By Steve Goddard and Anthony Watts
NCDC has done an first rate job raising Arizona summer temperatures, as seen in the graph below.
How did they accomplish this? – by magic! My favorite Arizona station is Ajo, near the Mexican border. Until 1984, temperatures were dropping – as seen in the USHCN (RAW) plot below.
Apparently someone at USHCN didn’t like that trend, so they made up homogenized an extra 25 years of data with a sharp upwards trend. This spreadsheet shows the USHCN data. Note that there aren’t any years after 1985 which have a full year’s data, and no years after 1985 with a full summer’s data.
For example, note this B91 form from the Ajo observer for July 1987, missing 10 out of 31 days of data:
Here is the adjusted monthly mean maximum data plotted from NCDC:
The image below shows Ajo adjusted maximum mean (black) on top of raw maximum mean (red.) Note that they are identical until 1970, when the magical adjustments kicked in. Click on it for a clearer image.
The station is not well sited. Note the MMTS temperature sensor is inside the white stucco patio wall enclosure at right:
http://gallery.surfacestations.org/main.php?g2_itemId=33437
Here’s another view:
http://gallery.surfacestations.org/main.php?g2_itemId=33463
Photos by surfacestations.org volunteer Bob Thompson
While the near A/C heat exchanger units are comical, wind sheltering and building proximity are also likely contributors. According to NCDC MMS metadatabase, in 2002 the station was switched from a Stevenson Screen to the MMTS sensor in the location shown above. Since NCDC does not make the site sketches that exist for all stations public, we can’t see the plan map showing where the Stevenson Screen was. However, the site survey from Bob Thompson tells us:
Site description and known history: The station was previously located on a nearby hilltop, but is now close behind a Phelps Dodge administration building adjacent to an open mine. I did not find any record of the relocation, but there is nothing any longer atop the hill.
There was a notation in the NCDC MMS Metadata remarks though, saying that the station had been moved 845 feet to the northeast.
The dates don’t match the date of the equipment change in 2002 though, and since the MMTS sensor requires a cable, it is likely that it was moved when the equipment change was noted in 2002.
Most likely the metadata citing the date of the move is wrong, and/or it took NCDC time to catch up with the change made by NWS personnel.
This Google Earth view, dated July 13th, 2006 shows the location of the temperature sensor at Ajo at the Phelps Dodge plant. Basically in the middle of an industrial zone:
In this more recent aerial photo from Bing Maps, it appears the facility has been closed down, and the buildings removed. They even abandoned 3 locomotives previously used to shuttle ore cars:
Note while the buildings are missing, the asphalt parking lot to the SE of the office is new.
Here’s a view with the GE ruler, showing where the Stevenson Screen likely was:
Here’s a closeup view of where the MMTS and rain gauges are:
Interactive view at Bing Maps is here
The point of all this is that this station has the following problems:
- Poor siting – building proximity
- Station move
- Sensor change from Mercury/Stevenson Screen to MMTS
- A nearby dynamic industrial environment with rapidly changing infrastructure and albedo as shown by aerial maps
- Missing/incomplete observer data over a long period, likely due to observer not recording data on weekends, holidays, vacation days, sick days.
- Incorrect/conflicting metadata at NCDC
- post facto adjustments to infill missing/incomplete observer data
That’s a lot of uncertainty added to the base measurement. Many stations have similar problems. The measurement environment is hardly static, yet we are looking for small variations in the climate in the midst of all this noise and uncertainty.
Other Arizona USHCN raw station data is below, showing about equal numbers of stations with declining and increasing maximum mean temperatures over the last 80 years. In Arizona, it’s all about the daytime heat, not the nighttime low.
Raising Arizona was probably Nicholas Cage’s best movie. In the end, they decided to be honest and give Nathan Arizona’s baby back. Can we expect the same?
I have made Arizona my home since 1995 and yes the summers are hot and dry – right now however, we are having a monsoon condition and it is cloudy, humid and just under 100F. It rained very lightly last night.
Measuring the difference in temperature just after sundown between urban and rural areas has been between 5 and 7 degrees F. UHI is pronounced here and there has been a tremendous amount of urban development in the last 15 years all over the state. Take a look at Buckeye, AZ just west of Phoenix. It was practically open farm land in 1995 and now is small city.
Psst… The “Raising Arizona” image is on Wikipedia, but it is not under their license. It is an image protected by copyright, used under fair use terms.
