That windchill is vicious, be sure to dress warmly going outside at Key West. Cold kills. Actually the new record low was colder than that shown above. It hit -27F earlier. See the complete NOAA report here (PDF)
OK fun aside, this is obviously another ASOS thermohygrometer malfunction, but one in the opposite direction that we usually see. But, there’s an interesting twist here that will provide a useful test of the integrity of data handling policy within NOAA/NWS. Please read on.
Here is what our offending ASOS in Key West looks like. It was recently surveyed on 6/1/2009 and was the last USHCN station surveyed in Florida to complete the USHCN state survey.
Early in June, there was an incident in Honolulu International Airport where the ASOS station there malfunctioned and it set a string of new high temperature records for Honolulu.
Those records still stand for Honolulu despite protest even though it was clear that fixing the ASOS sensor dropped the temperature dramatically and immediately. I did an analysis at the time comparing PHNL to another COOP station just four miles away. The differences were obvious.
Graph of PHNL and PTWC station data for June 2009 – click for larger image
So now the question is, we have another obvious malfunction, but in the opposite direction.
Will NOAA keep this new “record low” which like the Honolulu record highs a fault of a ASOS equipment failure? Or, will they throw it out?
To be consistent with the Honolulu decision they would naturally keep it, though in both cases, logic dictates the data should be thrown out.
The other question is: How long will it take them to detect and fix this ASOS station? As of midnight on 7/11/2009 it was still reporting -13F
Here is the URL to watch for yourself to see when NOAA fixes the problem:
http://www.srh.noaa.gov/data/obhistory/KEYW.html
A big WUWT hat tip to Corky Boyd for this one.
UPDATE: Either the sensor has started working again on its own, or has been repaired. However there’s something still not quite right as it is now apparently snowing at 9:53 AM in Key West.
Although I do find interesting the references to unusually cool events, I do think it would be appropriate to also discuss the current hot spell in Texas. I am sure that I am one of many who use this blog as a major source of information on what is happening in the world of weather & climate.
Michael,
Those -11 temps should kill off those invasive Pythons too…
I’ve got a song running through my head…….”What’s logic got to do with it, got to do with it? What’s logic but a second hand emotion…..”
Well that should seriously help the Frozen Orange Juice industry that is a mainstay of the Florida economy.
Richard Sanders,
Perhaps you could start by providing a link to the published science that demonstrates that mankind’s contribution of CO2 to the atmosphere is a major driver of global climate.
There has been plenty of published work based on the -assumption- that that’s the case (e.g. the entire IPCC project), but I’ve never seen a published study that actually proves that mankind’s CO2 caused the ~1 C per century warming.
I assume it was sometime around or before 1988 when Hansen gave his sworn scientific testimony before congress that mankind’s CO2 was doing this. But I’ve never seen the published study that he was basing this on.
Someone at the airport should have noticed the problem.
Here are some metars (actual reports) from the airport which also show the problem:
KEYW 120053Z AUTO 11006KT 10SM CLR M27/ A3013 RMK AO2 SLP200 T1267 FZRANO=
KEYW 112353Z 11008KT 10SM CLR 32/23 A3010 RMK AO2 SLP194 T03200230 53001 $=
KEYW 112153Z 10011KT 10SM CLR M26/ A3009 RMK AO2 SLP188 T1256=
KEYW 112053Z 09008KT 10SM CLR 32/23 A3010 RMK AO2 SLP192 T03200230 56015=
KEYW 111953Z COR 10010KT 10SM CLR M33/ A3011 RMK AO2 SLP195 T1328 $=
KEYW 111953Z 10010KT 10SM CLR M33/ A3011 RMK AO2 SLP195 T1328 $=
Notice that the first line is an automatic report (AUTO), the others are manual reports, one has even a correction although I can’t see what is corrected.
for thos who don know how to decode this: 32/23 means temp 32C dewpoint 23C; M33/ means temp -33C, no dewpoint.
Richard Sanders (03:03:59) :
Tim B looking at that Peter Sissons article it includes this quote..
“‘The Corporation’s most famous interrogators invariably begin by accepting that “the science is settled”, when there are countless reputable scientists and climatologists producing work that says it isn’t.”
The fact is that there is almost no real work, i.e. published science, being produced by reputable scientists and climatologists that contradicts the concensus position on global warming.
Richard
You are wrong sir. There are many many publications refuting the “consensus” alarmism:” CO2 is a pollutant and the sky is falling” Go to the skeptics links on the side bar to find them, because it is not worth my effort to do it for you.
