Guest post by John Goetz
As noted in the previous post, GISS has released their monthly global temperature summary for June, 2009. This month’s whopping anomaly of 0.63C is once again much higher than that of RSS, UAH, and even NOAA, which is the source of the GISS temperature data. Not only is the anomaly higher than the other metrics, but it is trending in the opposite direction.
Temperature data from 1079 stations worldwide contributed to the analysis, 134 of them being located in the 50 US states. Data from essentially the same few stations have been used for the past twenty-four months. Many, many hundreds of stations that have historically been included in the record and still collect data today continue to be ignored by GISS in global temperature calculations.
Once again, the bulk of temperatures comprising the present-day worldwide GISS average come from airports – in this case 554 airports, according to the NOAA metadata from the V2 station inventory. In the US, the ratio of airports to total stations continues to run very high, with 121 out of the 134 reporting stations being located at airports.
Why worry about airports? Aside from recent posts on this site documenting problems with airport ASOS equipment in the US, WUWT has also documented a number of equipment siting problems, notably the typical close proximity of the equipment to a tarmac heat sink. Airports can introduce a mini-UHI effect where one would otherwise not be found.
The NOAA metadata is not entirely accurate, and several stations located at airports are not noted as such. Some examples include Londrina and Brasilia in Brazil, Ely / Yelland in Nevada, and Broome in Austrailia. Those stations were easy to find because they had “airport” (or some variant) in the station name. A check of coordinates using Google Earth confirmed the airport locations.
Let’s examine the metadata a little further, shall we?
NOAA says that 345 of the stations it passes on to GISS are rural and presumably free of UHI influence. Fifteen of those stations are located in the US. However, only 201 of those rural stations are not located at an airport, and therefore presumably free of UHI effects (including tarmac heat sinks). In the US, only one of the fifteen stations is listed as both rural, and not located at an airport: Ely / Yelland in Nevada.
Doh!!! As noted above, that station is located at an airport – confirmed not just by Google Earth, but also by NOAA’s NCDC website as well! This means that all of the US temperatures – including those for Alaska and Hawaii – were collected from either an airport (the bulk of the data) or an urban location.
As for the rest of the world, some of the stations listed as being rural and not at an airport have metadata indicating they are located in an area of “dim” or “bright” lights. Filtering those out, we find a total of 128 stations that are rural, not at an airport, and “dark”.
Why are “dark” stations important? Recall that GISS uses dark stations to adjust for UHI in the urban stations. With only 128 dark stations available, none being in the US, it would seem this is an impossible task.
Fortunately, GISS adjustment rules allow old data to be used in adjusting new data. The older “non-reporting” rural weather stations continue to adjust reporting urban stations, even though the most recent two years of overlap is missing.
Thankfully, the algorithms are robust enough to calculate adjustments to the 100th of a degree even when data is missing.
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Has anyone recently done a temperature profile using just our 200 or so rural stations? David Archibald has one that ends in 2003, and only uses Hawkinsville, Glennville, Calhoun Research Station, Highlands, and
Talbotton stations for his US temperature profile. Is there one (or plans for one)that uses more stations, and one that is more up to date? Would love to see it.
it might be a good idea to set up some (scientific, thus controllable by all involved) temperature/weather stations in the vicinity of the “official” weather stations where some doubt might arise … 1to 2 km from the official location, same altitude, same conditons … just the see whether the numbers are more or less correct (and then I don’t mention the method to come to a “world temperature …) …
I would be happy to contribute …
http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/execute.csh?amsutemps
Looks like July is heating up.
Flanagan (10:21:46) : “Well, Steve, eyeballing is not enough. Here is a graph showing the difference between UAH and GISS http://noconsensus.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/giss-uah-difference-no-trend.jpg
The average is obviously very close to zero…”
“Obviously”? That just sounds like more eyeballing, Flanagan. More importantly, the standard deviation is “obviously” huge.
“Thankfully, the algorithms are robust enough to calculate adjustments to the 100th of a degree even when data is missing.”
