I was surprised to learn today, that one of the most prominent newspapers in the USA, the Orange County Register in the Los Angeles area, carried an editorial of which my work was the subject. It is quite a turnaround from the brush off I got last year by their Science Dude blogger who wrote a story on the warming of Santa Ana, CA.
By the way here is what the official NOAA weather station for Santa Ana looks like, note the a/c heat exchanger exhausts:
Santa Ana Station looking North. Click for a larger image
The editorial about my work was published in the OC Register on Monday, June 1st. I’ve reposted it below.
Editorial: Cooling down with global-warming data
U.S. and world temperature records are compromised by monitoring station errors.
If fighting global warming may cost the economy $9.6 trillion and more than 1 million lost jobs by 2035, as the Heritage Foundation forecasts, it’d be a good idea to be sure there’s a sound basis before making such a massive sacrifice.
We’ve noted before that climate change is occurring as it always has, but the claim that man-made greenhouse gases will cause catastrophic temperature increases is based on questionable science and projections. Man’s contribution to greenhouse gases is minuscule. There are some theories but no convincing proof that increased emissions cause increased temperature.
Now another serious doubt has been raised concerning how much of the 1-degree centigrade increase over the past century allegedly caused by escalating emissions has even occurred.
“We can’t know for sure if global warming is a problem if we can’t trust the data,” said Anthony Watts, veteran broadcast meteorologist, who for three years organized an extensive review of official ground temperature monitoring stations, in conjunction with Dr. Roger Pielke Sr., senior research scientist at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences and professor emeritus of the Department of Atmospheric Science at the University of Colorado.
The study, recently published by the free-market Heartland Institute, inspected 860 of the 1,221 U.S. ground stations that gauge temperature changes. The findings were alarming.
They found 89 percent of stations “fail to meet the National Weather Service’s own siting requirements” that say stations must be located at least 100 feet from artificial heat sources.
“We found stations located next to the exhaust fans of air conditioning units, surrounded by asphalt parking lots and roads, on blistering hot rooftops and near sidewalks and buildings that absorb and radiate heat,” Mr. Watts reported.
Many stations also had added more sensitive measuring devices, heat-generating radio transmission devices and even latex paint to replace original whitewash, resulting in greater heat retention and reflection.
At one location, Mr. Watts said when he “stood next to the temperature sensor, I could feel warm exhaust air from the nearby cell phone tower equipment sheds blowing past me! I realized this official thermometer was recording the temperature of a hot zone . . . and other biasing influences including buildings, air conditioner vents and masonry.”
These influences produce readings higher than actual ambient temperatures, Mr. Watts said. Moreover, the research revealed “major gaps in the data record that were filled in with data from nearby sites, a practice that propagates and compounds errors.”
These inflated, error-prone, tinkered-with temperature recordings are one of several measurements cited by the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as evidence man-made global warming is a threat. But the Heartland study concluded, “The U.S. temperature record is unreliable. And since the U.S. record is thought to be ‘the best in the world,’ it follows that the global database is likely similarly compromised and unreliable.”
Before devastating the economy to fix a problem that may not exist, we ought to get the numbers right.
Congrats, Anthony! Always good to get the word out!
Yes, good to see that all of that hard work is starting to be appreciated.
“Before devastating the economy to fix a problem that may not exist, we ought to get the numbers right.”…. Wonderful how the thought of approaching tax hikes clarifies the mind.
Well done. Perhaps the tide is turning.
Congratulations, Anthony! Thank you for your efforts in bringing the problem of heat bias to the forefront. I hope more media outlets bring your important work to the attention of the public and policy makers.
I would like to add my congratulations and my continuing appreciation for this site and all the work you’ve done, and the honesty and principle with which you handled yourself and matters here. Unfortunately, given some of the craziness chronicled over at Climate Depot, I have to add my hope that revenues generated by the Google ads provides enough additional income to pay for a bodyguard. It would appear that incessant repetition of AGW propaganda is finally succeeding in driving people insane. Dissent from AGW orthodoxy has apparently now become a capital crime to some of it’s more enthusiastic supporters. God help us.
wow, hittin the big time! Well-deserved, indeed, Anthony.
OT, sorry, but after our dust-up/brawl at Climate Progress, I’d feel remiss if I didn’t mention this.
WUWTers were locked out of the thread at the end. Dohgaza (who stops in here, I believe) takes 9 of the last 11 comments. It’s quite bizarre. Like he’s doing the Ali shuffle and knocking down our phantom comments as if they were inflatable pop-ups or something. I don’t know what his relationship to proprietor Joe Romm is, but it was like he was the designated clean-up guy. Really spooky.
I doubt if Anthony will accept Gail’s invitation to her Climate Progress picnic, but if he does he should make sure he’s not on the menu:
“Anthony, do you believe in the death penalty?
I don’t, for many reasons (unfairly applied, mistakes can be made).
But if I did, (do you?) should it be applicable to people who deliberately, mendaciously, foster disastrous climate change by their denialist rhetoric that adds to the political logjam to address it?
I don’t know! But I do, have plenty of space for the ClimateProgressPicnic!”
This is the bookend to the comment early in the thread saying future generations would ” strangle (deniers) in their beds”.
Don’t mean this to distract from Anthony’s moment of well-deserved honor/glory, and sorry Anthony you probably didn’t want to see her quote ever again, but there is something really creepy in the air. NBC’s Tonight, Brian Williams did this gushing like 2-hour White House special where he sounded like a lovelorn schoolgirl. Even Jon Stewart was laughing at it.
Am I crazy, or are we heading towards a very bad place? Please tell me I’m crazy.
REPLY: Unfortunately, you are quite sane. – Anthony
Will the Guardian ever do a write up on monitoring stations?
Congratulations Anthony. The word is getting out.
We’re living in bad times, but it’s nice to know that there are so many good people here to help sort things out.
Thanks,
Mike
The wind is starting to turn around and people are waking up to reality. Now, if they could only connect the dots and realise how Al Gore is the master of the Big Lie, that will be a major achievement, but your achievement Anthony, is a major one.
Not related but, the blip on the AMSR-E Sea Ice Extent happened again a few days ago (as it has every year at the same date), is there any meaning to this?
REPLY: it is a seasonal data adjustment to account for meltwater which appears on the surface of the ice about this time, causing an offset to make it look like there is more open water than there actually is. – Anthony
Let’s hope more newspapers pick up on the OC Register’s op ed piece. The tide could be turning at last!!
So here it is.
This is today’s Left meets the Chicago Way (see Rahm Emanuel).
Intimidation is the name of the game. I’ll bet dollars to donuts this is not a an isolated coincidence.
From now until the Climate Bill comes to a vote, this is going to be the order of the day. (No one will be happier than me if I’m wrong.)
No reflection on you, Anthony, but if I were you I’d double- and triple-check to make sure all my tax returns are squeaky-clean.
(OK, Neill, take off the tin-foil hat…………..slowly.)
Great work, Anthony. The fact that they noticed your work and made an editorial out of it already indicates that mainstream media is slowly “waking up”.
Anthony, please receive incessant loud cheers from the opposite shore of the giant basin!
Great work.
Well done Anthony.
More power to you.
P
“…U.S. record is thought to be ‘the best in the world,”
A little bit of nationalism there?
Living in Germany (I am myself a U.S. citizen) and having looked at a couple of stations here myself, I can say firsthand the German stations are nowhere near as badly sited or maintained as the ones Anthony has exposed in the US.
In general, the Germans are real sticklers when it comes to precision, technical excellence and fulfilling norms and standards. I’m sure the same goes for other European countries like Sweden, Austria, Switzerland, etc. If they measure something, you can rely on their numbers. Clearly Anthony has proven that the US system is an utter atrocity
that has only accomplished two things: diminish US scientific integrity and waste billions of taxpayer dollars.
But the underlying point made in this thread is an accurate one. Surface stations are not accurate and their data simply cannot be used to make decisions. We definitely need to get the numbers straight. We have to rely more on the satellite data.
This article is priceless, what an achievement!! Congrats!!
I will see if i can spread it around.
Cheers 🙂
Keith Minto,
LOL! It was Churchill who said:
“Nothing focusses the mind like being shot at”.
Another, small, crack in the “concensus”.
I know not what size the “OCR” is, but I’d guess it’s a local/regional paper, unlikely to be staple reading at the breakfast tables of Washington or New York.
Doubtless the nationals still get the articles about Global Warming threatening pets, being caused by fat people, can be ameleorated by drinking less beer & not eating lamb. (Just picking what appear to be the most ludicrous “results”!)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/
OT: “Climate Bill Would Help Reduce U.S. Deficit, Federal Budget Office Says
“June 6 (Bloomberg) — U.S. climate legislation approved by a House committee would raise more revenue than it would cost in federal spending through 2019, the Congressional Budget Office said in a report yesterday.
“The budget estimate says the legislation, to cap greenhouse-gas emissions and create a system to trade pollution permits, would raise $845.6 billion, while adding $821.2 billion to federal spending, a $24.4 billion net gain.
“President Barack Obama, during a visit to Germany yesterday, expressed optimism about the legislation, saying the process “is moving forward” in ways that “would have seemed impossible two or three months ago.”
“The $24 billion in surplus over the next decade is far less than the $60 billion a year Obama once said would be available through the system to distribute to consumers through a tax credit to offset any higher energy costs. Republicans who oppose the measure may seize on the costs to consumers to rally opposition while the measure is being considered by several congressional panels.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=abxc2V1SE39U
Totally off topic but this item from the site of the German Embassy in London might provide some amusement:
Obama’s popularity in Germany
5 June 2009
A German production company has announced plans to stage an Obama musical. The announcement followed on the heels of a German toy manufacturer’s decision to market Bo, the Obamas’ pet dog, as a stuffed toy.
I notice some readers here are awfully and rightfully wary about the designs of the new Administration.