They are now reporting light snow in Key West
I’m in Texas, Inquirer, so I got me a front row seat.
And actually, it’s not unusually hot – it’s the lack of moisture that is the real problem. Every summer here, the temperatures will head up towards 100
and above, but you can count on a line of thunderstorms coming through and dousing everything. After that, the temp drops down into the 70’s and takes a couple of days to build back up. If it rains once every 3 days or so, the temperatures *never* get very high. (And we’ve had summers like that occasionally)
This summer, there’s almost no rain – in places like South Texas, there is no rain, period. They’re getting the winds straight off the Chihuahuan desert to the immediate southwest (rather than moisture from the gulf) and as long as those macro wind patterns hold, there will be no rain. And when there’s no rain, the land just bakes in the sun day after day and the temps go up and stay up, day after day, week after week. That’s what’s “normal” without rain.
Something has to break the continental wind pattern (ie, jet stream has to shift again) before this pattern will change and let moisture back. It’s not
the first time this has happened – people are starting to wonder whether this will look like the great drought of the 50’s, when there was very little rain in Texas for 7 years running and most of the agricultural and ranching industries were wiped out. Yes, it could be happening again – only time will tell.
Richard Sanders (03:03:59) : “The fact is . . .”
It is difficult to have a discussion when you define the terms such that what you read and believe is produced by reputable scientists and climatologists and what I read is produced by crackpots and charlatans. So I’ll just mention that I think there is a lot of good science being done but much of it is tainted by association with the UN and other folks pushing for one world government without liberty. If we could remove this issue from the climate science I think the level of discussion would improve.
Meanwhile, some of us have hard-drives crammed with interesting articles questioning and even refuting the AGW hypothesis. It only takes one. Why we save more than one is another issue.
Richard Sanders (03:03:59) :
Tim B looking at that Peter Sissons article it includes this quote..
“‘The Corporation’s most famous interrogators invariably begin by accepting that “the science is settled”, when there are countless reputable scientists and climatologists producing work that says it isn’t.”
The fact is that there is almost no real work, i.e. published science, being produced by reputable scientists and climatologists that contradicts the concensus position on global warming.
Richard
This is the God Analogy. “We haven’t been able to prove He exists, but everybody knows He does, His works are everywhere, so prove us wrong. So far, nobody has…”
Like the the old saw, “correlation doesn’t equal causation”, we can add a new one: “consensus doesn’t equal causation”.
The chaotic complexity of climate has been chipped away at, but we are nowhere near an understanding of its complexity. We’re getting better at sorting out microclimates, but the science of AGW is still a hodgepodge of antecdotes. The “consensus” is a religion, not a body of fact.
The above link to the NOAA page for Key West Airport says “Light snow” in the Weather column. Temperature is NA.
Eyewww, that should have been “anecdotes”… 🙁
BTW, we were 9C/48F in the Great Lakes region this morning. About 20F below typical for the middle of July.
12 09:53 E 12 1.75 Light Snow FEW0 26 NA NA NA 30.13 1020.4
Apparently it is snowing in Key West as of 9:53 am. Huh
It’s saying “light snow” for 9:53 AM.
Jan F:
“KEYW 112053Z 09008KT 10SM CLR 32/23 A3010 RMK AO2 SLP192 T03200230 56015=
KEYW 111953Z COR 10010KT 10SM CLR M33/ A3011 RMK AO2 SLP195 T1328 $=”
“Notice that the first line is an automatic report (AUTO), the others are manual reports, one has even a correction although I can’t see what is corrected.”
—-
It looks to me like the wind speed and direction have been “corrected.” Then next the “COR” is resent without the “COR.” This seems strange to me, but maybe it was part of a panic attack!
One wonders if the correction is to a manual reading error, or to instrument malfunction.
Whoops – I didn’t look far enough — getting old I guess. The temperature, altimeter, fahrenheit temperature, and sea level pressure groups are also changed.
Richard Sanders said: The fact is that there is almost no real work, i.e. published science, being produced by reputable scientists and climatologists that contradicts the concensus position on global warming.
First, you are wrong. Have you even tried looking? I highly doubt it.
Secondly, the late great Michael Crichton had the following wise words on so-called consensus science”:
“I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you’re being had.
Let’s be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.
