD CHRISTOPHER MONCKTON
Third Viscount Monckton of Brenchley
Chief Policy Advisor, Science and Public Policy Institute
DANA ROHRABACHER
U.S. Republican Congressman from California
HON. HARRISON SCHMITT, PH.D.
Former U.S. Senator and NASA Astronaut
Chairman, NASA Advisory Council
Adjunct Professor of Engineering Physics, University of Wisconsin – Madison
S. FRED SINGER, PH.D.
President
Science and Environmental Policy Project
WILLIE SOON, PH.D.
Chief Science Advisor, Science and Public Policy Institute
Astrophysicist, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
ROY W. SPENCER, PH.D.
Principal Research Scientist
University of Alabama in Huntsville
JAMES M. TAYLOR, J.D.
Managing Editor, Environment & Climate News
Senior Fellow, The Heartland Institute
JOHN S. THEON, PH.D.
Former Program Administrator, NASA
Former Senior Scientist, NASA’s Mission to Planet Earth Office
DAVID G. TUERCK, PH.D.
Executive Director
Beacon Hill Institute
ANTHONY WATTS
Climatologist
Author: “Is the U.S. Surface Temperature Record Reliable?”
Congratulations Anthony, Evan and all associated with this project. I was sorry to hear about Evan’s misfortune and hope that things turn around quickly for him. Anyway, my contribution is on its way. Please don’t send a report to NZ, but a Screaming Monkey print signed by you both would be something to treasure. Only if you have time, and thanks again for the huge contribution that you are making. Your site is a daily absolute must read – sometimes more!
At the top of page 2 of the report, appears contact information for the Heartland Institute. Does this mean you are affiliated with the Heartland Institute? Or receive financial support from this organization? Given that you are releasing the report electronically, why did you chose the Heartland Institute to publish it?
I’m loathe to criticize Anthony or the surfacestations website, but I think it lacks an easily accessible working list of of stations organized by state that have not been surveyed. I may be wrong and may not know how to navigate the site properly, but I think a clear link to such a list would be helpful. I know people in several states that I could call, who might be interested in helping out surveying these sites.
I volunteered myself to survey a couple of remote stations in southern California last year for Anthony, but it turned out that someone had already committed to do the work. I’d like to help in other ways by finding people who could do the work in Texas, Colorado and points back east, but I’ve been unable to figure out which sites I could match with people I know in these regions.
Because Anthony is such a busy man whose work is having a noticeable impact, perhaps there is someone else with programming/website skills who could produce such a link.
Anyone who is not shocked at the state of the USHCN, as demonstrated in Anthony’s report, should see a physician immediately to check whether they still have a pulse.
Beyond the satellite record, I question whether we know anything at all that is scientifically useful about the climate of the 20th Century.
gdfernan (13:46:16) :
On Surfacestations.org, if a station does not have any pictures linked, does it mean that it is not surveyed? I looked at Stillwater NY, which is close to me and it does not have any photos. If it is not surveyed, I can do so. . . .
Yep, no pix pretty much means no survey. Get signed up, read the how-to’s, go take some photos, then upload them. You’ll be doing more for the environment than a hundred Al Gores.
“The following speakers have been confirmed:”
All Star Lineup.
A hearty thank you to you Anthony and Evan Jones. The work you have done i outstanding. Sure, computation and such still needs to be done, but your work is extremely important to putting the facts to the biggest lie of the the last century. How do I donate and receive the report? I want to give the report to our local library.
Has anybody crunched the numbers and calculated the trends for the CRN1-2 stations versus the complete network? Sorry if this has been asked already…
If Anthony’s report were to be sent to your US politicians, there should also be some explanation of the demise of the world-wide temperature monitoring sites (particularly cold, northern Europe) as the AGW hypothesis is based on world-wide average temperature, not just the US.
The loss of many of the colder measurement sites
(shown by Joseph D’Aleo at penoflight.com/climatebuzz/Docs/DAleo-DC_Brief.pdf), particularly the “Station Dropout & Global Temps” graph on page 12, shows the sad state of the entire land-based measurement system.
Only having the US represented in Anthony’s report may leave a loophole for the ‘warmists’ to crawl through as they may obfuscate with reference to world temps, not just the US.
Thanks, Anthony, and thanks to you all. I was deep into data analysis and I only just found this post, to my huge surprise. It has been an honor and a privilege to work on this project. I shall wear the patch with great pride. I am extremely grateful; you are a wonderful bunch of people.
To those who say “just average the CRN1 and 2 stations”, I have to tell them it is not as easy as that.
A disproportional bulk of the CRN2 stations are located in the west, which (unlike the Southeast and the Mississippi Valley) has seen a lot of perfectly natural warming over the last century.
Site moves/degradation and longterm, constant microsite issues are definitely two different phenomena. And it may prove impossible to separate the two causes thanks to the abominable NOAA location records. There are some indignant observers at Blue Hill, MA, around now, checking out why NCDC has two major station moves indicated for their unmoved 125-year old site (they have a magnificent old Hazen station and a whole lot more).
This just scratches the surface, and these are the sort of issues involved in the analysis.
Without going into any more detail (and there is a lot more detail I could go into), you can expect that Anthony’s final report will address the many issues mentioned by the posters above and much more besides.
Very many congratulations to you–the service you are doing is invaluable, because you are preventing people from manufacturing truth. I hope that you feel good about yourself!
From the chilly plains of southern Alberta, a hearty THANK YOU! Well done.
Maybe (we pray) this will indeed get the attention of the MSM! You will be sending an autographed copy to Barrack one assumes. ☺
I’ve seen many wx stns here in Alberta and they “seem” to be well sited. I worked at a research center and ours met all requirements. However, the mean annual temp where I live has dropped for over twenty years…and this “spring” (oh Lord I am funny…spring ?? what spring ?? ) should haul that line down once again.
Thank you!!
Clive
What a monumental achievement… Bravo!!
BBC (off-topic)
Last night, saw an excellent BBC programme about the beauty and marvels of South Pacific Islands (BBC2, 9th May, 20:30 hrs, South Pacific), and I didn’t hear a single reference to global warming and rising sea level threats. Surely, a recent record for the BBC!
Just read the report, great work Anthony et al. As Ron suggests, everyone should email a copy to their their congress / senate representatives. The relatively simple to understand science of poor station siting and UHI may just be the tipping point which brings some common sense back to the decison makers, on the subject of AGW at least. Have you issued any press releases for the media yet, or have some planned?
The Prius in Fig. 16 on pg. 11 gave me a chuckle. Outstanding work. Thanks.