Some long time WUWT readers may remember this famous picture of the USHCN climate station of record in Detroit Lakes, MN.
This is what I wrote on July 26th, 2007 about it in:
How Not to Measure Temperature, Part 25
This picture, taken by www.surfacestations.org volunteer Don Kostuch is the Detroit Lakes, MN USHCN climate station of record. The Stevenson Screen is sinking into the swamp and the MMTS sensor is kept at a comfortable temperature thanks to the nearby A/C units.
The complete set of pictures is here
From NASA’s GISS, the plot makes it pretty easy to see there was no discernible multi-decadal temperature trend until the A/C units were installed. And it’s not hard to figure out when that was.
And as you know, that curious jump in the GISS record, even though it coincided with the placement of the a/c heat exchangers (I checked with the chief engineer of the radio station and he pulled the invoices to check), it turns out that wasn’t the most important issue.
Steve McIntyre of Climate Audit saw something else, mainly because other nearby stations had the nearly the same odd jump in the data. That jump turned out to be discovery of a data splicing glitch in the NASA GISS processes joining the data pre and post year 2000.
It became known as The GISS Y2K glitch. It changed the balance of GISS surface temperature reporting, bringing 1998 down as no longer the hottest year on record. Here’s a writeup on it from Steve on the data itself.
Yesterday, volunteer Mark Ewens sent me some updated pictures of the Detroit Lakes site. It appears the embarrasment of having such a terrible station siting has forced the local NWS office into making some siting improvements:
As you can see, the MMTS has been moved away from the a/c units and the building. The Stevenson Screen appears to be gone. Interesting story about the Stevenson Screen, it was originally moved out of that center location where the MMTS has been now, because there was concern that somebody might break the mercury thermometers inside, and the mercury would prompt a “wetlands hazmat response”, which would be any EPA field agent’s dream, a double whammy.
Here are more pictures:
Mark writes:
About a year ago I indicated that the MMTS at the Detroit Lakes 1NNE Coop site was moved. See attachedthe pictures I took last week while on a trip. Obviously not optimal, but much better. Like almost all radio stationsthis one is located in a swamp, so I’ve got limited options to work with. The observer did note that he has noticeda marked decrease in the average temperatures since the move – and not just due to global cooling!The MMTS is ~80 feet from the building. The brown stalks are the left over winter kill of the saw grass thatis common in the swampy area of west central Minnesota.Mark EwensGrand Forks ND
Apparently, the NWS thought enough of the criticism of the siting next to a/c heat exchangers to do something about it. And, I’ve been hearing from time to time, that stations that volunteers have visited and we have showcased in “How Not To Measure Temperature, Part X” have been quietly cleaned up.
While that is encouraging, the fact remains that it took a team of concerned citizens and some international embarrassment to get NOAA to fix quality control problems in climate monitoring stations that they should have recognized and corrected long ago.
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My comments are not about this article, but the ad at the end of it. (I apologize if this is not the right place to put this.) Make your own electricity ad looks like a hoax to me. I feel ads like this certainly cheapen the appearance and content of WUWT. Does this bother anyone else?
How about for arguments sake we accept the data as over stated by 2 degrees. That motivates them to correct the placement problems or accept a theory that is now gone away because they really don’t have 2 degrees to work with.
This could be interesting. If they re-position 20% of the measuring sites, and get a corresponding drop in measured temperatures – possibly in conjunction with a climatic cooling trend – they might find a very rapid decrease in observed temperatures.
How will they explain that one away?
.
Why couldn’t the people maintaining this station spend the thirty minutes it would take to update the information at the Surface Stations website? The (bad) publicity generated by the Surface Stations project is almost certainly what prompted them to make these changes, so they are obviously aware of the site.
Looking at the feed line to the antenna, it appears to be a steel box conduit affair. That should shield the MMTS from any loose rf leaking from the coax cable running inside the conduit.
Hope they didn’t trash the old Stevenson screen. I understand they run about $1000 apiece. Don’t suppose they kept dual records for the screen and the MMTS? That could be used to calibrate the MMTS move.
Another mistake where the temperature jumps “up.” I don’t recall ever reading about a mistake where a temperature record was mistakenly lowered.
I also remember a few issues in ice area measurement and it seems like the mistake was in reporting less ice.
“MikeB
Does this bother anyone else?”
Not me… I’m sure you can make your own electricity. In fact we may be forced to soon. I’m gonna miss my air conditioner the most.
