![[010035+-+Cunderin+BoM.jpg]](https://i0.wp.com/1.bp.blogspot.com/_bcz86_ZAoBw/S6XDyqNr3eI/AAAAAAAAAFI/0T2KWJPlci4/s1600/010035%2B-%2BCunderin%2BBoM.jpg?resize=520%2C391)
Above: The Cunderdin Australian Climate Reference Network station, a BoM official photo. Source: http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/change/map/stations/010035.shtml
There’s an effort to the surfacestations.org project underway in Australia to have a look at the quality of siting of stations, see here.
They write:
We have now looked at 18 separate stations (out of a total of 103), in three separate categories. So far, not one of these stations meets the criteria of being “away from large urban centres” and the CRN quality standards of NOAA/NCDC in terms of siting.
Unless there is a dramatic improvement in the remaining 85 stations, we would be well justified in asking the questions: “Just how reliable is the RCS network data and how valid are any conclusions that are drawn from them”?
h/t to Andrew Bolt in Is this how to measure our warming?
Along these lines, there’s a new paper out related to station siting, but it is in French. I could use Google translate, but it tends to do a poor job of technical papers. It is 14 pages long, with a lot of white space. Any volunteers? Leave a comment if you can. – Anthony
Across the fence past the big green “box” would be my guess.
I’d guess it’s on the roof but it’s not clear is it?
It’s true that someone is lying about the “rural” nature of these stations, but, they are much better off than some of the U.S. stations that surfacestations has been showing. At least they’re not in a parking lot surrounded by air conditioners. Although, the one surrounded by steel fence and the one with the shade tree and the sprinkler are pretty funny. Oh, almost forgot the one dumped under builder’s rubble. Now, that was bad.
Would it be worth it to set up some new screens near the official ones to compare results? How much deviation do you really get from these bad sitings? I’ve asked this sort of question a number of times, how bad is the error, and nobody has posted a reply. You don’t want to end up being purely skeptical.
That’s Cunderdin, not Cunderlin or Cunderin. I used to live near there.
Oh, man, this is not gonna be a good day to be an Aussie. How about we watch Crocodile Dundee again instead of looking at this photo?
I always thought Australia was a civilized county.
Never thought they would temper with scrap yards turning them into weather stations!
Is it in the green eco bin, fermenting with caggage and bud dregs?
The White box on a blue post near the ground with the letters E and N on it.
REPLY: No, that’s the marker.
Under the pile of rubble by the fence to avoid direct Solar heating?
DaveE.
The little white box just in front of the wheel barrow. Can see N and E on the sides ( for North and East? ) .
I could certainly give a try to the translation of the french paper. English is not my mother tongue, french is, but I think I can beat Google translation.
I cannot promise (at least without a look at the paper first) a quick and perfect job, only a fair, understandable (at least I hope) within 10-15 days (busy with job and family).
I ll be very glad to being able to help you and contribute to your efforts.
Inside the big green box?
/Mr Lynn
Next to the fence on the other side of the smaller green garbage can?
I’m french canadian I could look at the paper.
sHx (15:41:07) :
Oh, man, this is not gonna be a good day to be an Aussie. How about we watch Crocodile Dundee again instead of looking at this photo?
And remember Australia’s glory days, when her people firmly defended their independent pioneering spirit, before succumbing to the politicians and do-gooders, who took away the hunting rifles and threw Nick in prison for carrying a deadly weapon, whose government now engages in ruinous environmental policies to the detriment of her citizens, and would be all set up to soon claim status as just another minor third-world country save for a historical connection to the once-great British Empire?
I think not.
Next to the left side of the green corrugated shed thing along the fence buried under that construction debris. The top is just visible under the rh end of some boards sitting on it at an angle. It’s just to the right of the center of the image.
peace,
Tim
On top of the roof?
It’s the official photo on a gov.au site… Do they have an official policy to cover the thermometers with rubble? 😉
Its inside the green lean-to structure.
Terry
My guess is IN the green box structure in front of the fence.
I never liked Cunderdin, and now I remember why. It used to make Soweto look sophisticated.
Is that the weather station on top of the tin roof? Or is it actually the green bin with the lid ripped off (rain guage – not that you’d get much)?
It’s not there, it’s been moved?
Sorry Dave the camera man is sitting on it.
succinct.
21 March: Quadrant: Barry Brill: End-phase of the Climate Wars?
History may see the interview of CRU’s Professor Phil Jones by the BBC’s Roger Harrabin on 12 February 2010 as the opening of the end-phase of the long-running “alarmists versus sceptics” debate…
The world has been experiencing a long-term gentle warming since the end of the Little Ice Age. Professor Jones has said elsewhere[i] that this natural variability has averaged 0.11C per decade. So, the “extraordinary” recent warming that calls for explanation is the balance of 0.051C per decade.
This is the smoking gun. It is the sole evidence that a measurable but unexplained increase in global temperatures has coincided with the post-1950 increase in human-induced greenhouse gas emissions. Jones says that this correlation is evidence of causation, because the IPCC has no other explanation…
http://www.quadrant.org.au/blogs/doomed-planet/2010/03/end-phase-of-the-climate-wars
The real question is why would there be a weather station in that photo
No, it’s not even close to there, but two kilometers away (NW in a straight line) at Cunderdin Airport.
