In my previous post I pointed out how when Warren Meyer asked a simple question; “is this chart representative?” of himself, he needed only one phone call to disprove that a chart in the newly released Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States from the National Climatic Data Center (see NCDC GCCI Government Report). The chart purported to show a threat increase to the national electrical grid due to severe weather was really not a weather trend at all, but a trend of increased reporting thanks to increased diligence by the owner of the data in getting electrical utilities to cooperate and send in their data.
In another recent post on the FUBAR climate records from the failed ASOS weather station temperature sensor at Honolulu International Airport, I showed a nearby comparison station, the Honolulu Observatory, that is a GISS station that apparently no longer reports. I wrote –
But the nearby Honolulu Observatory temperature record doesn’t seem to have much of a trend, though it no longer measures temperature for climate records, a pity:
Honolulu Observatory GISS surface temperature record plot – click for larger image
Yes it sure seemed like the Honolulu Observatory stopped reporting in 1981. It also looks like the station was moved about 1949, or something happened around the station environment.
UPDATE: I got this via email on the morning of 6/19
The Geomag operations of the Honolulu observatory were moved in 1947.
Jeffrey J Love
USGS Advisor for Geomagnetic Research
Steve McIntyre, who has pointed out on many occasions to NASA GISS how they can find some of their long long stations that are actually still running popped in today to ask a simple question about reporting. It was not unlike the question about reporting Warren Meyers asked:
Does anyone know why the Honolulu Observatory data ends in the 1980s? Did they stop measuring or did GHCN stop collecting the information from them?
It was a simple question, with a surprising answer.
A couple of days ago I had looked at nearby stations to the Honolulu Airport to use for a data comparison to see just how much bias the failed ASOS sensor had generated. My first choice was the Honolulu Observatory, but like Steve I quickly found it had stopped reporting, at least according to GISS.
But with Steve’s question today, and remembering that he and Climate Audit readers have found missing GISS stations that are not updated in the GISTEMP database, but are actually still live and reporting, I thought I’d check again. I reasoned that observatories don’t generally close or relocate, so why would they stop doing a science service like measuring climate?
When Warren needed to get an answer to his question, all he needed to do was to make a phone call (presumably after a Google search). In my case I did a Google Search and sent a single email to get Steve’s question answered.
My first stop was to NCDC’s MMS database of station information. I looked up “Honolulu Observatory”. Sure enough, there it was, and listed as “current” too.
Eureka, it is still in operation! It is an MMTS temperature sensor and it looks like they have a backup thermometer in a Stevenson Screen aka “Cotton Region Shelter”.
“That was easy”, I thought to myself. followed by, “OK, let me get a look at the data”. So I zipped over to the NCDC COOP data section where I could look at the B91 reports from the station observer which are raw data archived as PDF’s.
It was there I hit a brick wall.It looked like it had been long closed. After all that’s what GISS reported.
The closing dates on the two “”Honolulu Observatory” entries didn’t match, but I’ve seen plenty of fouled up dates and locations on station data in the MMS database so it didn’t raise an eyebrow with me. More on that later.
But oddly, I had the NCDC MMS database telling me it was open. So I pressed on. My next task was to locate the “Honolulu Observatory” and find out if it was still in operation. Some Googling turned up this:
I located the USGS web page for the observatory, and from there found the name of the curator, Dr. Jeffrey Love. Since this is a geomagnetic observatory, I figured our resident solar physicist, Dr. Leif Svalgaard might have some connections, and asked him for an introduction. He was happy to assist, and within the hour I had an email contact from Dr. Love. He asked what I was looking for, and I explained the NOAA COOP station setup. He immediately replied saying:
“We don’t operate that station anymore, NOAA does. We used to be part of NOAA, but became part of USGS in the late 1970’s”
I was initially worried until I read:
“It is now operated by the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center.”
Oh. Well, I still figured the station had moved, and was nowhere near it’s original location, which is why GISS couldn’t get any data from it. Then I noticed this on the USGS observatory web page:
“The observatory is operated for the USGS, under terms of a memorandum of agreement, by the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center of NOAA.”
