I’ve mentioned problems with airports as climate stations in the past, mostly that they are pockets of UHI that have grown with the 20th century aviation boom. A good example is Chicago O’Hare airport. I’ll bet that many of you don’t know that the ICAO ID for O’Hare, is KORD, and FAA uses ORD which is what you see on airline luggage destination tags. “ORD” has nothing to do with the name O’Hare, which came after the airport was established. It has everything to do with the name “Orchard Field” which is what the airport started out as, which at the time was far more rural than it was now. You can read about its early history here.
Here’s that same view today from Google Earth:
Look at O’Hare today, a sprawling megaplex of concrete and terminals surrounded by urbanization:
The weather station location above is designated by the orange pushpin. Here’s a closeup view:
Note that there’s two electronics equipment buildings nearby with industrial sized a/c exhaust vents. While not USHCN, NCDC metadata lists O’Hare as a Class “A” station, which means it does in fact record climate. Data from O’Hare can be used to adjust other stations with missing nearby data.
The point I’m making with all the photos is that airports are far from static, especially since airline deregulation in the 1980’s. The are just as dynamic as the cities they serve. We measure climate at a great many airports worldwide. E.M. Smith reports that the majority of the GHCN record is from airports.
Even NOAA meteorologists admit that airports aren’t necessarily the best place to measure climate. In a series of stories I did…
How not to measure temperature, part 88 – Honolulu’s Official Temperature ±2
..about the failure of the aviation weather station at Honolulu causing unparalleled record highs, the NOAA Meteorologist there had this to say:
“ASOS…placed for aviation purposes…not necessarily for climate purposes.”
The key issue here is “aviation purpose, not climate purposes”. The primary mission is to serve the airport. Climate is a secondary or even tertiary consideration. And that’s exactly what happened in the story from the Baltimore Sun below. The observer used FAA guidelines rather than NOAA guidelines to measure snow for the climate record. NOAA doesn’t like the record because he didn’t follow their procedures, so they toss it out.
However, when a new high temp record is set in Honolulu due to faulty equipment, NOAA thinks THAT’s alright to keep in the records:
NOAA: FUBAR high temp/climate records from faulty sensor to remain in place at Honolulu
A nearby station shows the error:
This is your Honolulu Temperature. This is your Honolulu Temperature on ASOS. Any questions?
Sat 20 Feb 2010
…
A contractor working for the Federal Aviation Administration at BWI Thurgood Marshall Airport, paid to measure the snow for the aviation industry’s needs, did not follow a separate protocol required by the National Weather Service and the National Climatic Data Center for valid climate data.
So while the contractor measured 28.8 inches of snow during that storm, the National Weather Service has thrown out the reading. Instead, climatologists will rank the storm as “only” 24.8 inches – a number that almost surely understates the “true” total.
Worse, for climatologists, it now appears the weather service’s rules for snow data had been ignored for years at BWI, throwing a cloud over the validity of snow totals as far back as 1998, when the FAA took the job over from the weather service.
Only BWI’s data are known to be affected, but the problem could be more widespread. That possibility has caught the attention of top officials at the FAA.
“We plan to meet with the National Weather Service next week to begin a discussion on making sure that we’re all on the same page in terms of measuring snow accumulations at our airports,” FAA spokesman Jim Peters said. “There will be a national discussion.”
In the meantime, the weather service’s Baltimore- Washington Forecast Office in Sterling, Va., is preparing to convene a committee of climatologists and other experts to review Baltimore’s snowfall records from the 2010 and 2003 storms, and perhaps back to 1998.
“I feel very strongly about historical records and getting the climate data correct,” said James E. Lee, the meteorologist-in-charge at Sterling. “Obviously, with the increased media attention and political attention to climate, it is really up to NOAA [the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, of which the National Weather Service is an agency] to make sure … the climate record is a genuine one, and consistent to the best of our ability.”
