WUWT readers will probably remember yesterdays’ story about the malfunctioning temperature sensor at the ASOS station at Honolulu airport next to an asphalt access road. Well guess what? Even though NOAA admits the sensor is in error by as much as 2 degrees, they are going to keep the data and the string of new high temperature records. “BUT” they fixed the recent record rainfall data from the same station. See below. How’s that for science? Fix one broken record due to faulty equipment but leave others?
FROM KITV-TV (hat tip to Becka)
HONOLULU — Honolulu’s run of record heat came to an end Wednesday, but it may not have been any cooler.The weather has been warm most of the month, with highs in the 90s the past nine days.However, between 11 a.m. and noon, the city’s temperature dropped from Wednesday’s high of 89 degrees to 86 degrees, the same hour a new thermometer was installed at Honolulu International Airport.
The old one had been showing a warm bias of a degree or two, officials said. The National Weather Service said that is not significant enough to throw out the data and recent records.
Here is the string of temperature records that have been set from this faulty ASOS station:
RECORD HIGH TEMPERATURE SET AT HONOLULU HI
436 PM HST TUE JUN 16 2009
A RECORD HIGH TEMPERATURE OF 91 DEGREES WAS SET AT HONOLULU HI TODAY. THIS BREAKS THE OLD RECORD OF 89 SET IN 2005. $$ HOAG
RECORD HIGH TEMPERATURE SET AT HONOLULU HI
431 PM HST MON JUN 15 2009
A HIGH TEMPERATURE OF 92 DEGREES AT HONOLULU INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT TODAY BREAKS THE OLD RECORD OF 90 SET IN 1982. $$
RECORD HIGH TEMPERATURE SET AT HONOLULU HI
627 PM HST SUN JUN 14 2009
A TEMPERATURE OF 92 DEGREES AT HONOLULU INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT TODAY BREAKS THE OLD RECORD OF 90 SET IN 2005. $$
RECORD HIGH TEMPERATURE SET AT HONOLULU HI
456 PM HST SAT JUN 13 2009
A RECORD HIGH TEMPERATURE OF 92 DEGREES WAS SET AT HONOLULU HI TODAY. THIS BREAKS THE OLD RECORD OF 90 SET IN 2005. $$
RECORD HIGH TEMPERATURE SET AT HONOLULU
525 PM HST FRI JUN 12 2009
A RECORD HIGH TEMPERATURE OF 92 DEGREES WAS SET AT HONOLULU TODAY. THIS BREAKS THE OLD RECORD OF 89 SET IN 1993. $$
RECORD HIGH TEMPERATURE TIED AT HONOLULU HI
426 PM HST THU JUN 11 2009
A RECORD HIGH TEMPERATURE OF 92 DEGREES WAS TIED AT HONOLULU HI TODAY. THIS TIES THE OLD RECORD OF 92 SET IN 1996. $$
RECORD HIGH TEMPERATURE SET AT HONOLULU HI
427 PM HST WED JUN 10 2009
A RECORD HIGH TEMPERATURE OF 92 DEGREES WAS SET AT HONOLULU HI TODAY. THIS BREAKS THE OLD RECORD OF 91 SET IN 1982. $$
RECORD HIGH TEMPERATURE SET AT HONOLULU HI
430 PM HST TUE JUN 9 2009
A RECORD HIGH TEMPERATURE OF 91 DEGREES AT HONOLULU INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT TODAY BREAKS THE OLD RECORD OF 90 SET IN 2003. $$
RECORD HIGH TEMPERATURE SET AT HONOLULU HI
0426 PM HST MON JUN 08 2009
A HIGH TEMPERATURE OF 92 DEGREES HONOLULU INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT TODAY BREAKS THE OLD RECORD OF 90 SET IN 1997. $$
RECORD HIGH TEMPERATURE SET AT HONOLULU HI
428 PM HST FRI JUN 05 2009
A RECORD HIGH TEMPERATURE OF 91 DEGREES WAS SET AT HONOLULU HI TODAY. THIS BREAKS THE OLD RECORD OF 90 SET IN 1997. $$ WATKINS
RECORD HIGH TEMPERATURE SET AT HONOLULU
445 PM HST TUE JUN 2 2009
A RECORD HIGH TEMPERATURE OF 91 DEGREES WAS SET AT HONOLULU TODAY. THIS TIES THE OLD RECORD OF 91 SET IN 1996. $$
CORRECTION TO RAINFALL RECORD AT HONOLULU AIRPORT
0915 PM HST THU MAY 28 2009
DUE TO TECHNICAL PROBLEMS…THE HONOLULU AIRPORT OBSERVATION STATED A RECORD RAINFALL OF 0.14 INCHES FOR THURSDAY MAY 28…BUT THIS IS INCORRECT. ONLY 0.02 INCHES FELL AT THE AIRPORT. NO RECORD WAS BROKEN. $$ MORRISON
RECORD DAILY MAXIMUM RAINFALL SET AT HONOLULU HI
445 PM HST THU MAY 28 2009
HONOLULU INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT RECORDED RAINFALL OF 0.14 INCHES TODAY BREAKING THE OLD RECORD OF 0.11 SET IN 1963. $$
Let me say it first: THIS IS JUST WRONG.