You’re being told stories about the horrors of socialism, government regulation and so on. Socialism has always been something Americans have rejected, and now it seems the socialists have found the ideal instrument (manmade climate catastrophe) to fool the people into accepting it.
Germany here is a socialist country, taxes are high and there’s a lot of regulation. Yet, I’m still living here and don’t plan on moving back to the US anytime soon. So “socialism” can’t be that bad, right?
The question you have to ask yourselves is:
Is the “socialism” now being proposed in the US designed to provide citizens, fairly, with more services and security, or is it designed to reward or punish people depending on how they behave?
If you answer the latter, then you’ve got lots to worry about. It would mean you have a government that is intolerant and authoritarian.
Wu..wu..wu..wu Anthony.
(doing the victory dance)
Just wish I could believe it would penetrate more than a few thick heads on capitol hill.
Death threats from climate extremists are nothing new. Tim Ball had some a few years ago.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1545134/Scientists-threatened-for-climate-denial.html
“I can tolerate being called a sceptic because all scientists should be sceptics, but then they started calling us deniers, with all the connotations of the Holocaust. That is an obscenity. It has got really nasty and personal.”
Joe Romm allows such threats to be propogated through his blog, and blocks the right of reply to those who disagree.
The Greenshirts are on the march.
Fascists on the attack, no bother worry ’bout that
Fascists on the attack, we will fight them back
-Linden Kwesi Johnson-
On the subject of measuring temps,
What is the source of data for this map?
http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst_anom.html
and for this one?
http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/PSB/EPS/SST/climo&hot.html
Which is better?
Unisys seems to be updated every day, with exact numerical readings given at different locations on the map. Which one should I believe?
Climate reality, so long out of fashion, appears to be making a comeback. Well done, Mr. Watts for finally getting the message across that the US temperature record is wrong (and probably everyone else’s too). Let’s hope that common sense prevails.
For sure the tide is turning. At last, Anthony, all of your excellent work is starting to be realised.
I predict now that it will get very messy and bitter on the AGW side and that lots of metaphorical rats will start deserting that metaphorical ship in droves pretty soon.
The Met Office here in the UK is predicting “a barbeque summer”, the pictures of which appear in this article:-
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1191089/Its-June–snowing-From-sweltering-shivering-just-week-happen-great-British-summer.html
Makes me wonder about how ‘good’ our weather monitoring stations are. I’d be more than willing to survey any UK weather station in Southern England but, apart from stations based inside airport perimeters, I can’t find out where they are.
[“Before devastating the economy to fix a problem that may not exist, we ought to get the numbers right.”]
Yep. It would be a good idea.
It’s nice to see some of the main stream media echoing these sentiments now.
About time.
Congratulations on the extra exposure Anthony.
But wait, more congratulations are due. I just had to go look at dhogaza’s blog. It looks as though the Acolytes have made you the new “anti science” (or is that anti Christ – I get confused).
Congrat’s Anthony, I hope things will turn around for our country. I have been checkig out Utube and there is a lot of AGW mockery going on everything from cartoons to music videos and comedians. Maybe this will be used in those efforts as well. There are a lot people really concerned with this, but it is not reaching the ears of our Great Nation’s leaders. Any Congrats again on this very celebratory day. I am siging off now to install my new HD4890 Video graphics card, so excited it is very top notch at a reasonable price. I only regret that I purchased it in a Japanese DIY computer store, not an store in the USA. I had to do it though, for I am stationed overseas in Okinawa Japan. May God bless and keep you.
The tide is turning. There is no global warming when the globe is in fact cooling. What you have acheived, Anthony, is to put fresh wind in the voices of the millions who are questioning the Agenda of AGW.
tallbloke (02:13:27) :
They may control much of the media, they may control the politics (for now) and they may control the canvas, but they do not control the climate.
It hates them.
Your station survey deserves far more accolades than this–still, positive press form the People’s Republic of California is most impressive. Congratulations.
Re:
“The budget estimate says the legislation, to cap greenhouse-gas emissions and create a system to trade pollution permits, would raise $845.6 billion, while adding $821.2 billion to federal spending, a $24.4 billion net gain.”
Opponents might care to note this “net gain” is less than has been–and will be spent–on Government Motors, and pales in contrast to the $ trillions Obama has spent.
Very appropriate lead-in picture for this article. Nice how the shelter door faces west, right into the afternoon sun.
Congrats also on your recent promotion by the Acolytes. It appears that you are now the new “Anti Science”
Amongst the many sinning attributes of “The Anti Science” we discover “He’s not even a good photographer …”
Pierre Gosselin (02:22:25) :
On the subject of measuring temps,
What is the source of data for this map?
http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst_anom.html
and for this one?
http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/PSB/EPS/SST/climo&hot.html
Which is better?
Unisys seems to be updated every day, with exact numerical readings given at different locations on the map. Which one should I believe?
Don’t know if it’s just the colour palette on my pc, but the NOAA seems to be using a bright orange colour for the +1-1.5C range which is bolder than the oranges for the +3.5-5C range. Makes it look like the ocean is hotter than it really is.
Bulls eye!!!, congratulations Anthony.
the legislation, to cap greenhouse-gas emissions and create a system to trade pollution permits, would raise $845.6 billion, while adding $821.2 billion to federal spending, a $24.4 billion net gain.
Who’s doing their stats? Michael Mann or Michael Mouse?
Anthony – :thu: onya mate.
Great News !!!! Now lets see where else this shows up. I sent this item on to Drudge.
They are carrying the following item right now:
“FAA Could Close 20 Weather Offices
By Steve Vogel and Ed O’Keefe
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, June 5, 2009
The federal government yesterday moved forward with a controversial proposal that would close weather offices at 20 regional air traffic control centers around the country and instead provide controllers with forecasts from two central units in Maryland and Missouri.
The consolidation plan came under immediate fire from unions representing National Weather Service employees and air traffic controllers, which charged that the change will endanger aviation safety.
“Air traffic controllers will no longer have the immediate expertise of an on-site meteorologist to advise them where to route aircraft experiencing difficulty when weather conditions play a critical role in that decision,” said Dan Sobien, president of the National Weather Service Employees Organization. ……..”
I wonder if these are the few stations that are in compliance ?????
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/04/AR2009060404176_pf.html
Orange County California has a population over 3,121,00. The OCR has an average daily circulation of over 250,000 with a Sunday circulation of over 312,000. Facts all easily obtained. That’s a tad larger than a “Mayberry” paper.
I reckon the OC folks aren’t exactly reading the Washington Post or New York Times at breakfast either. Sorta like how we in North Carolina don’t generally read the New York Times or Washington Post at breakfast.
“Before devastating the economy to fix a problem that may not exist, we ought to get the numbers right.”
Quote of the Year nomination!!!!
Congratulations, bravo Anthony and volunteers.
However, I cannot find a link to your published study either here eg under Projects, or at Surface Stations website (unless I’ve missed the obvious). Please do put links upfront – as I want to pass on word! thanks…
First things first. Congratulations Mr. Watts — well done.
Roger Knights (01:54:48) :
Maybe someone could explain that article to me. I had to read it three times and I am still not sure what it meant.
This is what I think it means: With all the horse-trading that has been done to give emission credits to various industries, the Gov’t will take in only $24 billion over ten years. Far less than planned and far less than the original proposed value of the emission taxes. I am not sure that is the take home message the author intended, but that is what I got. If I could say one thing to the author of that piece, “Well — duh.”
“If fighting global warming may cost the economy $9.6 trillion and more than 1 million lost jobs by 2035, as the Heritage Foundation forecasts, it’d be a good idea to be sure there’s a sound basis before making such a massive sacrifice”.
So refreshing to hear.
Snowing here in North Dakota
What? Did i actually sense a bit of doubt in the wording of the article that there may be some problems with the “science” of global warming crazies? Good for you for fueling further debate on this “closed” subject!
Thanks for the picture of the weather station. I realise that roof can hit 140 degrees and the temp falls 20 degrees under just a little breeze. The pseudo scientist claim pictures are not scientific data but they use pictures for measuring ice in terms of acreage. Ice thickness is the same as the picture. It is NOT level below the surface but they assume it is. There are currents. Next issue in measurement,. No one seems to extensivley measure under water temps in the artic. Again dealing with volcanic activity and currents, how do they control variables other than air?
Yes it is a very non scientific statement to call some one anti sciece. How do they gater data on a person to see if they accept or even study using the scintific method? Is their data analysys scientific? Is their experiment well designed?
I will give an example. Do we have a control group planet with same materials as the earth and people but no fire? No man caused combustion?
Congratulations!
Orange County is a fairly rich, conservative, area of S. California. It has a U.C. Campus (with business school, and ag department focused on Oranges) and is generally considered to be more influential than its size would justify.
It is most decidedly not a “Mayberry”. These are “Wall Street Journal” and “Investors Business Daily” folks (with some “Ag Report” folks hanging on against the tide of ubranization…). Oh, and maybe a bit of L.A. Times (though I’ve never actually met anyone who reads it…)
$24 Billion / 10 years = $2.4 Billion / year. They will have at least a couple of $Billion error in the estimates (and the error is always toward more spending and less income…). Ignoring for the moment that this is a rounding error on one single departments budget: The error band and inflation will eat all this. The Feds will have no net income from the program. It’s a bust.
Obama knows this. He just started to propose a VAT to be done in addition to the income tax. He’s been told that the check book is empty, the Chinese are no longer funding the credit card, and the taxpayer is broke… so he’s looking for taxes that can be hidden or collected by a business on the Governments behalf, and preferably a hidden tax. He has not yet figured out that even if not one single soul noticed the tax, the level of extraction of money from the productive economy into the consumption economy of Government that would be needed to feed his dreams would break the economy and render tax receipts much lower.
Oh well.
