WUWT readers who have followed this blog and the surfacestations.org project for a long time know that the USHCN climate station of record in Marysville, California, is the station that gave me that moment “when the light bulb went on”. I still remember my cellphone conversation (shortly after surveying the site) with my friend Russ Steele, saying:
“Russ you won’t believe it, they are measuring the temperature of a parking lot!”.
Some of the pictures I took that day are below, I’ve annotated them to point out things of interest.
I made Marysville the very first of the “How not to Measure Temperature” series on May 26th, 2007.
I realized in discussions at this Climate Audit thread, since Marysville was one of the first stations I surveyed, I hadn’t looked at the metadata for it in almost two years. Time for a look again given the discussion of this thread. I’ve been busy chasing hundreds of other stations but haven’t looked back to that one where I had the light bulb go on.
I found some interesting things last night in the NCDC Metadata (MMS) for Marysville at http://mi3.ncdc.noaa.gov/mi3qry/login.cfm (use guest login button)
First in The UPDATES Tab
[2009-02-04] 9999-12-31 2009-02-04 MSLAGLE AD HOC NONE — CLEAN UP OF COOP-A STN TYPE ISSUE MSLAGLE 2009-02-04
This in the REMARKS Tab
[2008-07-01] 9999-12-31 GENERAL REMARK REASON: UPDATE PUBLICATION; DATA NO LONGER PUBLISHED. DATA ONLY GOES TO WFO/STO. DATA THAT IS RECIEVED FROM THIS STATION WILL BE USED AS BACK UP TO TO MARYSVILLE AIRPORT DATA (04-5388) WHICH IS NOW BEING PUBLISHED. — INGEST_USER 2009-02-10
It seems to me like they gave up on it. There is not much that can be fixed there in terms of siting like they did at Detroit Lakes. Marysville Fire Station property is 98% Asphalt/concrete/buildings, with a small patch of grass in the front by the street/sidewalk.
I decided to check the B91 Forms, and sure enough, NOAA bailed on Marysville in October of 2007, just a few months after I first brought it to national attention with “How not to Measure Temperature“
See the screencap of the NCDC B91 database showing the span of record:
It is sad really, a station with a long record, since Feburary 1897, climatically “out to pasture” after more than a century, likely a victim of lack of quality control by NOAA. That being said, why should we retain questionable station data in our climatic database?
Here is the very last B91 form submitted from the Marysville Fire Department in October 2007:
So I guess NOAA saw enough problems at Marysville to put it “out to pasture”. So now they use the airport.
Ironically, since the data from Marysville is now going directly to the NWS office in Sacramento/Stockton, rather than NCDC’s climatic database, the station mission has come full circle. It is likely now used for forecast verification, which is what the original mission of the COOP network was.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Wow ! a real UHI data point, that would be used for the temperature 1200 km away; maybe in Loreto , Baja Sur, Mexico.
So maybe they can take the guts out and let the owls take it over; or maybe some bats.
George
The airport, of course, has grass pastures and no buildings around the thermometer, right?
Another “win” for you and the surfacestations project, Anthony.
Excellent work. Superb, even…..
i wonder if the surfacestations project will one day be seen as the primary crack in the foundation of AGW theory.
I would suspect that the fact that only about one contiguous 12 month period was recorded for the station from 2000 to 2007 would have been a major reason why marysville was pulled:
http://img54.imageshack.us/img54/6420/maryvillehpfiltered.jpg
REPLY: Yes that is one issue, but not the only one. And I’ll point out the data reporting issue is common with many other facilities that are USHCN stations that don’t operate on weekends and holidays. In this case the office manager, not a fireman, was responsible for the record. If the issue was reporting, you’d think they would have switched the job to a fireman on duty, since they are there 24/7 and have sleeping quarters, kitchen, and a lounge. I’ve been there.
The airport (and its AWOS) has been around for quite some time:
CALIFORNIA/YUBA [MARYSVILLE YUBA COUNTY AP] 1947-03-01 Current None 93205 MYV 20002846 [ 39.09778
39°05’52.008″N ] -121.56972
121°34’10.992″W AIRPORT: 62 FEET
UNKNOWN: 72 FEET
LAND SURFACE, ASOS, FAA, SAWRS
AWOS was commonly installed in the mid 80’s to mid 90’s
The fact that Marysville was removed from climatic records just a couple of months after I highlighted the embarrassing problems speaks volumes. You, being in England, probably see it differently. Mostly I see it that you just can’t take in the fact that this station has a quality control issue with siting.
