This graph got rather buried at the end of a long explanatory post showing the twists and turns I had to take to get the data. I think it needs front and center exposure, so I’m putting it here.
It is rather hot over asphalt. It’s even warmer when the temperature sensor malfunctions and creates a string of new record highs that the NWS does not see fit to remove from the records.
Graph of PHNL and PTWC station data for June 2009 – click for larger imageNote when the highs (Tmax) converged for the first time this month to within one degree.
The data from the two Oahu stations, 3.9 miles apart on the south shore. When plotted side by side, was telling. I marked missing data, the record high events, and when the ASOS was repaired.
Which station is more representative of the climate of Oahu? One is at an airport, one is not. Which station is doing a more accurate job of depicting climate? Details here.
Honolulu airport ASOS looking south – photo from NOAA, annotations added
Just to repeat the link from Ray (14:46:21) and add that this is worth reading if only for the humour.
Mark Twain was a master of irony; a humourist of devastating dissection of both the pompous and the fool. He gets some serious competition here from Dr David Evans in his outline of the meeting between Australian Senator, Steve Fielding, and Federal Environment Minister Wong.
For example: It’s as if they had never before encountered real live competent skeptics or their arguments. Actually, there is a technical reason for this: they probably hadn’t.
The Wong-Fielding Meeting On Global Warming
As I wrote some month ago, there are discrepancies all over the presented data from the so called scholars of “Global Warming”. It’s true that temperatures from stations at Airports are for airtraffic usage, and for airtraffic usage only. Same as someone above wrote about stations giving forcasts for farmers etc.
It’s also true that one fly doesn’t say it’s summer. Two stations in any area larger than ten footballfields aren’t sufficient to produce a forcast for the future, let alone two stations in Honolulu.
Jim Weyman might not comprehend it, but he himself presented one of the best contradictions to the global warming theory that’s been written down.
“In Hawaii, you can surf in the morning and snow ski in the afternoon. On the Big Island of Hawaii, you can go from rain forest to deserts in about 20 miles. On Oahu, the annual rainfall varies from 20 to over 100 inches in different parts of the approximately 25 miles by 40 miles island. ”
Unfortunatly this is what the so called scholars forgotten when writing their so called software. (Bear in mind that I became systemprogrammer in 1971 and while I have worked with many other things, including changed to become a teacher of history, over the years before I was disabled) ONE NEED TO DO ONES HOMEWORK! It’s essential to remember that the biotops of a larger area aren’t necessariely the same all over AND above all the biotops inlands, up mountains and along coast definitely aren’t the same! The impact of the biotops and the place where they are on the temperature, on the CO2 as well as on the oxygen situations also needs to take the winds into account. As almost everyone who learnt in what the teachers in groundschools taught knows: a temperarture alone doesn’t say that temperature x in one place can be compared with temperature x in an other place. Winds and other circumstances make that comparison unreliable.
Other circumstances? Well had the so called scholars done their homework they would have taken into account not only that they need approximate 1000 time more stations with long measured statistics for at least 100 years(!) which they don’t have but have estimated….. they also would have known that hights over sea, how far to the nearest water/cliff/mountain, if the area around is cultivated or not etc etc into account!
For one of the forged (estimated using corrections) station values, in Stockholm Sweden, please read: Fiction or facts, Norah4history 2009/05/19
Great job Antony! Your story is on our weblog too.
Thanks for keeping us informed on our tragic-climate friends’ efforts…
gg
Another thing, which is not addressed on the 1088 temperature sensor ASOS uses is
that, even though another dewpoint sensor is used, the cooling for the old mirror
dewpoint unit is kept activated, so, in case the new dewpoint sensor dies, they can go out and just switch the older cooled mirror system into the circuit again. This is from an ASOS technician in Colorado. Another source of heat, even though it is aspirated, in the temperature sensor housing.
It is as if the AGW community cannot comprehend that anyone is still questioning their authroity.
Anthony, I had a Jesuit trained history professor who called Martin Luther the scourge of all humanity (or words to that effect). I get the impression that you’ve already been called worse.
REPLY: Just visit Climate Progress for the hit parade
Yet another excellent WUWT example of how this world really works. I was a consulting geophysicist for a long time. One had to do one’s homework because the work presented was always inspected very carefully.
How I wish the same standards were applied in the AGW business. If they were followed perhaps there wouldn’t be such a large AGW business.
Roger Carr (04:08:11) :
Just to repeat the link from Ray (14:46:21) and add that this is worth reading if only for the humour.
“Like the mainstream media, alarmists suppress and avoid skeptic thought at all cost. This has left alarmists generally very ill informed about either the skeptic arguments or the caliber and numbers of skeptics. It is easy for alarmists never to encounter competent skeptics, and to believe their own political line that the skeptics are just a few misinformed cranks in the pay of big oil.”
Thank you Roger for flagging this fascinating meeting. We strongly recommend that anyone interested in understanding the mindset of the alarmist – read this. This is what we are faced with. And knowing that face provides the clues to counter it.