They will figure it out when we are broken on the floor… He is clearly thinking like a miner, not like a farmer…
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/03/11/csd-california-socialism-disorder/
“Man’s contribution to greenhouse gases is miniscule”. Now that, though strictly true, is a deceptive or ignorant statement. Either the writer didn’t understand that CO2, generally understood, though incorrectly, to be the dominant greenhouse gas has probably been significantly increased by man, or was trying to play on the ignorance of his readership of the effect of the change of a particular greenhouse gas. I may well be over reading it because the rest of the editorial is lucid and spot on.
I certainly hope and pray that the tide on AGW has turned. The increasing skeptical tone nationally and internationally is way overdue, and welcome. The parodies now parading out, as in To Think George Will Saw it on Mulberry Street are just glorious, too. I think, though, that one of the most important signs are the sort of psychotic break you see at Climate Progress and the like. Dhogaza is a highly committed and informed and effective thug for the coterie still defending the indefensible. Last year, about this time, I told Dano that he had a chance to become a famous fool; all he had to do was stop restraining himself as the false paradigm that CO2=AGW splinters.
======================================
[snip way off topic, wrong thread, we are talking about weather stations]
If it were not for the dedicated few like yourself, who work tirelessly for truth and science, we would fail to know how biased the AGW “concensus” is. Lay people like myself gratefully read your posts and try to educate ourselves, often muddling through data as best we can. I thank you for your service to the betterment of humanity whose future lies with a peer reviewed advancement of science and not a regressive manipulation for a political end.
Kenneth Slade
Several months ago when I was looking ahead to the new year, I concluded this might be the year that new media begins to turn around and start looking at both sides of the story.
I based that on the media discovering the true cost of CO2 “mitigation” schemes, continuing anecdotal cold weather events (some with semi-decent empirical backup), and more information supporting the other side, especially the SurfaceStations project in the US.
So far things are working out pretty well and maybe just in time. I spent a little time reading that Climate Progress thread and was blown away at the vitriol direct toward Anthony and the WUWT posters. Clearly they see Anthony as an important source and conduit for expanding our side of the story.
And in that, I fully agree with them. I wonder what CP thinks of an editorial in a major newspaper in the “greenest” state with the largest economy in the nation that refers to arch enemy #1. How can they possibly ratchet up their vitriol another notch?
I wonder if we can get Jon Stewart to take notice?
69% of all the Surface Stations surveyed are out of tolerance by ≥2°C: click [CRN=4 + CRN=5].
That calls into serious question any data based on the Surface Station network. There has undoubtedly been some natural warming [due to the planet’s emerging from the LIA], but reliance should be placed only on satellite data, not on Surface Stations, which Anthony has shown are unreliable and skewed to the high side by 2° – 5°+.
Maybe one of you could leave a comment to the original publication leaving the WUWT link and the link to the original PDF.
(And thank them for this very rare unbiased publication)
I tried to leave a comment but it did not work.
Probably because I am logging in from outside the USA.
Tallbloke, it helps people to understand why I may be a bit reactionary. Many, such as RFK Jr. and David Suzuki have called for the deniers to be imprisoned. This is a very slippery slope for anyone in a supposedly free society to be talking about. Do these people even realize what that represents? To be imprisoned for your ideals? I like to believe in the goodness of human nature, but given the ability to abuse power in a system like socialism, is fraught with danger. A couple of generations pass and everyone has forgotten the horrors of a world war. Humans seem incapable of learning and are doomed to repeat history. It is this what will be the ruination of a once great and free nation? We are being led into the forest by those who claim to want to protect us.
Excellent notice of your outstanding (not to mention tedious and frustrating) project! Many thanks to you and your extensive crew of volunteers. I can only hope that some of the California congressional representatives might read it and at least listen; perhaps hesitate in their race towards forcing overreaching regulations on our crippled economy. Thanks again, Anthony.
regards, Andy
Great work , Anthony et al. You have amazing tenacity and seemingly boundless energy !! Is it possible that Hansen and Schmidt and the rest of them are kicking themselves for having made such grandiose predictions based on such faulty data? ” Dang, we should have looked closer at the data source!!!” Methinks they have traveled too far down that road to get back home. Anecdotal moment: woke up to snow on the ground, but that is not alarming, as it is Calgary, after all. Well within natural variance.
Another crack in the facade. Congratulations Mr. Watts. A good, intrepid soul. In the OCR comments section I followed a link to a GISS article about Hansen’s methodology for global temperature tracking:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/GISSTemperature/giss_temperature.php
Embedded in this article are the roots of Hansen’s global warming theory. The first of which is his training as an astronomer with a fundamental interest in the atmosphere of Venus. The obvious source of his conviction that CO2 is evil. Strangely, he acknowledges terrestrial meteorology e.g. Rossby waves at high and mid latitudes; but refuses to see the potential for error in scaling local meteorological data to obtain global mean assumptions. The article describes his weighting of station data as follows:
They gave greatest “weight” to the station closest to that point; for all other stations within that radius, they let the weighting fall off linearly with distance, all the way to a weighting of zero for stations 1,200 kilometers away or farther. “Again, our objective was not to determine the precise temperature of individual stations, but to produce a global-scale map of temperature change,” Hansen emphasized. “
Clearly, if 80+ percent of the weather station data is inaccurate as the Watts study demonstrates, this weighting process does nothing more than average those inaccuracies. Additionally his method of “cleaning” anomalous station data assumes that the vast majority of nearby stations are sited in compliance with the National Weather Service standards. But they are not, as the Watts survey evidences.
One might think that an astronomer would rely on more non-local data (i.e. satellite) to estimate a planet’s average temperature. Instead, Hansen attempts to use data from an entirely different discipline, one he has no training in, as the source of his studies. The problem with Hansen and GISS interpretations of global temperature, is this subterranean training in planetary physics. Earth’s atmosphere and the physics of our climate, is vastly more complex than that of Venus. His subliminal assumption that thermal runaway on Venus is the model for runaway on Earth, informs his every pronouncement. His belief that the man-made 3% of our atmosphere’s .0385 percent trace CO2, is the cause of uncontrolled thermal runaway, makes him the perfect instrument of alarm.
But should we allow a planetary scientist and his global warming theory rule our economic future? When daily good, prominent scientists announce their disassociation with AGW? It seems far, far fetched at best.
Adam Gallon (01:51:00) :
“I know not what size the “OCR” is, but I’d guess it’s a local/regional paper, unlikely to be staple reading at the breakfast tables of Washington or New York.”
Here is a profile of the holding company that publishes the OCR. It is likely that the idea presented in the editorial will get more print and air time.
http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/about_us/
Freedom Communications, Inc., headquartered in Irvine, Calif., is a national privately owned information and entertainment company of print publications, broadcast television stations and interactive businesses. In addition to the television group, the company’s portfolio includes 33 daily and 77 weekly newspapers, including The Orange County Register, magazines and other specialty publications, plus news, information and entertainment websites to complement its print and broadcast properties. Freedom’s newspaper publications have a combined circulation of more than one million subscribers. The broadcast stations – five CBS, two ABC network affiliates and one CW affiliate – reach more than 3 million households across the country.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Pierre Gosselin (01:38:38) :
“…U.S. record is thought to be ‘the best in the world,”
Maybe not. Interesting comment.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ANTHONY
1. “ . . . it is a seasonal data adjustment to account for meltwater. . .”
Great patience, Anthony. Still, classroom teachers sometimes have to answer the same question two or three times in a 50 minute period.
2. The OCR piece is a great start. I hope it “snowballs” or whatever analogy is in this week. Your Stevenson Screen Paint Experiment project certainly grew to fill an important empty space in this global warming debate. For those who haven’t read the material under “Projects” on the WUWT site surely should.
3. They say good work is its own reward but I’ll continue to click on two or three ads on each site visit just to juice the reward a tiny bit. Some of the darn things are actually interesting.
Via the Australian Greenie Watch web site http://antigreen.blogspot.com/:
More repositioning
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2009GL037810.shtml
“…or even slight cooling in the presence of longer‐term warming. “
From the abstract, it appears important that these cooling periods were found in the computer simulations, confirming the real world data!
Jim Papsdorf (05:27:43)
Actually these are not weather stations in the sense of making observations. They use the data fed in from around the country to help mitigate weather delays or reroutes. Whether they really need to be at the Centers (and your talking about operations that cover large areas anyway) is arguable. They’ve already centralized or automated a number of other operations such as Flight Service for General Aviation pilots (AFSS) and actual weather observations at airports (ASOS).
Another editorial. Today, an opinion in the Wall Street Journal discusses the Kofi Annan report that was previously discussed on WUWT: U.N.’s ‘Global Warming=300,000 Deaths a Year’ Report – Kofi Annan implies: “close enough for government work”
From: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124424567009790525.html
‘Worse Than Fiction’
… Our only question is, if the case for global warming is so open and shut, why the need for a report as disingenuous as Mr. Annan’s? …
Looking good at the Register.
Our local paper (San Gabriel Valley Tribune, circulation ca. 40,000) treats us every Saturday to a full page of green propaganda under the title of ‘Earthbeat.” (www.myearthbeat.com) This material is shared by several S. Calif. papers. I’m not sure if the editors are true believers, or if they are just picking up copy off the current MSM. We need some savvy media type who could create and syndicate something similar that could be picked up by papers across the country, and contain more than alarmist hype. The weekly content of WUWT shows clearly that the material is there.
This is really excellent Anthony! Your many years of untiring work is paying off. I do hope that this rapidly develops into a media landslide of correct understanding.
Thank you for a truly excellent blog. Much of the indepth science is above the head of this old and weary person. But WUWT is really thought-provoking, and tops my schedule of daily Web visits.
Geoff Alder
A good accomplishment, but I wouldn’t pop too many corks. When any program has big $$$ attached, it is very hard to alter it’s course. On the other hand, $600 billion used to be a lot of money. Now we spend that at the drop of a hat. Perhaps we have become immune to big numbers. We can wreck the economy without a climate bill.
