I’m pleased to announce that the surfacestations.org project has now surveyed over 1000 of the 1221 USHCN stations in the USA, putting the percentage of the survey at over 82% now.My sincere thanks to the many volunteers who stepped up recently to survey additional stations in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, and many other states.
Here is what the coverage looks like as of 7-14-09
Here is the breakdown by state. Note that 5 states are now 100% completed.
| State | Stations | Rated | Pct |
| WY | 30 | 26 | 87% |
| WV | 13 | 9 | 69% |
| WI | 23 | 17 | 74% |
| WA | 44 | 40 | 91% |
| VT | 7 | 6 | 86% |
| VA | 19 | 10 | 53% |
| UT | 40 | 33 | 83% |
| TX | 48 | 29 | 60% |
| TN | 15 | 13 | 87% |
| SD | 25 | 17 | 68% |
| SC | 29 | 22 | 76% |
| RI | 3 | 3 | 100% |
| PA | 24 | 18 | 75% |
| OR | 41 | 37 | 90% |
| OK | 45 | 39 | 87% |
| OH | 26 | 19 | 73% |
| NY | 59 | 42 | 71% |
| NV | 13 | 13 | 100% |
| NM | 28 | 26 | 93% |
| NJ | 12 | 10 | 83% |
| NH | 5 | 4 | 80% |
| NE | 46 | 32 | 70% |
| ND | 24 | 21 | 88% |
| NC | 29 | 28 | 97% |
| MT | 44 | 37 | 84% |
| MS | 32 | 31 | 97% |
| MO | 26 | 11 | 42% |
| MN | 33 | 32 | 97% |
| MI | 24 | 22 | 92% |
| ME | 12 | 10 | 83% |
| MD | 17 | 9 | 53% |
| MA | 12 | 11 | 92% |
| LA | 18 | 17 | 94% |
| KY | 13 | 8 | 62% |
| KS | 31 | 25 | 81% |
| IN | 36 | 35 | 97% |
| IL | 36 | 36 | 100% |
| ID | 28 | 21 | 75% |
| IA | 23 | 17 | 74% |
| GA | 23 | 21 | 91% |
| FL | 22 | 22 | 100% |
| DE | 5 | 4 | 80% |
| CT | 4 | 4 | 100% |
| CO | 25 | 24 | 96% |
| CA | 54 | 54 | 100% |
| AZ | 25 | 22 | 88% |
| AR | 15 | 12 | 80% |
| AL | 15 | 13 | 87% |
| TOTAL | 1221 | 1012 | 82.9% |
Here is a chart to show the table data above:
Note the states that are lacking the most in coverage are Virgina, Missouri, Texas, South Dakota, Maryland, Wisconsin, West Virginia, Nebraska, Pennesylvania, Iowa, and Idaho. These states are all below 80%. The states I would most like to get more surveys from are Missouri, Virginia, and Upstate New York which has a cluster of stations untouched. Arrangements have been made to get three stations in Texas this coming weekend: Alice, Falfurrias, and Rio Grande City, so anyone who is considering Texas can cross those off the list.
For those that wish to help getting the final stations here is a Google Earth KML file that will help you locate the remaining stations yet to be surveyed in the USA.
Download Google Earth KML file here (sincere thanks to Gary Boden for his preparation of this)
Just download it (right click, save as) and then drag and drop to Google Earth, which can be downloaded free here.
The coordinates are mostly accurate, but it is always a good idea to get station location descriptions from NCDC’s MMS database also. Often they can be located easier by description than by coordinates. Note the the KML file has descriptions also along with the COOP ID number to help you get a match with NCDC’s database.
If you wish to help in surveying the remaining stations, go to the surfacestations.org project and complete the signup process.
I know that many people have been waiting for an analysis of the data. That is in process right now and a paper suitable for peer review is being prepared. I’ll answer the most obvious question ahead of time, and that is: no I will not be posting the results here first. After the paper has been set for publication, and within the rules of the journal, the paper, all of the data, methods, and results will be made public for anyone who wishes to replicate the work or to challenge it. There will be no hidden folders marked “censored” or incomplete MATLAB code. I’ll post the Full Monty once cleared by the journal.
That being said, given the tasks ahead for me, I’ll be posting far less frequently on WUWT. In the meantime, please be patient and let me finish this up with my co-authors.
Some people have wondered why I have taken two years now before going into data analysis mode. There are a couple of reasons.
1- Getting the best stations. The number of well sited stations are so few, getting enough to do a valid comparison to the poorly sited stations was a challenge.This is why I’ll continue to ask for additional surveys until we reach a publication deadline. There are so few “best” stations that even adding a handful more will be statistically significant. So please, keep up the surveys.