To my knowledge it’s been there for a LONG time. At least the eight years I’ve been going there.
It’s in a very clear site and is probably one of the best situated Wx stations around.
I usually look for the barbeque grill and then the weather station is right there too.
But this one has me stumped; no barbeque.
Right behind the still.
Looks like there may be a Steveson screen above the green box, but the picture is pixilated and it’s hard to discern sharp lines. No sign of a Gill or MMTS on a pole, though, so I’m going with the Stevenson guess.
Hmm … there may be a strutwork pole on top of the long one story tin shed to the left, other side of the fence. That would be guess two.
On the corrugated iron roof, catching the reflected heat?
Class 1 (CRN1)- states “Grass/low vegetation ground cover <10 centimeters high". Lots of the stations shown http://rcs-audit.blogspot.com/ are in outback areas. It would be expected that during droughts the ground would be relatively barren and during wet seasons it would be vegetated. This might have a significant effect on the class rating.
I might add that some of the stations located at the RAAF Aerodromes have had photo’s taken in the most “rural looking” direction. Rather than pointing at nearby buildings, runways etc.
This may is off-topic, but…
The influential National Academy of sciences recently (2009) published a paper by Vermeer and Rahmstorf that purported to show a simple equation linking global temperature and sea level rise.
But this simple equation fails a very simple test.
I believe the failure of Vermeer and Rahmstorfs simple equation to meet this simple test invalidates their sea level rise predictions for the 21st century.
I think this is an important point and comments would be welcome.
Best Regards
ClimateSanity
Lol it’s not even in the photo
The location of the station is given as -31.6494 117.2331
which Google Maps shows at this location by the green arrow:
http://i40.tinypic.com/15exndi.jpg
The house at that location looks like this:
http://i44.tinypic.com/2hzo8eg.jpg
However the latitude and longitude of weather stations has never matched Google Maps very well. I don’t know who is at fault!
Anthony, I will translate the French paper for you. I am fluent in French, which is useful given my address. Send it, or a link, to my e-mail address.
I believe it’s been located amongst/behind the stacked bricks to protect it from male dingos
This being WA farm country I imagine some yobbo lobbed it in the back of his ute and took it out for some circle work at the neighbouring cricket oval. Before dumping it.
Alternatively it could be that bit of white peeking out from behind the rubble next to the green covered area in front of the fence… the thing with a few beams resting on it.
I prefer theory no 1 though… I reckon someone’alf-inched it.
Zoltan Beldi (16:55:44) :
No, it’s not even close to there, but two kilometers away (NW in a straight line) at Cunderdin Airport.
Take it up with the Australian Government. Here is the BoM’s own page showing the location info, and that is the BoM’s own picture of the weather station.
Somebody set up us the BoM.
Hey H.R. if you are looking for the barbeque you need to look at the most Aussie photo of all the one for the Wyalong Post Office. There stands the B-B-Q in all its glory and as an added bonus there’s a Hills Hoist. Pure Gold.
Randy
Looking at a Google Maps View of the site, obtained from the geographic coordinates -31.6494, 117.2331 at the gov site linked above, it could be the box on top of the house but it’s not easy to see from the first picture in the article?
Or it’s that metal post to the left of the marker?
Google street view of house at the geographic coordinates.
http://maps.google.ca/maps?hl=en&source=hp&q=-31.6494,++%09117.2331&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=-31%C2%B0+38'+57.84%22,+%2B117%C2%B0+13'+59.16%22&gl=ca&ei=zrKmS9vUAofmtgOu-Py8BA&ved=0CAcQ8gEwAA&ll=-31.649541,117.233391&spn=0,359.990494&t=h&z=18&iwloc=A&layer=c&cbll=-31.649627,117.23339&panoid=klPWyM5hf5DZr92557awvg&cbp=12,307.78,,1,0.21
What impresses me is that with all that non-urban area surrounding the geographic coordinates the darn thing is in the town and there is an airport nearby!
http://maps.google.ca/maps?hl=en&source=hp&q=-31.6494,++%09117.2331&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=-31%C2%B0+38'+57.84%22,+%2B117%C2%B0+13'+59.16%22&gl=ca&ei=zrKmS9vUAofmtgOu-Py8BA&ved=0CAcQ8gEwAA&ll=-31.641398,117.260857&spn=0.366236,0.608368&t=h&z=12
I wonder if anyone has taken infrared photos at various times of the day and night throughout the year to view the heat profile of the locations of these thermometers? Maybe it’s an idea? How about parking an infrared camera watching the entire area around the monitoring zone? What about parking a blimp with a camera above cities to observe the Urban Heat Island Effects directly 7x24x365 for a few years? Do that with many major cities to get some sample data. Or would satellites do the job? Likely not since they are not there all the time but a parked camera in a blimp could be. That would be some hard core science.
Perhaps the best Australian site is Willis Island. A 70 year temperature record, no airports or other such effects … and a slight cooling over 70 years
http://www.warwickhughes.com/blog/?p=143
Photo:
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/change/map/stations/200283.shtml
Declan O’Dea (15:37:40) :
Cunderin Wyalkatchem Rd is were the Station is, in Cunderdin. I know because I got frustrated after not being able to do anything even with photo enhancement, I google-earthed the coordinates 🙂
P.S. I think its under the rubble. That is were the arrow on the map kind of indicated.
