They join the UK Met office in embracing UHI now. Of course, my friend Jim Goodridge, former California State Climatologist, had this nailed in 1996 with his study of surface temperature in California:
MEDIA RELEASE Wednesday 13 October 2010
Hot cities
If you thought our cities are getting warmer, you’re right.
“We can now confidently say that the reason our cities are warmer and warming faster than the surrounding countryside during the day is because of the urbanisation…”
Bureau of Meteorology researchers have found that daytime temperatures in our cities are warming more rapidly than those of the surrounding countryside and that this is due to the cities themselves.
Bureau climate scientist, Belinda Campbell, said “we’ve known for a while that city night time temperatures have been warmer because the heat’s retained after sunset just that much longer than the countryside, and that city daytime temperatures have been warming too.”
“But what we didn’t know was whether city day time temperatures were also warmer because of the urbanisation or whether it was due to the overall warming of the planet associated with the enhanced greenhouse effect.”
“We can now confidently say that the reason our cities are warmer and warming faster than the surrounding countryside during the day is because of the urbanisation, the fact that all those offices, houses and factories absorb the heat and retain it a little bit longer,” Ms Campbell said.
On average, the enhanced greenhouse effect is responsible for about 0.5 to 1.0 degree of observed warming around the globe (more in some areas, less in other areas).
The additional effect of urbanisation on warming varies from city to city (depending on the buildings and open parkland close to the observation site).
The research team analysed data from 70 sites in the Bureau’s meteorological data archive in order to quantify how much the increases in daytime temperature can be attributed to urbanisation and how much to the enhanced greenhouse effect.
The sites were mostly from towns with populations ranging from 500 to 100,000, with a handful being either in cities with more than 100,000, or in isolated locations with hardly anybody for hundreds of kilometres.
Ms Campbell is presenting the results of the team’s work at the Australia – New Zealand Climate Forum in Hobart on Thursday (14 October, 2010).
For media inquiries
(03) 9669 4057
Mobile 0439 452 424
Source: http://www.bom.gov.au/announcements/media_releases/ho/20101013.shtml
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h/t to WUWT reader “gibo”
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Also, see this work I did in Reno, NV measuring and proving the UHI effect to myself:
…and if you’d like to measure UHI yourself:
Measure UHI in your town with this easy to use temperature datalogger kit
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Well this has slipped underneath the radar here in Australia, or is it sometingthat I’ve missed recently. Either way it should be bigger news than it will be.
Yeah, I think the attempts to deny UHI via nightlights and breezes have about run their course and even those who would like to support CAGW have to admit that there has to be a proper accounting for UHI. Progress is being made!
There’s also a local effect from anthropogenic heat generation. Averaged over the entire surface of the earth the amount of energy used by people (heating, cooling, lights, appliances, industrial processes, transportation, and so forth) is vanishingly small compared to energy received from the sun but anthropogenic waste heat is highly concentrated in urban population centers. The waste heat isn’t spread out over hundreds of millions of square kilometers but is rather concentrated into hundreds of thousands of square kilometers.
FINALLY!
Thank you for posting this! Another nail in the coffin of Global Climate Disruption, or whatever garbage they are calling it this week!
Nice to see you and your team vindicated Anthony. This reads as if they are in despair:
On average, the enhanced greenhouse effect is responsible for about 0.5 to 1.0 degree of observed warming around the globe (more in some areas, less in other areas).
‘Average’, ‘about’, ‘more in some areas, less in other areas’ = WattsUpWithThat?
who Paid for this cr*p…and er der! indeed.
gee who’d’a thunk it!
any normal non goreite, who could also figure using mostly urban sites and cutting rural, was intentional to up the temp to support the falsehoods..thats who’da thunk it.
good on Ya Anthoney et al:-)
So the reason cities are warmer is because, they are cities (minus 0.5 to 1 degree of gw of course). I wonder what is the thermal output of an average city, has it ever been analysed?
