Last week we had quite a row about temperature and temperature adjustments in Wellington New Zealand. One of the stations cited was the Kelburn district of Wellington, NZ.
NIWA issued a response statement regarding the charges leveled by The NZ Climate Science Coalition here:
http://www.niwa.co.nz/our-science/climate/news/all/niwa-confirms-temperature-rise
They say:
Warming over New Zealand through the past century is unequivocal.
NIWA’s analysis of measured temperatures uses internationally accepted techniques, including making adjustments for changes such as movement of measurement sites. For example, in Wellington, early temperature measurements were made near sea level, but in 1928 the measurement site was moved from Thorndon (3 metres above sea level) to Kelburn (125 m above sea level). The Kelburn site is on average 0.8°C cooler than Thorndon, because of the extra height above sea level.
The NZ Climate Science Coalition responded with a series of graphs that showed how the temperature record of stations in Wellington looks:
And they write:
What’s interesting is that if you leave Kelburn out of the equation, Thorndon in 1910 is not far below Airport 2010. Perhaps that gave NIWA some confidence that the two locations were equivalent, but I’m betting Thorndon a hundred years ago was very different from an international airport now.
Of course we all know that airports tend to run hotter than surrounding areas due to the huge expanses of runway, tarmac, terminal buildings, and car parks they have become as aviation has grown in the last 100 years, so it is no surprise to see the airport hotter than Kelburn, which is higher in elevation and with a bit more greenery, owing to the nearby Botanical Gardens.
I had an interest in tracking down the Kelburn station, just to see how good it is. I was able to find it on Google Earth as an aerial view which you can see below. I was unsuccessful in my first attempts at finding a photograph to document the measurement environment of the Kelburn station. I picked up the hunt again a few days later, and found it hiding in plain site. Thank goodness for tourists.
You can see the Stevenson screen is surrounded by astronomical science, such as the historic Dominion Observatory and the Carter Observatory to the west (off screen). But from a climate science perspective, it is also surrounded by asphalt, with a car park to the east. According to the Google Earth measurement tool, vehicles are parked within 6 meters of the Stevenson Screen.
But I really really wanted to get a ground level view to absolute ascertain the placement of the Stevenson Screen. Lots of web searches turn up nothing. I found pictures of the observatories, pictures of the Krupp gun, pictures of the skyline, but no pictures of the nearby weather station. After all, other than myself and surfacestations.org volunteers, who takes pictures of weather stations while on vacation? Still I figured, this is a major tourist spot, within walking distance of the top of the famous Wellington cable car, surely somebody had snapped a photo?
Then I discovered something in Google Earth called “Panoramio”, which had a whole collection of tourist submitted shots around the observatories.
Bingo!
Here’s the full image from Panoramio, the Stevenson Screen is clearly visible. Thank you J. Baines, wherever you are.
The car park asphalt at 6 meters away puts the station rating at CRN4, based on NOAA’s site quality rating system used for their Climate Reference Network. I’ve found that the vast majority of historical stations in the USA have been affected this way:
One wonders how this area has changed over time, and how long the car park has been there, and how much it, and the tourist vehicles that park next to the fence have contributed to the Kelburn climate record. Someone familiar with the history of the observatory might be able to shed some light on this. Was the screen always in this location? When did the car park go in? How many tree have been cleared around the site over the years? How many new buildings (Like the Carter Observatory) have but put up nearby? These are all issues which affect the temperature record. Disentangling those influences is difficult without an historical context.
I don’t blame the scientists at the observatory for letting the climate measurement environment at Kelburn deteriorate, after all they are charged with looking upwards, not at the grounds around them.
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DanD (13:41:28) :
You mean the chain-link fence doesn’t keep the heat from the parking lot out? 😉
Does not have to
In low wind conditions the heat on the tarmac will heat the air above and this will rise dragging in cold air
At night the stored heat in the tarmac will have the same effect
During wind from across the tarmac there may be some heating of the wind. How much – don’t know but the mixing of tamac heat and wind temperature will lower the effect of tarmac.
Radiation from the hot surface (less than 100C) will NOT affect the screen – it is not affected by the sun (more than1000C)
Can you give another explaination how the heat from the tamac reaces the thermometers?
Michael (15:09:41) :
The Sun has been on another 2 week fadeout.