Inside the open green shelter to the right of the lumber pile?
Actually it does look like the same house as in the photo. The blue house just next door to the geographic coordinates sure looks like the house complete with blue and an antenna tower, the garage and even the tall white fence. Unfortunately the google street view didn’t drive around back of this place.
http://maps.google.ca/maps?hl=en&source=hp&q=-31.6494,++%09117.2331&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=-31%C2%B0+38'+57.84%22,+%2B117%C2%B0+13'+59.16%22&gl=ca&ei=zrKmS9vUAofmtgOu-Py8BA&ved=0CAcQ8gEwAA&ll=-31.649331,117.233391&spn=0,359.991117&t=h&z=18&layer=c&cbll=-31.649234,117.23339&panoid=O1U_HVIK7eji5px0Q-t6Jw&cbp=12,267.83,,0,3.48
“I usually look for the barbeque grill and then the weather station is right there too. But this one has me stumped; no barbeque.”
With the dry pictures of brown plant life it’s clear that it’s a barbecue just being there. [:)] Now that’s my kind of climate, hot!
jaymam (17:13:05) :
Looks like it is behind the light-tan fence next to the blue house in the second link you posted. It corresponds with the picture provided by the BOM. In that picture, my guess is that it’s partly obscured by wood in the pile of rubble, next to the green shed.
Data from Cunderdin hasn’t been used by NCDC since 1992. The ACRN should either fix it, or follow suit.
Well, it looks like that weather station is probably out of action anyway:
http://www.bom.gov.au/products/IDW60801/IDW60801.94626.shtml
Dang it it’s so obvious, the climate scientist wasn’t taking proper care of the weather station so the clever, now updated to an, intelligent apparatus took the picture to rat the bastard out.
So easy.
Anthony: If you need a backup to Robert, you can send it to me as well. I can also do Italian, should the need arise.
/dr.bill
On the wall of the house just to the right of the window.
I went to one of the links in the post—since I don’t see it. It appears Andrew Bolt says it’s amongst the rubble in front of the fence—still, I don’t see it.
Maybe there’s a tin sheet laying under it to reflect sun under its chin.
Dr A Burns (17:28:06) :
Regarding Warwick’s discussion: Willis Island is about 300km away from the GBR, so it beats me why he picked that station. Cairns, Townsville and Mackay are much, much closer.
My guess is it’s on the side of the house, in line with the green dumpster bin.
cheers,
Dang, now I see it, it is right beside the little green rolling garbage can, up against the white wall thing…just exactly where I would have put it (sarc), I bet the results are “robust”
I think it is behind the green garbage bin on the far right against the white fence.
OK … we give up … where is it?
As others have said, wherever the instrument in the picture, a temperature station should be no where near this site.
The reassurances by AGW advocates that they have “adjusted” their data for local heat variances of such weather stations leave me strangely unreassured.
Wrong house?
I see what looks like a weather vane on the roof of the house beyond the fence.
It would be out on the street side.
Crikey !!!!!!!
They’ve built a cloaking device !!!
At the airport?
Jan Pompe (16:46:25) :
“Sorry Dave the camera man is sitting on it.”
High five Jan! Yep, if the shot is bad always blame the camera man!:)
Best regards, suricat.
kadaka (16:20:02) : “…the politicians and do-gooders, who took away the hunting rifles, whose government now engages in ruinous environmental policies to the detriment of her citizens…”
Why do you think they took away your guns, first? Wait ’til you see what’s next.
Perhaps the White cube with the “N” on one face.
Inside the house on the right next to the oven.
Oops. An internal search for ‘airport’ turns Zoltan Beldi saying that the airport has been it’s location for years. Is that true? Or is the real joke being that they forgot to move the darn marker? LOL. 😉
Stone the crows! A wombats gone run off with me weather station!
Give me an infrared picture an I will show you exactly where it is!
Last week on the ABC a very pro-AGW station the Head of the Bureau of Meteorology was spruiking the data from the past 100 years and noting that Australia has been warming since 1950. His continuing mantra was “look at the data”. I believe that climate change is happening but I’m very unsure the data that are the bedrock of the global warming hypothesis are as relaible as they might be. Articles such as this suggest they are not.
pwl,
An ultralight and a FLIR might do the trick. The problem with UHI is that nobody, AFAIK, really understands the spacial effects of… say… putting an asphalt parking lot 20 ft away, vs. directly underneath, vs 100 yards away from a temperature station and that is not something you can do with a FLIR. The surface effect will dissipate somewhat before it gets to station height, and even that can be variable to wind speed and direction.
The thought I’ve been having is if someone could come up with a portable surface station equivalent to capture: wind speed/direction, temp and humidity, and be able to data log accurately with hands-off… you could take a bunch of them and grid them out to spacially and temporally capture various UHI effects.
I’ll go with the post to the immediate right of the wheelie bin too.
& they are proud enough to post this on their website?
Beggars belief.
FaveE.
suricat (18:49:36) :
“Yep, if the shot is bad always blame the camera man!:)”
Blame? What’s better than a shot with a view from the weather station?
…and seriously, if someone could come up with a good design I would be all over doing what I just described.
