The Hillsboro, Ohio USHCN climate station of record, measuring rainfall and the “surface” temperature. Note the MMTS temperature sensor laying flat on the ground.
To be fair, apparently the station is in the process of being moved. The new addition to the home (seen below) required it to be moved around to the side.
Surfacestations.org volunteer Ed Fix writes in the station survey:
Private residence, second longest continuously used Coop. site in Ohio. It has been at the present position since 1959, and in use in the area since 1893.
The previous owners of the house Marie and Thomas Knott, now deceased, collected the data from 1959 until Marie’s death in 2007. Current resident is continuing the observation duties.
MMTS temp, manual rain gauge. Rain gauge has been in use since at least 1959. The instrumentation is in the process of being moved. The previous location is on the south end of a deck (removed 3 weeks ago), approximately 14′ from the metal-sided south wall of the house, 40′ west of the new location. It was approx 42′ from an air conditioner at the SW corner of the house. The station is to be set back up in the very near future.
The proposed new location is SE of the SE corner of the house, approx 21′. This is 32′ from the corner of the house next door, with an air conditioner condenser.
While one would think that maintaining a continuity of records for such a station would be of prime importance, it lays idle as the photography shows.
The first point here is that backyards are dynamic places, prone to land use changes and biases that result from the changing/evolving lifestyle of the owner of the home, which makes them less than desirable for gathering scientific data. The second point is that the gap in the record could easily be avoided if the local NWS COOP manager had worked to help the homeowner get the equipment operational again.
The USHCN is far from a homogeneous measurement system.
Addendum:
I should add that the many problems we have seen in the USHCN are not the fault of the volunteer observers. These people give their valuable time and dedicate their lives to doing a mostly thankless job. They do it mostly for their own satisfaction and interest in providing something useful that can be part of the permanent record of our country.
We should never forget that. They are to be congratulated for their service.
The responsibility for the errors in siting is with NOAA, as they are in charge of doing these installations and ensuring a modicum of quality control based on their own 100 foot rule.
http://www.nws.noaa.gov/om/coop/standard.htm
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I am having the impression that these people don’t get paid to do their job, correct me if I am wrong. I would spend less money in useless computer models and allocate some money to give them some cash for their trouble.
Do they, at least, recieve some kind of gratification, like a GISS barbecue or something? Honest question.
What about the stations located at airports? I guess the person in charge gets paid by the airport authorities. Can that pose some sort of bias?
I don’t think ‘eco fascists’ is a right term. From what I know, these people come from a left background. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the left drifted to more ‘ecological’ positions. I would call them ‘eco communists’ As in ‘we have to do what I demand to save the Earth’, cap and trade included.
The new location is 21 feet from the house? Doesn’t that violate the siting requirements? As for the air conditioner outside unit next door: It doesn’t run all the time, so some of the measurements should be OK. Just have to guess which ones. I’m sure there is an algorithm for that.
The NOAA claim that the land temp record is accurate is simply not credible.
maby its not very clever, to show this stations in the web?
there are too many j. hasen fans and “world rescuer” all around.
they may go out with their hair dryer…to “help the dramatic warming”…
Yes. Thanks to Anthony. Thanks to Ed Fix. Thanks to the moderators. And Thanks to the Curators! Without their efforts, *all* the data would be “Mann made”. I’m sure they’d prefer that their efforts were applied to better-sited stations, but we’ve gotta play the hand we’re dealt.
Whose job is it to keep the “metadata” up to “metadate”? Curator? Coop manager? Can we “get on their case” – maybe even help them? This might be something we *can* do something about. (before everybody forgets what happened)
Best,
Frank
“Either NOAA is in the climate measurement business or they are not, there’s no room for shoddy data gathering when records for individual stations are often cited for new records. – Anthony”
Hear, hear! This is hard to disagree with.
I used to be in SAC when LeMay was Commanding. He once famously said, “I don’t have time to distinguish between the unfortunate and the incompetent.”
Too bad we don’t have someone like General LeMay to run NOAA.
urederra (05:58:07) :
I don’t think ‘eco fascists’ is a right term. From what I know, these people come from a left background. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the left drifted to more ‘ecological’ positions. I would call them ‘eco communists’ As in ‘we have to do what I demand to save the Earth’, cap and trade included.
Fascist is correct. Communists want to own your stuff. Fascists don’t. They just want to tell you what you can do with it, as though they did own it.
They’re two faces of socialism, and I can’t fathom why they hate each other.
urederra (05:58:07) : “I don’t think ‘eco fascists’ is a right term. From what I know, these people come from a left background. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the left drifted to more ‘ecological’ positions. I would call them ‘eco communists’ As in ‘we have to do what I demand to save the Earth’, cap and trade included.”
I don’t disagree that they tend to be Left, but at least in the American sense, Fascism is hardly “Right”. Most on the Right would never tolerate the level of government power in either a Communist or Fascist system.
But don’t confuse Fascism with Nazism (although Nazis were very nature conscious) because it Fascism is not a priori anti-Semitic.
Mussolini Nationalized industries as part of his “Corporatist” economic ideology-Hugo Chavez is general thought to be a Communist, but he to has state run industries. The current government in the US is center left-and they are poised to nationalize the auto industry. Really if anything Fascism is left. It in no way resembles the American Right, which generally prefers as little government control of society as possible.
Maybe the Right in Europe is totally different. If so, I feel sorry for them. A choice between socialists who want to control your lives and fanatical nationalists who want to control your lives…isn’t much of a choice.
I really need to learn how to convey myself better.
Mike McMillan (10:17:16) : “I can’t fathom why they hate each other.” They compete for the same base.
The fact that we have to get permission from a resident to take pictures of a sensor whose data is being used in a very expensive cap and trade scheme speaks volumes about the cap and trade bill being discussed in the Senate. This whole thing is built on a straw house next to the sea shore on a sand bar. The private citizen has nothing to fear regarding shame. They were once used for the right purpose but have since become the unwitting participants in the greatest snake oil pitch of two centuries.
One more comment that I also sent to politiFact.com regarding the cost estimates of the cap and trade bill. All estimates are based on the continued warming trend based on CO2 science (cough cough). But what happens to the cost when if finally dawns on people that the world is not getting warmer? Or that CO2 is not to blame? What kinds of costs will we incur then from trash bonds, failed eco-businesses, and our (by then) back of the pack position in jobs that disappeared overseas as well as domestic oil production? The cost of the cap and trade scheme should also include the cost if it turns out to be a sham. Therefore all current estimates, even conservative ones, are way off the real cost.
Pamela Gray, very well stated.
Pamela Gray:
Even if the global temperatures went down by -2C the ‘science’ is settled…
We are talking about a new religion now, imagine trying to make all the people agree that there’s no god…