2- Coverage. I wanted to be absolutely certain that I had an undisputably large enough sample both in percentage volume and in spatial distribution. There were some folks who did some analysis using data from early in the project, such as John V at about 30% (with very poor spatial distribution) and the recent NCDC Talking points memo at 43% NCDC “thought” they had the most current data, but they don’t have it, nor did they ask before attempting that analysis. That was an error on their part, and they are aware of it now. I’ve been in touch with the principal investigators at NCDC.
3- Patience is a virtue. If I had done analysis at 30 or 40%, as many suggested I do, and the analyzed results suggested that “siting mattered significantly” to the accuracy of the US Temperature record, I would be immediately vilified for having an inadequate sample, and rightly so. Interestingly, no such criticisms have been levied at NCDC by the AGW blog community for their results in the “talking points memo” at 43%, or at John V at 30%. Yet those results are being held up as examples of valid results by some. A double standard for statistical significance is something we’ve seen before in examples demonstrated by Steve McIntyre and others. Yet even without the statistical analysis, it is clear that the USHCN has not been well maintained. NOAA/NWS has closed many stations that we have highlighted, and even some we haven’t. Most recently Telluride, CO which is another story. If nothing else, this project is helping to get the USHCN network cleaned up. NOAA agrees in practice, as does NCDC, otherwise the US Climate Reference Network (USCRN) would not have been created nor would there be an HCN modernization program if the USHCN was in an acceptable condition.
I wish to thank everyone who has helped in making this project continue to the level of coverage it has. Regardless of the outcome of the analysis, whether it shows that siting matters or it does not, one thing can always be said with pride: this survey is a one of a kind volunteer accomplishment that NOAA couldn’t do themselves.
It has been a long road, fraught with roadblocks, frustration, and criticisms. I appreciate everyone who has helped me along the road.
Oh darn. I just returned from a NM vacation, where I drove from SA to Ruidoso, along I-10 and US285 through Fr. Stockton and Pecos, Carlsbad and Artesia. 🙁
I wouldn’t’ve minded taking some photos along the way. 🙁
And yes, I actually *did* enjoy the ride. 🙂
That being said, what are you looking for in S TX? You can email me, perhaps I can help out.
J
Robert–
Re Garmin Nuvi. I have a Nuvi. On mine, if you go to the place where you look for locations to go to (like Cities, Restaurants, etc), and keep paging down, nearly the last entry is for Lat/Lon. When you bring it up it will show you the current Lat/Lon. . .but then you can put it where you want to go. I think perhaps (it’s been a few weeks since I did this) you can also pick what format to show Lat/Lon in, and this will be necessary to change to get the format that the Surfacestations.org site shows those in.
If that’s not enough guidance to get you on the right path, let me know and I’ll go dig mine out of the car for more exact instructions.
Oh, and I think W (West) is already selected on the Nuvi, so you don’t need to use the negative sign in front of the second coordinate that surfacestation.org coords always show.
John Finn,
I don’t have time to redo this analysis for US GISS ST date, but here is a more consistent analysis for global Hadcrut3 Surface Temperature ST and UAH Lower Troposphere temperature LT.
See the first graph at
http://www.iberica2000.org/Es/Articulo.asp?Id=3774
There is a 0.2C increase in ST versus LT since 1979, or a warming bias in global ST of 0.07C/decade.
There is also no net warming since 1940, and possibly up to 0.3C of cooling, despite an 800% increase in humanmade CO2 emissions.
Finally, CO2 lags temperature at all measured time scales.
Ain’t it a bugger for you warmists to have to argue that the future is causing the past?
You know, looking at that map I see a big mostly empty area running right down the Sierra Nevada Mountains. It’s not from lack of surveying, it’s from lack of stations.
So we don’t measure up in the rugged mountain country where it’s really cold and snowy very much, but we measure lots of places in the low valley near by where it is one heck of a lot hotter. Then GIStemp fills in the missing cold mountains with anomaly data calculated based on the hot area adjust how again?…
If this pattern repeats around the world (not much measuring where cold and dismal, lots of measuring in warmer flat valleys (with airports 😉 well, theirs your global warming… Do we need a NMHIE – No Mountain data Heat Island Effect?
John Finn
Sea level is falling too – here is another good example of the egregious practise of fitting a straight line through cyclical data.
http://sealevel.colorado.edu/current/sl_noib_global.jpg
I love the way you guys take the warming half of a ~60 year cooling and warming cycle and extrapolate it to infinity. Then you run around screaming “We’ll all gonna die, I tell ya, we’re all gonna BURN!”
