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.
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I and the surfacestations project get a mention also.
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If this is one of the ASOS (Automated Surface Observations Systems), it was created and situated on airport runways by FAA and Department of Defense to keep pilots updated on prevailing runway take-off conditions.
http://www.nws.noaa.gov/ost/asostech.html these stations also serve as “the nation’s primary surface weather observing network.”
Parked on (sometimes in) a sea of asphalt or tarmac, their readings have to be viewed with scepticism, espectially if their maximum daily temperatue is really just the biggest, most proximate jet blast, and their minimum is just an alloy of local fields with the diffusing heat of the roads and runways around them. This needs repeating.
I guess the question is, can the jet blast effects be seen in the records?
A minute-by-minute record of temperatures would surely show the spikes of heat from jet take-offs where boxes are situated within range of those blasts.
If these reports are accessible, could the take-off record be seen?
Bill Parsons (15:01:09) : ASOS is notoriously unreliable for general weather
information.The Mark I eyeball was better.I rather doubt the spikes would be
shown-but I agree that Airport Changes are important. Portland, Oregon last
summer had a High of 106, last summer. To the delight of Warmists in Oregon
other equally Asphalt ridden Airports in the general did also have near record
highs. Out in Nowhere,Oregon there were no records UHI? hmm…
As an aside, we are having a nice open, winter here in La Grande, Or.
(below 3500 ft.-sorry Pamela.) I am hearing the chortling and mewing of warmists already. They have no idea what it may be like next year…
Those Stevensons screens at Rome Airport seem to be supersized :
about 1.5 metres by 1.1 metres as measured on Google earth (calibrated using the rail tracks at 1.4 metres) – compare them to the width of the euroean cars in the park.
Are these special or are they not the stevensons screens?
Folks, I reported the name and coordinates of the Ciampino airport @ur momisugly 22:37:03. 18 hours later we now know more about this airport than it deserves. And this is the second time this particular station has been discussed on WUWT and it was identified then.
[ http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/03/28/how-not-to-measure-temperature-part-86-when-in-rome-dont-do-as-the-romans-do/ ]
Note the second line of the title of this post, namely “doubts on station data” and think for a second. This is only one of several dozen station photos that could have been inserted under the title. The point really is that with all the issues this place has (or doesn’t have) there is doubt that it is useful for long term climatic investigation.
Looking at this on Google Earth, there are parallel runways. The short one is closed (x on ends).
Speaking as a pilot (Navy P-3). I want to know the runway temperature, especially when the question is can the plane get safely airborne at the planned weight on a hot summer afternoon. Hot air has less lift!
What is this crap that Anthony Watts and company surface station reports are not “peer” reviewed? Just who in the heck is this wonderful “peerage” that has to validate a report on the facts of surface station sites. A “climate scientist” maybe, like Phil Jones.
These guys use the data in their papers but it’s not “peer reviewed” for general use.
Gr r r r r r…………….
Not being a math wizard, but know that they exist…I wonder what amout of ‘adjustment’ is required to compensate for a mass of heat gathering concrete that’s close to the thermometer.
“It is quite deplorable and shocking that scientists should have made such fundamental errors of judgement in selecting the sources for their climate data. ”
Quite seriously, as with the Mann hockey-stick, I think that if something gave the “right” answer then they promptly stopped caring about looking at it any harder. Once it’s confessed you can stop torturing the data.
One of my first “sceptic” insights was seeing a “popular denialist arguments debunked” list in which item after item data that had seemed to contradict AGW was “subsequently found to have errors”, the removal of which conveniently put it back on message again. And I couldn’t help but wonder whether the data that had supported AGW had been given anything like the same level of scrutiny. (And then later I found ClimateAudit and discovered what had been found when someone did, but that’s another story!)
“But note I don’t think Heathrow is used by Cru or Gistemp.” – robertM
Not that that stops the BBC, of course:
“The record was initially topped earlier in the day when Heathrow airport registered 37.9C (100.2F), meaning the hottest day since records began about 130 years ago in 1875. ” – BBC News, August 2003
“London’s Heathrow Airport had seen the highest recorded temperatures on both Monday and Tuesday, and on Wednesday the thermometer there recorded its highest ever reading of 35C (95F). ” – BBC News, July 2006
Or indeed the UK Met Office:
“During the summer of 1976, Heathrow had 16 consecutive days over 30 °C from 23 June to 8 July (its highest number of consecutive days above 30 °C). In 2003, Heathrow managed three consecutive days above 30 °C between 4 and 6 August 2003, and five consecutive days between 8 and 12 August 2003”
If the numbers look “nice”, who cares where they come from?!
Small quibble with the jet output.
The jets on a twin as shown, point slightly outwards, the jetwash would probably converge at the Stephenson screen. 🙂
DaveE.
I would be inclined to agree with those posters who say that aircraft would likely be towed to that location. However, engine tests are not unheard of at the parked location, it would be interesting to have a log & if the change was enough to flag an inconsistency.
It is also not unheard of for aircraft to taxi from parking due to lack of available towing tractors.
DaveE.
The plane is an Airbus A319 of the Italian Air Force:
http://www.airliners.net/photo/Italy—Air/Airbus-A319-115X-CJ/1579298/L/&sid=c2e9b502c091a708bccbd2bf93b89d45
You can see the Automated Weather Station etc. to the right. I’m not saying this is the same plane, but the hard standing looks like it’s for the Air Force.
Here is another view.
http://www.airliners.net/photo/Italy—Air/Airbus-A319-115X-CJ/1353145/L/&sid=c2e9b502c091a708bccbd2bf93b89d45
The apron markings appear to be geared for a plane of this size and no bigger. I don’t see why they would be towed unless it’s to get them in the hanger.
Not sure of the exact engine but perhaps the CFM56-5B7 producing 27,000lbf (not 50,000lbf). These are high by-pass engines which means they will move a greater amount of air at a slower spead. Also the hot air from the combustion chambers as it leaves the exhaust is surrounded by unheated air. Lots of it. The safety distance behind such engines, in fact any type of engine producing blast is more to do with things being picked up and blown back.
Besides that, it is easy to see the weather stations are just going to read hot regardless of whether you have jet engines wafting warm air over.