A new story by Jonathan Leake in the Sunday Times puts the spotlight on surface temperature data.
Above: Rome’s airport weather station. Here is the interactive view
“The temperature records cannot be relied on as indicators of global change,” said John Christy, professor of atmospheric science at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, a former lead author on the IPCC.
The doubts of Christy and a number of other researchers focus on the thousands of weather stations around the world, which have been used to collect temperature data over the past 150 years.
These stations, they believe, have been seriously compromised by factors such as urbanisation, changes in land use and, in many cases, being moved from site to site.
Christy has published research papers looking at these effects in three different regions: east Africa, and the American states of California and Alabama.
“The story is the same for each one,” he said. “The popular data sets show a lot of warming but the apparent temperature rise was actually caused by local factors affecting the weather stations, such as land development.”
The IPCC faces similar criticisms from Ross McKitrick, professor of economics at the University of Guelph, Canada, who was invited by the panel to review its last report.
The experience turned him into a strong critic and he has since published a research paper questioning its methods.
“We concluded, with overwhelming statistical significance, that the IPCC’s climate data are contaminated with surface effects from industrialisation and data quality problems. These add up to a large warming bias,” he said.
….
I and the surfacestations project get a mention also.
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Why should I believe anything said on this site about “errors and misinformation” in the IPCC report, when what I see before my eyes is errors and misinformation from this site.
OMG, there should be an inquiry about this site and this error.
Tit for Tat
REPLY: No error except your opinion that putting weather stations in this situation is OK
The warming Is man-made! Or 747 made?
It has been explained before that the ‘scientists’ are aware that the readings are compromised and thus are adjusted to compensate-or do I have that backwards? Maybe it was explained that the older, i.e.: good data was adjusted to comepensate, thereby becoming more comparable to the poor data we have now. Confusing stuff…
My question about this technique is: How was that adjustment created? How is it tested? Because assuming that the change in topography through urbanization is a gradual almost evolutionary process, how are the rates of adjustment continually modified to compensate?
I see here an modern airport with what appears to be one of our most advanced commercial aircraft wafting it’s exhaust in the direction of the instruments. As I lookat this image, it occurs to me that in say 1960 we didn’t have these exact same aircraft and further, what about seasonal fluctuations in travel? I frequently hear about the ‘busiest’ air travel days of the year and I seem to recall a complete cessation of travel after the 9-11 attack. How are these complex factors taken into account?
And regardless as to whether they are or not-why bother? Why choose such hideous conditions as a base-line anyway? After all, if the fate of all mankind is at stake, why not take the steps to necessary to get better quality data?
The picture is a FAKE.
Follow the freaking link yourself.
Lie to me once, and I can’t trust you again.
REPLY: Wrong. 1000 times wrong. the picture is available right here for anybody to see. You just don’t wish to. Follow the link.
http://www.bing.com/maps/default.aspx?v=2&cp=qz11pkj1fwtr&scene=43174237&lvl=2&sty=b
“’We concluded, with overwhelming statistical significance, that the IPCC’s climate data are contaminated with surface effects from industrialisation and data quality problems. These add up to a large warming bias,’ he said.”
Yet despite this, every “adjustment” to the data adds even MORE warming bias. Hmm…….
Sorry. the photo as shown above is very misleading. The jet is parked. That is not the threshold of a runway. Occasionally there might be a runup there, but that’s doubtful, given that there are no deflector fences at the perimeter of the ramp, and cars are parked in close proximity.
The ramp itself will no doubt influence the measured temperatures, but I very much doubt it will be as a result of a running jet engine.
REPLY: The point is, we shouldn’t be having an argument about jet exhaust at all. – A
re: Harvey Puca (20:40:26) :
What are you on about?
http://tinyurl.com/yzmde6r
Harvey Puca, polluting the thread with claims of a lie is just a waste of your time. In case you don’t fly or deal with airports very often, those lines painted on the tarmac are where the front wheels of aircraft go. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter as much as how close the Stevenson screens are to the tarmac. Is that a lie? Are they actually somewhere else?