Hmmm. A little more checking and I discovered that these two organizations do indeed share a common address. Better yet, the weather station apparently had not been moved. Both the USGS observatory and the PTWC were within a hundred yards of the station coordinates I got from NCDC ‘s MMS and plotted on Google Earth:
My first thought was that the location looked a bit cooler than the acres of asphalt surrounding the ASOS at Honolulu International Airport:
But I still had to find the data. My next stop was an email to the media contact for PTWC, Delores Clark, to inquire if she knew where to find it. A few hours later I had my answer:
Mr. Watts:
The data are available online at:
http://www.prh.noaa.gov/hnl/hydro/daily_rosa_archive/rosa_archive.php
If you need further assistance, please let me know.
Aloha,
Delores Clark
I was dumbstruck. Because, just a couple of days ago I had in fact looked at that very archive, trying to find the data I was seeking. Not finding “Honolulu Observatory” in the NWS COOP report, I didn’t look much further:
But at the time, I had no way of knowing that PTWC was the new name for “Honolulu Observatory”. Up until today after my roundabout search I never would have given that four letter acronym another thought.
The name changed when the jurisdiction changed, but apparently nobody notified NCDC, and the change never found it’s way into the GHCN database.
For all practical purposes, the station was dead to the climate world, known only to the local NWS office in Honolulu. Plus, their main interest is in rainfall, not temperature, since they place the data on their hydrology page:
A simple lack of interagency reporting caused a whole cascade down the line, and a climate station that was once “lost” has now been “found”. It wasn’t quite as simple as Warren Meyer’s phone call, but if a citizen outside of the governmental loop can figure this out in a couple of hours, why can’t agencies like NCDC and GISS? Especially when knowing this sort of thing is is their job? Are there no flags that go up anywhere when data suddenly disappears?
So from this point it was easy for me to find the data I was looking for and run the comparison between the “Honolulu Observatory” and the Honolulu International Airport ASOS station. First a geographic comparison from Google Earth:
Downloading each daily report from PTWC and PHNL individually, I manually collated the data from both stations and put them into an ASCII file for import into my Dplot graphing program. I’ve saved a combination file of the two datasets here as a PDF for inspection. PHNL-PTWC-June09-data If anybody needs the individual station reports, the source URL’s are in the PDF file, they’ll still be on the NWS server for a few days before they get rotated out.
Unfortunately, there were two days of PTWC data missing, though all days of the PHNL ASOS data were intact. Also, I had all of the false record event reports from the PHNL ASOS previously archived.
So I plotted the two high/low datasets side by side to get an idea of just how much bias there was between the two stations. Fortunately, the stations were only 3.9 miles apart, and about the same distance inland from the beach, though the airport station ocean exposure suffers a bit from the extra runway that was apparently added as ocean fill at some point. Geographically the stations seem reasonably compatible in their placement on the south coast of Oahu.
The data from the two stations, when plotted side by side, was telling. I marked missing data, the record high events, and when the ASOS was repaired.
Note when the highs (Tmax) converged for the first time this month to within one degree of each other, right after the equipment was repaired. The greatest separation is in the nighttime lows, which would be expected due to the runway asphalt influence at PHNL Lows tend to be affected more by heat retaining surfaces at night.
Note also that during the string of record highs from the 10th to the 15th, the two stations diverged mostly by six degrees F, The NWS originally admitted in their TV Interview to two degrees error, and that may be true from the HNL airport location since it is indeed a sea of asphalt.
“ASOS…placed for aviation purposes…not necessarily for climate purposes.”
Six degrees difference in the Tmax for at least 5 days. Many other days of record were 4 or 5 degrees difference. One day was 9 degrees difference.
But, which station is more representative of Oahu’s climate? The airport, or the observatory in the grove of native ground cover? I don’t think all of Oahu is paved yet.
So the big question to NOAA/NWS Honolulu is:
Do you still think these records are valid and worth keeping in the climatic database and record events database?
The big question for GISS is:
Would you like your lost station back so you can update the data?