To update an old saying:
“A billion dollars? That’s nothing. A couple trillion here and there, now you’re talking real money.”
It’s not just climate change… I came to the realization of the meaning of taking state bailout money and got mad, then very depressed. Barry O is a much smarter man than I thought.
http://animal-farm.us/change/we-are-all-socialists-now-446
I can’t seem to find the Santa Ana station @ surfacestations.org
REPLY: Its is not USHCN, it is a COOP- A, still used for climate, but not part of the USHCN subset of COOP stations. – Anthony
OT but thought it might be of interest
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/gallery/2009/may/29/himalayas-glaciers-everest-changing-landscapes?picture=348304432
Following the UK Met Offices prediction of a ‘barbeque summer’ the Daily Telegraph reported today that snow fell in Cumbria and the north Pennines yesterday. This is the first time snow has fallen in England in June for more than 30 years! I live in north east England where the temprature was 24C on Monday and had fallen to 8C by yesterday.
Congratulations Anthony, now if a mainstream meida outlet would just pick this up…think positive thoughts…..
The Cap and Tax bill as Waxman-Markey really is, has a stated an endgame of reducing GHG’s. From a business perspective, think about the associated “revenue” stream (don’t you just love government financial talk, when they use financial terms but don’t run it as a going concern?) If “we” achieve the stated goals of GHG reduction, what happens to that revenue stream? This is not about carbon – it’s about money, a fear of capping and reducing federal expenditures.
Smokey:
“69% of all the Surface Stations surveyed are out of tolerance by ≥2°C: click [CRN=4 + CRN=5]. ”
I wonder how many are actually used to figure global temps?
For example, I looked for the Santa Ana Station from the start of the post in the list of GISS stations here:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/station_data/station_list.txt
but don’t see a Santa Ana station (maybe it’s there but with a different name).
What a pleasant way to start the day — a glass of orange juice, a humongous stack of fresh hot french toast (a growing boy’s gotta eat!), and that piece in the OC Register (oh well, I guess newspapers do have their uses now and again, besides lining for bird cages and dog training aids).
Now all that’s left is for Anthony to testify before Congress. Don’t want to be standing in front of that fan when they learn they’ve been spending many hundreds of millions of dollars over several decades for shoddy data which is being used to promote spending trillions of dollars on a non-problem. Would just love to hear Dr. Hansen tap dance around one of Anthony’s blink comparators showing the differences between “raw” and “homogenized” data. Even those people in Congress can smell what’s being shoveled at them when big bucks are involved.
Is it this one, Anthony?
http://weather.noaa.gov/weather/current/KSNA.html
I wonder if these are the few stations that are in compliance ?????
On the one hand, seven out of eight CRN1 stations are located in airports. The CRN average in Airports is 1.2 point lower (i.e., better) than non- AP USHCN stations.
On the other hand, airports, themselves, are lousy locations for stations (except for direct AP use) as they have been greatly expanded (and encroached on) over the last few decades, and even have their own mini-UHI bubbles. (There is also the issue of HO-83 sensor error, which tends to exaggerate Tmax.)
When stations they were initially moved to airports, NOAA applied a large upward adjustment, because in those days, APs were cooler. But from then until now, APs stations have, on average, warmed much faster than non-AP stations, the difference being spurious, artificial. But no adjustment for that!
I couldn’t expect less from you. Congratulations, Anthony. Make extensive my congratulations to the team. 🙂
Congrats Anthony! The OCR is a very good paper. Not your typical liberal rag. A quick check just now I saw an article stating circulation was 250k weekdays and over 300k on Sunday, but the article was a year old, and they’ve been suffering a decline like most newspapers. More important is their location. Orange county is a hotbed of business, and home to many very wealthy corporate executives and wealthy east coasters wanting a second home in the sun. So, the reach of influence is probably larger than circulation would indicate.
OT, but I have noticed a rather abrupt change (increase) in the negative slope of the Arctic ice coverage curve at Cryosphere Today. This seems to coincide with the degradation of the sensors. Looking at the individual areas they measure (Beaufort Sea, etc.), the curves for the past month or so are so noisy that they strike me as highly unreliable. However, these numbers are apparently being integrated into the global sea ice numbers, which have taken a sudden dive downward to show almost no anomaly vs. the 1979-2000 mean.
Since the measurements earlier this year were trending to show less melting than the AGW crowd likes to predict, this sudden change strikes me as fishy. Any thoughts on this? Alternative sources that show different results?
Dhogaza is a highly committed and informed and effective thug for the coterie still defending the indefensible.
He has certainly applied a number of highly pejorative, not to say politically incorrect, statements in my direction. (I was his pet project for an entire week, recently. Sort of like having a seven-year old attach himself to you, proudly trying out his recently acquired stock of dirty words.)
There is an interesting analysis of the difference between land and sea temperatures at http://www.climatedata.info . It shows that for most of the 20th century the difference was more or less constant. From the 1970s onward the land temperatures rose much more rapidly than the sea temperatures. Sea temperature do not have heat island effects; land temperatures (as Anthony’s work has shown) do. The main graph is at:
http://www.climatedata.info/Temperature/assets/09-Difference%20land-ocean%20temperature.gif
I wonder how many are actually used to figure global temps?
That figure is for USHCN stations. All of them are used to figure global temps. And it’s actually worse. With the new station ratings since the paper in, it’s looking as if slightly under 10% are CRN1 or 2, not 11%.
(Santa Ana is COOP-A, but not USHCN. But only USHCN stations are included in Anthony’s percentages.)
As I look at the snow that fell in Montana last night ( http://rwis.mdt.mt.gov/scanweb/swframe.asp?Pageid=RPUStatus&Units=English&Groupid=629000&Siteid=629002&DisplayClass=Java&SenType=All; ) I wonder if the RWIS system and the weather stations used by the railroads could be used in lieu of the heat islands.
This article is a good thing, but keep in mind that the OC Register is one of the few conservative mainsteam papers in America. The skepticism inherent in Anthony’s work would be considered inappropriate by the PC police that run the Associated Press, and the AP provides most of the feed for our failing newspaper industry.
Anthony’s blink comparators showing the differences between “raw” and “homogenized” data.
It’s worse than that. “Raw” GISS data = fully adjusted NOAA data.
NOAA US raw data shows a 0.14C increase average per station (1900-2006). NOAA raw+FILNET data shows a 0.59C increase.
evanmjones:
“That figure is for USHCN stations. All of them are used to figure global temps.”
But GISS’s website:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/
says they don’t use all of the GHCN/USHCN/SCAR data, but that they drop urban stations that don’t have a nearby rural station, so apparently GISS doesn’t use all of the USHCN stations.
However, they do say
“the urban and peri-urban (i.e., other than rural) stations are adjusted so that their long-term trend matches that of the mean of neighboring rural stations”
So I’m still not clear if GISS used the Santa Ana station, and if they did, if they make adjustments to it?
We have a station under almost the same conditions as it is located the Santa Ana station in the photo above. The average temperature registered at rural stations is 28 °C, just now, while the temperature at our urban station is… 31 °C; three degrees higher. The average of rural and urban is 29.5 °C… During the winter or if it is windy or overcast, the difference is almost five degrees. Heh! 🙂
Congrats Anthony –
I find playing this “catch-up” game of stats, facts, fantasy and fear so very exhausting.
The human condition: “possession is 9/10th of the law”…as if to stake a claim, theory sprints past where fact pauses, ponders and proves.
An appropriate quote: “A lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth can get its boots on.”
Charles Haddon Spurgeon,1855
Great website – Thanks
Anthony,
I would like to add my congratulations to the others posting on you excellent blog. I greatly appreciate the work you and your many volunteers have put into surveying surface stations. I also appreciate the effort in running WUWT, and the results it produces. All it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing. You definitely doing something, and the results are becoming evident.
Congratulations, Anthony and all your assistants. As E.M. Smith wrote, the readers for the OCR are relatively affluent, intelligent, and most likely conservative. Unfortunately, the paper has dropped to 5th in readership in California from 3rd; nevertheless, those 250,724 readers are influential. You could not have had a clearer, more concise, informative editorial writer than this one either. And the format might serve as an example to the main stream (corporate) media — whenever they go off payola or begin to lose too many readers and viewers.
For emphasis: Part of the first sentence: “It’d be a good idea to be sure there’s a sound basis before making such a massive sacrifice.”
The last sentence: “Before devastating the economy to fix a problem that may not exist, we ought to get the numbers right.”
“We’ve noted before that climate change is occurring as it always has….”
“Man’s contribution to greenhouse gases is minuscule.”
Lead sentence in 4th paragraph: “We can’t know for sure if global warming is a problem if we can’t trust the data,” said Anthony Watts…
Regarding the Surface Stations Study, the Editors, not Mr. Watts, say, “The findings were alarming.” The detail on the report is excellent.
“These inflated, error-prone, tinkered-with temperature recordings are one of several measurements cited by the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as evidence man-made global warming is a threat”. (The Editor’s conclusion.)
What a great model. No wonder you are being roughed up on “warmist” sites!
Great work, Anthony, you deserve at least three rousing cheers!
I wonder — are there any statistics on the number of A/C heat-exchange condensers, cellular phone transmitter installations etc. that were located on rooftops near temperature sensors before 1945 when the big increase in CO^2 is presumed to have started, supposedly creating “AGW” and those inaccurate higher temperature measurements to blame on it? Did the temperature rise if the building housed more workers who used more computers after 1945, greatly increasing the heat being dumped on the roof near the temperature sensor?
Did the big increase in heat-producing power usage after 1945 pollute temperature measurement on a scale comparable to or greater than the increase in CO^2? If a big carbon tax is imposed on coal-fired electric power generators, will operation of those rooftop A/C condensing units be reduced and cause temperature measurements to drop, ergo causing global cooling?