There was ample opportunity to correct the reporting problem or switch stations for years before my report came on the scene. – Anthony
Of course we have to wonder, How good is the airport station.
So, how many other stations have been changed/dropped as a result of the hard volunteer work done by Anthony’s Army? I can’t help it, but the image that comes to mind is of NCDC following in the wake of Anthony’s Army with a pooper scooper, cleaning up the messes that the Army discovers. It could be taken as a measure of the Army’s success.
Anthony:
You recently published your results from the Surface Stations site survey. Do you have enough data to analyze the data from the properly sited stations to see if there is a temperature trend?
A few years ago I read about a study that indicated rural California was cooling. The stations not affected by UHI showed cooling. I’d like to know if you have enough data to do a similar analysis and if you plan to publish it soon.
Thank you.
[snip Adolfo – just stop with the silly comments that amount to grade school taunts – Anthony]
A pasture sounds like the ideal location (except for all those methane-expelling cows, of course). 😀
Paul
In bill (10:05:31) :
REPLY: Mostly I see it that you just can’t take in the fact that this station has a quality control issue with siting.
My “problem” is not that i do not see the siting problems. It is simply that it is claimed that this sort of record wrecks the integrity of the whole of the network.
The siting problem will give an error. This error will be a one of shift in temperature – up or down – There is little increasing UHI effect at this site (stable population). The record does not show more than perhaps, if you squint a bit, 0.5deg shift at about the time the asphalt was placed.
http://img35.imageshack.us/img35/5114/maryville.jpg
In fact because of the GISS adjustment the record shows a overall negative temperature rise! (Remove this record and make GW larger!)
My objection is therfore just that the figures do not match the quality rating given the site with respect to temperature anomaly.
A comparison is required that proves the effects of shade/buildings/concrete/tarmac/trees/grass etc not only as an absolute but also as an “anomaly”
Anthony – not all of us in England see things differently, you’ll be glad to know. I, for one, who know little of the science behind all this stuff, well understand the GIGO concept.
Like markinaustin I think that your work will one day be proved to be pivotal in pulling down the AGW construct.
I must say congrats Anthony. If nothing else, your project and its volunteers are forcing NCDC to clean up the surface station network. If nothing else comes from this project, that in and of itself is a huge accomplishment. My hat is off to you.
CB
PS. I think there might be some unsurveyed stations near me and I might just have to make a day trip to get you some more info. Congrats again on the great work that your project has done.
The airport, of course, has grass pastures and no buildings around the thermometer, right?
The airport is, well, an airport.
The CRN ratings for airports are about 1.2 better than those for non-airports. yet they have warmed much faster than non-airports over the last 30 years because airports have expanded so much (plus other issues). They have their own mini-UHI bubble.
So no matter how good the CRN rating, an airport is a lousy place to site a station. (Other than for airport use, of course.)
I can’t help it, but the image that comes to mind is of NCDC following in the wake of Anthony’s Army with a pooper scooper, cleaning up the messes that the Army discovers. It could be taken as a measure of the Army’s success.
There have been a few we have noticed.
A comparison is required that proves the effects of shade/buildings/concrete/tarmac/trees/grass etc not only as an absolute but also as an “anomaly”
There is no practical difference between absolute and anomaly — just add the baseline and they are identical.
I think you mean “trend” vs. “offset”. The answer appears to be that bad siting affects both.
For a start, see Yilmaz et al (2008).
Yilmaz et al (2008) Heat over grass/soil/concrete
http://www.ejournal.unam.mx/atm/Vol21-2/ATM002100202.pdf
And,
Ross R. McKitrick, Patrick J. Michaels , JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH-ATMOSPHERES, DECEMBER 2007, Quantifying the influence of anthropogenic surface processes and inhomogeneities on gridded global climate data
http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/jgr07/M&M.JGR07-background.pdf
Bill:
1) The quality rating is per NOAA standards…not some number made up by Anthony.
2) This isn’t an isolated site, as you should know if you’ve follwed this site for any amount of time.
