Note: See update below, new graph added.
There’s a new paper out by Dr. Edward Long that does some interesting comparisons to NCDC’s raw data (prior to adjustments) that compares rural and urban station data, both raw and adjusted in the CONUS.
The paper is titled Contiguous U.S. Temperature Trends Using NCDC Raw and Adjusted Data for One-Per-State Rural and Urban Station Sets. In it, Dr. Edward Long states:
“The problem would seem to be the methodologies engendered in treatment for a mix of urban and rural locations; that the ‘adjustment’ protocol appears to accent to a warming effect rather than eliminate it. This, if correct, leaves serious doubt for whether the rate of increase in temperature found from the adjusted data is due to natural warming trends or warming because of another reason, such as erroneous consideration of the effects of urban warming.”
Here is the comparison of raw rural and urban data:
And here is the comparison of adjusted rural and urban data:
Note that even adjusted urban data has as much as a 0.2 offset from adjusted rural data.
Dr. Long suggests that NCDC’s adjustments eradicated the difference between rural and urban environments, thus hiding urban heating. The consequence:
“…is a five-fold increase in the rural temperature rate of increase and a slight decrease in the rate of increase of the urban temperature.”
The analysis concludes that NCDC “…has taken liberty to alter the actual rural measured values”.
Thus the adjusted rural values are a systematic increase from the raw values, more and more back into time and a decrease for the more current years. At the same time the urban temperatures were little, or not, adjusted from their raw values. The results is an implication of warming that has not occurred in nature, but indeed has occurred in urban surroundings as people gathered more into cities and cities grew in size and became more industrial in nature. So, in recognizing this aspect, one has to say there has been warming due to man, but it is an urban warming. The temperatures due to nature itself, at least within the Contiguous U. S., have increased at a non-significant rate and do not appear to have any correspondence to the presence or lack of presence of carbon dioxide.
The paper’s summary reads:
Both raw and adjusted data from the NCDC has been examined for a selected Contiguous U. S. set of rural and urban stations, 48 each or one per State. The raw data provides 0.13 and 0.79 oC/century temperature increase for the rural and urban environments. The adjusted data provides 0.64 and 0.77 oC/century respectively. The rates for the raw data appear to correspond to the historical change of rural and urban U. S. populations and indicate warming is due to urban warming. Comparison of the adjusted data for the rural set to that of the raw data shows a systematic treatment that causes the rural adjusted set’s temperature rate of increase to be 5-fold more than that of the raw data. The adjusted urban data set’s and raw urban data set’s rates of temperature increase are the same. This suggests the consequence of the NCDC’s protocol for adjusting the data is to cause historical data to take on the time-line characteristics of urban data. The consequence intended or not, is to report a false rate of temperature increase for the Contiguous U. S.
The full paper may be found here: Contiguous U.S. Temperature Trends Using NCDC Raw and Adjusted Data for One-Per-State Rural and Urban Station Sets (PDF) and is freely available for viewing and distribution.
Dr. Long also recently wrote a column for The American Thinker titled: A Pending American Temperaturegate
As he points out in that column, Joe D’Aleo and I raised similar concerns in: Surface Temperature Records: Policy Driven Deception? (PDF)
UPDATE: A reader asked why divergence started in 1960. Urban growth could be one factor, but given that the paper is about NCDC adjustments, this graph from NOAA is likely germane:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/img/climate/research/ushcn/ts.ushcn_anom25_diffs_urb-raw_pg.gif
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Rural readings reflect the real natural climate variability in temperature whereas urban readings are poisoned by various sources. This is an obvious truth. There’s only one explanation why they persistently adjust the rural readings up to match the less useful urban ones instead of adjusting the urban ones to other way. That’s obvious too so I don’t need to explain it.
What matters from the perspective of AGW is the temperature trend since 1980. The fact that the adjusted rural data gives almost the same value as the urban is surprising. I think this may be another way of stating, as I have sometimes seen, that the UHI correction overcorrects for urbanization.
If the work leading to this graph is valid, it’s beautiful. It actually shows that they change together and isolates the “average” urban effect.
It happens to confirm all my expectations. For example, the urban effect is mostly occurring in the last 50 years and gives 0.6 deg C or so.