Anthony,
I know it doesn’t exactly fit with the surfacestations project, but it could be complementary.
If I put my birdfeeder where some of these stations are located I would never see a single bird. Except maybe a roast quail or two.
It is a summer morning in the picture.
I can’t find it!
It appears to be just to the left of the double window, separated from the building by a few feet and elevated to almost the roof line. Hard to spot in the picture. I suspect that a more carefully taken picture would show that the station is not as poorly sited as it appears to be in this photo.
A quick look at several of the other Australian sites shows them to be remarkably well situated.
What is a FLIR?
Oh, that wouldn’t be the station lying on it’s side on the wood pile would it?
I am at a loss to explain this photograph. I have been to Cunderdin many times. There is a small enthusiasts’ airport there and, to the best of my knowledge, that is where the weather station is located. I think it might be an idea to correspond with the Australian BOM and point out that this photograph is an error.
Jan Pompe (19:30:20) :
suricat (18:49:36) :
“Yep, if the shot is bad always blame the camera man!:)”
Blame? What’s better than a shot with a view from the weather station?
/quote
In this instance, a shot ‘of’ the weather station.:)
Best regards, suricat.
At least the person checking it does not have to worry about Polar Bears and -40 when he goes to check the readings!
My guess is that it is just behind the Wheely Bin next to the fence, top right of the picture!
Sorry guys, I think you may have been set up. The actual weather station is at the airport and latest weather info can be seen at http://www.bom.gov.au/products/IDW60801/IDW60801.95625.shtml – note the latitude and longitude given there as opposed to the one in your photograph (lat. -31.62 compared to 31.649/long. 117.22 compared to 117.233). I suspect that your photo may be the old site at the post office but the picture of the house next door does not fit my memory. I have looked at some of the other photographs at the BOM Australian Reference Climate Stations, having investigated the site in detail some time ago, and some of the other photographs do not seem right at all. Everyone should make sure that the BOM RCS site has not been hacked, perhaps in order to discredit those not adhering to the global warming othodoxy.
Fair assumptions in judging where the station may be found:
1) Photog was probably on the correct side of the fence therefore anything on the house-side of the fence can be ruled out.
2) Photog probably centered the wx station in photo +- 1/8 frame (certainly within +- 1/4 frame)
Therefore I would choose, as several others have, the vicinity of the woodpile … and it looks like there might be a horizontal support for a couple instruments what looks like to the right and above the wheelbarrow.
.
.
Dave N (18:16:43) :
Dave, My point about the Willis Island station is that it is isolated from everything and should give a clear indication of warming … or not as it turns out. I’d like to see the “experts” try to “adjust” Willis Island data on the basis of surrounding stations !
If you go to Andrew Bolt’s post (link in the WUWT post above) you see three examples of Australian temp monitoring sites, one of which is the picture above in this WUWT post.
In the other two pics of sites in Andrew Bolt’s post, you can see what an Australian temp monitoring enclosure/pole look like. See how tall it is?
I cannot see anything with that height and shape in the station 010035 photo above in the WUWT post.
Where the heck is it?
John
Us Aussies are enterprising people. The owner of that property in the photo took the Stevenson Screen and turned it into a letterbox. 🙂
It’s the marker with EN on it. Just in front of the rubble of building material, and corrugated fence. I must admit I cheated by going to the rcs-audit site.
It’s a digital thermometer, with large display, right out in plain sight. You can see the reading at the time of the picture. It says
010
035
No units mentioned, so I’ll hazard these are the 24 hour lows and highs in degrees C.
Pretty low tech, considering that the display is hand-operated. Some bloke moseys along once a day, selects numbers (which are obviously kept in one of the green sheds) and changes the sign.
Is it one of the bricks on the lower left?
Is it hidden beneath the bushes or plants next to the fence where the two white poles are?
pat (16:52:22),
Thank you for that Quadrant link:
http://www.quadrant.org.au/blogs/doomed-planet/2010/03/end-phase-of-the-climate-wars
The money quote:
When a Nobel laureate who was forced out of his position admits the truth in a sincere mea culpa, the alarmist crowd can either admit that he’s telling the truth — which destroys their CO2=CAGW hypothesis — or they can disown Jones, and complain that he’s lying about the fatally weak temperature/CO2 connection.
Either way, their CO2 conjecture is untenable.
Let’s inject a bit of local knowledge and some fairness.
The main airport criticism seems to be the official images showing the best view. They are mainly taken with a quite wide angle lens, which makes the distance recede and distant features look small. But, who is to say what the correct focal length of lens should be? To fit in some of the scenes with a 55mm lens, close to eye magnification (that’s in film camera terms for a 35 mm film camera), the photographer wuld at times have to be standing on or near the airstrip. Special protocols are required for people moving around airports and standing on the runway is not customary. So, I defend the BoM to a degree on the selection of photos. Part of the effect is unavoidable.
Next, as to grass. The interior of Australia has a lot of desert where there is a struggle to grow lawn grass and plenty of places with little natural grass, especially after it’s been graded ot trampled. Regeneration is slow. It is not surprising that some sites fail to meet the top criterion of a grassed surrounding. To meet it, one would have to plant and water the grass and this is probably not the best way to measure temperature and humidity.