There is no such thing as consensus science. If it’s consensus, it isn’t science. If it’s science, it isn’t consensus. Period.“
Don’t look now, but your highly-cherished “consensus” is in the process of being undermined and overturned. Hopefully, before a great deal of financial and social damage is done, but the harm that has been done to science itself is incalculable.
Dave Wendt ,
Only 5% ? Come on man , we’re talking government money here . Besides , this project should be worth at least 100 mil .
Whether its a malfunctioning sensor or UHI, i think the scientist charged with maintaining the temperature record have put too much faith in their ability to adjust for such issues. From the article regarding the use of raw satellite data to the continuous tampering with historical temperature records it should be blatantly apparent that either the scientist involved have an agenda or they feel simply recording, compliling, and reporting raw data isn’t a sufficient task to meet the needs of their egos.
Richard Sanders (04:38:19) :
Sanders, you are embarassingly wrong. This isn’t the realclimate echo chamber, where you can throw out a provably wrong statement like that without danger of it being refuted.
Sorry to expose your appalling ignorance on this subject, but you can begin rectifying that deficiency by reading the following papers. When you’re finished, I have lots more:
Peer-Reviewed papers falsifying AGW:
Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide
(Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, Volume 12, Number 3, 2007)
– Arthur B. Robinson, Noah E. Robinson, Willie Soon
Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide
(Climate Research, Vol. 13, Pg. 149–164, October 26 1999)
– Arthur B. Robinson, Zachary W. Robinson, Willie Soon, Sallie L. Baliunas
Are observed changes in the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere really dangerous?
(Bulletin of Canadian Petroleum Geology,v. 50, no. 2, p. 297-327, June 2002)
– C. R. de Freitas
Can increasing carbon dioxide cause climate change?
(Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, Vol. 94, pp. 8335-8342, August 1997)
– Richard S. Lindzen
Can we believe in high climate sensitivity?
(arXiv:physics/0612094v1, Dec 11 2006)
– J. D. Annan, J. C. Hargreaves
http://www.tech-know.eu/uploads/AGW_hypothesis_disproved.pdf
Climate change: Conflict of observational science, theory, and politics
(AAPG Bulletin, Vol. 88, no9, pp. 1211-1220, 2004)
– Lee C. Gerhard
– Climate change: Conflict of observational science, theory, and politics: Reply
(AAPG Bulletin, v. 90, no. 3, p. 409-412, March 2006)
– Lee C. Gerhard
Climate change in the Arctic and its empirical diagnostics
(Energy & Environment, Volume 10, Number 5, pp. 469-482, September 1999)
– V.V. Adamenko, K.Y. Kondratyev, C.A. Varotsos
Climate Change Re-examined
(Journal of Scientific Exploration, Vol. 21, No. 4, pp. 723–749, 2007)
– Joel M. Kauffman
CO2-induced global warming: a skeptic’s view of potential climate change
(Climate Research, Vol. 10: 69–82, 1999
– Sherwood B. Idso
Crystal balls, virtual realities and ’storylines’
(Energy & Environment, Volume 12, Number 4, pp. 343-349, July 2001)
– R.S. Courtney
Dangerous global warming remains unproven
(Energy & Environment, Volume 18, Number 1, pp. 167-169, January 2007)
– R.M. Carter
Does CO2 really drive global warming?
(Energy & Environment, Volume 12, Number 4, pp. 351-355, July 2001)
– R.H. Essenhigh
Does human activity widen the tropics?
(arXiv:0803.1959v1, Mar 13 200
– Katya Georgieva, Boian Kirov
Earth’s rising atmospheric CO2 concentration: Impacts on the biosphere
(Energy & Environment, Volume 12, Number 4, pp. 287-310, July 2001)
– C.D. Idso
Evidence for “publication Bias” Concerning Global Warming in Science and Nature
(Energy & Environment, Volume 19, Number 2, pp. 287-301, March 200
– Patrick J. Michaels
Global Warming
(Progress in Physical Geography, 27, 448-455, 2003)
– W. Soon, S. L. Baliunas
Global Warming: The Social Construction of A Quasi-Reality?
(Energy & Environment, Volume 18, Number 6, pp. 805-813, November 2007)
– Dennis Ambler
Global warming and the mining of oceanic methane hydrate
(Topics in Catalysis, Volume 32, Numbers 3-4, pp. 95-99, March 2005)
– Chung-Chieng Lai, David Dietrich, Malcolm Bowman
Global Warming: Forecasts by Scientists Versus Scientific Forecasts
(Energy & Environment, Volume 18, Numbers 7-8, pp. 997-1021, December 2007)
– Keston C. Green, J. Scott Armstrong
Global Warming: Myth or Reality? The Actual Evolution of the Weather Dynamics
(Energy & Environment, Volume 14, Numbers 2-3, pp. 297-322, May 2003)
– M. Leroux
Global Warming: the Sacrificial Temptation
(arXiv:0803.1239v1, Mar 10 200
– Serge Galam
Global warming: What does the data tell us?