Mike Bryant
The rf cable, if coaxial, should not radiate, or if so, by a very small amount. Use of coaxial implies a tuned antenna assembly at the end of the cable, otherwise line losses would be very high and efficiency would fall dramatically. Its off the ground to keep it out of the muck, and reduce ground coupling and RF ground loops. Properly installed coax suitably impedance matched to the output of the transmitter and feedpoint of the antenna should not carry any (significant) RF current on the outside.
Whether the MMTS is at risk depends on what that antenna is doing – if its support only for VHF hardware up top, the risk to the MMTS is small. If its a broadcast antenna in which the whole thing is a radiator, then all bets are off.
Mike B, the ads are provided by Google, which places adverts based on keywords in the page. My experience with google ads is a couple of years out of date now but I recall at the time that there was no way to screen particular adverts out.
“The observer did note that he has noticed a marked decrease in the average temperatures since the move”
Hmmmm. Nothing evident in the graph. Is the current data from this sight available, and what does it show. I wonder if it looks like a step function opposite of the one we see above.
Of course with all the global warming going on, any adjustments to instruments such as the one we see here followed by a decline in temperature readings from the station must be met with skepticism, and perhaps will need to be adjusted higher to account for the missing warming.
Here’s a weather forecasting scoop
“It is a stark reality that Arctic sea ice could disappear in the summer sometime between 2013 and 2040. Regardless of exactly when the summer ice will disappear, the downward trend is clear, and shrinking ice cover will change almost everything in the Arctic, and will also be felt globally. ”
Before clicking try guessing what the photo will show….
http://www.catlinarcticsurvey.com/environment
And the “results” have been, er, hidden away in some archive:
“The results from the Catlin Arctic Survey have now been submitted for archiving on the Polar Data Catalogue of Canadian Cryospheric Information Network.
This is an archiving database scientists, academics and researchers use to find data to help them with their studies. The public can also access the data when it has been uploaded by the administrators along with other research work at
http://www.polardata.ca/whitesnow”
I think they have lost the plot completely
So there is no “climate warming” but “climate station’ s warming” 🙂
Gee Anthony,
If you keep at it, maybe have a satirical Surface Station of the Day post every day, you can cause the next ice age all by yourself…. lol
The most telling aspect of Anthony and his volunteers’ hard work is the fact that Gavin is no longer acknowledging Anthony’s efforts or posts. All other detractors are scurrying to marginalize him. This is great stuff as it indicates the touching of a sensitive nerve. The realization that all the warming could be easily explained and understood by problems with the data acquisition is a major coup for us realists. Sadly, MSM and those committed to the CAGW theory are now backed into a corner that is going to be very difficult to back out of. One of the best traits I see in most realists is the desire to take the tough road, do the dirty work to find out what is real and not to take someone else’s word for it. Thankfully, Anthony trusted his instincts regarding surface station measurements, and sure enough found that the data is questionable, at best. “When the levee breaks”, ….. it will be none too soon.
REPLY: Worse than that, Gavin won’t even respond to direct emails from me anymore. I’ve always been polite, but he’s now written me off as one of “those sorts of people” as he’s recently posted on RC (couldn’t post there either, my 4 comment attempts were denied):
At some point, when I publish a paper, we ‘ll see then if there’s any point in “having a rational discussion”. In the meantime, WUWT continues to beat the pants off RC in traffic and reach, so I’m going to just keep on doing what I’m doing and not worry about Gavin’s opinion of me. – Anthony
Check out the links Steve(Paris) has provided. Those people really have lost the plot. I especially liked the “picture” of the arctic ice status on the polardata site. I can’t believe anyone would think that is real. Mislead and obfuscate.
OT for this thread, but of interest.
7 Myths About Green Jobs
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1357440
Link found in Power Engineering Magazine e-newsletter
http://pepei.pennnet.com/Articles/Article_Display.cfm?ARTICLE_ID=364262&p=6
Regards,
Steamboat Jack
Anthony is doing more to fix “global warming” than Al Gore.
Mike B (11:41:42) :
“I feel ads like this certainly cheapen the appearance and content of WUWT. Does this bother anyone else?”
Not at all. They are on most sites and one just learns to ignore them. Elsewhere, I have seen a “1 Sexy Stomach Rule” ad many times in the last few months. I actually looked just now to refresh my recall of the wording but usually it and others are just there without me being concerned about them. On WUWT, as someone else mentioned, they key on words in the text. Actually some of them are interesting and some let you know what others are up to. As a policy, I usually check about 3 or 4 a day while on WUWT and ignore those on other sites. Seems fair – I enjoy this site and want to see it continue.