The problem at BWI came to light Feb. 6, as snow accumulations reported at the airport passed 26 inches. They seemed poised to break the record set in February 2003 – the storm listed on Sterling’s Web site as Baltimore’s biggest.
But when reporters called asking about a new record, Lee said that because of measurement errors by an FAA contractor at BWI, the two-day storm total would be pegged at “only” 24.8 inches. He had discarded a 28.8-inch measurement from BWI because it was the sum of hourly measurements throughout the storm – a method invalid for climatological data.
Even at 24.8 inches, Lee said, the storm total beat the previous two-day record of 24.4 inches, set at BWI during two days of the four-day 2003 event. “I’m convinced that was the most amount of snow Baltimore has seen [from a two-day storm] in recorded history.”
But Lee had to use the most conservative reading from the airport – a “snow depth” measurement of the total on the ground when the storm ended, after hours of compaction.
The FAA requires its observers to take hourly snow measurements and wipe the boards clean after each hour, adding the totals as they go. That provides pilots with better real-time information about changing conditions. But it virtually eliminates compaction and so inflates accumulation. Climatologists require measurements every six hours, striking a balance between the hourly and snow depth readings. Some airports maintain separate snow boards for the different protocols. But not BWI.
Richard Carlson, vice president of Pacific Weather Inc., said his company has experienced weather observers at 20 U.S. airports, including eight at BWI. Pacific has held the contract there since 2008.
“We follow the FAA manual … and that is the guide book on how these meteorological observations are to be taken,” Carlson said. “We had heard about the six-hour measuring thing, but … if you have high winds at all, this really is not going to work.”
…
Read the full article at the Baltimore Sun
Read Frank Roylance’s blog on MarylandWeather.com
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BTW Australia the land cursed by drought because of AGW according to Al Gore. Wonder what he makes of this http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/03/01/2833514.htm?section=justin
Re: chemman (Feb 28 16:04),
“They take temperature measurements and then statistically aggregate them to determine climate.” Shouldn’t that be “fake”?
Why even bother to use temperatures taken at airports to incorporate into the mean global temperature? It makes just as much sense as taking readings at major motorways or withing active volcanes. It’s crap science at best and corrupt science at worst.
Why even bother to use temperatures taken at airports to incorporate into the mean global temperature? It makes just as much sense as taking readings at major motorways or withing active volcanoes. It’s crap science at best and corrupt science at worst.
jgfox (16:49:10) :
….
I watched his method.
He took a 5 lb pound bag from the production line and inserted a metal dial thermometer in the product. I watched as the dial temperature rapidly neared 140 F. Quickly, he pulled the dial out of the bag and recorded 138 F.
“You should leave the thermometer in the bag until it stabilizes”, I said.
He shook his head in dismay at my ignorance.
“No, no, I can’t do that! If I do, the temperature will go over 140 F and we’ll have to reject the packaged product.”
He was very pleased and diligent about his “methodical” testing method.
I think he could have had a great career at CRU in East Anglia or at Hansen’s NOAA.”
I have worked in a great variety of industries and seen this sort of thing too often. I once queried why a reputable organisation had 3000 electrical failures a year recorded during inspections. 1000 would have been more like it. When I questioned the electrician he said ‘when I find a fault I record it but I check the fault another two times to make sure and record those as failures as well’.
I think that’s why people like us are sceptics.
cheers David
@Pete H (23:34:22)
Totally off topic, but your story about clearing runways with jet engines reminded me about a tale my Dad told me about the ‘old days’ of train maintenance in the UK.
Occasionally, a big diesel would be brought in with a seized engine (piston jammed tight in combustion cylinder). I would listen with wide eyes as my dad explained how they’d disconnect the crankshaft, drill and tap a thread into the top of the exposed piston, then screw an eyebolt in. They would then position an overhead crane over the engine and connect a hook to the eyebolt. Then they’d use the crane to bounce the train up and down on the tracks (up to six inches) until bits of the the piston came flying out everywhere whilst folk ran for cover!