By the way, that’s exactly how much I expected to the urban contribution to the data in Prague Clementinum:
http://motls.blogspot.com/2010/02/climate-czechgate-pragues-klementinum.html
When you subtract 0.6 °C from recent temperature, to get a corresponding guess for the countryside around Prague, you will actually see that Prague has slightly cooled between 1800 and today.
Best wishes
Lubos
How robust is this methodology? Looking at the paper here’s the selection criteria for rural/urban?
“In the context of this paper, ‘rural’ means a station whose location is with no more than one dwelling in its vicinity or at the outer boundary of a small community whose population does not exceed a small multiple of a thousand residents. The second set consists of stations with ‘urban’ locations. In the context of this paper, ‘urban’ means a station at the site of a sizeable airport, an industrial area within a city, or near the center of a well-populated city with industrial activity.”
As for stations selected, they seemed to have picked 48 and one from each state. I would have expected something like one in each of the 5×5 grids that was mapped out. 5×5 grids of course are poor representations of geography and climate zones.
By inspection a few standout. On the rural side Bedford, MA (suburb) and Kingston, RI (URI main campus)
Overall, the urban selection looks like it’s in a different climate zone. For example Yosemite vs Pasadena.
An interesting study certainly does raise some methodology questions about the NCDC plot, but I think a better better study should be demanded.
Anthony, do you have any idea what the station count for the NCDC raw data? If there are more stations then this could be a sampling issue. Doesn’t seem to hurt to include more stations and especially stations in similar climate zones.
I think the author is looking at the data from the wrong perspective.
The primary fact to remember is that “global warming” is a social phenomenon, so the impacts in the lives of individual people is what really counts.
As the move of populations from rural to urban locations accelerated over the last century, then clearly the social impact of warming in urban areas has become increasingly important. It therefore is perfectly reasonable to weight temperature readings to match the number of people affected, thus giving the rural readings very low significance due the to low populations.
So you see, when you apply the proper perspective of a social scientist, it is perfectly reasonable, and only a hard scientist like a physicist would fail to see this!
Not so much a smoking gun but an exhaust trail left by an ICBM!
Wow! This will be big. (Just wanted to get in the first comment, as with Climategate.)
PS: Someone please pursue the suspicious winter icebreaking in Hudson Bay.
That is incredible! If it holds up, it blows the whole AGW theory to kingdom come. If the UK Met review of surface stations shows the same problems. it’s all over.
So, just so I’m clear:
Instead of adjusting the urban stations down to counteract the artificial heat retention in an urban setting, they instead adjusted the rural stations up. Is there anyone who can’t see how that is wrong? Is it any surprise that the “average” temperature then shows an increase?
Isn’t this what “we” have been claiming was being done all along?
A very graphical example of fraud, obvious even to a child.
Or should we call it politely “a convenient lie”?
Impostors have been denounced. No honest, self-respecting scientist or journalist can continue to insist that AGW theory is based on facts. Nevertheless, many scientists and journalists are still pushing this red herring. Why?
Money is the most powerful drug, it does wonders with the perception of reality. Especially when it’s other people’s money.
In a real world, not one in the mind of a climate alarmist, the rural area readings would not need adjusting and the urban ones would need a downward adjustment of at least 0.5-1.0 degrees C.
Almost the opposite has happened here.
So the question is clearly: With only one comparison of urban and rural temperatures per state, how representative are the figures, or is this ‘cherry picking’ like so much of the alarmist data?
If it can be demonstrated that these figures are truly representative, then the climate establishment is clearly guilty of fraud on a massive scale.
It is nothing new on this paper. Almost everybody knows that they do this kind of “trick”. Just look at part 3 of this video from Finnish TV about CRU. They are talking about exact same “trick” on Russian rural and urban station data.
part 1:
part 2:
part 3:
Sounds very convincing, but what about Roy Spencer’s recent satellite analysis?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/02/20/spencer-developing-a-new-satellite-based-surface-temperature-set/
Kind of nullifies everything doesn’t it?
As for stations selected, they seemed to have picked 48 and one from each state. I would have expected something like one in each of the 5×5 grids that was mapped out. 5×5 grids of course are poor representations of geography and climate zones.
So your “correction” for allegedly poor methodology is … wait for it … a methodology you acknowledge to be poor.
The 5×5 grids are a meaningless abstraction. They should be ignored IMO.
There is only one answer to this paper. To show that urban stations and rural stations do not differ in the manner shown. I doubt they can actually do that, even with cherry picking.