If they know the error, how can they possibly justify keeping the new maximum records? You can’t get away with this sort of thing in the world of professional sports records, Olympic records, or even the cheesy Guinness Book of Records. Heck they even fix mistakes made on the TV quiz show Jeopardy and dock the contestant’s winnings!
Surely NOAA has more scruples than a TV game show?
If the record can’t be verified because the equipment is faulty, how does that make it a valid record? They can’t, it’s FUBAR!
Here is the contact email links (right off their web page, I’m not outing anymore) for the Meteorologist in Charge and staff at NWS Honolulu. I say we give them an earful.
- James Weyman
- Meteorologist in Charge
- Richard Knabb
- Director of Operations
- Robert Ballard
- Science & Operations Officer
- Ray Tanabe
- Warning Coordination Meteorologist
- Kevin Kodama
- Hydrologist
- Bill Boone
- Electronic System Analyst
- Pam Fujiwara
- Administrative Assistant
Or if you’d like to write:
National Weather Service Forecast Office
2525 Correa Road, Suite 250
Honolulu, HI 96822-2219
Tel: (808) 973-5286
UPDATE:
WUWT reader Leon Brozyna points out the temperature dropped 3 degrees at the time of the sensor change, not 2 as indicated in the original TV story admission by NWS PHNL.
I’ve recovered the hourly data from the ASOS station and that is verified. Note there do not seem to be any other meteorological conditions that occurred at that time (such as increased cloud cover or rain) that could add a cooling trend. With solar insolation still increasing, and the high of the day likely yet to occur ( there was a second peak later) it seems that the sensor was off at least 3 degrees. Plus the temperature trend at that time of the day is usually upwards, so it may be even more than 3 degrees. Possibly 4.- Anthony
Source: http://www.weather.gov/data/obhistory/PHNL.html
| D
a t e |
Time
(hst) |
Wind
(mph) |
Vis.
(mi.) |
Weather | Sky Cond. | Temperature (ºF) | Pressure | Precipitation (in.) | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Air | Dwpt | 6 hour | altimeter
(in.) |
sea level
(mb) |
1 hr | 3 hr | 6 hr | |||||||
| Max. | Min. | |||||||||||||
| 17 | 17:53 | E 16 | 10.00 | Mostly Cloudy | FEW033 BKN075 | 83 | 67 | 30.00 | 1015.7 | |||||
| 17 | 16:53 | NE 20 G 24 | 10.00 | Mostly Cloudy | SCT028 BKN049 | 85 | 67 | 29.98 | 1015.3 | |||||
| 17 | 15:53 | NE 14 G 24 | 10.00 | Mostly Cloudy | SCT028 BKN070 | 86 | 66 | 29.98 | 1015.3 | |||||
| 17 | 14:53 | NE 18 G 25 | 10.00 | Mostly Cloudy | SCT044 BKN075 | 87 | 65 | 29.99 | 1015.6 | |||||
| 17 | 13:53 | NE 14 G 24 | 10.00 | Mostly Cloudy | SCT042 BKN075 | 88 | 65 | 89 | 84 | 30.00 | 1016.0 | |||
| 17 | 12:53 | NE 13 G 22 | 10.00 | Partly Cloudy | FEW043 SCT075 | 87 | 65 | 30.02 | 1016.4 | |||||
| 17 | 11:53 | NE 20 G 25 | 10.00 | Partly Cloudy | SCT045 | 86 | 65 | 30.03 | 1016.9 | |||||
| 17 | 10:53 | E 15 G 23 | 10.00 | Partly Cloudy | SCT042 | 89 | 66 | 30.04 | 1017.3 | |||||
| 17 | 09:53 | E 15 G 24 | 10.00 | A Few Clouds | FEW042 | 86 | 65 | 30.05 | 1017.5 | |||||
| 17 | 08:53 | NE 16 G 24 | 10.00 | A Few Clouds | FEW040 | 86 | 67 | 30.05 | 1017.5 | |||||
| 17 | 07:53 | E 15 G 22 | 10.00 | A Few Clouds | FEW033 | 84 | 66 | 84 | 79 | 30.05 | 1017.5 | |||
| 17 | 06:53 | E 7 | 10.00 | A Few Clouds | FEW033 | 82 | 67 | 30.04 | 1017.2 | |||||
| 17 | 05:53 | E 7 | 10.00 | Partly Cloudy | FEW028 SCT060 | 80 | 68 | 30.03 | 1016.8 | |||||
| 17 | 04:53 | NE 5 | 10.00 | Partly Cloudy | FEW033 SCT065 | 80 | 67 | 30.01 | 1016.3 | |||||
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Mike (16:09:39) Let me apologize if I have misinterpreted your post. There are people starving on Oahu. There are people starving on the continental U.S. These are issues that are more important than Global Warming. My question to you is; How many more people are going to suffer if cap-trade is implemented? Cap-trade is based on Co2 being a “pollutant”. The claim is that Co2 will increase earth’s temperature. This idea will cripple an already weak economy. How many people are going to starve then? All based on an idea that you agree is false. What if the earth cools and crops fail when we have not prepared for this because we were preparing for catastrophic warming? Perhaps you can see the importance of breaking down this false premise. Water is also an extremely important issue that needs to be looked at as well. In a resourceful country like the U.S., you have the ability to address all these issue at the same time. The powers that be seem to want to focus on Global Warming only. They have made it the priority, not WUWT.