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Pamela Gray (07:36:11) : “Ya know, I’m beginning to think that the ol’ finger in the mouth then stuck in the wind is a better temperature guage than what we got for instruments.”
Uh…no comment.
GlennB (12:57:49) :
“No, EGT is higher than 400 F, by about 500F for a rough number – 500C. Of course this temperature will be dissipated in the air, but just claiming “quickly” doesn’t provide any weight to your argument. And the people in your video wouldn’t have to have burning clothes, just feel a degree or so warmer. And likely they felt a blast of very warm or hot air. Have you been around airports and jets??”
Glenn
Yes I have, and I have felt those blasts of warm air, but not 500C. I can cook pizza at 200C so there is a pretty rapid drop from 500 or whatever the temp is down to warm. Incidently the Google maps of NHL shows the jets taking off to the East and a ship just to the West indicating the wind is right down the runway. A wind from this direction would make it very difficult to influence this particular NHL weather station.
Sorry
…to influence this particular NHL weather station on this particular day.
Actually, something does not quite add up here, in fact I’m not convinced that the station that GISS lists as Honolulu Obs Oahu was located where the PWTC is now, at least prior to 1960. I think it is more likely to have been nearer the station in the NCDC database as EWA KALAEOLA AIRPORT or possibly Barber’s Point. We know about the station move in 1949, however the USGS tells us that…
The Geomagnetism Program established an observatory at Honolulu in 1902, when the Program was part of the Coast and Geodetic Survey and under the leadership of Drs Louis A. Bauer and John A. Fleming. The present observatory site was established in 1960.
http://geomag.usgs.gov/observatories/honolulu/
The three buildings in the photo from the freshly-cleared site in 1960 look mightily similar to the three in the aerial view of the PTWC, allowing for vegetation growth. They also give the coordinates of the current location as 21.32°N and 158.00°W So where was the GISS ‘Observatory’ site prior to 1960? Note also a discontinuity in the GISS data that resumes in 1960. Another station move?
Consider also the list of GISS stations by proximity to Honolulu airport:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/findstation.py?lat=21.35&lon=-157.93&datatype=gistemp&data_set=1
Note that Honolulu Obs and Barber’s Point share the same Lat/Long (to 1 dp) and have the same GISS Id, apart from the lst 2 digits. I am no expert on GISS metadata but I believe that the last digits indicate the degree of proximity to the WMO Station identified by the 5 digit Id?
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/findstation.py?lat=21.35&lon=-157.93&datatype=gistemp&data_set=1
This is where GISS/GCHN thinks the three stations concerned are (or were)
42591178001 HONOLULU OBS OAHU 21.30 -158.10
42591178002 BARBERS POINT/NAS 21.32 -158.07
42591182000 HONOLULU, OAH 21.35 -157.93
While NCDC locates PWTC at 21.31528, -157.99917
So the Lat and Long GISS has for ‘Honolulu Obs’ is actually a few km to the West of the PWTC and adjacent to the runways at Ewa Kalaeola, while NCDC locates the Ewa Kalaeola airport station at 21.31667 -158.06667. Also, according to NCDC the WMO ID for Kalaeola airport is 91178 which matches the GISS Id for the station listed as ‘Honolulu Obs’ Station of 425911780010.
A little more detective work needed to tie up these loose ends?
http://www.wrcc.dri.edu/summary/Climsmhi.html
Plenty of monthly data available here:
http://www.wrcc.dri.edu/summary/Climsmhi.html
example:
http://www.wrcc.dri.edu/summary/Climsmhi.html
HONOLULU WB AIRPORT 703, HAWAII
Monthly Average Temperature (Degrees Fahrenheit)
(511919)
File last updated on Jun 11, 2009
*** Note *** Provisional Data *** After Year/Month 200902
a = 1 day missing, b = 2 days missing, c = 3 days, ..etc..,
z = 26 or more days missing, A = Accumulations present
Long-term means based on columns; thus, the monthly row may not
sum (or average) to the long-term annual value.
MAXIMUM ALLOWABLE NUMBER OF MISSING DAYS : 5
Individual Months not used for annual or monthly statistics if more than 5 days are missing.