If the AGW crowd cannot show that rural stations do not show warming correlating to CO2, then the allegation that the USA is warming due to CO2 is going to be hard to maintain. By “hard” I mean, of course, near impossible.
Steveta_uk (00:38:35) :
“the social impact of warming in urban areas has become increasingly important.”
Not a lot of glaciers in cities, no really major swamps, lakes or fish stocks either. No coral reefs or forests that I have noticed.
“thus giving the rural readings very low significance due the to low populations.”
I don’t think they grow a lot of food in cities.
So what is “significance” to an urban population?
Clearly you don’t think that it is food.
Are we going to have to call this new “significance” Human Induced Social Warming?
“That is incredible! If it holds up, it blows the whole AGW theory to kingdom come. If the UK Met review of surface stations shows the same problems. it’s all over.”
DCC – the UK Met office? Don’t hold your breath
This paper validates a belief I have held for a long time. They are “removing” UHI by apparently adjusting rural temperatures up rather than adjusting urban temperatures down. This is also easier to accomplish when you remove rural stations wholesale from the record and increasingly rely on urban stations for setting the temperature calculation for large areas.
Until this is thoroughly investigated, the current surface data should not be used. It is my personal belief that the satellite data are the only reliable temperature reading we currently have available and it goes back only to 1979.
This whole thing is just sickening. If the average citizen understood how they data have been manipulated and the extent to which they have been sold a bill of goods, there would be a run on pitchforks and torches.
Steveta_uk (00:38:35) :
We can reduce Human Induced Social Warming by installing few clean coals fired generating stations and distributing air conditioners.
We can increase Human Induced Social Warming by distributing sleeping bags and Guinness.
Social Warming, you perhaps trying to move the goal posts?
It appears from the graphs that for at least the last 5yrs the urban values were actually adjusted up. WUWT?
Steveta_uk (00:38:35) :
“I think the author is looking at the data from the wrong perspective.
The primary fact to remember is that “global warming” is a social phenomenon, so the impacts in the lives of individual people is what really counts.
As the move of populations from rural to urban locations accelerated over the last century, then clearly the social impact of warming in urban areas has become increasingly important. It therefore is perfectly reasonable to weight temperature readings to match the number of people affected, thus giving the rural readings very low significance due the to low populations.
So you see, when you apply the proper perspective of a social scientist, it is perfectly reasonable, and only a hard scientist like a physicist would fail to see this!”
————————————————————
So the social scientist’s proper perspective is to compare apples with oranges? Thanks for the tip.
I think another issue has to be considered. Rural stations are not imune to change of land use. A rural area might change from forest to corn field or from grassland to forrest. Those changes will have a huge effect on the measured temperatures.
And it’s simple math (right Pamela, not maths).
Assuming cities occupy 5% of the US land area, then adjusted combined slope should be something near:
0.13 * (100%-5%) + 0.79 * 5% = 0.163 oC/cy
When in reality only rural temperatures should be used, period, giving 0.13 oC/cy if we want to know if the globe is warming, not if cities are warming.
Another shoe drops…
I suspect the increasing trend from a rural lifestyle to urbanisation over the past few generations makes the UHI seem ‘normal’ to politicians increasingly separated from the countryside and the natural world. Couple this to the background of Marxist control-freakery that most UK New Labour politicians spring from and their adherence to AGW is no surprise. As a class, these men and women see no reason why everything in the environment can’t be controlled, when every person who has some experience of rural life knows the environment, including the climate, is supremely indifferent to Man.
As an example of the law of unexpected consequences, farmers in the Yorkshire Dales are paid by government agencies to ‘winter’ sheep rather than turning them out to forage for themselves on the high moors. As a consequence, wild birds native to the moors are in decline due to the absence of the sheep, who once dug through snow to expose grazing and thus allowed the birds access to ground-based fodder.
Climate is largely a mystery, as yet, but dishonest selection and manipulation of basic data is only useful for fooling some of the public for some of the time and will (hopefully) bite the manipulators on the backside some time soon.
“appears to accent to a”: presumably he meant, or wrote, “appears to accentuate”?
That adjustment of rural trend up to match urban trend is the exact opposite of what should have been done in any “country, continent or global temperature set”, that attempts to investigate any real temperature trends caused by CO2 or any other greenhouse gas. I am amazed at what they appear to have done! Surely the incorrectness of their adjustment was plain to see when they were doing it!