Clearly, the time has come to junk all the questionably polluted temperature data collected in the past and relocate the earth-based sensors away from hot rooftops, heat-producing machinery, asphalt parking lots, and urban heat islands.
Bob
Anthony deserves kudos for his surface stations project and congratulations for being featured in the OCR. However, one question about the temperature series generated by the surface stations has always puzzled me:
Given that 89 percent of NOAA weather stations “fail to meet the National Weather Service’s own siting requirements”, some failing miserably as shown by Anthony, and given that these failures almost always result in a heat bias, why is it that the GISS surface station temperature series tracks so well with the more accurate satellite series from RSS and UAH? It must be the adjustments they make, right? Maybe that’s why the GISS dataset is the last one to be released? Perhaps the GISS team, knowing that its inputs are crap, waits to see what the “real” results are and then adjusts their data accordingly? Just speculating…
Anthony,
I wrote the editorial in the Register. We’ve followed your work for some time and find it persuasive.
I blog quite often – to the distress of some alarmist readers, I’m afraid – on global warming at the Register’s opinion blog, http://www.ocregister.com/orangepunch.
Please keep me abreast of new developments, and you might visit our blog occasionally to balance out my hate mail in the comments.
Thanks.
At your service in Christ . . .
Mark Landsbaum
Editorial Writer
Orange County Register
REPLY: Thanks Mark, I will have new information soon, and I’ll pass it along to you. WUWT readers, please consider a visit to “Orange punch” – Anthony
Dave Hunt (08:39:20) :
Following the UK Met Offices prediction of a ‘barbeque summer’ the Daily Telegraph reported today that snow fell in Cumbria and the north Pennines yesterday. This is the first time snow has fallen in England in June for more than 30 years! I live in north east England where the temprature was 24C on Monday and had fallen to 8C by yesterday.
I rode over the Pennines this morning on my motorcycle. Man it was brisk! The snow was 60 miles further north, but it was close to freezing where I crossed too.
Mark Landsbaum (11:39:52) :
Anthony,
I wrote the editorial in the Register. We’ve followed your work for some time and find it persuasive.
I blog quite often – to the distress of some alarmist readers, I’m afraid – on global warming at the Register’s opinion blog, http://www.ocregister.com/orangepunch.
Mark, thanks for posting on this board and thanks for writing the editorial on Anthony’s work. I just browsed your opinion blog and I love it. It will become regular reading. I especially liked your recent entry about public vs. private salaries and benefits.
I think you are getting to the answer here. Assuming that all these weather stations started out with OK sitings then each year a few more became compromised and gave higher readings this would explain the gradual rise in average temperature. If now 89% are compromised then probably we are at the point where there are not more, or not many more, being compromised each year. This would explain why the ‘warming’ has stopped but also why the warmists can still claim that it is much hotter today on average than it was before. I am not a scientist but have worked in IT for many years where the concept of GIGO is well known. This could be the biggest example the world has ever seen!
Alan Haile (12:37:19) :
[…]
I am not a scientist but have worked in IT for many years where the concept of GIGO is well known. This could be the biggest example the world has ever seen!
I would argue (as I did in a post above) that we are not seeing GIGO. Anthony’s work proves that we are seeing garbage in, but the output closely tracks RSS and UAH satellite datasets. It is not “garbage out.” The garbage is being cleaned up somehow.
Somebody please post a link to the graph that compares all 4 major temperature records.
But GISS’s website:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/
says they don’t use all of the GHCN/USHCN/SCAR data, but that they drop urban stations that don’t have a nearby rural station, so apparently GISS doesn’t use all of the USHCN stations.
That’s GISS.
But I am pretty sure NOAA (an entirely different org.) uses them all, including the records of stations that are closed. (Perhaps a few outliers are excluded, but I don’t know.) HCN is the designation for stations used for the permanent historical temperature record rather than for local purposes. I have read that some non-HCN stations are used for purposes of FILNET to homogenize or fill in data for HCN stations but I cannot confirm this.
NOAA spplies a -.05C/century trend adjustment to their records to account for urban stations. This seems to be roughly correct: 9% are urban and the raw trend for urban stations is 0.5C. However this may be complicated by incorrect urban designations which might wash out some of the difference.
why is it that the GISS surface station temperature series tracks so well with the more accurate satellite series from RSS and UAH?
Satellites measure lower troposphere (by microwave proxy), not the surface. During a warming phase, Lower trop warms up to 1.3 times faster than surface, depending on latitude. (And I would infer that they drop at the same rate during a cooling phase.) In recent years there hasn’t been much trend, so I would guess the anomalies would match fairly well.
Note that GISS takes a lot of liberties with pre-satellite data.
3×2 (03:29:02)
I think that Anthony deserves a round of applause he is the ANTI-GORE 🙂
REPLY: Thanks Mark, I will have new information soon, and I’ll pass it along to you. WUWT readers, please consider a visit to “Orange punch” – Anthony
Not only a visit, I’ve added it to my favorites so I can read something “punching” each day. 🙂
David Ball (07:20:13) :
Tallbloke, it helps people to understand why I may be a bit reactionary. Many, such as RFK Jr. and David Suzuki have called for the deniers to be imprisoned. This is a very slippery slope for anyone in a supposedly free society to be talking about. Do these people even realize what that represents? To be imprisoned for your ideals? I like to believe in the goodness of human nature, but given the ability to abuse power in a system like socialism, is fraught with danger.
David, I twigged you were related to Tim some time ago, I’m sure I speak for all on WUWT in saying you and your kin have our support and best wishes. I know socialism is a word with a lot of baggage in America and Canada, but really this isn’t about political colours, it’s about the surveillance state politicians on all sides have become addicted to being able to use to monitor and control our lives.
[snip]
Keep on speaking up for freedom from the bureaucracy we don’t want or need, we are right alongside you.
Reply: Those analogies have no place here. ~ charles the moderator
That photo of the Santa Ana station my be facing north–but that CRS sure ain’t!
I wonder if their TOBS is in the afternoon . . .
This is what Mark Landsbaum wrote two years ago!
I think it’s great.
Sunday, April 22, 2007
Global warming: Inconvenient questions
The ‘settled science’ of climate change … isn’t settled.
By MARK LANDSBAUM
Register editorial writer
Comments 1 | Recommend 0
In March, NASA scientists spotted a region on the sun they expected to be calm but instead was, “a bubbling mass of swaying and arching spikes, some more than 5,000 miles long … causing huge temperature flares,” as reported in Investor’s Business Daily.
Now a short quiz: The Earth recently has experienced a little bit of global warming, and by the way, so has Mars. What’s the common factor?
A. Sport utility vehicles
B. Fossil fuels
C. Al Gore
D. The sun
Answer: D, the sun. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Germany noted that the sun has been burning more brightly for the past 60 years, which they calculated would account for the entire increase in Earth’s temperature during that period. “[R]esearch suggests that for the large part variations in global temperatures are beyond our control and are instead at the mercy of the sun’s activities,” said a study by researchers at Duke University and the Army Research Office in June, 2003.
Nevertheless, we are hysterically warned that manmade global warming makes “it impossible for us to avoid irretrievable damage to the planet’s habitability for human civilization,” according to former Vice President Al Gore.
“[I]t’s a question of survival,” said Gore. “It’s a moral issue.”
In 2001, the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) hyped its global warming study, claiming disaster loomed over the next century and that the culprit could very well be manmade carbon-dioxide emissions. We ought to do something, the IPCC report urged.
This year, IPCC revised its dire forecast, substantially softening the outlook. But the IPCC became even more insistent about man’s culpability. Curiously, the less-dire predictions became reason for more a passionate demand that we must take drastic corrective action. Immediately.
If the outlook has gotten less severe, why has the remedy gotten more drastic?
The global warming scare machine gathers momentum. Last September, before the most recent IPCC forecast, intimidation to quash dissent went into high gear. “The next IPCC report should give people the final push that they need to take action, and we can’t have people trying to undermine it,” said a Royal Society of London statement, essentially demanding global warming critics should shut up.
Why the resistance? Consider some motives. Could it be because Europe’s attempts to force cuts in CO2 emissions have failed dramatically? After 10 years, nearly every Western European nation is producing more not less CO2, but at considerable additional economic cost due to the Kyoto Protocol’s Draconian regulations. Could it be because since peaking in 1998, the average global temperature has decreased, not increased? How much of that trend can alarmists risk before people wonder why reality doesn’t match the scare story? Could it be because federal funding for global warming research is undermined by skeptics who point out holes in the theory?
Perhaps, global warming proponents are aggressively pushing their agenda for fear the public will shrug off their claims as bogus, and politicians will be unable to justify a heavy hand. Quick, act now before the problem disappears entirely! Windows of opportunity don’t stay open forever. Just 30 years ago the environmental-governmental conglomerate was convinced we were irreversibly on the road to the next Ice Age.
What we do know is that the global warming bandwagon is a convergence of those who stand to gain control (government), those who stand to profit (government-financed researchers), those who see profiteering and control as inevitable so position themselves to get their share of the pie (big corporations) and, of course, ideologues who worship everything green (radical environmentalists). For good measure throw in a superficial media’s insatiable appetite for disaster stories, emotive Hollywood celebrities and opportunistic politicians, and it’s a formidable coalition, indeed.
As President Eisenhower presciently warned in his farewell address: “Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity … The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever-present and is gravely to be regarded. Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific technological elite.”
Despite what you may hear from self-interested scientific technological elites, global warming occurs naturally. Historically it has been as beneficial as it has been detrimental. Man’s contribution to it today is somewhere between small and insignificant. Hurricane activity hasn’t been linked to global warming, and there are fewer of them since 1970, anyway. Seas won’t rise 20 feet. Grazing cows create more greenhouse gas than your SUV. But that’s not exactly the party line of global warming alarmists.