Individual Years not used for annual statistics if any month in that year has more than 5 days missing.
YEAR(S) JAN FEB MAR APR MAY JUN JUL AUG SEP OCT NOV DEC ANN
1949 —– z —– z —– z —– z —– z —– z —– z —– z —– z 77.34 74.07 73.63 75.01
1950 72.29 74.27 73.66 73.82 75.97 77.13 77.95 78.97 78.68 78.47 75.38 72.00 75.72
1951 73.00 72.07 72.61 74.42 76.50 77.73 79.58 79.65 79.70 78.55 76.82 74.13 76.23
1952 72.63 a 72.95 a 72.85 73.34 a 73.71 76.50 78.02 79.06 78.43 77.03 76.09 a 73.63 a 75.35
1953 72.45 73.29 73.66 74.75 76.77 77.68 78.32 79.32 a 78.77 77.60 75.24 a 72.77 75.89
1954 71.82 72.96 71.52 74.58 74.94 78.28 a 78.22 a 79.42 a 79.24 a 78.08 76.88 72.95 75.74
1955 72.52 70.50 70.52 74.03 a 74.94 75.84 a 76.85 a 76.82 77.00 75.94 74.75 73.47 74.43
1956 73.31 72.34 a 73.82 73.85 75.79 76.69 a 78.39 79.26 79.43 77.87 75.38 74.23 75.86
1957 72.69 70.54 a 71.60 a 73.02 75.62 a 78.42 79.48 79.56 79.77 79.13 77.36 a 74.00 75.93
1958 71.55 72.45 71.00 73.80 75.05 77.70 78.08 79.35 79.63 77.39 74.67 71.95 75.22
1959 72.44 71.84 75.13 74.42 76.69 79.02 79.74 80.05 80.88 78.84 76.92 74.29 76.69
1960 72.81 72.41 73.68 74.87 77.05 79.10 79.81 80.44 79.77 79.24 76.83 74.42 76.70
1961 73.58 74.55 75.68 75.90 77.96 c 78.33 79.10 80.34 79.83 79.13 76.32 74.97 77.14
1962 74.61 72.29 73.13 76.42 77.19 78.62 79.15 80.00 79.08 77.21 77.42 72.69 76.48
1963 71.05 72.16 72.31 75.25 76.44 79.15 80.65 81.42 80.98 79.68 77.05 73.94 76.67
1964 75.03 74.62 74.63 75.65 76.32 77.90 79.31 80.37 80.22 78.27 76.37 74.87 76.96
1965 71.92 69.80 72.11 74.95 77.02 79.10 79.82 79.71 79.95 78.24 77.02 73.29 76.08
1966 72.58 71.93 75.18 75.12 77.08 80.47 80.81 82.00 82.43 80.87 77.20 74.61 77.52
1967 72.45 73.89 73.74 74.68 78.16 79.68 81.45 82.02 82.33 80.60 77.62 74.00 77.55
1968 73.00 73.31 —– z 76.72 78.40 80.40 81.45 82.85 81.93 80.60 78.73 72.73 78.19
1969 69.03 73.82 73.55 74.67 76.69 79.03 80.84 83.23 81.95 80.48 78.73 76.47 77.37
1970 74.19 73.23 76.90 78.33 80.40 81.10 82.16 83.76 79.03 78.42 75.80 74.65 78.17
1971 71.66 74.36 73.89 75.55 76.23 77.27 78.82 79.50 79.10 77.95 75.68 73.29 76.11
1972 70.39 70.60 72.77 74.95 77.21 78.92 80.39 81.10 80.50 79.27 76.65 71.55 76.19
1973 72.89 72.57 76.08 75.48 77.06 79.20 80.42 81.18 80.92 79.40 77.00 73.74 77.16
1974 74.52 74.39 73.98 77.37 78.15 79.23 79.85 81.16 79.93 79.50 75.65 75.74 77.46
1975 72.35 72.79 72.94 74.50 75.65 78.07 78.94 80.06 79.35 79.08 77.12 73.02 76.15
1976 73.63 71.98 73.58 75.10 77.45 78.15 79.76 80.81 80.68 79.10 75.23 75.23 76.72
1977 73.71 75.55 76.19 76.30 77.55 79.42 80.82 82.16 81.58 81.03 78.60 75.10 78.17
1978 74.15 73.21 75.63 76.77 78.16 78.70 78.95 80.48 80.45 77.73 74.65 72.40 76.77
1979 69.87 72.12 72.79 74.75 78.00 79.98 80.94 80.40 81.02 81.00 77.35 75.26 76.96
1980 71.89 72.34 75.00 76.07 78.24 79.48 80.89 81.00 81.60 80.13 77.97 74.32 77.41