AWOS (Away without spots).
rbateman (11:44:12) :
“My understanding of calibration tells me that Kelburne and the AIrport are nicely calibrated, occupying portions of the same time frame. Thorndon is calibrated with nothing. Is is separated by BOTH time & space, and flaps in the breeze.”
There are several problems with all that. Thorndon closed 31Dec1927 and Kelburn opened 1Jan1928, the chart showing only a .2C difference. NIWA adjusted Thorndon down .79C. Admittedly the chart does show a tiny gap, but that gap would have been during the time one of the stations is claimed to have been operating, and there are no other gaps in coverage of either station for years before or after that gap. Another problem is that although NIWA has stated that all the data for that graph is available to anyone thru their database, records for Kelburn does not exist in the database, only data starting (somewhat suspiciously) on 1Jan1931.
ANother problem is that no data exists in the database for Thorndon, only rainfall data.
Yet another problem exists for “Airport”. Apparently two different stations were used for “Airport”, one from 1962 – 1992 and another from 1994 – 2005.
No station is listed in the NIWA database for any stations opening or in existence 1962 to 1992.
Kelburn AWS (at airport) data is shown to have opened in 2004 and has data from then to the present. Two other stations in close proximity opened around 1995 show no data.
I found a website that lists two temperature station locations at the airport, the site claiming a .4F different average between the two, station WMO Id 93439 Wellington Aero Aws and WMO Id 93436 Wellington Airport.
http://weather.gladstonefamily.net/site/NZWN
WMO ID does not match any numbers found in NIWA station details.
A brief analysis would appear to show that Thorndon was lowered too much, and the most recent “Airport” temps were from a station .4F warmer than another at the airport.
But this can not be verified through the NIWA database, as sufficient data and stations are missing. Surprise, surprise.
Interested parties may view station locations, dates of service, altitudes, logs etc from http://cliflo.niwa.co.nz/pls/niwp/wstn.get_stn_nodt_pw
Select “Wellington”, choose “Wellington, Kelburn”, click longitude put in “1” in the “radiuskm” box to get station listing for the area.
To search the database for actual instrumental data (one can hope it’s raw) you have to register, and use the “Database Query Form.”
Dr A Burns (14:15:47) :
Congratulations! Yours is the 250,000th comment on WUWT.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/06/how-not-to-measure-temperature-part-92-surrounded-by-science/#comment-250000
Yes, uh, I really do have better things to do with my time, why do you ask?
bbc’s richard black is at least as funny as lenton:
Earth Watch with BBC Environment Correspondent Richard Black: Copenhagen Countdown: 2 days
(final paras) I’ve another request, too – if you can restrain yourselves from plastering
this thread with stuff about ClimateGate, please do.
There are more than 700 comments on the previous thread, the vast majority
related to it. I know from e-mails that some readers find endless picking
over of climate science repetitive and boring – and when they do, they don’t
read through the comments. Fresh, pertinent and interesting are my
suggestions.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/richardblack/2009/12/copenhagen_countdown_3_days.ht
btw the commenters let him have it!!!
tho some would say pachauri gets the funniest line of all:
BBC: Himalayan glaciers melting deadline ‘a mistake’
Mr Pachauri dismissed the study as “voodoo science” and said the IPCC was a “sober body” whose work was verified by governments.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8387737.stm
Kelburn vs WLG airport:
Kelburn is on a small plateau above the Wellington CBD – a little above and to the north of the cable car terminus. Urban all around, but hill-sited, loose-packed urban, and the Botanical Gardens occupy a wedge to the north/west. Like most NZ cities, Wellington was originally heavily forested (bush, as we say), cleared by a combination of settlement and by the 1855 earthquake (8.x magnitude), so the treees we see here are mostly second growth if indigenous, or exotic. Wellington is notoriously windy, but my impression of this site from many visits to a client in an adjoining building, is that the general site is a little sheltered – a fringe of trees just below the road – and can be a sun-trap on a good day. In a strong wind, all bets are off. Oh, and no significant standing bodies of water within perhaps 1 km – Wellington Harbour is the closest.