(arXiv:physics/0210095v1, Oct 23 2002)
– E. X. Alban, B. Hoeneisen
Human Contribution to Climate Change Remains Questionable
(Eos, Transactions American Geophysical Union, Volume 80, Issue 16, p. 183-183, April 20, 1999)
– S. Fred Singer
Industrial CO2 emissions as a proxy for anthropogenic influence on lower tropospheric temperature trends
(Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 31, L05204, 2004)
– A. T. J. de Laat, A. N. Maurellis
Implications of the Secondary Role of Carbon Dioxide and Methane Forcing in Climate Change: Past, Present, and Future
(Physical Geography, Volume 28, Number 2, pp. 97-125(29), March 2007)
– Soon, Willie
Is a Richer-but-warmer World Better than Poorer-but-cooler Worlds?
(Energy & Environment, Volume 18, Numbers 7-8, pp. 1023-1048, December 2007)
– Indur M. Goklany
Methodology and Results of Calculating Central California Surface Temperature Trends: Evidence of Human-Induced Climate Change?
(Journal of Climate, Volume: 19 Issue: 4, February 2006)
– Christy, J.R., W.B. Norris, K. Redmond, K. Gallo
Modeling climatic effects of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions: unknowns and uncertainties
(Climate Research, Vol. 18: 259–275, 2001)
– Willie Soon, Sallie Baliunas, Sherwood B. Idso, Kirill Ya. Kondratyev, Eric S. Posmentier
– Modeling climatic effects of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions: unknowns and uncertainties. Reply to Risbey (2002)
(Climate Research, Vol. 22: 187–188, 2002)
– Willie Soon, Sallie Baliunas, Sherwood B. Idso, Kirill Ya. Kondratyev, Eric S. Posmentier
– Modeling climatic effects of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions: unknowns and uncertainties. Reply to Karoly et al.
(Climate Research, Vol. 24: 93–94, 2003)
– Willie Soon, Sallie Baliunas, Sherwood B. Idso, Kirill Ya. Kondratyev, Eric S. Posmentier
On global forces of nature driving the Earth’s climate. Are humans involved?
(Environmental Geology, Volume 50, Number 6, August 2006)
– L. F. Khilyuk and G. V. Chilingar
On a possibility of estimating the feedback sign of the Earth climate system
(Proceedings of the Estonian Academy of Sciences: Engineering. Vol. 13, no. 3, pp. 260-268. Sept. 2007)
– Olavi Kamer
Phanerozoic Climatic Zones and Paleogeography with a Consideration of Atmospheric CO2 Levels
(Paleontological Journal, 2: 3-11, 2003)
– A. J. Boucot, Chen Xu, C. R. Scotese
Quantifying the influence of anthropogenic surface processes and inhomogeneities on gridded global climate data
(Journal of Geophysical Research, Vol. 112, D24S09, 2007)
– Ross R. McKitrick, Patrick J. Michaels
Quantitative implications of the secondary role of carbon dioxide climate forcing in the past glacial-interglacial cycles for the likely future climatic impacts of anthropogenic greenhouse-gas forcings
(arXiv:0707.1276, July 2007)
– Soon, Willie
Scientific Consensus on Climate Change?