Airports again. Darwin has been discussed. Here I am critical. When the Darwin strip was constructed and upgraded in the 1930-40 period, the biggest types of aircraft were like the C-47 or DC3 or Dakota or whatever you might want to call it. These leave a far smaller and lower heat plume on taxi than does a Jumbo or A380. It is possible that measurements of heat plumes have been made for the Darwin location, but I would be surprised if they were not detected. The primary purpose of the station is, after all, assistance to aviation. It can be quite tricky landing a big aircraft at Darwin where there can be sharp temperature inversions close enough to the ground to cause a sudden change in lift as the wing passes through. My criticism is that the automation of climate stations with telemetry gear was not accompanied by the establishment of a new network in the late 1980s, with locations chosen to avoid plausible urban and other disruptive effects. Perhaps the country did not have the money for it. We set up a tower at Jabiru when we built the original small town in the early 1970s. That’s 250 km East of Darwin, so quite remote.
Onto heat islands, there are several score of FLIR (brand) IR cameras on Australian aircraft already. It is technically possible to do a number of grid surveys of suspected UHI locations, calibrate and map them. The cost would be high – that’s a possible reason, but I suspect it’s an application low on the priority list as well. Maybe one day it will be done.
Cunderdin WA has a weather station at the airport since 1996 replacing the town one of 1950 vintage. The new one is 4.5 km north of the old and there is not much habitation or grass between the two. I have no idea where the BoM photo came from or what it means.
I’m happy to answer questions on Australia because I travelled over most of it it my career, lived in 12 different locations since marriage, did airborne surveys and ground geochemistry, used Landsat imagery, did mapping and a host of other activities that could avoid people speculating too much.
On the right side there is a light green thing (more tall than wide: maybe a dog house??) and behind that is a white thing. The upper left corner of the white thing is in the foreground of something attached to the house. There is a green symbol-laden round thing there – somewhat like a big round temperature display such as I have on the side of a shed. That could be a bimetallic thermometer. I’ll guess that the “weather station” is the white box-like affair attached to the side of the house. The top of this box attachment to the house seems to have a strange roof outline. This whole thing looks suspicious, as though all the readings are taken from inside the house.
Send my prize to . . .
Could the station be the pile of rubble that is in the picture? It stopped giving data and now it’s toast…
although there are rumors above in the comments that the actual station is at the airport.
@ Zoltan Beldi (16:55:44) and Raredog (20:24:44)
Lol, good catch – and it’s not even April Fool’s Day yet 😀
Cundardin Airfield Almos automatic weather station is located at -31.6219, 117.2217; or 31°37’19″S, 117°13’18″E for the decimally challenged. Try Google Earth.
I believe it is behind the fence and small tree, attached to the building.
Just to the right of the smaller green trashcan?
This is the correct station, not the one at the airport.
Here is current data from it, it is listed by the ID number in the picture, its Status is “open” and the latest available data is from 31 December 2009.
First on the short list of “Nearest Alternative Sites” is Cunderdin Airfield, ID number 010286.
IMPORTANT INFORMATION:
Here is the page titled “Cunderdin, Western Australia: March 2010 Daily Weather Observations.”
It states under the tables:
Therefore the station pictured IS PRESUMABLY NOT IN USE for temperature data. However the official record for Cunderdin on this page is kludged together from two sources, I have no idea right now when they stopped using 010035 temp data, and as seen on the page I linked to above they are still recording data from 010035, it is still open, with the last available from the end of 2009. I have no idea when they stopped using 010035 temp data in that Cunderdin official record.
Thus there are now other questions brought about than if that is the right Cunderdin weather station, which it is. One I would like answered is when they shifted to that airfield for that “combined” official record and what that did to the temperature records. Is Cunderdin really Cunderdin when they tallied everything up?
Re Google Earth in Australia
One of our boys works for a large pastoral company here. Finding some of the places he’s worked at on GE suggests you could get lost pretty easily using that source.
I put this on “tips” but it seems to fit here pretty well – snip if not
“The BOM & CSIRO report–it’s what they don’t say that matters”
“Ken Stewart has scanned the trend maps at BOM (Bureau of Meteorology), and his point is spot on. As soon as I saw the neat joint 6 page advertising pamphlet for the climate-theory-that’s-backed-by-bankers, I wondered what happened to the first 60 years of last century, and Ken found it. Did the BOM forget they have hundreds of datapoints from back then? Did they forget to use their own website, where you can pick-a-trend, any-trend, and choose the one with err…more convenient results? Or is the case that their collective mission is not necessarily to provide Australians with the most complete and appropriate information available, but to provide them with what the bureaucracy needs them to know? (And what they need to know apparently is the carefully censored version of the truth that will keep government ministers happy–let me tax them more; keep department heads smiling–let the climate cash cow continue, and last but not least, help staff “feel good”–I’m sure I’m helping the environment?)”
Read more about what was left out here
http://joannenova.com.au/2010/03/the-bom-csiro-report-its-what-they-dont-say-that-matters/
Ok there is a problem here. Most people like myslef seem to have assumed that this weather station at Cunderdin (010035), which is part of the CRN, is for temperature, it is not, it only measures cloud cover for the CRN. The closest station which measures temperature as part of the CRN is Kellerberrin (010073).
I think I found it!