1981 73.19 73.61 74.71 75.92 77.24 80.57 79.69 80.10 80.72 78.29 76.72 73.95 77.06
1982 73.16 71.71 73.98 75.35 78.26 79.55 80.61 81.40 81.37 79.34 75.65 72.02 76.87
1983 71.90 71.27 73.40 74.62 75.63 78.85 79.65 82.32 82.27 81.11 80.12 75.06 77.18
1984 74.56 74.60 75.73 77.00 78.68 79.33 80.97 81.68 81.27 80.16 78.95 74.11 78.09
1985 71.34 73.88 74.47 74.53 76.48 79.22 81.55 81.90 81.07 79.76 75.07 73.23 76.87
1986 72.79 72.52 76.50 77.50 78.26 80.02 81.52 82.87 82.10 80.53 79.18 75.03 78.23
1987 73.35 71.12 73.97 75.92 75.63 80.33 82.06 82.69 82.90 81.39 78.73 75.74 77.82
1988 73.06 74.74 75.97 77.25 78.90 80.78 81.74 82.10 82.07 80.08 79.87 75.55 78.51
1989 74.48 73.54 75.23 74.47 78.37 80.85 81.58 81.40 81.85 78.58 76.70 72.90 77.50
1990 74.65 71.48 73.06 76.55 78.05 79.95 80.73 82.34 82.25 80.90 77.28 74.11 77.61
1991 72.35 73.39 72.90 75.85 77.79 79.35 81.13 82.42 81.47 80.02 79.53 76.15 77.70
1992 72.84 73.17 74.90 75.62 77.77 81.27 81.47 82.21 81.30 79.37 77.00 76.66 77.80
1993 70.94 71.09 74.02 77.40 77.21 80.18 80.58 81.26 81.10 79.73 76.27 74.95 77.06
1994 72.00 73.57 73.15 75.95 79.27 80.90 82.92 84.34 83.93 82.42 80.82 76.55 78.82
1995 74.19 73.39 75.56 76.38 78.53 81.32 83.23 83.34 83.18 82.65 80.17 79.08 79.25
1996 76.13 74.02 74.29 79.88 78.98 81.22 82.11 82.81 81.40 81.71 76.93 73.08 78.55
1997 72.27 74.68 75.29 76.32 76.19 81.08 81.53 82.55 82.65 80.60 76.40 74.00 77.80
1998 72.44 72.77 75.13 75.12 76.58 78.28 79.66 81.08 81.03 79.71 77.73 74.74 77.02
1999 73.34 73.70 74.60 75.38 77.10 78.72 79.27 80.81 80.15 78.34 76.83 74.08 76.86
2000 72.55 73.60 75.39 75.32 78.24 80.42 81.03 81.37 80.53 80.39 77.52 74.69 77.59
2001 75.44 74.09 74.98 76.60 78.16 79.68 81.47 82.19 82.12 79.85 77.33 76.37 78.19
2002 74.15 73.07 74.06 76.65 78.11 80.78 80.97 82.15 81.20 80.16 77.48 75.42 77.85
2003 72.50 73.73 75.68 77.28 78.97 80.45 82.34 83.19 82.03 81.03 78.77 75.65 78.47
2004 73.60 75.93 74.97 77.10 79.40 81.32 82.68 82.73 82.77 81.39 77.50 75.23 78.72
2005 72.69 73.84 73.77 78.70 81.31 82.67 83.13 83.63 81.10 78.55 77.12 73.45 78.33
2006 74.24 72.07 73.56 74.78 75.27 80.05 80.69 81.15 80.18 79.11 78.12 76.06 77.11
2007 74.82 73.43 74.23 76.65 78.34 80.68 81.58 82.03 81.55 80.16 76.62 75.53 77.97
2008 73.55 74.76 77.29 77.23 79.24 80.45 82.16 81.60 80.45 79.68 77.23 75.19 78.24
2009 72.53 73.36 73.71 74.67 78.11 83.11 u —– z —– z —– z —– z —– z —– z 74.48
Period of Record Statistics
MEAN 72.92 73.02 74.15 75.69 77.37 79.40 80.46 81.27 80.85 79.47 77.10 74.37 77.17
S.D. 1.32 1.28 1.42 1.34 1.41 1.38 1.43 1.45 1.34 1.38 1.46 1.39 1.00
SKEW -0.28 -0.27 -0.18 0.72 0.07 -0.30 -0.29 -0.54 -0.43 -0.10 0.29 0.38 0.13
MAX 76.13 75.93 77.29 79.88 81.31 82.67 83.23 84.34 83.93 82.65 80.82 79.08 79.25
MIN 69.03 69.80 70.52 73.02 73.71 75.84 76.85 76.82 77.00 75.94 74.07 71.55 74.43
NO YRS 60 60 59 60 60 59 59 59 59 60 60 60 58