Let’s examine some global warming issues: the alleged scientific “consensus” that manmade CO2 is a threat, the computerized models forecasting the threat, the science they are based on, the solutions being advanced and some possible motives.
‘Consensus’
“It is sheer fantasy to suggest that a huge majority of scientists with expertise in global climate change endorse an alarming interpretation of the recent climate data,” climate physicist S. Fred Singer, a research professor at George Mason University, writes in his book, “Unstoppable Global Warming Every 1,500 Years.”
Although it’s generally conceded that industrialized societies add to atmospheric CO2 levels, whether it has an adverse environmental effect continue to be vigorously debated within the scientific community.
Computerized climate models
In his book “The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming,” Christopher C. Horner, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, reveals “the dirtiest secret of all regarding climate models: When we attempt to test them, they fail miserably.” Computer models are only as good as the data entered in them.
Add bias to this imperfect picture. The IPCC previously generated 24 different computer models with a vast range of predictions. The Clinton-Gore administration cherry-picked the two models with the hottest and wettest predictions to illustrate the global warming threat. The worst of the worst.
Even so, climate models are so unreliable they can’t even “predict” what’s already happened. Inputting known facts from past dates doesn’t result in “forecasts” of the actual temperatures that occurred on those dates.
“It is scientific malpractice to use them,” observes University of Virginia environmental sciences research professor Patrick Michaels. “I choose my words carefully here. If a physician prescribed medication that demonstrably did not work, he would lose his license.”
Singer agrees: “The models have erroneously predicted a 20{+t}{+h} century surge in Earth’s temperatures to match surging CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere. It hasn’t happened.”
The science
Exhale. There. You’ve just polluted the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide is an essential, natural substance for man, animals and plants. But thanks to the amateur scientists sitting as Supreme Court justices, carbon dioxide now officially is regarded to be a “pollutant.” In reality, CO2’s connection to global warming is not that it pollutes the atmosphere, but that as it collects in the atmosphere it prevents heat from escaping into space.
In theory, greenhouse gases – of which man’s contribution is about 0.28 percent – trap heat close to the Earth. “The greenhouse effect must play some role,” concedes Henrik Svensmark, director of the Centre for Sun-Climate Research, Danish National Space Center. “But those who are absolutely certain that the rise in temperatures is due solely to carbon dioxide have no scientific justification. It’s pure guesswork.”
Singer, who makes the case for a “moderate, natural 1,500-year climate cycle” of global warming and cooling, says if greenhouse theory is accurate, the poles should have warmed several degrees Celsius since 1940. Instead, polar temperatures have fallen.
Moreover, climate scientists note that historically increases in atmospheric CO2 often follow rather than precede increases in global temperatures, belying the theory that the gas brings on warmer climate.
Even if CO2 were a global warming demon, could its effect be reversed? “There is no known, feasible policy that can stop or even slow these changes in a fashion that could be scientifically measured,” according to Michaels.
Solutions
“Control energy, and you control the economy,” author Horner writes. The “Kyoto (Protocol) and its ilk seek to ration energy use.” Even Kyoto’s advocates admit its carbon emission cuts are only a “first step,” despite the havoc they play on economies.
“There is no dispute at all about the fact that even if punctiliously observed, [the Kyoto Protocol]would have an imperceptible effect on future temperatures – one-twentieth of a degree by 2050,” Singer observes. Kyoto’s effect on warming would be so minimal as to be measurably insignificant.
In Canada, similar efforts also have been costly and ineffective. A previously suppressed report by the Canadian government evaluating the effectiveness of spending $500 million since the year 2000 to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases revealed the money largely was wasted, producing neither greenhouse gas reductions nor new, cleaner technologies.
Motives
“Scientists who want to attract attention to themselves, who want to attract great funding to themselves, have to (find a) way to scare the public … and this you can achieve only by making things bigger and more dangerous than they really are,” said Petr Chylek, professor of physics and atmospheric science at Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, as quoted in the book, “The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming.”
“Alarm rather than genuine scientific curiosity, it appears, is essential to maintaining funding,” observed MIT Sloan Professor of Meteorology Richard Lindzen, who, incidentally, was one of the IPCC’s contributing authors.
Dr. William Gray, professor of atmospheric sciences at Colorado State University, a leading expert on hurricane predictions, says flatly: “Researchers pound the global-warming drum because they know there is politics, and money behind it.”
IMPLICATIONS
If global warming doesn’t really portend radical climate change, what will change if we adopt all the Draconian and expensive measures alarmists demand? You will pay more to get less, economic growth will be retarded, and government will control more than it does now.
“Be Worried. Be Very Worried” was Time magazine’s global warming headline a year ago. There is reason to worry. But it has little to do with the slight increase in global temperatures we may experience over the next century.
If the world redirects its resources, taxes its citizenry and restricts its industries as alarmists desire, what will happen when the issue cools off, so to speak?
If warming gives way to cooling, as it always has in the Earth’s history, will you get a refund of the new taxes you’ve been forced to pay? Will industries driven bankrupt be reestablished? Will the millions of persons in the Third World who died because they were denied the benefits that come with economic development be resurrected?
There is much at stake, economically, socially, and indeed, morally.
Contact the writer: mlandsbaum@ ocregister.com or 714-796-5025
WTH (08:43:36) :
Thanks for the link to gistemp stations.
My local is on the list, I finally have some free time so digital camera is ready. 🙂
I have friends that travel the UK so I could probably get dropped at sites to be picked up on their return.
DaveE.
My first thought on reading the op ed was F****** H***. In a good way of course.
I can only say WOW, it’s great that recognition is there now & more power to your elbow Anthony et al.
Ron de Haan (15:07:41) :
Unfortunately I can’t register on the OCRegister site being outside the USA, I suppose I could borrow a friends zip code though. I’ll ask her 🙂
I like Mark Landsbaum, he has his head screwed on & seems to research his op eds well.
DaveE.
As for the sites used by NOAA.
Why do they only give the location to 6 nautical miles?
DaveE.
DaveE,
I will send Mark Landbaum an e-mail (published at his site) and ask him
how to leave comments at his site.
No problem but thanks for your cooperation.
Good press contacts are of the essence, especially if it what they are writing makes sense.
AGW alarmism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere may be happy and unafraid.
With apologies to H. L. Mencken
Alan Caruba is at it too. Love his writing.
From http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com/
Saturday, June 6, 2009
Weather Malarkey
By Alan Caruba
I have never been able to figure out why people who know that the forecast for the local weather is likely to be wrong by the afternoon of the same day or within 48 hours still believe that the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change can accurately predict what it will be ten, twenty or fifty years from now.
At the third Conference on Climate Change held last week in Washington, DC., an event sponsored by the non-profit, free market think tank, The Heartland Institute, “Climate Change Reconsidered: The 2009 Report of the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change” (NIPCC) was announced. It offers a very different picture from the endless scare campaigns of the leading environmental organizations or, for that matter, from the White House and Congress.
Edited by Craig Idso and S. Fred Singer, two climatologists, it runs a whopping 900 pages that includes 35 contributors and reviewers of climate data. Its final 200 pages are mostly appendices, including a directory of all scientists who signed the Global Warming Petition that, in March, numbered 31,478 of them.
The Petition urged the United States government to reject the global warming agreement that was written in Kyoto, Japan in December 1997, and any other similar proposals. One of those proposals is a nation-destroying epic “climate” bill intended to limit greenhouse gas emissions, mainly carbon dioxide, with an absurd “cap-and-trade” program that is little more than a huge tax on all use of energy by Americans.
Suffice it to say that the original Kyoto Protocols were rejected unanimously by a former Senate when they were first announced and, since they are allegedly directed at saving the Earth from “global warming”, the threat of this calamity ended around 1998 when the Earth began to cool. It has been in a cooling cycle ever since.
Is the U.S. Temperature Record Reliable?
Neither the protocols, nor the current “climate” bill have any merit whatever. Both are based on falsified “scientific” data courtesy of the UN Panel. Bad, inaccurate weather information seems to be the stock-in-trade of environmental organizations and thanks to Anthony Watts, a meteorologist with some 25 years in the forecasting business and chief meteorologist for KPAY-AM radio, a publication, “Is the U.S. Temperature Record Reliable?” is available from The Heartland Institute ($12.99 per copy for 1-10 copies.)
As Watts points out, “The official record of temperatures in the continental United States comes from a network of 1,221 climate-monitoring stations overseen by the National Weather Service, a department of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).”
Until now, however, “no one had ever conducted a comprehensive review of the quality of the measurement environment of those stations.” Watts recruited 650 volunteers and their findings are astounding and disturbing.
“We found stations located next to the exhaust fans of air conditioning units, surrounded by asphalt parking lots and roads, on blistering-hot rooftops, and near sidewalks and buildings that absorb and radiate heat. We found 68 stations located at wastewater treatment plants, where the process of waste digestion causes temperatures to be higher than in surrounding areas.”
The report found that 89 percent of the stations, nearly 9 out of 10, failed to meet the National Weather Service’s own requirements that stations must be 30 meters (about 100 feet) away from an artificial heating or radiating/reflecting heat source.
So, based on these monitoring stations, very little of the temperatures reported by the U.S. Weather Service are accurate and, more importantly, provide false data which has been used to underwrite the “global warming” hoax.
Filled with photos of the stations and charts of the data they produce, the conclusion is inescapable: “The U.S. temperature record is unreliable.”
When one considers that during the course of a single day and night, the temperature anywhere can vary widely, the notion that anyone can determine the nation’s or entire Earth’s average temperature based on such stations around the world is literally impossible.
Weather satellites provide a better gauge and, as noted, they have been reporting a cooling Earth since 1998.
The Greens aren’t the only ones who can make predictions, albeit for the purpose of scaring people into believing the bogus “global warming” hoax, I can do that too. I predict that the Greens will unleash an unholy attack on The Heartland Institute’s NIPCC report in order to discredit it.