REPLY: We figure if it is on Wiki, no issues with our own fair use of it. -A
Grumpy Old Man says:
July 10, 2010 at 7:39 am
“Excuse my ignorance but are tax dollars paying for this? If so, what is the tax payer doing about it?”
In this case, I’d say your tax dollars (and mine) paid for every bit of this. Note the sources of the graphs and data. NOAA, NCDC, and USHCN are all governmental agencies. What are we doing about it? Well, a majority of the taxpayers decided we didn’t have enough true believers in office to fund such enterprises to the level they deemed necessary and so they elected one to the highest office of the land to put more true believers into positions of authority over our environment and health and agriculture, commerce, ect.
This is just fraud, pure and simple.
REPLY: I tend to think of it this way:
Never assume malice where simple incompetence will do.
Government excels in incompetence.
-A
Regg says:
July 10, 2010 at 9:36 am
“You’re comparing TMAX (maximum temperature) against average temperature. It’s not the same thing and cannot be compared like that. You’re misleading your followers and no one of them was smart enought to see it so far.”
Sis, scroll back to the top and look……real close at the first graph. Then, real close, look at the rest of the graphs. Most of the readers here know what they are looking at and how TMAX figures into average temperature. If one doesn’t properly plot or record the TMAX, then the average temp will be wrong.
From time to time, we get a reader here that isn’t smart enough to understand this concept. Some that don’t understand but are smart enough, we’ll take the time to go into detail about how TMAX is relevant. Others, we simply refer them to a different website where understanding of numbers and values aren’t relevant to the climate discussion and one doesn’t have to bother with data integrity and all that……..sis, I think you’d be better suited clicking on this link, it’s a funny place, that doesn’t allow for dissenting views nor does it require thought to participate. Simply parrot what is said and you’ll get along fine there. Click here. http://www.realclimate.org/
[comment was empty? ~mod]
Regg
Here is Childs, AZ mean overlaid on max. You claim there is a diverging trend, but I don’t see it. In cities like Phoenix with bad UHI problems, the mean temperature has increased because nighttime temperatures don’t cool much any more.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qIqUCilUBA]
John Blake says July 10, 2010 at 6:32 am: “centralized “big government” has proven worse than useless– corrupt and incompetent at best, subject to ruinous propagandizing at worst.”
John, it appears to this layman onlooker that in this case (and probably in many, many others) the thermometer data is being put to uses never originally intended, to wit, to measure “global warming” as evidenced by a hacked-together “global thermometer grid” that does not and was never intended to collect the “pure” ambient air temperatures of the locations where the thermometers have been placed.
Ajo appears to have been established in 1948, and probably no one envisioned that it would be used to measure ambient “global temperature” at tenths of a degree centigrade. Even to move it from a hill station collection point to a nearby site directly next to a blazing sunny white-walled highly reflective location next to a black gravel heat-sink might have been through OK at the time because “Hey, we’re not measuring 1/10th degree C for billions of dollar$, are we!?!?”
Just looking at the topography in Google Earth makes it patently obvious why the temperatures would increase.
Where exactly is the difference between malice and stupidity? Honesty and brilliance are also closely related . Thank you Anthony for your humble approach to find the real facts . Do not expect a reward from the powerful and their followers or slaves , as your behaviour endangers their bread and butter , wherefor they have sold their souls . Continue to keep our society awake !
As I pointed out yesterday the following seems to show a worrying forecast at BOTH poles over the next 8 months. Is my interpretation of the NOAA forecast correct?
http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/lanina/images3/glbT2mSea.gif
Anthony, there’s something I don’t understand here. From your overlay of the raw and adjusted maximum temperatures, it seems that a constant offset is used in the adjustment of the temperatures until about 1970, and then things deviate. But if I look at the raw and adjusted values, say at 1934, you get a raw temperature of a little over 87F and an adjusted temperature of about 86.75F but on your overlay graph the values appear to be over 87F for both the adjusted and raw data. I think the way you plotted the overlay data doesn’t look right. Why not plot the raw data together with the adjusted data w/o trying to mess with the y-axis scale? Do you not have access to the actual data to make a correct plot? You could then also plot the differences and see how the “adjustment” has changed over the time-period. If a constant bias was applied for the first 40 years and then some other bias is applied that would be important to investigate.
Anthony, I believe that NCDC metadata remark about “equipment move 845 feet NE” may be correct (or only slightly off) if you measure from the hill station to the new building.