Nicely put.
I think we can all agree that airports are undergoing manmade warming 😉
Ergo, Consensus-John, any plans to meet with Edward Markey to learn how to make legislation to mitigate airport warming? 😀
jorgekafkazar (12:44:40) : Flanagan is being monstrously disingenuous. Look at the pictures again-the difference in question is that of the DETRENDED data! Of course there is no trend in the diffferences of two series from which the trends have been removed! DUH!
Bobn (12:29:32) : “I also have a nice prediction that the satellite records will show strong warming in coming months due to the El Nino conditions filtering up into the satellite records.”
Excellent, surface temps travel upwards. How does CO2 in the atmosphere (traveling upwards) heat the surface?
Congratulations, Anthony. WUWT has agin been cited on the GISS anamoly in NRO’s The Corner.
John F. Hultquist (11:40:53) : “‘bob paglee (09:12:28) : “Isn’t there an abundance of CO2 being spewed close to the ground . . .’
“As Tina Turner might sing “What’s CO2 got to do with it?”
“Ans: Extremely little when thinking of the extra over the background concentration.”
The background concentration is essentially zero. CO2 concentration in the exhaust would be roughly 2 to 4 percent by volume. So within the confines of the airport, the average CO2 concentration would be measurably higher than background. But if anything is significant to the local microclimate, it would be the water vapor created.
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/7181814/Gravimetric-Analysis-of-Exhaust-Gas-From-Gas-Turbine-Combustion
timetochoose: this is not MY graph, but one from a skeptic site. Moreover, people here and there have been comparing trends between GISS and the rest. They’re almost the same…
alex verlinden (12:40:35) :
it might be a good idea to set up some (scientific, thus controllable by all involved) temperature/weather stations in the vicinity of the “official” weather stations where some doubt might arise … 1to 2 km from the official location, same altitude, same conditons … just the see whether the numbers are more or less correct (and then I don’t mention the method to come to a “world temperature …) …
I had the same idea. Get 20 or more Temperature Data Loggers that AW advertises here, and site one in the NOAA Stephenson Screen with the NOAA thermometer, and put one close, at 1-2 km away, in a non-UHI site.
The NOAA would have to be involved, and ideally we would need to look at 20-40 sites, at a minimum.
ID each Logger, and Double blind the data. Run it out a year, and send double blind data to both interested and neutral parties. We would get direct comparison to the accuracy of the NOAA thermometers, plus the actual UHI effect (if any).
I also would contribute. Hell, I would buy the first 10 loggers.
jorgekafkazar (13:51:01) : “So within the confines of the airport, the average CO2 concentration …”
An interesting point. Do the weather stations or any place else on airport grounds monitor CO2?
Steve S (07:03:02) : 153.
wayne davidson says:” So I await some convincing conviction statement on this temperature pause. Seems that current El-Nino is poised to surpass 1998 one, if this trend holds, Global temperatures may be highest in history soon.”
So this implies to me that Davidson must think strong El Ninos are the result of AGW because If they weren’t then we are just talking about natural variations. Is this the position of AGWers, that CO2 will cause strong El Ninos resulting in higher global temps?
Flanagan (13:52:52) : It isn’t YOUR graph but evidently you didn’t READ the graph. And not only are the trends in UAH and GISS NOT the same, the difference between them is in fact the OPPOSITE of what it should be. Namely sruface warming more than the atmosphere, rather than the other way around.
It doesn’t matter where a graph is from, IF IT DOESN’T SHOW WHAT YOU SAY IT SHOWS that is disingenuous.
Recommended reading on surface versus satellites:
http://www.climatesci.org/publications/pdf/R-345.pdf
jorgekafkazar commented on a comment to my comment:
jorgekafkazar (13:51:01) :
John F. Hultquist (11:40:53) : “‘bob paglee (09:12:28) : “Isn’t there an abundance of CO2 being spewed close to the ground . . .’
“As Tina Turner might sing “What’s CO2 got to do with it?”