Now, who are you going to believe? The thermometer your home or apartment uses to determine the temperature outside or the Greens? As for your local weather report, it is useful for perhaps a day, maybe two. After that, it’s anyone’s guess.
For more information, visit http://www.surfacestations.org.
Anthony,
Your work will be remembered as one of the single most important pieces of evidence against the cult of AGW.
Thanks for your efforts!
Alan Hale (12:37:19) regarding Garbage In Garbage Out, I like the comment made by Willie Soon recently, Garbage In Gospel Out.
‘Hot’ damn!
Kudos for breaking through that seemingly impenetrable wall.
The truth will out and you, Anthony, will have been a part of the wave of brave, determined and honest souls that took this beach head and began the process of freeing minds from the myth of AGW.
It is great to see Mark here. As mentioned on the other
recent thread that brought up this OCR editorial, I have
been working with the OCR on this issue for nearly a
year now.
Last August’s “City Heat” piece was a bad one. The
reporter did a single-source article (from that Santa Ana
station) and it got an above-the-fold, front-page placement.
That was a serious journalism error. Diepenbrock, the
reporter’s boss, but below Mark, agreed that the article
was poorly sourced and had too prominent placement.
He also agreed to do a piece with similar placement if
we could fundamentally disprove AGW by showing the
station placement all over the country was bad.
Yes, the tide is turning. Mark did not have wait for the
tide to fully go out write an _editorial_. The news and
editorial departments are not the same. When Dipenbrock
goes ahead with a front-page “There is no AGW” piece,
well then we will have made _serious_ progress. In the
mean time, keep up the good work.
Here is a few bucks to help the cause.
John Andrews
I can’t wait to see the plots using only the good stations and see what the real story is on temperature.
Meanwhile, the sun spots have all disappeared again…
All you’ll have is a bunch of disparate data points that really have no relation to each other.
About 25 years ago I was one of a group of parents involved in a dustup with the Pomona Unified School District that resulted in litigation. The editor of the local paper tried to sit on the story, but a young reporter then working for the LA Times wrote a fair piece we were able to use to good effect. (Made a bunch of copies and flew them around our end of town.) We won the court case, thanks in part to the power of the press.
Mark, I don’t think I ever had the chance to thank you for your honest reporting. It’s good to see you’re still on the job.
John Slayton
Keith Minto (19:05:10) :
I’ve used Garbage In, Gospel Out for decades, though I didn’t create it. Somehow it’s never caught on – I guess all us past users never had the right “street cred.” It sure applies to much of climate change advocacy!
Maybe The Onion could use that in a story about GISS adopting it as their motto.
Ric Werme (22:13:51) :
Keith Minto (19:05:10) :
Alan Hale (12:37:19) regarding Garbage In Garbage Out, I like the comment made by Willie Soon recently, Garbage In Gospel Out.
Maybe The Onion could use that in a story about GISS adopting it as their motto.
The Onion appears to be enjoying status quo funding from alarmists – they don’t dare skewer the beast. But Dr. Roy Spenser has no such fear:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/20/AR2006052001151.html
I pledge another $100 to the tip jar if another major network or newspaper with 250,000+ circulation writes up a supportive story on this topic.
Reading the enthusiasm from readers in this blog, and seeing the results Sir Anthony has produced, I must say I feel that my very modest donations thus far to the tip jar have been put to exceptional use. Here you can really see results from donations made, and you do not have to wonder if your donations just get burned up by a huge inefficient bureacracy.
Questions for taxpayers to ponder:
1. How much would it have cost for the NOAA etc. to have conducted such a survey of surface stations as Anthony’s?
2. How long would it have taken them?
3. What does it currently cost the government to gather, process and publicize the data?
4. For the cost in No. 3, can we be satisfied with the quality of the the data?
5. Can we base public policy decisions on this high priced data?
6. What will be the costs of basing policy decisions on junk data?
The answer to these questions ought to scare anyone.
…and I’ll double that if Newsweek, Time, NYT, WaPo or the UK Guardian go with it.
Offer limited to 90 days!
Smokey (07:00:24) :
69% of all the Surface Stations surveyed are out of tolerance by ≥2°C: click [CRN=4 + CRN=5].
Can you give evidential proof of these figures or is this guess work?
bill,
Unless I’m misunderstanding your question, the ‘evidential proof’ you want was taken from Anthony’s Surface Stations site.
Please check it out. You will see that the U.S. surface station record is unreliable.
Of course, failing to fight global warming will cost the economy $19.2 trillion and 3 million lost jobs by 2030. Why do they always fail to mention the offset?
REPLY: Citations?
[snip way off topic, wrong thread, we are talking about weather stations, sorry, just realized what thread this was, previous posters comment deleted also]
Pierre Gosselin (02:19:35) :
I pledge another $100 to the tip jar if another major network or newspaper with 250,000+ circulation writes up a supportive story on this topic.
A generous offer Pierre, good for you. To try to help, I have sent the following to the Guardian:
Dear Guardian,
I was surprised to discover than a voluntary organisation at http://www.surfacestations.org has been surveying the global temperature measuring station network and that 90% of the stations surveyed fail to meet the guidelines for siting and maintenance layed down by the body which uses the data from them to determine the global temperature record. Some of the failures included the placement of temperature sensors near to air conditioning system exhausts, on or near expanses of black tarmac and close to other buildings which would affect readings.
Given the intention to spend billions of our money on tackling global warming, wouldn’t it be a good idea to make sure the data we are using is correct first? As the editor of the Orange County Register in California put’s it:
“Before devastating the economy to fix a problem that may not exist, we ought to get the numbers right.”
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/temperature-stations-global-2433763-heat-watts
The Guardian’s own environmental team seem completely convinced by the global warming theory put forward by the IPCC and never publish anything which runs contrary to their storyline. Isn’t it time a real investigative journalist was tasked with finding out the real situation? Tell him or her to take a brolly and a warm coat, it’s been snowing this June.
People please try to stay on topic. The topic is weather stations, climate data. Malaria and mosquitoes aren’t relevant or even remotely related to this thread. Thus, some posts on that topic have been snipped.
I did note that the Santa Ana station was incorrectly oriented?
Smokey (05:18:17) :
Please check it out. You will see that the U.S. surface station record is unreliable.
For instance this station MARYSVILLE, CA, GISS (GISS plot of USHCN data)
has the following comment by the site surveyor: “This is probably the worst temperature measuring location ever seen by this
observer in his 30 year history as a meteorologist.”
http://gallery.surfacestations.org/main.php?g2_itemId=57529&g2_imageViewsIndex=1
I could not find any other temperature plot taken in an acceptable location concurrently with any of this data. Perhaps you could point the link out to me, Thanks.
If this is unavailable how do we know there are 5degC errors?
A notable point from the Curator:”The entire rear area used to be grass field but was converted to parking lot about 20-25 years ago, the sensor IR shield was moved to its current location when the cell tower was erected. Their used to be a Stevenson Screen shelter at this location but was switched to MMTS”
So 20 to 25 years ago (1984 to 1989) there should be a step change of a few degrees when the tarmac was laid.
but looking at this plot showing max temperatures I can see no step change at the expected dates or am I looking at the wrong data?
http://img40.imageshack.us/img40/8494/marysvillemax19502000.jpg
Numbers SWAGged, just as Heritage did.
Think about it for a moment: If we fight global warming, it will most likely create jobs. A thousand harbors need construction, hundreds of miles of levees in the U.S. alone, rivers of cities near the ocean need seawalls and maybe seagates.
Heritage assumes the only way to fight global warming is to shut down industries. That’s not been the first or second or third choice for fighting any pollution since the U.S. got into the business in the 1800s.
(Disclaimer: I have not read all the comments so I do not know if somebody else has already posted something similar.)
I generally don’t understand why it matters whether or not global warming is real. We still should be taking the steps to reduce our emissions, simply because somebody is going to have to breathe what we emit into the air.
I would prefer that most of the world avoids ending up like Mexico City; where people frequently have to wear masks due to the condition of the air.
Of course, that’s just my personal preference.
Rishabh Mishra (19:40:56) :
I generally don’t understand why it matters whether or not global warming is real… We still should be taking the steps to reduce our emissions, simply because somebody is going to have to breathe what we emit into the air.
The reasons are many. First, it is morally and scientifically reprehensible for some of our most educated people to accept funding in exchange for preconceived conclusions. There is now and has been since the alarm first sounded, plenty of evidence against the AGW theory. That evidence has not been allowed to enter the debate as it should in any honest scientific inquiry.
Second, “our emissions” include a quantity of CO2 with each exhalation of human breath. Do you suggest human beings breathe less often? The substance of the skeptic argument is that CO2 is not a pollutant. It is the Earth’s natural plant fertilizer and we have no evidence that in the quantities emitted by man it causes any warming global or otherwise.
Rishabh, most people on this board have no objection to countering real, toxic pollutants like CO and SO4. The AGW alarmists cling to their tattered claims that man has set the world afire. They do so to mask their real agenda which is to halt western economies, limit the distribution of energy and thereby control the expansion of human civilization. Their mistake was in focusing their agenda around a facade. That facade has been torn down.
Tallbloke:
[snip]
Keep on speaking up for freedom from the bureaucracy we don’t want or need, we are right alongside you.
Reply: Those analogies have no place here. ~ charles the moderator
Charles, my apologies, this wasn’t the right thread. Nonetheless, given the comments about capital punishment for ‘climate deniers’ on Climate Progress, I believe the best way to avoid the mistakes of the past is to constantly remind ourselves of them.
I tried to do this on Climate progress, but my post was censored….
Thanks as always for your patience and balance.
Job losses due to the Waxman-Markey climate change bill: click
[source of graph]
And the bill will not do anything but raise taxes.