Wellington airport runway is bounded by two huge water bodies (Cook Strait to the South, Wellington Harbour/Evans Bay to the North) and the flight path into Wellington is one of the more spectacular in the world. Rock and concrete rip-rap shore protection on both ends. The airport catches every breath of wind, being a low, level track between low (50-80m) hills, and is of middling traffic intensity (for little NZ), as there is a night curfew on flights because of the proximity of the suburbs on both sides. As the entire show was blasted out of raw rock when built in the ’30’s, there is exposed rock adjacent to the runways and in the general environs. Couldn’t be more different (within an overall urban context) from Kelburn.
Hope this supplies some context to the discussion.
Perhaps everybody who wants to move on from Global Warmng should concern themselves with a branch of science where there really is a general CONSENSUS (magic word) in the PEER REVIEWED literature (more magic words): Continental Drift.
Did you know that America and Europe are moving further and further away from each other EVERY SINGLE YEAR! If left unchecked this will result in mountains where there is coastline, new volcanos in all sorts of places and goodness knows how many earthquakes in the meantime. Just look at the number of people killed every year due to Earthquakes alone. All scientists who have studied all this say it is forecast to continue, without letup, forever!
SOMETHING MUST BE DONE.
I propose an international conference and an international system of taxation. There are countries that will get larger due to continental drift and countries that will get smaller. India for example is getting smaller every day as it moves north into Asia. On the other hand the USA seems to be stretching on an east/west axis. A system of compensation needs to be set up whereby the winners can compensate the losers.
Some may say it is better to spend money to ameliorate the effects of these geological changes rather than raise vast amounts in taxation to deal with something that cannot be controlled. I call such people deniers. What we need is a long term solution to make the planet safer for future generations.
Oh, and by the way we will need a world government to police all this.
Glenn (15:28:56) :
My point being that if you close down one station, then open another one some distance away, they are then unrelated.
You could have a semblance of calibration between the two had they both been run several years concurrently, but that didn’t happen.
Richard (14:14:57) :
I’m not certain, but I think Schlesinger is one of the folks behind Cryosphere, http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/ I once able to find people’s names associated with it, but apparently no more. I went looking because I was curious about their slow response to dealing with satellite data quality problems and their non-response to my reports of errors in the arctic map links (which are still broken).
I concluded then that Cryosphere was two scientists and maybe student help.
“Radiation from the hot surface (less than 100C) will NOT affect the screen – it is not affected by the sun (more than1000C)”
1: A gentle breeze blowing from the direction of the parking lot in daylight can move air warmed by the asphalt to the screen causing an improperly high temperature recording of the daily high.
2. A gentle breeze blowing from the direction of the parking lot at night can move air warmed by the asphalt to the screen causing an improperly high reading of the daily low.
pat (14:09:26) :
“History is made: papers’ single call
IN AN unprecedented initiative, 56 major newspapers in 45 countries are today publishing a shared editorial calling on politicians and negotiators gathering in Copenhagen to strike an ambitious deal on combating climate change.”
What a coincidence!
The Washington Times
SLIME-ATE GATE
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/dec/07/slime-ate-gate/
@Bill
In low wind conditions the heat on the tarmac will heat the air above and this will rise dragging in cold air
So what you are saying is that having a large heat sink by a thermometer will lower the reading? Is this why the “universally accepted” AGW way to deal with modern temperatures is to lower them?
The problem I have with this is that “dragging in cold air” assumes that the surrounding air is cold. But the surrounding air in Wellington is not cold, having been heated by the big city that surrounds the Kelburn site. If the surrounding air is a degree warmer than it might be in a rural site (hardly unlikely after a sunny day) then the effect of the tarmac is to drag warmed air towards the thermometer.
During wind from across the tarmac there may be some heating of the wind. How much – don’t know but the mixing of tamac heat and wind temperature will lower the effect of tarmac.
On a windy day (and Wellington is a very windy city) the heat from the tarmac is going to be a very minor issue. The heat from the great big city might not be though!
I have a major issue with the, on the face of it insane, concept that because the cities of the world are a couple of degrees warmer than their surrounding countryside, we should lower their thermometer readings.
Hey Anthony, I live in Wellington so I could head up to the Botanical gardens and get you a closer photo if you want?
The other interesting thing about Wellington is it’s the windiest city in New Zealand and I’d hazard it’s one of the windiest in the world. I believe our annual mean wind speed is 22 km/h (13.75 mph).