“Ans: Extremely little when thinking of the extra over the background concentration.”
The background concentration is essentially zero. CO2 concentration in the exhaust would be roughly 2 to 4 percent by volume. So within the confines of the airport, the average CO2 concentration would be measurably higher than background. But if anything is significant to the local microclimate, it would be the water vapor created.
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/7181814/Gravimetric-Analysis-of-Exhaust-Gas-From-Gas-Turbine-Combustion
Thanks Jorge — I just thought that besides all the other things going on around airports, maybe the extra CO2 would be something to consider, but you are right — exhaust from jet aircraft must also create a lot of H20 as a product of combustion. The question is would any of these products cause an increase or decrease in the nearby ambient temperature? And if there is an effect, would prevailing low altitude wind blow it toward the temp sensor or away from it? Doesn’t that same question apply to the location of the sensor with respect to prevailing winds blowing across the huge concrete or asphalt parking lots toward or away from the sensor?
South Pole Weather Station today.. And this is warm?!?
Conditions at Jul 15, 2009 – 01:50 PM EDTJul 15, 2009 – 12:50 PM CDTJul 15, 2009 – 11:50 AM MDTJul 15, 2009 – 10:50 AM PDTJul 15, 2009 – 09:50 AM ADTJul 15, 2009 – 08:50 AM HDT
2009.07.15 1750 UTC
Wind from the ENE (070 degrees) at 8 MPH (7 KT)
Visibility less than 1 mile
Sky conditions partly cloudy
Weather Light snow grains
Mist
Temperature -70 F (-57 C)
Windchill -99 F (-73 C)
Pressure (altimeter) 28.63 in. Hg (969 hPa)
I expect you chaps already know about this site, but in case you don’t:
http://clearclimatecode.org/
Quote: “The results of some climate-related software are used as the basis for important public policy decisions. If the software is not clearly correct, decision-making will be obscured by debates about it. The project goals are to clear away that obscurity, to increase the clarity and correctness of climate science software.
The Clear Climate Code project is conducted by Ravenbrook Limited and its staff, in the public interest. Nick Barnes had the project idea in 2007. Nobody has commissioned this work from us, or paid us for it. All the code and documentation written as part of the project is available at no charge under an open source license.”
See an interesting PDF here:
http://clearclimatecode.org/doc/2008-09-11/pyconuk/ccc-20080914.pdf
Shame the site has not been updated since last September.
Inspired by John Goetz I have done a small impromptu analysis of the 19 Swedish stations in GISS v.2. Out of these 19 there are seven (Luleå, Östersund/Frösön, Karlstad, Uppsala, Göteborg/Säve, Torslanda and Jönköping) are classed as airport. Torslanda was actually closed many years ago and the tarmac torn up (it is now an industrial estate on the outskirts of Gothenburg). On the other hand there are two stations not classed as airports, that are: Halmstad and Visby Airport (one would have thought that whoever coded these things might have become suspicious that a station called VISBY AIRPORT might perhaps be an airport, but apparently not). So there are actually 8 airports out of 19 stations (42%).
Of the 11 remaining stations 4 are classed as Urban, 2 as Small Towns and 5 as Rural. The first two categories are more or less OK, but there is something really interesting among the rural stations. There is a station 64502456001 KREUZBURG. Now, there is no such place in Sweden, the name is German, not Swedish and the coordinates (60.00 18.20) is in the middle of a forest with no houses nearby. Also the altitude is supposed to be 621 meters which is just about 600 meters too high for the location. Now there is a station #2456 in Sweden (Films kyrkby) but it is at 60.23 17.90 and 39 meters altitude, so apparently there has been a monumental goof-up somewhere. I wonder if GISS has a correction for altitude as well, in which case “KREUZBURG” should be a pretty reliable hotspot.
Well, except for that there isn’t really much wrong with the station list, except that Jönköping which is situated on one of the largest lakes in Europe is classified as having no lake nearby, that some of the vegetation data are rather doubtful and the brightness classification is downright weird (Härnösand with 18,000 inhabitants is “Dark” while Karesuando with 300 is “Dim”).