Meanwhile, over at the Mail:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1250955/Climate-change-doubters-say-UN-data-tampered-grossly-overstate-case-Earth-warming-up.html
Charlie,
The arrows are put in for explanation. the link is to microsoft hardly photo shopped
Surface temperature data is corrupted due to various reasons. I’m surprised organizations haven’t been taken to court threatened with legal action for presenting historical temperatures in these ways.
Off Topic: Has anyone here seen those allegations that the Wegman Report was cooked?
Has there been any response to that?
The other point is what was there before the airport was built? The difference could significant resulting in an upward bias in recent temperatures far greater than most expect. This is why all thermometer readings taken at or near urban areas, airports, etc. should be excluded. They should only be included if the whole world is covered with man-made structures, and there’s no vegetation left standing, which I doubt will ever occur, certainly not in our lifetimes.. Anyone who doesn’t understand why we should exclude such readings is obviously not thinking. It does not matter what methods are used to try an correct the biases. They can never be trusted.
Well, if we ever hear the IPCC remark “When in Rome…” we’ll know exactly what they meant, right? 8^)
I also wonder if future historians will sarcastically mark our current period as the second Roman Warm Period based on this article… 8^)
Whoa there! That’s almost a clone of the situation at Canberra Airport as per Warwick Hughes’ article http://www.warwickhughes.com/blog/?p=447 … zoom out from the image on the page.
Have they been siting stations under instruction??
Harvey Puca (20:40:26) :
ace (20:46:02) :
It isn’t possible that there is no influence on the station from the heat of the jet engine when it is on, just idling. And even if it isn’t taking off it is still going to start to taxi and the heat from the engine is going to influence the temp reading even more. Besides that there is heat from the pavement during the day and more so at night.
I don’t see any point in you two saying what you are saying. You are not being objective.
I think you fellows are getting desperate from the constant bad news your side has been getting since November 19. Maybe the Phil Jones U-turn is putting you over the edge.
In the Mail article cited by CodeTech (21:21:59) :
[Quote]Kevin Trenberth said: ‘It is not just temperature records that tell us that the world is warming.We also have physical changes like the fact that sea levels have risen around five times since 1972, the Arctic icecap has declined by 40 per cent and snow cover in the northern hemisphere has declined.'[Unquote]
Sea level rose “around five times since 1972” ?!
Arctic icecap has declined by 40% ?! ……… OMG
@ur momisugly Harvey Puca (20:40:26)
“Inconvinient truth” for you ?
I will continue to claim that the weather station is perfectly sited –
from an aviation safety perspective.
In that it will accurately provide to a pilot the temperature of the artificially heated air above the runway that the wings will be trying to gain lift from, on a hot August afternoon.
Who decided to use the data climate modelling ? For purpose it was never intended.
The airport in the photo is “Ciampino” and you can find it by looking with Google Earth with these coordinates: 41.807883 N, 12.584596 E
The photo is rotated and the area shown is for parking so only someone familiar with the operation could say how often the weather station is bathed with jet exhaust. The location has plenty of parking, roads, and buildings. I’d say it is a good site for an airport weather station. Climate monitoring – not so much!
Now wouldn’t it be interesting to see if the correlation between the Hockey Stick and the increase in jet traffic doesn’t give a perfect fit with airport-located temperature logging….
hmmmm…….
Anthony is also featured in the Daily Telegraph today (Monday15th Feb.)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/7236011/UN-global-warming-data-skewed-by-heat-from-planes-and-buildings.html
“The temperature records cannot be relied on as indicators of global change,” said John Christy”
Dr Christy or commentors,
What are your evaluations of other natural phenomena that can be used as indicators of globle change if (as you say) temperature records cannot be relied upon?
John
Guys, guys,
Harvey Púca is obviously pulling your large rabbit leg!
You’ve also got a good mention in the UK Telegraph today, though bits look copy and pasted from the Sunday Times article.
The google earth image of the site also includes a jet parked not far away.
It is now on the first page of Mondays on line telegraph