So, I’m wondering, is it good practice to take into account a wind-chill factor if you change measurement sites? Many of the winds we get in Wellington are southerly blasts that have come off Antartica and there can be, what feels like, very large differences in temperature depending on where you are in the city. i.e. if you’re sheltered from the wind or not.
The Kelburn site is on top of a hill and very exposed so I wouldn’t be surprised if wind-chill was also a factor in it’s temperature readings. Just my 2c.
REPLY: Wind chill is only a human condition, it does not affect thermometers. Sure some additional photos would be welcome. – Anthony
Terry Skinner – May I use that?
Crosspatch: That must have been a data entry error – going to Samburg TN doesn’t show anything like that kind of temperature.
pat (15:36:49) :
bbc’s richard black is at least as funny as lenton:
Earth Watch with BBC Environment Correspondent Richard Black: Copenhagen Countdown: 2 days
(final paras) I’ve another request, too – if you can restrain yourselves from plastering
this thread with stuff about ClimateGate, please do.
There are more than 700 comments on the previous thread, the vast majority
related to it. I know from e-mails that some readers find endless picking
over of climate science repetitive and boring – and when they do, they don’t
read through the comments. Fresh, pertinent and interesting are my
suggestions.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/richardblack/2009/12/copenhagen_countdown_3_days.ht
btw the commenters let him have it!!
That’s the BBC form of Democracy at work. The vast majority of posters want to talk about ClimateGate, a small minority don’t and, as that’s the minority that RB is in, he doesn’t like what he’s hearing!
At least he’s sticking up for a rapidly diminishing minority and is brave enough not to follow the tide of public opinion!
rabidfox
Feel Free
I can’t believe our comrades in Russia are going to get all the credit for uncovering the climategate conspiracy. I salute those guys.
Climategate: was Russian secret service behind email hacking plot?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/copenhagen-climate-change-confe/6746370/Climategate-was-Russian-secret-service-behind-email-hacking-plot.html
Andrei (13:31:38) :
I am reminded of the apocryphal tale of medieval theologians arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin as I watch this drama unfold.
Exactly right! I sent the medieval theologians an email with the 350.org calculations of 387.75-350=37.75.
So, 37.75 of the 1,000,000 carbon footprints dancing on the head of a pin need to be kicked out of Dodge City.
Whoops – Jon Stewart says it turns out to be god’s tears not carbon footprints!
So, I sent emails to today’s theologians with solar panels on their heads advising them to install a god’s tears rain bucket guage, but they keep coming back because their inbox is full of spam.
Virtue from Wellington, New Zealand now has the tools to purge the goddess from Anglia. Reddy Kilowatt says do this out on Highway 61.
My first degree – BSc Geology – was from Victoria University, which I attended in rhe 1960’s. Kelburn and the Dominion Observatory were a pleasant very warm place to have a picnic lunch.
On another note, I live in a small NZ provincial town and this mornings newspaper had 4 stories about Copenhagen and local efforts to conserve energy and stop climate change – how important is was to save the world etc. A half page was devoted to a local activist holding a candlelight vigil, who was quoted as saying, ” The future of millions of people depends on the outcome of the conference – and also the future of mankind”. Quite true, but not as he is hoping.
There was one story – recycled from The Independent – which DID mention Climategate but basically how it was being refuted by expert scientists. Quote ” … world temperatures are declining. This is rejected by the scientific communitywith 2009 likely to be at least the 5th hottest year recorded.” and with Climategate itself, “It has been deliberately engineered.” … “It’s a scandal. It was probably ordered, maybe by hackers”.
At least, we are seeing some tiny mention of the CRU scandal but locally, the committed activists have free rein.
RoyFOMR (16:27:15) :
The name that can not be mentioned….the name
that must not be mentioned.
D. King (17:07:06) :
mentioned…sorry.
EDITORIAL: Media complicity in Climategate
“The networks found plenty of airtime to cover rumored family problems plaguing professional golfer Tiger Woods. Yet, even though there is climate-regulation legislation pending in Congress that could cost Americans trillions of dollars, network producers don’t see anything newsworthy in a scandal exposing fraud in global-warming research. Such omissions make mainstream news complicit in the cover-up.”
http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/dec/07/media-complicity-in-climategate/?feat=home_editorials
Do you mean “plain sight”? The description makes the site seem not plain enough.