Only 134 stations for the entire U.S.? On my 50 mile drive to work using the thermometer in my vehicle i’ve seen differences as much as 10 degrees F and i’m going east to west not north and south so how are they supposed to call a sampling of only 134 stations anywhere near accurate?
I guess the G stands for Guessing.
We both know that this is not a UHI issue. Ocean temperatures (and heights) are running at near record highs. These are measured by satellite and are independent data.
The MSU data is the outlier here.
PS trust you are not censoring again at WUWT?
REPLY: Trust you are not hiding your BoM affiliation again? – A
An immediate correction. Three more Swedish sites are misclassifiied and are actually airfields
2128 Stensele, is actually at Gunnarn, a military airfield
2142 Jokkmokk, actually at the nearby military airfield
2462 Stockholm is actually Stockholm/Bromma, the domestic airport.
So that makes 11 airfields out of 19 stations (58 %)
“”” CodeTech (09:09:41) :
Actually, you should read the BBC link… where you’ll find such laughable statements as:
All in all, Plimer’s book is dismissed by Monbiot as ‘utter nonsense’ and ‘a hilarious series of schoolboy errors’. Strange. I wouldn’t have put Monbiot down as the giggling type.
As if Monbiot is the last word, or indeed, as if Monbiot has any sort of valid opinion whatsoever, on anything. Come on, tell me that isn’t hilarious!
Also, I love their misspellings (”prooves”). “”””
Better watch your language there Codetech; and be careful whose spelling you are ridiculing.
Standard rule of English Grammer regarding some words ending in (f) for plurals and tense changes; words such as “proof” “roof” “wharf” etc.
Rule is change the (f) to a (v) and add es os s as the case maybe.
Therefore “roof” pluralises to “Rooves”, “wharf” to “wharves” “proof” to “prooves” and so on.
Only in American do you leave the (f) and simply add an (s). All these changes were made deliberately by Noah Webster along with changing all the ise words to ize words. In English, “ise” is preferred, but “ize” is optional. In American “ize” is mandatory. Gives me the heeby jeebies trying to keep it all straight.
Americans say I’ll be with you “momentarily”, when they mean I’ll be with you “IN” a moment. In English, if someone says I will be with you “momentarily” they mean I will be with you “FOR” a moment.
As they say of us; we are two peoples divided by a common language.
Then there’s that old Joke; “Why do the English say “shedule”, instead of “skedule”, for the word “schedule”.
And the obvious answer is; “Because they have a much better shool system !”
George
Flanagan
Here is the difference between GISS and RSS since 2002:
http://www.klimadebat.dk/forum/vedhaeftninger/gisshotterthanrss.gif
I dare say there is a trend (!)
And yes, of GISS, HADCRUT, UAH and RSS, it is ONLY GISS that has 1998 relatively cold.
The relative smaller temperature rise GISS 1998 yields both a more warm-friendly trend and it gives you the long run compare UAH vs. GISS more similar.
But as i showed GISS after 1998 has a MUCH warmer trend than RSS.
In 7 years GISS trend has warmed 0,15 K more than RSS ..
“”” Ray (12:06:07) :
A Tarmac could be a good example of Kirchhoff’s law of thermal radiation, or black body experiment. I would suspect that the increased thermal emission from the dark construction materials are from the increased UV radiation reaching Earth’s surface. “””
Not sure exactly which “Kirchoff’s Law” you are referring to; but the only one I am familiar with; which relates to radiation in any way, says that absorption and emission spectra are identical; but that law only applies strictly to bodies that are in complete thermal equilibrium with their environment; and at a fixed temperature.
And if Kirchoff’s law does apply then the absorption and emission are identical at each and every separate wavelength; so there is no way that absorbed UV absorption could influence IR emission.
Then there’s the little matter that there is extremely little UV that ever reaches the Earth’s surface; virtually zero shorter than 300 nm wavelength.
So no cigar I am afraid.