From Cliff Mass, a study that demonstrates how adding a runway generated a hockey stick in temperature difference to surrounding stations. As I’ve been saying for years, the dynamic environment of the airport is the wrong place to measure “climate change”, and in this case, Cliff Mass shows why.
Last week the Seattle Times had a front page story about the Northwest becoming warmer and wetter based on recently updated climate statistics at Seattle-Tacoma Airport. But can we use one observing site to reliably determine region climate trends?
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Between 2004 and 2008 there was a huge change at the airport, one of the largest construction/earth moving projects in the region in years–the building of a third runway. In this blog I will ask the question: did the construction of the third runway have an impact on summer temperatures reported from the airport? My conclusion and that of my colleague Mark Albright is: it sure looks like it.
But first a few pictures. Here is a picture of Sea-Tac before the third runway was installed. I have also indicated the position of the National Weather Service/FAA temperature sensors (their ASOS system) by a blue circle (just to the west of the second runway).
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Here are two recent pictures of the current runway situation (with the blue circle showing the sensor position). Quite a change.
Did the runway change the summer climate at the airport? My colleague, Mark Albright, calculated the difference in summer temperatures (June, July, August) between Sea-Tac and an average of four nearby official reporting locations (Olympia, McMillan Reservoir near Tacoma, Kent, and Buckley).
Negative means that the neighbors are warmer than Sea-Tac, which you would expect since they are farther inland and generally south of Sea-Tac (which has some cooling influence from the Sound). You will see that Sea-Tac was generally cooler than those surrounding station (by roughly 1.5F) early in the period. And the slight shift in 2002 had little impact. But after construction began in 2004 (particularly in 2005 to 2006 when the heavy earth moving occurred) things changed: Sea-Tac temperatures warmed up by roughly 2F so it was the same or warmer than the surrounding, more inland, stations. I strongly suspect we are seeing the influence of the third runway.
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Bottom line: It really looks that the third runway has significantly warmed summer temperatures at the airport. Thus, one must be really careful in assuming that any warming there is the result of some kind of greenhouse gas influence.
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Full story at Cliff Mass blog h/t to WUWT reader “Speed”
All…last week I had a another blog on the Seattle-Times headline that the new normals indicated the NW was getting warmer and wetter:
http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2011/07/northwest-getting-warmer-and-wetter.html
Steven Mosher says:
July 17, 2011 at 5:01 pm
WORSE YET. this is a step change.
Anyone familiar with Seatac and the surrounding area would tell you it’s an asphalt pavers dream. Seatac and the Surrounding area seem to have an unlimited budget for endlessly adding asphalt. I live 15 miles away. A few years ago the ‘impervious surface’ standard for residential lots was lowered to 50%.
Of course being the industrious person I am I added parking for a 3rd car and a trailer plus a 800 sq ft deck for a total of an additional 1,400 sq ft of impervious, heat absorbing surface. The temperature in my backyard is always at least 5F higher then the airport. I would estimate the average household in my neighborhood has added at least 500sq of impervious surface in the last 10 years.
The local homeowners association also gave up it’s insistence on cedar roofing shingles and pretty much everyone has replaced their cedar roofs with nice, maintenance free asphalt shingles.
Of course we could always fall back on the Mount Rainier readings as Mt Rainier has a population of zero but there is a wonderful new visitors center there with a nice big asphalt parking lot.
Sorry Steve, the only way to accurately calculate urban heat island is knowing how many square feet of asphalt and concrete are laid down in relation to the surrounding thermometer over time.
Comparing UHI polluted thermometers to UHI polluted thermometers doesn’t tell much of a story.
I think it would be interesting to install a real-time temperature monitoring system in the acquisition housing, with 5 second sampling. I’ll bet that you can see the change in temp when an aircraft departs or lands. I’ll also bet that it’s a fast rise/slow decay phenomenon.
Similar “changes” to Denver’s “climate” occured when the official weather station moved from Stapleton to DIA — see:
http://www.examiner.com/weather-in-denver/data-shows-denver-weather-records-skewed-by-move-to-dia
Thanks for your response.
Last winter whilst I was freezing to death in Canada is was having an argument, I did not remember it being that cold but I was told I am getting old and can’t take the cold anymore. I decided to check that day, that hour, the Canadian met office keep those figures going back to 1953. I was wrong, the temp was about the same, I averaged it out for every ten years, there was a spike of one degree in the 90’s, it went down a fraction of a degree in the 70’s but I noticed that all the earliest weather stations and most of the current ones are at airports. In 1953 there was hardly any airtravel, that is the one mode that has grown bigger than any other, more runways and parking lots have been built there than anywhere else, miles and miles of black absorbing the sun. The met office says they make adjustments for it but I wonder who and how.
Andrew Harding says:
b) Buildings are heated and some of the heat is lost to the surroundings (change heated buildings to jet engines at an airport and some heat to all heat)
Both cities and airports have cars, buses, trucks, etc. In addition airports have all sorts of service vehicles.
Airport buildings typically have extensive HVAC systems. There’s also often a requirement to produce chilled “ready meals” in large quantities on site.
Just about every jet and turboprop aircraft comes with a gas turbine APU. This puts out hot air when running.
a lot of nit-picking non-sense
every glassier on the planet IS melting
and the incidence of extreme weather all over the
planet IS increasing
the big picture says
you foolish human need to change course
it is the direct descendants
of the men who built the petro-economy
who have the capitol to do it
but not their grate-grandfather’s
skills, imagination, or moxie
so here we sit stewing
and arguing about the god given right
to be pigs and hog the earth’s resources
while the power shifts to those with
skills, imagination and moxie
the deniers are like Nero
and soon your fiddles
will be untunable
what will you do
THEN????
“every glassier on the planet IS melting…”
http://www.iceagenow.com/List_of_Expanding_Glaciers.htm
“the incidence of extreme weather all over the planet IS increasing”
http://www.c3headlines.com/2011/02/nasa-climate-scientist-global-warming-does-not-cause-extreme-weather-events.html
http://www.c3headlines.com/2011/06/dear-gov-christie-22-peer-reviewed-studies-prove-that-global-warming-is-not-the-cause-of-increased-d.html
Someone has OD’d on warmist Kool-Aid.