(Energy & Environment, Volume 19, Number 2, pp. 281-286, March 200
– Klaus-Martin Schulte
Some Coolness Concerning Global Warming
(Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, Volume 71, Issue 3, pp. 288–299, March 1990)
– Richard S. Lindzen
Some examples of negative feedback in the Earth climate system
(Central European Journal of Physics, Volume 3, Number 2, June 2005)
– Olavi Kärner
Statistical analysis does not support a human influence on climate
(Energy & Environment, Volume 13, Number 3, pp. 329-331, July 2002)
– S. Fred Singer
Taking GreenHouse Warming Seriously
(Energy & Environment, Volume 18, Numbers 7-8, pp. 937-950, December 2007)
– Richard S. Lindzen
Temperature trends in the lower atmosphere
(Energy & Environment, Volume 17, Number 5, pp. 707-714, September 2006)
– Vincent Gray
Temporal Variability in Local Air Temperature Series Shows Negative Feedback
(Energy & Environment, Volume 18, Numbers 7-8, pp. 1059-1072, December 2007)
– Olavi Kärner
The Carbon dioxide thermometer and the cause of global warming
(Energy & Environment, Volume 10, Number 1, pp. 1-18, January 1999)
– N. Calder
The Cause of Global Warming
(Energy & Environment, Volume 11, Number 6, pp. 613-629, November 1, 2000)
– Vincent Gray
The Fraud Allegation Against Some Climatic Research of Wei-Chyung Wang
(Energy & Environment, Volume 18, Numbers 7-8, pp. 985-995, December 2007)
– Douglas J. Keenan
Falsification Of The Atmospheric CO2 Greenhouse Effects Within The Frame Of Physics (Physics, arXiv:0707.1161)
– Gerhard Gerlich, Ralf D. Tscheuschner
The continuing search for an anthropogenic climate change signal: Limitations of correlation-based approaches
(Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 24, No. 18, Pages 2319–2322, 1997)
– David R. Legates, Robert E. Davis
The “Greenhouse Effect” as a Function of Atmospheric Mass
(Energy & Environment, Volume 14, Numbers 2-3, pp. 351-356, 1 May 2003)
– H. Jelbring
The Interaction of Climate Change and the Carbon Dioxide Cycle
(Energy & Environment, Volume 16, Number 2, pp. 217-238, March 2005)
– A. Rörsch, R. Courtney, D. Thoenes
The IPCC future projections: are they plausible?
(Climate Research, Vol. 10: 155–162, August 199
– Vincent Gray
The IPCC: Structure, Processes and Politics Climate Change – the Failure of Science
(Energy & Environment, Volume 18, Numbers 7-8, pp. 1073-1078, December 2007)
– William J.R. Alexander
The UN IPCC’s Artful Bias: Summary of Findings: Glaring Omissions, False Confidence and Misleading Statistics in the Summary for Policymakers
(Energy & Environment, Volume 13, Number 3, pp. 311-328, July 2002)
– Wojick D. E.
“The Wernerian syndrome”; aspects of global climate change; an analysis of assumptions, data, and conclusions
(Environmental Geosciences, v. 3, no. 4, p. 204-210, December 1996)
– Lee C. Gerhard
Uncertainties in assessing global warming during the 20th century: disagreement between key data sources
(Energy & Environment, Volume 17, Number 5, pp. 685-706, September 2006)
– Maxim Ogurtsov, Markus Lindholm
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/HANSENMARSCHALLENGE.pdf
Looks like they ignored the ‘record’.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/records/index.php?ts=daily&elem=mint&month=7&day=11&year=2009&submitted=Get+Records#recs
Hmmmm – Light snow in Key West?
What’s that you say?
NOAA understands and predicts changes in the Earth’s environment, from the depths of the ocean to the surface of the sun, and conserves and manages our coastal and marine resources.
Right.
Mister Sanders can’t even spell consensus!
Well, let’s see, I have a little problem with his statements-when referring to the “consensus” he is vague-what is the consensus he refers to? Is it that there has been some warming? If so, I suppose he is right-but the mere presence of change is neither proof of AGW nor cause for alarm. Is it that human beings must have some effect? Again, he would be right, however this is again a qualitative statement and the basic agreement is hardly cause for alarm and allows for a trivial influence. Perhaps he refers to the curious IPCC statement “Most of the observed warming since the mid-20th century is very likely [90% probability] due to observed increases in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations”. Well, here it becomes tricky. This allows for a 10% probability that anywhere from 0 to 50% is the actual human effect, and 90% probability that it is greater than 50%. There is nothing especially objectionable about this. After all, we are talking about fractions of fractions of a degree. Alarm, in fact, demands that something like 250% of the warming be due to greenhouse gases-now, obviously one needs something to cancel out the rest but the parameter of choice, aerosols, is so uncertain as to render the entire exercise a farce.
All of these points are STILL tangential to the question of policy and impacts, but by that point one is multiplying so many probability figures in the chain of inferences that the numbers you are looking at are tiny-so who gives a hoot?
That besides the point, apart from some trivial points of agreement, the literature is chock full of dissenting voices on every issue. So mister Sanders, I would be prepared to create an extensive list of references to papers which, in one way or another, contradict alarm-how many would it take to satisfy you?