Smokey:
I posted:
bill (17:22:46) : and pointed out the Marysville “This is probably the worst temperature measuring location ever seen by this observer in his 30 year history as a meteorologist.”
http://gallery.surfacestations.org/main.php?g2_itemId=57529&g2_imageViewsIndex=1
Can you point out the proof of the 5degC error Please?
I also mentioned the change from field to tarmac does not show up in the record. Any explanations?
http://img40.imageshack.us/img40/8494/marysvillemax19502000.jpg
Can you point out the proof of the 5degC error Please?
I can’t offer proof, but it is NOAA/CRN’s own estimate, as signed off on by Dr, Karl, himself (as per LeRoy, 1999).
http://www.ccrom.org/documentspublics/2007thematique/documentstechniques/Classification_environnement-note_technique35-2.pdf
(See p. 6.)
bill,
I see that evanmjones was quicker on the draw than me, and provided information on the tolerance of various stations.
As you can see here, the accuracy of the station sitings varies by quite a bit.
Based on the Surface Station network, how can anyone claim to know that there was a 0.6° C change in temperature — when the tolerance of 69% of the stations in the network are only accurate to ≥2° C?
Raw data, stations weighted equally, shows +0.14C. +0.31 for TOBS, 0.59 with FILNET, for 1900-2006
Smokey (11:26:53) :
evanmjones (11:07:01) :
Thanks for the pointer.
The temperature error is obviously an unknown as all errors are given with a query:
Classe 5 (erreur 5 °C ou plus ?)
Classe 3 (erreur 1 °C ?)
Anyway. assuming the worst. then since the MMT is surrounded by “parking” we would be looking at a 5deg C error.
There is none showing in the unadjusted temperature record. Why?
http://img40.imageshack.us/img40/8494/marysvillemax19502000.jpg
Bill 2:21 Note that you are plotting the High Temp only. Climate science uses the mean temp in most analysis. The UHI/micrositing issues show up mostly in the lows due to heat retention and re-radiating LWIR at night.
For a review of siting issues and the estimates see the NOAA siting standards on the Climate Reference Network. That is what I’m using, their rating system for site quality.
The Climate Reference Network Site Handbook, including explanation of the CRN 1-5 rating system used by surfacestations.org here:
http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/uscrn/documentation/program/X030FullDocumentD0.pdf
wattsupwiththat (15:23:30) :
Bill 2:21 Note that you are plotting the High Temp only. Climate science uses the mean temp in most analysis. The UHI/micrositing issues show up mostly in the lows due to heat retention and re-radiating LWIR at night.
The plots show monthly averages (daily variations will not be apparent. Here is the min of the monthly data. Again it would be impossible to assign any shift in temperature at the suggested dates for paving of the field.
http://img54.imageshack.us/img54/2594/marysvillemin.jpg
The same data with the raw data filtered (Hodrik Prescott) still reveals no step or slope change.
http://img54.imageshack.us/img54/6420/maryvillehpfiltered.jpg
If an expected 5deg C change were present. Wouldn’t this show?
REPLY: The plots that you are doing look very odd, for example the min plot is clipped, what sort of software are you using? I’ve never seen a plot output like this where the top is truncated. But you can see the classic rise of UHI in it, the mins have been steadily getting warmer, exactly what you’d expect in an urban station.
On the Tmean plot, be sure the data you are using is truly “raw”. If you are uisng GISS data, and it looks like you are, your are working with data that has already been highly adjusted/homogenized. Get the NOAA data from NCDC.
Asphalt, concrete, etc isn’t always a step jump, as it often creeps in gradually, this is what city UHI is all about. The transformation at Marysville was not all at once. The trend difference between well sited stations and poorly sited ones are what we are looking at.
But if you want to see some supporting peer reviewed science on temperature differences over such surfaces, in absolute measurement, see Yilmaz et al (2008 ) Heat over grass/soil/concrete.
http://www.ejournal.unam.mx/atm/Vol21-2/ATM002100202.pdf
There are several stations stations I can show you where the change was dramatic, when moved to an asphalt environment from grass, one is Lampasas, TX:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/02/14/how-not-to-measure-temperature-part-51/
Here’s more on Marysville and Orland to give you an idea of what the difference is in plotting output I’m familiar with:
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=1844
Also you never answered if you had read the NOAA Climate Reference Handbook describing the siting ratings. Did you read it?
Anthony
Then it’s an erroneous argument. A pollutant is a substance where it’s not supposed to be. CO2 is often a pollutant. It can be a deadly gas. How can a killer gas not be a pollutant when it’s in concentrations that make it deadly?
REPLY: Ed that is just silly. We are talking about 290 parts per million in Earth’s atmosphere now, trace gas levels. The levels in free air are far lower than what you’d get in a room full of people at a party, which is about 2500 ppm. To get to “killer gas” levels, you’d have to reach 50,000 ppm. at a worst case rise of 2ppm per year, based on current MLO CO2 trends, we have over 24,500 years to get there.
Source – Carbon Dioxide Information and Analysis Center: http://cdiac.esd.ornl.gov/pns/faq_othr.html
CO2 is part of Earth’s natural cycle, it is not a pollutant. And if you were to look far back in time, you’d find that the Earth once had an atmosphere that was mostly CO2. Then plant life evolved to make use of it, and oxygen they gave off became the “pollutant” by your definition.
Source – http://teachertech.rice.edu/Participants/louviere/history.html
No need to worry, CO2 in the atmosphere won’t kill us anytime soon, in fact without it we would not be having this conversation.
And again, I’ll remind EVERYONE this thread is about weather stations and data quality, not CO2. Etiquette please.- Anthony
Anthony,
Great job of keeping us all well informed. I just wanted to let you know that your website has been blocked for sometime in China. And, the authorities in China are beginning to talk on the lines of the current US administration.
My only hope is that somebody can stop the madness before future generations have to suffer an ice age. Valuable resources are being wasted that could be spent in preparation for mile deep sheets of ice, if the world would only open its eyes, and see the wizard standing behind the curtain.
Unfortunately I think it is going to take ice on the equator before the modelers will admit that they were wrong.
in your response to bill (20:02:37) :
REPLY: The plots that you are doing look very odd,
Its just a rescaled plot lookining at the minimums on a sensitive temperature scale.
But you can see the classic rise of UHI in it, the mins have been steadily getting warmer, exactly what you’d expect in an urban station.
Wouldn’t you expect this in an warming situation.
Population by Year Change Rate
2000 12,268 N/A
2001 12,454 1.52%
2002 12,558 0.84%
2003 12,599 0.33%
2004 12,491 -0.86%
2005 12,131 -2.88%
Not the most expansive of towns. So where does your UHI originate in a growth function.
I still suggest that there should be a step change as the car park was paved – it is not visible.
be sure the data you are using is truly “raw”.
3 sets of data were presented, UHCN, Combined, and homogenized. The first was used and if the record was incomplete in one un-homogenised plot then they were combined without modification. A second plot is presented which is the homogenised version and a 3rd shows the difference between them.
Asphalt, concrete, etc isn’t always a step jump, as it often creeps in gradually, this is what city UHI is all about. The transformation at Marysville was not all at once.
I am surprised that they built a carpark as and when required – it is a lot easier to do the lot in one go.
For a comparison between sites it is necessary for the location, what’s under the sensor, what heat sources close to the sensor, etc to be the same. But grass is not ideal as this will cool and retain water, concrete retains heat, gravel retains heat etc. If looking for possible trends at a station then consistency is the most importent requirement. it should not be moved the underlying material should not change, and objects withing a 30m? radius should not change. This will give consistent results. The underlying stuff will affect daily and seasonal differences but from year to year there will be no distortion of temperature and trends will be the only perturbation.
thanks for the link:
http://www.ejournal.unam.mx/atm/Vol21-2/ATM002100202.pdf
Also you never answered if you had read the NOAA Climate Reference Handbook describing the siting ratings. Did you read it?
Yes the French as well as the NOAA. This does explain the source of your numerical system, but does not prove the error at each location.
REPLY: Bill, we aren’t assigning an absolute error to each location, nor have I ever said that Marysville has an absolute 5C error, we are simply using the rating system as a way to bin the raw, TOBS, and FILNET temperature data so that we can do trend analysis on well sited versus poorly sited stations. I have not done this yet on a publication basis because I wanted to get an undisputedly large sample before I did so. Now approaching 80% we are trying out those sorts of analyses.
The rating system is the only one in existence on Earth, and while not perfect in its broad assignment, is the only one we have to work with, and it was signed off on by the director of the NCDC himself. I figure it is good enough.
Yilmaz et al though shows some significant errors over different surfaces, so following that, if we wanted to do a comparison of Marysville versus a grassy field a mile or two away to determine the magnitude of the absolute error, that might be an interesting experiment to try.
“I am surprised that they built a carpark as and when required – it is a lot easier to do the lot in one go.” I agree, but this is also a fire training facility, and the rear lot changed with training needs. There’s also the cell phone tower, and 2 equipment sheds for it with a/c units, these were added around 2001-2002 if I remember correctly. The lesson here is that it is a dynamic environment. – Anthony
Anthony, I regret you regard a definition of a pollutant as silly when accurate. Where is the correct thread to hash out what a pollutant is?
REPLY: Next time you see a thread with a tag of CO2 would be appropriate. In the meantime, try not to poison yourself with your own breath. – Anthony
Can you give evidential proof of these figures or is this guess work?
Well, LeRoy (1999), the handbook for NOAA/CRN lists CRN4 and 5 sites as having an offset of ≥2C.
The basic conclusions of LeRoy are confirmed by Yilmaz, et al (2008).
Seven out of ten stations are CRN4 or 5, as demonstrated by photographs and/or aerial surveys+curator interviews. Having done over 200 of these surveys (both photographic and satellite) and supplementing around 100 more as a devoted member of the Thermometer Team (Mercury Monkey division, Satellite Strike regiment), I can speak with some small authority on the subject.