It *lies* just above the little brick wall to the left. That white thing on the floor with a black(?) cover.
The post of it points to the left, throughout between the two sticks and the bushes at the left.
Right?
DavidF.W. (22:05:32) :
“I believe it is behind the fence and small tree, attached to the building.”
I agree, extend a line from the 010 035 board to the E/N marker and note where it intersects the house. I suspect this simple indicator device is standard as a permanent, on photo, aid for identification of a difficult station.
Then again I could be wrong!
It’s broken and in the recycle wheelie bin with the Yellow lid.
I think I see it lying on its side in the left foreground in front of the fence.
cunderdin shows a typical warming from its start date in the 50s. if you look at kellerberrin (10073), it goes from 1910 and shows the warmer 30s into the 40s, then a big drop in temps to the 50s,60s and 70s then a rise again temps now are at mid 1930s temps.
@Patrick Guinness (16:52:22)
————————————————————-
..from your link posted:
“…Jones says that this correlation is evidence of causation, because the IPCC has no other explanation.
The first rejoinder by sceptics is that this is an argument from ignorance.”
————————————————————-
“Argument from ignorance” aka “Cargo Cult Climate Science”
http://theresilientearth.com/?q=content/cargo-cult-climate-science
http://pathstoknowledge.net/2010/02/19/cargo-cult-science-a-lesson-from-richard-feynman-for-scientists-of-today-to-learn/
Is it the rain gauge in the shrubbery?
It’s behind Wado’s hat…
%$#@!
“Waldo’s hat…”
C’mon, Anthony.
Free us from this torture.
🙂
According to GISS it stopped reporting in 1992. They probably went out there, bought a case of beers and took a picture of where it may or may not have been.
GISS has data from 1951 to 1992.
NCDC has data from a station at CUNDERDIN from 1990 to 2005 and then data from CUNDERDIN AIRFIELD 1998 and is up to date.
The mystery CUNDERDIN station’s location is given as 31.650S 117.250E by the NCDC on their station locator page and looks very promising.
http://i599.photobucket.com/albums/tt74/MartinGAtkins/cunderdin.jpg
Station locator.
ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/inventories/ISH-HISTORY.TXT
From BOM, CUNDERDIN AIRFIELD location 31.6219S 117.2217E looks accurate.
http://i599.photobucket.com/albums/tt74/MartinGAtkins/cundair.jpg
http://www.bom.gov.au/products/IDW60801/IDW60801.95625.shtml
So the old one is probably under all that rubbish.
kadaka (22:52:58) :Yeah, there’s a problem here alright. If the automatic weather station has been at the airport since 1996 then what happened before that? Seems we might have a site change here.
I’m quite familiar with Cunderdin, having learned to fly gliders there in 1966-67 at the airport and visiting the gliding club there on many occasions since. I was last there in January 2010. Many memories of old friends, some now deceased.
The airport was established early in WWII as a RAAF training base. Likely there are some reasonable weather records from that period. It was abandoned by the air force after WWII then inhabited by some crop dusters and associated maintenance organisation during the 1950’s. There was a government caretaker for quite a while during that period and right up to the early 70s.
The Gliding Club of Western Australia used to visit for a camp during the summers in the late 1950’s and moved there around 1960 when Perth Airport became a serious international airport.
The town was quite busy when I first saw it around Christmas 1957 at 9 years of age. By 1970 it was in severe decline which accelerated during the 70s and 80s with some signs of a revival in the last 10 years.
Between the airport and the town is a couple of kilometer wide band of badly salinity affected land. It was bad in 1957 too.
Just exactly where the weather data was taken is anybody’s guess at this point.
Darwin Airport:
There hs not been that much urbanization in the immediate
vicinity of the airport for a while. The airport is relatively
close to city center, and the land nearest the airport is
light-industrial and excluded from urban development.
Still plenty of urbanization since 1970s in the greater urban
area which surrounds the airport on all sides. Oh yeah,
XMAS day 1974, the urban areas immediatley Nth of
the airport were obliterated by a cyclone (Cyclone Tracy).
Darwin Airport does not take A380s or Jumbos. More the
middle size two and three engine craft.
Right at the front at the bottom of the picture. One of them fancy new digital readouts showing a min of 010 and a max of 035.
If you go to this: http://tinyurl.com/yk9ulm4
The Heading for the page says
“Cunderdin, Western Australia
March 2010 Daily Weather Observations
Most observations from the airport, but some from a site in town.”
Say after me, slowly … “Most observations from the airport, but some from a site in town.”
The photo must be of the “site in town” surely?
>>I believe it’s been located amongst/behind the stacked bricks
>>to protect it from male dingos
Dingos steal temp gauges, as well as kids??
.
>>The primary purpose of the station is, after all, assistance
>>to aviation. It can be quite tricky landing a big aircraft at
>>Darwin where there can be sharp temperature inversions
>>close enough to the ground to cause a sudden change in
>>lift as the wing passes through.
Having flown many times out of Darwin, Alice, Kunnenara, Derby etc:, our complaint was always that the airport temperatures were too low.
Pilots make critical engine and airframe performance calculations from these temperatures. But the airport temperature gauge was always cosseted in a nice cool white shade, whereas the temperature we were experiencing were out on a dark tarmac or concrete strip in full sunlight (with the air above heated accordingly). At a guess, our performance calculations may have been 5oc or more out.