To this day, I can still vividly picture this crazily effective procedure in my mind!
I’ll give you that going back and changing recorded data sounds fishy. However, at least they have an esablished, repeatable protocol and follow it. While “revoking” (or apparently “revising down”) a record doesn’t seem like the best way to go about it to me, NOAA is at least pointing to a valid reason why the measurement was in error (compaction that is not accounted for in an hourly sum method). This seems to me a major improvement in comparison to many of the major “offenders” in climate science, who provided results of our “global temperature” without any repeatable method to get it.
Not everyone at NOAA, or NASA, or even CRU (probably) is a bad guy. This is a very interesting post, but let’s not bash the folks that are trying to do things right. Question them, sure. But accept a pretty decent answer as to why, I will.
Re: HereticFringe (16:35:49): The FAA designators are used mostly (only??) for U.S. baggage. The ICAO designation is more structured and identifies the airfield internationally, and as such is commonly used in weather reports and ICAO documents.
And just to set other comments straight, airfield temperature readings are recording (surprise!) temperature at the airport regardless if caused by jet exhaust, concrete, or nature. Pilots are thus able to accurately calculate the length of take off runs – a matter of public safety.
MikeO (23:34:54) :
And to think that they rebuilt the old ‘ghan line from Adelaide to Alice because it was alway being washed out down by Lake Eyre, so now it gets washed out between Alice and Darwin instead.
Bring back the camels!
Why use any urban or airport weather stations for climate research purposes?
Are there not enough rural stations to obtain a statistically significant result?
One should need only measurement stations that are well distributed around the globe to measure global temperature. They would not need to be close together.
I personally doubt that there is any correct way to adjust for the urban heat island effect because there are too many variables, they change during the day, and there is no practical way to record their changes over time.
ROM (14:58:09) :
I find the constant nitpicking of very minor and insignificant points in Anthony’s spelling and grammar very tiresome and juvenile.
The import of his and his guest writer’s posts are very clear and the writing is concise and fully understandable.
A very appreciated quality from this layman.
WUWT is a fast moving blog with immense amounts of fast moving and free flowing information being constantly placed before us often on an hour by hour basis and this from just one unpaid man with limited resources and with small number of dedicated unpaid volunteers as backups and contributors, not a vast empire staffed by hundreds.
WUWT is not a highly edited textbook where a close editorial scrutiny is required to ensure precise accuracy that is without reproach so please lay off the nitpicking scrutiny for insignificant spelling, punctuation and grammatical errors that some here seem to love to indulge in.
Value WUWT for it’s marvelous, up to date and open access to a whole range of climate, weather and science based items and for the freedom and quality of the contributions of it’s many highly qualified science and professionally based commenters just as the rest of us do.
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ROM, it’s not nitpicking – it’s just that a well-written entry will look better to newcomers. I don’t submit simple corrections in the hope of seeing my comment appear- indeed I would rather they did not – and I know as a professional myself that I appreciate it when others find my mistakes so I can correct them before other people see them. I guess I should request Anthony to not post my ‘correction’ comments.
ROM (14:58:09) : 28/02
I find the constant nitpicking of very minor and insignificant points in Anthony’s spelling and grammar very tiresome and juvenile. … Value WUWT for it’s marvelous, up to date …”
That would be “its”.
His, hers, its;
he’s, she’s, it’s.
😀 LOL 😉 🙂
latitude (14:52:45) :
” the National Weather Service has thrown out the reading”
“throwing a cloud over the validity of snow totals as far back as 1998, when the FAA took the job over from the weather service.”
Hogwash
This is as valid as their fixed temp stations.
Did the FAA take over all of the airport stations? or just ORD?
“hottest decade”
The FAA pretty much DID take over all the airport weather stations. I was working at the KBHM weather station in 1995 when the contract changed from NWS to FAA. Climatological accuracy has not been the same since…
I note that the GISS chart accompanying the Orland weather station is not the same as that currently shown by GISS: the current chart is curtailed:Why?