Wow, this leap in knowledge is staggering – at this rate they may soon discover the wheel. /Sarc off
It’s taken awhile for this spectacular bit of general knowledge to filter through to oficialdom; I recall learning in high school Geography classes that urban areas created their own microclimates and their own weather, which tended to be warmer and wetter than the surrounding countryside. And that was in the early 1950s.
I also learnt then that Man has the silly habit of building on flood plains which not only puts housing at risk of flooding, but uses up the limited supply of rich alluvial farmland better suited to producing meat, milk and vegetables.
So what is this going to lead to? More adjustment of the temperature records?
UHI falls right out of the night time or minimum surface temperature trends for CA and UK using ocean surface temerpatures as a reference.
Furthermore, there can be no CO2 ‘signature’ in the temperature trend.
http://hidethedecline.eu/pages/posts/what-surface-temperature-is-your-model-really-predicting-190.php
but they forgot to compare breezy nights to still ones….
“But what we didn’t know was whether city day time temperatures were also warmer because of the urbanisation or whether it was due to the overall warming of the planet associated with the enhanced greenhouse effect.”
Couldn’t be bothered/didn’t want to find out, I presume. It’s not that difficult, is it?
Is this what might be termed an exit strategy?
DaveE
“On average, the enhanced greenhouse effect is responsible for about 0.5 to 1.0 degree of observed warming around the globe (more in some areas, less in other areas).”
Please explain us, where was the “enhanced greenhouse effect” in 80ties, when Europe was colder than decades around 1900.
Another thing, if urbanization can retain so much heat, just imagine how much heat retains the earth surface, water and atmosphere itself. Until this is quantified, all babbling about greenhouse effect providing 33K is meaningless.
OK, now it’s bothering me, what complexities am I missing that would make the entire “discovery” worthy of years of study requiring the input of fine minds and thousands of hours together with the appropriate budget? What is hidden from me that I can’t just say – “duur, dudes?
Is this before or after Phil Jones and what’s his name – Cheung? – get hold of the UHI numbers?
The UHI effect is well known and has been taken into account by climatologists. This new work is an interesting refinement on what is known, but has no barring on the reality of AGW. As the article stated “On average, the enhanced greenhouse effect is responsible for about 0.5 to 1.0 degree of observed warming around the globe (more in some areas, less in other areas).”
See also: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/the-surface-temperature-record-and-the-urban-heat-island/
OK, I agree with some that this is too little too late, but it is good to see this out in print. We need more information like this out in the open, so this is a step in the right direction.
What jumped out at me was the amount of the UHI identified. I presume their “degree” is in C. If so, the 0.5 – 1.0 degree warming due to UHI largely explains the 20th century warming that is observed (at least for those locations), without need to invoke CO2, unknown feedback mechanisms, etc.
P Gosselin says:
October 14, 2010 at 7:45 am
So what is this going to lead to? More adjustment of the temperature records?
of course more adjustments will be made, we have to get that darn rural temps up to par with the cities you know!! 🙂
This is what the unwind from hysteria looks like.
Notice they say an “additional effect” of UHI which suggests that they think that the global temperature records are not contaminated by UHI. It will be difficult to defend this position, but in the crazy world of alarmist logic I’m sure it is possible.
For some reason the following seems appropriate
So what does happen if you remove UHI effects from the BOM temperature records for Aus?
It couldn’t possibly be a Kiwi style flat liner could it?
Global warming only now seems to affect the northern hemisphere, where climate scientists can get their hot sticky fingers on the thermometers/data
The GRL link can be found here:http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2010/2010GL042845.shtml
Presumably all models will be recalibrated to included ths “new finding” ?
What will the new finding mean for the historical data sets?
Regards
Le Judge
We’ll only know they are embracing real science when they make sure the politicals are also aware and take account of the uncertainties and alternative viewpoints. They’re still making assertions about “enhanced greenhouse effect”. Another commenter on another thread here suggested that the agw crowd were making a strategic withdrawal to fight in another place. Real science needs to be ready to deny them their chosen position.