Why do they even monitor the temp? Hansen changes the values to fit the models anyway. Oh, that’s right, they need an excuse to spend more taxpayer money.
What was I thinking.
Mannomatics dear boy, Mannomatics.
…there was concern that somebody might break the mercury thermometers inside, and the mercury would prompt a “wetlands hazmat response”, which would be any EPA field agent’s dream…
Wait’ll everybody and their brother start breaking curlicue mercury lightbulbs!!! The EPA CO2 cops will have to work double overtime to hazmat the entire country.
“Dan Lee (09:39:33) :
So now its a tie? 1934 & 1998?”
I think they’re using that Rosie Ruiz algorithm.
David Ball (14:11:13) :
REPLY: Worse than that, Gavin won’t even respond to direct emails from me anymore. I’ve always been polite, but he’s now written me off as one of “these sorts of people” as he’s recently posted on RC (couldn’t post there either, my 4 comment attempts were denied):
[Response: Our comment moderation has nothing to do with any economic or social policy (indeed, look at the tragedy of the commons post which was the most policy-related one in a while). Instead, it is enabled to improve the signal to noise ratio, and cutting out repetitive continuous cut-and-pasted talking points from people with whom there is no point in having rational discussion. By and large that works. – Gavin]
I feel sorry for Gavin. He’s invested 1000’s of hours of hard-graft and an undoubted talent into supporting a scientific paradigm that caught the imagination of the body politic.
His entire competence, integrity, reputation and self-image (not to mention his future) is dependent upon whether an eclectic recipe of pan-scientific disciplines, cooked by computer and served up as a catastrophic AGW (CACC?) dish to a hungry MSM will stand the test (taste?) of time.
In the past his resolution was unshakeable. All the evidence was on his side. Clearly he was right, everyone said he was – Temperature records, his peerless colleagues but, most gratifyingly, not just his political masters but the United Nations. What an accolade for a simple scientist. Darn it, I’d be wagging my tail as well!
Given that consensual pedigree, he should be magnanimous in victory, confident in any debate and respectful of those who clearly lie within the intellectual infra-red as being incapable of “having rational discussion”
This is not Gavin today. IMHO, and I’m only trying to be helpful here, I think you may be worried young man. Forget the ridicule exhibited by some posters about your recent literary offering, ignore the scathing comments of professional statisticians about the employment, and your admirable defense, of Mannian methodologies but please don’t allow your passion and loyalty to guide your intellect into a “Heads I win, Tails I lose” future.
The level of anger you direct towards certain individuals and ideas does not become you. You may be wrong, you may be right but you, as a highly gifted individual, are here to guide others. Don’t do it by dismissal and contempt – that’s beneath you. WUWT and CA annoy you to a level that indicates a touching of nerves – seriously, and this won’t go down well with your anger, but please have a think about this – If your viewpoint is correct and you can persuade them, not antagonize but persuade, these two, at least, along with their regulars will back you to the hilt. Don’t let your passion blind you to the fact that guys are so like you. They only want the truth and anyone that says otherwise has an agenda that you should be questioning. Are they using your passion for self-aggrandizement?
Think, Gavin, if they can persuade you are you ready to reciprocate? I sincerely hope so, we need you mate.
don’t tarp me bro (09:30:40) :
I really can’t think of a natural location change that would result in a negative variance.
Maybe a tree growing to a hight to create shade?
All that I see would cause average readings to go up. Isn’t that what people want to support their pre suppositions?
even the presence of a small hill/valley will cause change in the direction of air coming into an area and will make a temp difference. an area closer to a body of water will be cooler too. any good homegardner is aware of these issues, as there are microclimates every where. when firm AGW’s are having hysteria about miniscule differences in temperature trends, yeah, a site change that causes even an average 0.5 degree difference matters.
The last record for this location is may 2007
Looking at the raw and giss adjusted temperatures for this site gives the following plot
http://img341.imageshack.us/img341/2918/detroitlakesgissraw.jpg
which shows Giss making a 1.4 deg adjustment in the last few years
1. The adjustment “reduces GW ”
2. There is NO massive 5degC jump
3. The y2k jump seems to have been corrected
4. The station data has not been recorded from 2007 onwards, so splicing on the the new station location data will be poor.
5. Until 1992 there is a 1 deg c gentle rise = GW