Pilots might appreciate ‘increased’ temperatures.
.
My guess – They sold it for scrap and just “make the figures up” based on what the local weatherman says?
Its one of those new fangled virtual sensor … where they’ve taken away anything that detracts from the manmade global warming signal (like reality)
There appears to be something at the bottom of the vertical window air conditioner just above the green dumpster. There is quite a bit of noise in the photo, perhaps some type of plant.
Thats my bet and I’m sticking to it.
Rich D.
@Ralph (05:13:30)
———————————
>>to protect it from male dingos
Dingos steal temp gauges, as well as kids??
———————————–
No – more like a dingo in heat humping temp. station problem 😉
There isn’t one. They just make up the numbers as they go.
infront of the white fence behind the green board sitting on ground
Hi Anthony, add me to the list of French-speaking Canucks volunteering to look at your paper. I am also in Ottawa, where just about everything has to be translated one way or the other.
There isn’t one. They just make up the numbers as they go.
There isa tall, white, cylindrical thing to the right of that garbage can, with a wide top. What is that?
/Mr Lynn
AlexB (19:11:03) :
Inside the house on the right next to the oven.
Careful now, don’t give James Hansen any ideas.
Zeke the Sneak (19:16:48) :
Give me an infrared picture an I will show you exactly where it is!
Funny!
In 10/07 I did a translation of the temperature portion of Michel Leroy’s 1999 Meteo France technical note #35 on site classification. This was the origin of the CRN classifications, but a little more forgiving on minor infractions of the distance limits. I’m pretty sure I sent you a copy at the time.
I held off on distributing it more generally, as I never got the approval I requested from Leroy for the translation. Is this what was published?
As for the photo, there appears to be a derelict Stephenson screen against the fence, behind the green dumpster, wedged in between the green storage unit and the taller side fence.
Bill Tuttle (03:34:53) :
It’s behind Wado’s hat…
Do you mean Waldo? Where’s Waldo!
Amino Acids in Meteorites (07:20:06) :
Do you mean Waldo? Where’s Waldo!
Standing in front of the weather station…
It’s behind Wado’s hat…
Do you mean Waldo? Where’s Waldo!
Just out for lunch at CRU
🙂
At first I thought it was behind the green garbage bin, but now I think it may be the white thing in the pile of junk. The picture is too fuzzy to really say much of anything.
Good article, but overly optimistic, I think, so long as there are huge financial incentives to keep the pursuit of ‘carbon’ alive.
The ‘argument from ignorance’ (see “The first rejoinder” in the article) only works well when there are extra-scientific (i.e. political) motives for choosing an explanation, even when there is no evidence for it. Unfortunately, those are the motives that predominate in “the climate wars.”
/Mr Lynn
I thought it was supposed to be a continuous record?
If they moved the place where they’re measuring temperature and other stuff, then the record is no longer continuous.
The aerodrome location also looks somewhat greener than a lot of the surrounding area. They wouldn’t by any chance be watering to keep the dust down at the aerodrome? It’s supposed to be a “natural” surface around the screen. No shade except when the sun is a few degrees above the horizon. (i.e. last/first quarter hour or so of the day)
The station at Lake Grace (http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/change/map/stations/010592.shtml) appears to have a (new) nearby sealed car parking area as well as a railway line. Google street view of the area shows nothing interesting except the local copper stopped for a feed at Rosie’s.
On the back porch, right outside the door.
…and try this one – Winton Post Office – with water sprinkler on the go!
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/change/map/stations/037051.shtml
There is a shadow on the white fence that has a “screen” look to it. I think it is right next to that white washed fence.
If we can find the air conditioner condenser, we will know about where it is.
Winton is a giggle. Google Streetview still/also shows sprinkler operating.
(http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=-22.3908+143.0386&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=45.822921,88.857422&ie=UTF8&ll=-22.390565,143.038945&spn=0.003284,0.005423&t=h&z=18&layer=c&cbll=-22.390747,143.038916&panoid=V1fM0UQ_1EDbhX5QxV3N3Q&cbp=12,70.53,,0,24.5)
yklktk (08:54:21) :
…and try this one – Winton Post Office – with water sprinkler on the go!
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/change/map/stations/037051.shtml
Within distance of the evaporation pan! Good site all around.
They make an interesting graph. Lots of homogenizing.
http://i599.photobucket.com/albums/tt74/MartinGAtkins/gunderdin1.png
Tim Clark (10:16:01) :
yklktk (08:54:21) :
…and try this one – Winton Post Office – with water sprinkler on the go!
That’ll be reported as anthropogenic induced flooding.
Ralph-
>>I believe it’s been located amongst/behind the stacked bricks
>>to protect it from male dingos
“Dingos steal temp gauges, as well as kids??”
Steal it? No. I thought they placed it behind the brick barricade to prevent dingos from creating spurtious warming.
Stevenson went walkabout, obviously.
Grant (12:57:02) :
I thought they placed it behind the brick barricade to prevent [male] dingos from creating spurtious warming.
Ow. Ow-ow-ow-ow-ow.
Is’t standing on top of the container or right behind it?
10035 stopped taking temperature obs about three years ago, after nearly a decade of parallel obs with 10286 (Cunderdin Airport).