3) .5 degrees is almost all the GW from the last 100+ years, so if it’s insignificant, then so is the warming for the next 100+ years.
4) Have you visited surfacestations.org?
This whole thing makes me laugh…
Asphalt vs tarmack
A/C Exhaust vs jet engine exhaust
Cell phone tower vs traffic control tower.
SEE? All better now. Just like it was in 1897.
Anthony,
Marysville brings back memories. I remember looking at all the other sites in the area, california state agri sites, well sites all ( in feilds) colusa for example.
the differences with Marysville were clear and demonstrable.
Other things:
1. remember the argument that photos dont matter? Ha, looks like NOAA thinks differently than the crowd at the Elis and Tamino.
2. Remember how we argued that bad sites should just be removed? and people argued that bad data could be fixed or adjusted? memeber that?
ha
REPLY: He who “ha’s” last “ha’s” best. – Anthony
Bill,
Been there, done that. I helped a student do a measurement of temperature differences over different surfaces for a science fair project almost two years ago (he made it to the national competition.) He showed that some surfaces (forget which ones) can have differences of up to 7 degrees centigrade from a control measurement. He found that grass actually is about 1 degree warmer than light sand, so if we went with grass as the base-line, only light colored sand/dirt surfaces were cooler. He didn’t do shaded areas. Surprisingly, even snow gave a warmer reading than a grass surface.
And, of course, the difference wasn’t just a flat offset. The whole curve of how temperature rose in the morning, fell in the afternoon, and persisted overnight was different for almost every type of surface.
I think, when we ran the offsets through the 450 stations that were in surfacestations at the time, the average was an error of 3.4 degrees. That totally swamps the 0.7 degrees or so that is claimed for global warming.
The condition of the USHCN is a joke from the viewpoint of basing multiple trillion dollar economic decisions on it. The idea that we wouldn’t spend (taking a very, very conservative estimate of 1 trillion as the cost of “AGW Remediation”) 0.001% of that cost ($10,000,000) to put in a set of 1,000 truly well sited and reliable stations to get a real idea of what the temperature is, is a disgrace.
This is a off topic, but I thought this would be of interest.
“El Nino returns?”
http://www.kptv.com/weatherblog/index.html
It must be gratifying to see that you have had a positive influence. Congratulations! I don’t remember the airport site. Is it a real improvement?
RACookPE1978 (09:45:46) :
The airport, of course, has grass pastures and no buildings around the thermometer, right?
It could be “right” but it could be not because the data could be being collected from all the stations and the average could be presented like regional fluctuations of temperature.
bill
The majority, likely vast majority of the sites in the network have these siting issues. Read the surfacestations.org materials. This does affect the validity of the whole network. The size of the average error is larger than 1 C. This error is growing over time and has NOT been accounted for. It appears UHI corrections for it are inadequate in size and generally made in the wrong direction. It is so large that the likely error for North America is significantly larger than the entire warming signal.
This error if world wide (likely) may in fact account for ALL of the warming of the 20th century. Now I don’t think it does, but don’t pretend a bias error larger than the entire signal is minor.
The raw data has a strong bias and the “corrections” make it worse.
Jeff Naujok (12:23:58) :
Bill,
Been there, done that. I helped a student do a measurement of temperature differences over different surfaces for a science fair project almost two years ago (he made it to the national competition.) He showed that some surfaces (forget which ones) can have differences of up to 7 degrees centigrade from a control measurement. He found that grass actually is about 1 degree warmer than light sand, so if we went with grass as the base-line, only light colored sand/dirt surfaces were cooler. He didn’t do shaded areas. Surprisingly, even snow gave a warmer reading than a grass surface.
Compacted sand gives warmer readings than loose sand. Compacted snow gives cooler readings than loose snow. You know why? By photon scattering which is higher in loose (coarse) surfaces than in smooth surfaces.
Although I have doubts about AGW. One thing I don’t doubt is the heat island effect. Our cities are hot – hence the problem with sites for monitoring stations.
But if you don’t measure in cities, you miss the heat islands. It shouldn’t be too hard to figure out how much hotter cities are than surrounding areas. Multiply that times the area taken up by cities, and have an estimation of at least some human caused warming. And as the number of people grows, the area of cities (and pavement) will grow.