Have not researched global dimming, but this linear extrapolation method of yours is irrefutable evidence of intellectual dimming.
Allan M R MacRae (04:09:32) :
John Finn,
I don’t have time to redo this analysis for US GISS ST date, but here is a more consistent analysis for global Hadcrut3 Surface Temperature ST and UAH Lower Troposphere temperature LT.
See the first graph at
http://www.iberica2000.org/Es/Articulo.asp?Id=3774
There is a 0.2C increase in ST versus LT since 1979, or a warming bias in global ST of 0.07C/decade.
No there isn’t. You are selecting one point around 1979 where the 2 datasets are close and using that as a reference point. Look at the downward spikes in the mid-1980s. The UAH anomaly is ~0.2 deg below Hadley. Thr same thing happens in the early 1990s.
There is also no net warming since 1940, and possibly up to 0.3C of cooling, despite an 800% increase in humanmade CO2 emissions
No-one can possibly claim that. The trend is clearly up since 1940. We’ve had a slight dip recently due to the 2007/08 La Nina but temperatures are still higher than at anytime in pre-1995 period. What does the last data point represent? Is it 2008?
I’m sorry but this is cherrypicking at a level I’ve never seen before on either side of the debate.
Sea level is falling too – here is another good example of the egregious practise of fitting a straight line through cyclical data.
http://sealevel.colorado.edu/current/sl_noib_global.jpg
Yes of course it is. It’s quite obviously falling. Now why don’t you go and have a nice lie down.
I love the way you guys take the warming half of a ~60 year cooling and warming cycle and extrapolate it to infinity. Then you run around screaming “We’ll all gonna die, I tell ya, we’re all gonna BURN!”
What do you mean by “you guys”? While you’ve been dreaming up ever more imaginative ways to show that the world is really cooling and the sea is practically disappearing before our eyes, I was arguing with Gavin Schmidt, Michael Mann, Tamino and a host of others about AGW issues which are genuinely controversial.
But do carry on. You and the likes of David “2 deg Cooling” Archibald are doing a great job winning over the neutrals.
Anthony/Evan–
Ground level pictures of Grand Meadow, MN have been uploaded to supplement Evan’s virtual survey.
Evan created marked/labelled GE photos of admirable detail. Unfortunately, they misplace the MMTS somewhat as the uploaded ground-level photos show. It is not behind the detached garage/outbuilding. It is in the backyard directly behind the attached garage part of the house. So it is somewhat further south and a bit west of where Evan shows it. In fact, in the GE shots you can see the shadow of the tree he references in his survey form. The MMTS is several feet south of that.
I do not have the experience/knowledge to know if the difference is material or not. I merely note it for your information.
I hoping to snag a couple more of the south west Wisconsin stations. If anyone else is going after them please let me know.
Thanks Glenn
In about three weeks, we’re travelling by car from the Minneapolis/St. Paul area to Montreal and back. I haven’t tried to do an analysis of freeways yet, but just eyeballing and knowing the last time we did something similiar, there’s at least a chance I might be able to reasonably bag that station on the Upper WI/MI border and maybe even a few upper NY ones on the way to/from. If someone doesn’t get them first, and if it doesn’t add too much time to the drive –we don’t have a lot of excess hours on this trip, but a few anyway.
Wow, how is College Park, Maryland uncollected at this point?!
/me wonders if he can interest his younger brother, who lives in Silver Springs, in a bit of walk-about. . .
John Finn (10:10:00) said:
“I’m sorry but this is cherrypicking at a level I’ve never seen before on either side of the debate.”
OK John, I’m calling your BS.
If I were cherry-picking, I would have tried many combinations until I found this one. I did not.
All I did was choose 1940 as approximately the beginning of a ~60 year cooling-and-warming cycle. 1979 was not arbitrarily chosen – it was the year that the satellites that measure temperature were launched.
You warmists choose the recent (warming) 30 years of a 60 year cooling-and-warming cycle and then extrapolate that warming segment forever, and thus claim global warming is a crisis and we’re all going to burn.
Really, this is utter nonsense.
The last decade of global cooling, coupled with flat-to-declining sea levels, must be giving you terminal heartburn. Serves you right for peddling this expensive, self-serving nonsense. Shame on you John.
Now your colleagues are saying we’ll have no more global warming for another 20 years, but then more serious global warming is definitely “in the pipeline”. Again, I’m calling your BS!
How many times do you think you can change your story before everyone knows that your side of this debate is without credibility or conscience?
*********************
Copy of a note I sent today to Benny Peiser of CC Net.
