Orland CA and the New Adjustments
In my last post, I observed that NOAA’s Talking Points applied their new “adjustments” to supposedly prove that NOAA’s negligent administration of the USHCN network did not “matter”.
In order to illustrate the effect of the new methods in this post, I’ll compare the new adjustments (post-TOBS) to the old adjustments (post-TOBS) on a “good” station – Orland CA, a prototype “good” station, discussed at the outset of surfacestations.org, discussed at WUWT here and CA here in early 2007.
The station history for Orland (at CDIAC) says that it has been in its present location for (at least) most of the 20th century and has had minimal changes during that time, other than perhaps time-of-observation (TOBS). The TOBS adjustment is carried forward into USHCN-v2. As I understand it, NOAA’s New Adjustment Method replaces station-history based adjustments for instrumentation changes and station location (the latter formerly done in FILNET).
As a benchmark, here is the difference between FILNET (adjusted) and TOBS for Orland in the “old” USHCN. Adjustments in the 20th century are negligible – in keeping with station history information that indicates no changes in location.
Figure 1. “Old” USHCN Adjustments for Station Location and Instrument Changes
Now here is the net adjustment in the “New” USHCN.
Two points jump out. Look first at the monthly adjustments at the right hand side. In the “old” method, there weren’t any adjustments to recent data – where metadata did not indicate any relevant change. In the “new” method, there are all sorts of jittery little adjustments. They seem to average out, but why introduce these jitters in the first place? It’s starting to look like a pointless Hansen-esque (ROW-style) adjustment that simply distorts the underlying data.
On a larger scale, the new adjustment noticeably increases the 20th century trend at Orland.
These graphics strongly indicate to me that the effect of the algorithm – regardless of whatever good intentions may underlie it – is that data from lower quality stations is being blended into the presently archived Orland data. I presume that something similar is happening to other “good” stations (though I’ve only examined one example so far.) (Note that Orland is a CRN3 station. However, its excellent continuity makes it a pretty attractive station for benchmarking and visually it doesn’t look a “bad” CRN3 station).
Based on this example, it looks like NOAA’s Talking Points comparison is between the overall average and 70 “adjusted” stations – AFTER the good stations have been adjusted. 
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“Alex Llewelyn (15:44:18) :
Having a bit of a heat wave here in the U.K.: we had 32oC somewhere today, the first time we’ve had >30 in 3 years. It looks like the heat wave will last until the end of the week, tailing off by sunday, when 18C and rain is forecast…”
To be more accurate it’s only a heatwave in London. Rest of the country has been much lower.
cheers David
I really do not understand “TOBS”. If you use MAX/MIN thermometers what is there to adjust for?
Any “adjustment” to define the day’s “maximum” temperature after taking a reading at say 5:00pm in the afternoon is just a guess, surely?
The same applies to guessing the night time (early dawn) minimum daily temperature.
Richard,
Lets say 18 hours of the day its 30 C and 8 hours of the day its 20 C. You couldnt say the average temp was 25C because 2/3 of the time was spent at 30C, not half of the time. This is why time observation is important as it is important to track data that is centered. One of the major flaws of Mann’s hockey stick software is that it tracks the peaks rather than the centers (more accurately, it looks at large changes in temperature, positive or negative, flips the negatives to positives, and treats all changes as positive warmings). Mann’s hockey stick more accurately shows the degree of volatility in temperature measurements, not actual warming.
The algorithm being used for these adjustments is quite sound. Any anomaly that deflects from global warming is eliminated – especially those rather high temperatures in the 19th century. Job done.
Like RichardsIII, I am also confused by TOBS adjustments. The early thermometers gave a mechanical max-min, the later ones give an electronic max-min. Where is the difference?
As long as the readings are consistently 24 hours apart, and not taken at midday or midnight, does it really mater what time of day the readings are taken? Surely any minor differences in readings would cancel out over time, rather than leading to a 2oc difference.
“Any “adjustment” to define the day’s “maximum” temperature after taking a reading at say 5:00pm in the afternoon is just a guess, surely?”
Exactly. Time of observation adjustments are made up data. Basically you take a min/max reading which says “the min and max for the 24 hour period before 6pm was x/y” and somehow “adjust” it to magically divine what the min/max would have been if measured at midnight. That’s not data – as you say, it’s a guess.
My local weather seems to be monitored automatically. The station is on the mast at the pier head just behind the floodlights. What will happen when the lights are switched on I don’t know. Must make a note next time and check the data page.
See link below for picture:
http://www.milfordweather.org.uk/
And this link for current monthly data;
http://www.milfordweather.org.uk/atmos_month.php
I have a question:
When Global Warming proponents say the “World is getting warmer!”, what temperature are they referring to? Are they using these temperature trends? Atmospheric trends? Sea Surface Temperatures?
(Or, what I suspect, the one which shows that temperature is rising at any given time?)
And another question:
At what point does a ‘weather temperature trend’ become a ‘climate temperature trend’? 5 years? 10 years? 30 years? 100 years?
“Richard111 (06:07:47) :
My local weather seems to be monitored automatically. The station is on the mast at the pier head just behind the floodlights. What will happen when the lights are switched on I don’t know. Must make a note next time and check the data page.
See link below for picture:
http://www.milfordweather.org.uk/
”
And what about the hot car engine directly beneath – un freaking believable!!
Is that a temp sensor right behind the flood lights?
If so that is very damning?
cheers David
Some commenters here are forgetting that:
a) US practice is to take (MAX+MIN)/2 as the “average” temperature.
b) The temperature at the time of reading MAX/MIN instruments is not material to that average.
ohioholic (18:56:23) :
Brilliant! Those original temps went down quite a bit, huh? No wonder there is an alarming warming trend.
…
1) What graph plots the actual UNADJUSTED temperatures (temperature differences from so-called 0.0 reference point) at this site?
2) Do we have any (5, 10, 20, 70, or 270) sites that can reasonably be claimed to NOT have gained a UHI effect over the years? Regardless of anything else, of any other changes in local siting, thermometers, or change in postmasters doddering outside to record the weatehr at 6:00 AM or 9:00 PM?
Mike Lorrey (02:33:37) :
“”Lets say 18 hours of the day its 30 C and 8 hours of the day its 20 C. You couldnt say the average temp was 25C because 2/3 of the time was spent at 30C, not half of the time.””
Yes. I would make the average temperature for the day of 27.5 C “knowing” that I have 24 hourly readings throughout the day. This is obviously impractical on a lot of stations.
“”John S. (10:26:20) :
Some commenters here are forgetting that:
a) US practice is to take (MAX+MIN)/2 as the “average” temperature.
b) The temperature at the time of reading MAX/MIN instruments is not material to that average.””
That would give 25.0 C for the days reading. Quite a difference.
If you consider the UHI effect around the stations as portrayed by Anthony’s survey I feel it is quite possible that the “MAX” temperature may only apply over a brief time, whilst the rest of the time the temperature is closer to the “MIN”.
Consider 1 hour at 30C and 23 hours at 20C would give an “average” of 20.4C with 24 hourly readings. Rather less than the “practice” reading of 25C that would result.
The practice of (MAX+MIN)/2 as the “average” temperature is simply not a true data reading for the whole day.