Stephen Skinner (17:04:57) :
GlennB (12:57:49) :
“No, EGT is higher than 400 F, by about 500F for a rough number – 500C. Of course this temperature will be dissipated in the air, but just claiming “quickly” doesn’t provide any weight to your argument. And the people in your video wouldn’t have to have burning clothes, just feel a degree or so warmer. And likely they felt a blast of very warm or hot air. Have you been around airports and jets??”
“Yes I have, and I have felt those blasts of warm air, but not 500C. I can cook pizza at 200C so there is a pretty rapid drop from 500 or whatever the temp is down to warm.”
Huh? Because you can cook pizza there is a drop in temperature? I don’t get it. Are you comparing an oven to a jet engine exhaust?
“Incidently the Google maps of NHL shows the jets taking off to the East and a ship just to the West indicating the wind is right down the runway. A wind from this direction would make it very difficult to influence this particular NHL weather station.”
Wind is not always right down the runway, nor the same speed or constant direction, and other factors are at play in the atmosphere that could have a significant influence, such as shear, wing vortices, obstructions, taxiing/taking off/landing aircraft. I just can’t take your word and anecdotal evidence that a temp sensor couldn’t be affected by all this hot air.
>>>No, EGT is higher than 400 F, by about 500F for a
>>>rough number – 500C.
Incorrect. Most jet engines have an EGT of about 900 oC (centigrade, not F) for take off – considerably hotter than you thought. That’s a lot of hot air, which is being produced by burning 80 kg of diesel per minute (just for a little 737 or A320).
Beats having a barbecue next to the met-station sensors. All that heat has to go somewhere.
Stephen Skinner (09:24:09) :
Hi Joe
Yes, this is the temperature at the point of exit from the engine as measured by the sensor in the engine. To measure these temperatures externally to the engine you would have to be very close, although it is likely the sensor would be destroyed by the blast. The temperature dissipates quickly otherwise the YouTube of those people in St Maarten should show burning clothes at least.
Stephen,
There are temperature probes that can be mounted in the exhaust path of Jet Engines, without being destroyed.
Jet engines can range from 20,000 to 115,000 lbs of thrust. They are moving lot of hot air.
The 737 at takeoff thrust still has an Exhaust Gas Velocity of 35 mph at 1900 ft from the aircraft tail. The exhaust gas temperatures will be 200 F at the tail, 150 F 80 ft from the tail, and 100F 255 ft from the tail. The exhaust gas wash area fills the area behind the aircraft to these distances.
If you still think jet engine exhaust gasses have no affect on the temperature record please post data to support your assertion.