Hi Benny,
This scientific, energy and economic “Kyoto” debacle was not only predictable, it was predicted, by Sallie Baliunas (Harvard U astrophysicist), Tim Patterson (Carleton U paleoclimatologist) and me.
Here is an excerpt from our article published in the PEGG of November 2002.
http://www.apegga.org/Members/Publications/peggs/WEB11_02/kyoto_pt.htm
Kyoto has many fatal flaws, any one of which should cause this treaty to be scrapped.
Climate science does not support the theory of catastrophic human-made global warming – the alleged warming crisis does not exist.
Kyoto focuses primarily on reducing CO2, a relatively harmless gas, and does nothing to control real air pollution like NOx, SO2, and particulates, or serious pollutants in water and soil.
Kyoto wastes enormous resources that are urgently needed to solve real environmental and social problems that exist today. For example, the money spent on Kyoto in one year would provide clean drinking water and sanitation for all the people of the developing world in perpetuity.
Kyoto will destroy hundreds of thousands of jobs and damage the Canadian economy – the U.S., Canada’s biggest trading partner, will not ratify Kyoto, and developing countries are exempt.
Kyoto will actually hurt the global environment – it will cause energy-intensive industries to move to exempted developing countries that do not control even the worst forms of pollution.
Kyoto’s CO2 credit trading scheme punishes the most energy efficient countries and rewards the most wasteful. Due to the strange rules of Kyoto, Canada will pay the former Soviet Union billions of dollars per year for CO2 credits.
Kyoto will be ineffective – even assuming the overstated pro-Kyoto science is correct, Kyoto will reduce projected warming insignificantly, and it would take as many as 40 such treaties to stop alleged global warming.
The ultimate agenda of pro-Kyoto advocates is to eliminate fossil fuels, but this would result in a catastrophic shortfall in global energy supply – the wasteful, inefficient energy solutions proposed by Kyoto advocates simply cannot replace fossil fuels.
[end of excerpt]
Given the human suffering that has resulted from this misguided application of junk science, Pollyanna energy policy and voodoo economics, I would much prefer it if we had been wrong.
Regards, Allan MacRae
—–Original Message—–
From: Peiser, Benny
Sent: Monday, July 20, 2009 4:45 AM
To: cambridge-conference
Subject: CCNet: Green Britain Isn’t Working
CCNet 112/2009 – 20 July 2009 — Audiatur et altera pars
GREEN BRITAIN ISN’T WORKING
—————————
The rate of unemployment among British adults aged 18 to 24 is 20% and set to grow. Fears are growing of another lost generation.
–Business Week, 17 July 2009
Roland Verstappen, vice-president for international affairs at AcrelorMittal, said steel industries were considering relocating their European operations to other parts of the world because of climate legislation.
–EurActiv, 25 June 2009
Phillipe Varin, chief executive of Corus, has warned that European steel production will wither unless governments tackle the cost of carbon credits used to offset emissions. “If we are forced to buy CO2 credits on the market without a system to improve our production process, then we will not produce steel in Europe,” said Mr Varin.
–The Independent, 14 December 2008
Thousands of British steelworkers and their families are holding a protest march Saturday in a town in northeast England where the looming closure of a Corus steel plant threatens to throw families into poverty. Closure is expected to result in the loss of 2,000 jobs at the plant, and another 1,000 elsewhere.
–Dipankar De Sarkar, Thaindian News, 18 July 2009
It may well be that the English steel mills will become unable to compete globally, even at current domestic energy prices; but deliberately to make them uncompetitive is industrial vandalism – and even madness when the consequence of Miliband’s Martin Luther King moment may be the lights going out not just for producers but for all of us in our homes. This is worse than a futile gesture: it is immoral.
–Dominic Lawson, The Sunday Times, 19 July 2009
Government claims that Britain already supports nearly one million “green-collar” jobs have been exposed as a sham after the figures were found to include workers in the North Sea gas industry as well as suppliers of wallpaper and animal bedding. John Sharp, of Innovas, a consultancy in Winsford, Cheshire, which was paid by the Government to produce the figures earlier this year, confirmed that this included thousands of workers on gas production platforms in the North Sea as well as petrol station attendants on forecourts where liquefied petroleum is dispensed and employees at gas-fired power stations.
–Robin Pagnamenta, The Times, 15 July 2009
Geo,
Keep me posted on the Ashland WI station. If you can’t make it, I’ve got a brother that can get to it with some effort.
I’d like to see WI in the 100% category.
Thanks Glenn
G. Block– Actually, it was Iron Mountain Kingsford WWTP just over the line in MI that I had in mind with that comment. Feel free to send someone after Ashland, WI.