Note that the hill station appears to have an equipment pad at the south perimeter, as does the “new” building at the extreme southeast corner at the back of the building.
If you measure from one equipment pad to the other it’s about 855 feet.
http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=32.369333,-112.860993&spn=0.003099,0.00405&t=h&z=18
I live in Arizona. I moved here in 1988. If I can help you in any way with documenting sitings of these weather stations, I’d be happy to do so if you would provide instruction as to how to do so.
Do your part to elect enough Republicans or Tea Party candidates for Congress to make Democrats the minority in both the House and Senate. That will empower the Issa and Inhofe and like minded members to investigate the NOAA, NCDC and NASA et al concerning the false data and scientific malpractice. At this time the road to honest science is political. The cleanup of science will follow.
Jimbo says:
July 10, 2010 at 10:37 am
“[…]poles over the next 8 months. Is my interpretation of the NOAA forecast correct?
http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/lanina/images3/glbT2mSea.gif
”
Yes:
http://pgosselin.wordpress.com/2010/07/08/noaa-forecasts-great-drastic-cooling/
Paddy says:
July 10, 2010 at 10:49 am
“Do your part to elect enough Republicans or Tea Party candidates for Congress to make Democrats the minority in both the House and Senate. That will empower the Issa and Inhofe and like minded members to investigate the NOAA, NCDC and NASA et al concerning the false data and scientific malpractice. At this time the road to honest science is political. The cleanup of science will follow.”
While I appreciate the efforts of Inhofe and Issa, I don’t believe that switching party affiliation in congress will suffice. The allure of almost unlimited power over the lives of everyday citizens will be too great for a politician, regardless of his/her political persuasion. Remember, the repubs held congress prior to 2006. They were slightly more reserved in the literal pursuit of power, but the AGW crowd was still fostered and thrived well under repub leadership.
I am proud to say that I have children, grandchildren and a great grandchild all citizens of Phoenix, AZ. When I visited one July, what I wanted was CO2 – the dry variety!
One could say that the “Ajo” station stinks!
“Mike says:
July 10, 2010 at 7:15 am
There are reasons why data is adjusted rather than used raw.”
obviously
But explain why raw data generally is cooler, and adjusted data is usually adjusted up, by the exact same people that describe UHI.
How can UHI be described as remaining warmer at night, and temp data adjusted higher to compensate for that?
Steve, you do lots of good work here. But what’s the point of video clip of a still graph??
REPLY: Because, oddly, wordpress.com allows YouTube videos to be inserted in comments, but not images, unless you have admin status. – Anthony
DirkH says:
July 10, 2010 at 8:56 am
And the skeptics are accused of bending the facts. Remember, always accuse your enemy of your own deepest crime.
I will resist the urge to descend into Ad Hominem, but surely even someone such as yourself must see that this is pretty blatant tampering with the data. If you can’t then I assume you are a true believer or have an agenda.
DirkH, my humblest apologies, I re-read your post!
Sorry that was a shameful error by me. Off to stand in the corner 🙁
Alan Simpson says:
July 10, 2010 at 11:34 am
“DirkH says:
July 10, 2010 at 8:56 am
And the skeptics are accused of bending the facts. Remember, always accuse your enemy of your own deepest crime.
I will resist the urge to descend into Ad Hominem, but surely even someone such as yourself must see that this is pretty blatant tampering with the data. If you can’t then I assume you are a true believer or have an agenda.”
What i wanted to say is : The AGW crowd accuses [us] skeptics of bending the facts [for instance, we steadfastly refuse to believe that GCM’s resemble reality]. This is, IMHO, an example of accusing [us] skeptics of something that they [the AGW crowd or their institutions] have done and do on a daily basis.
Sorry for any confusion.
Did they really use proper engineers to come up with a temperature measuring apparatus that in and of itself has a designed that funnels light coming from below into its center where everything is black or otherwise void of white, put inside a lower perimeter of all white that does nothing but reflecting light upwards.
But I’m sure there’s a perfectly logical reason for why one choose black and brown wiring and green boards, et cetera, around a temperature sensor, when there’s white colored stuff that’d suit that particular application ever more so.
One of my favorite movies.
Hey, what’s going on with the Sun? Is it going into a deep dep sleep?
Solar wind
speed: 261.2 km/sec
density: 1.4 protons/cm3
Updated: Today at 1837 UT
http://www.spaceweather.com/