What seems fair to assume is the alarmist arguments presented at this (call it a climate summit) meeting are those they feel most safe with. Briefly, they have moved AGW heat from atmosphere (now cooling) to oceans (not enough data). Their spin is a major part of their “science.” Their hope is that fleeting facts presented with bravado and authority will steam roll sound counter arguments. These are a people who believe innately they are meant to rule. And when the peasants question their authority, they blanch, raise their eyebrows and look down on us unwashed. Witness Dr. Evans’ Closing Observations…
“The arrogant attitude was very strong. Lots of spin, some brazen statements, talking down to us and lecturing, and authoritative statements that they knew it all. They ignored the contrary evidence we presented, and never acknowledged any point, no matter how small, unless we demanded it. Their chief tactic was to appear confident and knowledgeable (in some cases using jargon fairly meaninglessly), and to talk past us. They never answered our specific questions in the terms they were asked, as if denying that the questions were even worthy of discussion. The lords were lecturing us ignorant peasants. And all this from a science team that was describing, literally, a different planet!”
In a previous comment I mentioned that a similar problem occurred at HNL in the early 1970’s. The response from the people in charge of maintaining the instruments was the same. It took some investigative reporting from the Star Bulletin to bring this problem to the attention of the public, and because black aviation oil was found around the instrument site, the problem was “fixed” because it was thought to be an environmental cleanup story, not a data accuracy story.
In other words, nobody cared that the temperature records were bogus, but they did care that there was oil sludge being dumped.
The current situation that existed until mid June at HNL reminds me very much of the same situation from the early 70’s. Someone in the NWS (perhaps by NCDC in Asheville) did look over the data, and the bad data was cut from the records. I don’t have my HNL information in front of me now, but I believe there is mention of this in the HNL temperature history summary.
For many decades the “official” Honolulu temperatures were taken on the roof of the Federal Building in Downtown Honolulu. I worked there in the NWS Division of Climatology office with Saul Price and Paul Haraguchi. The average
August high temperature for that location was 83. Once the “official” Honolulu temperatures were reported from the airport this number jumped to 88. Older books still report the 83 figure. Current books report the 88 number. Honolulu did not get 5 degrees warmer overnight.
Normally, rooftop temperatues are too high, but the Honolulu rooftop exposure was facing into a cool, tradewind flow off the Koolau Mountains, and was always cooler than other similar readings closer to ground level. Temperatures from the airport have always been slightly warmer than nearby locatons (PTWC – Honolulu Observatory). When I lived there I had a home weather station and I always recorded cooler temperatures than the airport. Also, the temperatures reported from the Waikiki Zoo have always seemed too high.
Fortunately for the airport location, the trade winds are fairly strong and consistent most of the time, and so heat thermals rising up off the hot surface nearby are quickly blow out to sea – most of the time.
Another location that is reported daily and available on the NWS Honolulu Climate page, is from Kalaeloa. This used to be known as Barbers Point Naval Air Station. I wouldn’t say this is a good sensor siting either, but it’s easy to compare the data between it and HNL. Doing so shows that HNL has been getting steadily warmer over the past couple of years relative to Kalaeloa and reached a peak in mid June.
What bothers me is that there doesn’t seem to be anyone monitoring such discrepancies in the Honolulu forecast office. When one station drifts several degrees higher or lower than another, or other stations, there should be someone who might notice this, particularly on days when the temperatures are breaking all time records.
And now, when Climate Change (used to know as “Global Warming”) is on the front page of every paper every day, the folks at the NWS should be particularly careful that their data is correct. Billions, and eventually, trillions of our tax dollars are at stake, and the data that underlies the science HAS to be correct.
If the data is incorrect, then the whole “house of cards” comes tumbling down.
My reaction to the statement that ASOS units have a tolerance of +/- 2 degrees F is one of shock. These ASOS installations cost MILLIONS of dollars each and are supposed to be “state of the art” sensors.
Relatively inexpensive home weather stations made by Davis Instruments, or Oregon Scientific, or LaCrosse Technology, can do better than 2 degrees. Davis regularly advertises +/- 1 degree accuracy. Why can’t the ASOS temperature sensors do better than 2 degrees F?
There are many private companies that make weather sensors used in commercial applications that have calibrated accuracies in the .1 to .2 degree ranges, and only cost thousands of dollars, not millions of dollars.
So, this 2 degree accuracy range is a bit of a public scandal in and of itself and should be looked into by our “representatives” in Congress.
From the current issue (May, 2009) of BAMS (Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society), p. 603, by a team of six researchers:
“A critical aspect of identifying climate change is the establishment and maintenance of verifiable weather data of weather and climate extremes. Since reported incidents of weather extremes are often used as indicators that the Earth’s climate is changing and/or becoming more variable, confirmation of new weather extreme records should be recognized as a high priority in the meteorology community.”
The title of the article is: “World-Record Rainfalls During Tropical Cyclone Gamede”.