Allan M R MacRae (23:07:22) :
All I did was choose 1940 as approximately the beginning of a ~60 year cooling-and-warming cycle. 1979 was not arbitrarily chosen – it was the year that the satellites that measure temperature were launched.
Whatever you did it’s quite clear that every year since ~1995 is warmer than every year in the 1940s. I can only think that, because the satellite temperatures dropped below the 1940s Hadley temperatures for just one year, you’re somehow suggesting that this shows there has been no warming. Even then you’ve got to rely on a strong La nina.
I have strongly criticised the Mann hockey-stick graph in the past for the way that the thermometer record was cintinually grafted on to the H-S reconstruction. This is like comparing apples and oranges. You have done exactly the same thing. I think you’ll find even sceptics will dismiss your effort as nonsense. in fact, I just have.
I have a road trip into Western Nebraska this week. I have tried the Google Earth link and got nothing recognizable out of it. So I don’t know if there are stations that I can assist with.
If someone more computer skilled could let me know whether or not there are stations on the line, or just off for that matter, from Denver to McCook let me know and I will get them done on Wednesday and Thursday.
My route inside Nebraska goes from Parks thru Benkelman, Statton, Trenton, McCook. it runs just south of Imperial, Enders, Wauneta and Palisade.
John Finn:
RSS, 1997 – 2009; trend is negative
Hadley, 1997 – 2009; trend is negative
UAH, 1997 – 2009; trend is negative
GISS, 2000 – 2009; trend is negative
And more recently: click
It is disingenuous to simply state that one year is warmer than another year. That is a strawman argument, which assumes without any real, empirical evidence that human activity is causing the warming.
The warming trend since the LIA is entirely normal and natural. AGW should not be invoked, since it is unnecessary to explain these natural climate fluctuations; it is an argumentum ad ignorantum, and it violates Occam’s Razor:
Argue that AGW is the culprit, if that is what you believe. But don’t just point to a warm year and say, “AHA! Global warming!!” Remove the “A” from AGW; it is unnecessary to explain anything.
If you believe that AGW causes global warming, provide some solid evidence. And by evidence, I don’t mean output from a computer model, I mean real world evidence.
Paul James –I’m assuming you downloaded/installed Google Earth. Please be sure you do a Save As on the map link and further than you save it with a “.KML” extension rather than a “.XML” extension. Internet Explorer (don’t know about others) seems to want to save that file as a “.XML” but it needs to be “.KML” for Google Earth to recognize it.
The unsurveyed Curtis, NE site would be about 45 mins north of McCook just off US83.
Thanks Geo
maybe I am just a ham fisted computer user but i can’t get it to work for me. I’ll take a look at Curtis NE on Wednesday afternoon.
John Finn,
We are not going to agree.
I have reviewwed your comments and still believe that what I said is correct.
Enjoy what is left of this freezing cold, global warming summer.
Regards, Allan
Smokey (13:23:36) :
John Finn:
RSS, 1997 – 2009; trend is negative
Hadley, 1997 – 2009; trend is negative
UAH, 1997 – 2009; trend is negative
GISS, 2000 – 2009; trend is negative
And more recently: click
Smokey, dear boy, Allan Macrae is trying to argue that the trend since 1940 is negative. I think he is most definitely wrong on this.
Regarding your ‘trends’ I tend to side with the warmers here. The trends are over too short a period and are heavily influenced by the hugely anomalous El Nino in 1997/98. The trends since 1999, for example, are all positive.
I’m not suggesting that the trends aren’t flattening or that they won’t flatten, but it’s too early to call. Any future lack of warming, though, will be more likely due to ocean influences than anything else.
Finally got Google Earth working ! Nice Map !
I am going to try and look at Gothenburg, NE as well as Curtis NE this week.
Gore’s hometown in Summer Shiver: Record cold Breaks 1877 Temp Record ‘Set when Rutherford B. Hayes was president’
By Associated Press
7:59 AM CDT, July 21, 2009
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Cool weather has broken a previous low temperature for July 21 in Nashville that was set when Rutherford B. Hayes was president.
When the temperature at the National Weather Service station dipped to 58 degrees at 5:30 a.m. on Tuesday, it wiped out the previous record low for the date of 60 degrees, which was set in 1877.
NWS forecaster Bobby Boyd noted it was the third consecutive morning when Nashville either tied or broke a daily low temperature record.
Temperatures were cool, but did not break records at several Tennessee cities.
Knoxville dropped to 59 degrees Tuesday morning, Chattanooga had 60 degrees, Tri-Cities recorded 58 degrees and Memphis was 69 degrees.