A new map has been under preparation over recent months and will be available late next week.
In the meanwhile here is the Google Maps link to the site –
http://maps.google.com.au/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&q=Cunderdin+Aerodrome,+Cunderdin+Western+Australia+6407&sll=-25.335448,135.745076&sspn=44.976532,69.169922&ie=UTF8&cd=1&geocode=FfWQHf4dGJn8Bg&split=0&hq=&hnear=Cunderdin+Aerodrome&ll=-31.622855,117.218263&spn=0.010561,0.016887&t=h&z=16
why do we have to guess why cant you just show us. Normally i love this web site but not being able to click and find out where it is , is annoyning
So WHERE is it already! Are you going to tell us?
Anthony,
I can also translate from French to English—have done some professionally.
I’m not the quickest out there and have a lot of other responsibilities. Turnaround would be at least a week.
All the data is available in other public sources. You don’t need the location data.
In or behind the trash can?
Does everyone realize that without Anthony Watts’s diligence and persistence, these dubious “weather stations” would continue to operate, propagate, and report biased weather data unabated?
What ground-based temperature, humidity, and other averaged data would look like now, is anybody’s guess
Up on the roof top,
clop, clop, clop,
go the little hot feet,
No, No, No, no one would
be that Al Gore dumb.
Re Winton:
Right beside a concrete carpark and bitumen street. And Winton is an RCS!!!
Winton also has a warming trend of about 2 degrees per century. Now I know why.
I’m the Ken Stewart referred to by Jo Nova and Another Ian above, at http://kenskingdom.wordpress.com/2010/03/20/political-science-101/
I also checked Winton when looking at the dodgy adjustments at Mt Isa. Willis island is an excellent site- shows how little warming there is far from UHI. Hang on- aren’t the oceans supposed to be warming?
Ken
Bill Tuttle (07:28:53) :
Amino Acids in Meteorites (07:20:06) :
Do you mean Waldo? Where’s Waldo!
Standing in front of the weather station…
The we just need some little kid that good with Where’s Waldo pictures and this mystery is over!
The Joker hid it the same as the pencil. Only Batman can find it.
warning: a little violent
[ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8pSDdcyKSY ]
Maybe Anthony put up the picture to show how useless the posted picture is at showing where anything is. If they’re going to put up a picture, it should show the equipment. If the equipment is so obscured by stuff that it isn’t visible, the photographer or whoever processed it should have reported the problem.
REPLY: Bingo. Apparently the site is closed. No mention of that in the BoM page that I could find though. Only government could create such confusion. -A
“Along these lines, there’s a new paper out related to station siting, but it is in French. I could use Google translate, but it tends to do a poor job of technical papers. It is 14 pages long, with a lot of white space. Any volunteers? Leave a comment if you can.”
Did not read all the comments, so if no one volunteered, you have my email address.
Hi Anthony,
You say :
” … there’s a new paper out related to station siting, but it is in French. I could use Google translate, but it tends to do a poor job of technical papers. It is 14 pages long, with a lot of white space. Any volunteers …”
I volunteer to do this translation. Just send me the paper.
In AnonyMoose (22:46:19) :
REPLY: Bingo. Apparently the site is closed. No mention of that in the BoM page that I could find though. Only government could create such confusion. -A
Even more confusion than that. The station’s page shows it took temperature data from 1950 to 2007. But it also shows rainfall data from 1914 to 2009, page saying last data available is Dec 31. The combined Cunderdin page says rainfall observations are from the airfield, has the March observations. The combined page also says the cloud observations are from 010035. Yet the station’s data on mean number of cloudy and clear days only goes to 2007. Isn’t “cloudy and clear days” part of cloud observations?
By the station’s page, from 2007 to 2009 the only measurements taken were of rainfall.
The station’s page claims it is still open, so what do they do there? Since they are not even reporting cloudy and clear days, you can’t even say someone looks out the window a few times a day!
Dr David Jones (15:44:52) :
10035 stopped taking temperature obs about three years ago, after nearly a decade of parallel obs with 10286 (Cunderdin Airport).
A new map has been under preparation over recent months and will be available late next week.
So is it fair to say? :-
CUNDERDIN operated from location 31.6494S 117.2331E from 1951 to 1992
It then moved to 31.650S 117.250E between 1990 to 2005 and the data from the two sites was adjusted for differences over the two year overlap.
It is now at CUNDERDIN AIRFIELD and has been since late 1996 and the data has been compared and adjusted with the last station between the years 1996 and 2005.
Will this be documented in the BOM station history and will you acknowledge that Anthony Watts and the team at http://www.surfacestations.org/ provide a valuable service to the public?
Moose tries to figure out how to get to Australia to celebrate.
suricat (16:43:03) :
It’s not there, it’s been moved?
Told you so!:)
AnonyMoose (22:46:19) :
“[…]”
“REPLY: Bingo. […]”
Good job, AnonyMoose!
That also explains why we can’t find the barbeque in the picture. It’s been moved to the airport along with the other regulation weather reporting equipment.
AnonyMoose (22:46:19) :
I don’t see how this is inconsistant with my model that a yobbo dragged it off in his ute for some circle work. There is a disturbingly high probability that my theory may be accurate >.>