Joe
ralph ellis (06:32:10) :
>>>No, EGT is higher than 400 F, by about 500F for a
>>>rough number – 500C.
Incorrect. Most jet engines have an EGT of about 900 oC (centigrade, not F) for take off – considerably hotter than you thought. That’s a lot of hot air, which is being produced by burning 80 kg of diesel per minute (just for a little 737 or A320).
Beats having a barbecue next to the met-station sensors. All that heat has to go somewhere.”
I agree. But jets are not always taking off, which is why I used a “rough number”, what may be closer to the average of all taxiing, landing and takeoffs in the area. And the jet in the video was not taking off, although I would not be surprised that it would have been reading EGT over 500C.
Having served in the military on flight status for several years it always amazed me at the numbers of ground crew that would congregate to the rear of the aircraft during cold weather. By the same token during summer operations you would usually only have one or two ground crew any where near the rear of the aircraft. It is also amazing to me that there are many sites where the weather sensors are located near what they call the run-up area. While the wind conditions may not move the exhaust toward the sensor all the time we have radiant heat from the metal parts of the engine to contend with also. It only takes a small temperature increase to skew the record and an airport is a good place to get those small increases. Air operations demand for safety reasons the proximate location of the temp sensor near the runway. They must have very localized information for take off weights and power. This isn’t a good sight for establishing climate records because of the extremely localized effect of the aircraft exhaust on the temperature down the runway. That is the only area that they are interested in. The temperature down the runway. the ambient air temperature is one of the determining factors controlling lift which is critical at take off when the aircraft is at its greatest weight. IN my poor opinion NOAA and GISS made a grave mistake when they began using airports as a location to study climate temperature change.
Just my 2 cents,
Bill Derryberry
“REPLY: I don’t want any prizes. I just want the data to be right, no matter what it says. – Anthony”
Spoken like a true scientist!
Great job Anthony!
It’s silly to talk about rewarding Anthony’s expose with a Nobel Prize. What he’s given us here is good journalism through detailed detective work. The appropriate reward would be a Pulitizer Prize. The site in general should be considered for a Pulitizer if they give them for weblogs. It’s a great site and it puts the drivel I read regularly in the Washington Post to shame.
theduke (17:55:01) :
It’s a great site and it puts the drivel I read regularly in the Washington Post to shame.
You actually read the WaPo?
AGW = Asphaltogenic Global Warming??
Anthony– I hope you have a wife to make sure all this fulsome praise doesn’t go to your head. (Not that you don’t deserve it.)
Tim Clark (13:19:42) :
CO2 Levels are Highest in 2.1 Million Years
Wouldn’t that study be measuring CO2 in the ocean, rather than atmospheric CO2? Did they use the former as a proxy for the latter? If warmer temps cause outgassing of CO2, what relationship does that imply, other than higher CO2 does indeed “coincide” (correlate) with warmer periods?
I vaguely recall this paper being discussed earlier, either here or at Climate Audit.
Many commenters seem amazed that a government agency could be so negligent. But it’s probably because they don’t work for the government. Government agencies are fundamentally different from private businesses: they get their money before they do any work. Businesses have to do the work first and then get paid. Imagine yourself as a thermometer maintainer who works for NOAA. You’re happily surfing the web at your desk, and a colleague points out that GISS is listing a certain station as missing, although he thinks it’s still in operation. You have two choices: immediately get to work as Anthony did, track down the source of the discrepancy, report it to superiors, attend meetings with your agency and NASA, reconcile past records, travel to the site of the faulty (or non-recorded) station, verify its existence, possibly arrange to have it calibrated, repaired, or do it yourself, etc. Or you can just continue surfing the web. In either case, your paycheck (in these days of direct deposit) will automatically appear in your bank account every two weeks. Which do you think the average bureaucrat will choose? Government workers have two primary goals – one short term and one long term. The short term goal is to leave the office as soon as possible at the end of the day to avoid the afternoon rush hour. The long term goal is to stay alive long enough to retire. That’s it. Anything else is just unnecessary aggravation to be avoided as assiduously as possible.