Senator Inhofe’s EPW office issued a press release today on the subject of USHCN Climate Monitoring stations along with links to this report from the General Accounting Office (GAO)
…the report notes, “NOAA does not centrally track whether USHCN stations adhere to siting standards…nor does it have an agency-wide policy regarding stations that don’t meet standards.” The report continues, “Many of the USHCN stations have incomplete temperature records; very few have complete records. 24 of the 1,218 stations (about 2 percent) have complete data from the time they were established.” GAO goes on to state that most stations with long temperature records are likely to have undergone multiple changes in measurement conditions.
The report shows by their methodology that 42% of the network in 2010 failed to meet siting standards and they have recommendations to NOAA for solving this problem. This number is of course much lower than what we have found in the surfacestations.org survey, but bear in mind that NOAA has been slowly and systematically following my lead and reports and closing the worst stations or removing them from USHCN duty. For example I pointed out that the famous Marysville station (see An old friend put out to pasture: Marysville is no longer a USHCN climate station of record) that started all this was closed just a few months after I reported issues with its atrocious siting. Recent discoveries of closures include Armore (shown below) and Durant OK. This may account for a portion the lower 42% figure for “active stations” the GAO found. Another reason might be that they tended towards using a less exacting rating system than we did.
Recently, while resurveying stations that I previously surveyed in Oklahoma, I discovered that NOAA has been quietly removing the temperature sensors from some of the USHCN stations we cited as the worst (CRN4, 5) offenders of siting quality. For example, here are before and after photographs of the USHCN temperature station in Ardmore, OK, within a few feet of the traffic intersection at City Hall:
Ardmore USHCN station , MMTS temperature sensor, January 2009
Ardmore USHCN station , MMTS temperature sensor removed, March 2011
While NCDC has gone to great lengths to defend the quality of the USHCN network, their actions of closing them speak far louder than written words and peer reviewed publications.
I don’t have time today to go into detail, but will follow up at another time. Here is the GAO summary:
Climate Monitoring: NOAA Can Improve Management of the U.S. Historical Climatology Network
GAO-11-800 August 31, 2011
Highlights Page (PDF) Full Report (PDF, 47 pages) Accessible Text Recommendations (HTML)
Summary
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) maintains a network of weather-monitoring stations known as the U.S. Historical Climatology Network (USHCN), which monitors the nation’s climate and analyzes long-term surface temperature trends. Recent reports have shown that some stations in the USHCN are not sited in accordance with NOAA’s standards, which state that temperature instruments should be located away from extensive paved surfaces or obstructions such as buildings and trees. GAO was asked to examine (1) how NOAA chose stations for the USHCN, (2) the extent to which these stations meet siting standards and other requirements, and (3) the extent to which NOAA tracks USHCN stations’ adherence to siting standards and other requirements and has established a policy for addressing nonadherence to siting standards. GAO reviewed data and documents, interviewed key NOAA officials, surveyed the 116 NOAA weather forecast offices responsible for managing stations in the USHCN, and visited 8 forecast offices.
In choosing USHCN stations from a larger set of existing weather-monitoring stations, NOAA placed a high priority on achieving a relatively uniform geographic distribution of stations across the contiguous 48 states. NOAA balanced geographic distribution with other factors, including a desire for a long history of temperature records, limited periods of missing data, and stability of a station’s location and other measurement conditions, since changes in such conditions can cause temperature shifts unrelated to climate trends. NOAA had to make certain exceptions, such as including many stations that had incomplete temperature records. In general, the extent to which the stations met NOAA’s siting standards played a limited role in the designation process, in part because NOAA officials considered other factors, such as geographic distribution and a long history of records, to be more important. USHCN stations meet NOAA’s siting standards and management requirements to varying degrees. According to GAO’s survey of weather forecast offices, about 42 percent of the active stations in 2010 did not meet one or more of the siting standards.
With regard to management requirements, GAO found that the weather forecast offices had generally but not always met the requirements to conduct annual station inspections and to update station records. NOAA officials told GAO that it is important to annually visit stations and keep records up to date, including siting conditions, so that NOAA and other users of the data know the conditions under which they were recorded. NOAA officials identified a variety of challenges that contribute to some stations not adhering to siting standards and management requirements, including the use of temperature-measuring equipment that is connected by a cable to an indoor readout device–which can require installing equipment closer to buildings than specified in the siting standards. NOAA does not centrally track whether USHCN stations adhere to siting standards and the requirement to update station records, and it does not have an agencywide policy regarding stations that do not meet its siting standards. Performance management guidelines call for using performance information to assess program results. NOAA’s information systems, however, are not designed to centrally track whether stations in the USHCN meet its siting standards or the requirement to update station records. Without centrally available information, NOAA cannot easily measure the performance of the USHCN in meeting siting standards and management requirements.
Furthermore, federal internal control standards call for agencies to document their policies and procedures to help managers achieve desired results. NOAA has not developed an agencywide policy, however, that clarifies for agency staff whether stations that do not adhere to siting standards should remain open because the continuity of the data is important, or should be moved or closed. As a result, weather forecast offices do not have a basis for making consistent decisions to address stations that do not meet the siting standards. GAO recommends that NOAA enhance its information systems to centrally capture information useful in managing the USHCN and develop a policy on how to address stations that do not meet its siting standards. NOAA agreed with GAO’s recommendations.
Recommendations
Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from “In process” to “Open,” “Closed – implemented,” or “Closed – not implemented” based on our follow up work.
| Director: | Anu K. Mittal |
| Team: | Government Accountability Office: Natural Resources and Environment |
| Phone: | (202) 512-9846 |
Recommendations for Executive Action
Recommendation: To improve the National Weather Service’s (NWS) ability to manage the USHCN in accordance with performance management guidelines and federal internal control standards, as well as to strengthen congressional and public confidence in the data the network provides, the Acting Secretary of Commerce should direct the Administrator of NOAA to enhance NWS’s information system to centrally capture information that would be useful in managing stations in the USHCN, including (1) more complete data on siting conditions (including when siting conditions change), which would allow the agency to assess the extent to which the stations meet its siting standards, and (2) existing data on when station records were last updated to monitor whether the records are being updated at least once every 5 years as NWS requires.
Agency Affected: Department of Commerce
Status: In process
Comments: When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
Recommendation: To improve the National Weather Service’s (NWS) ability to manage the USHCN in accordance with performance management guidelines and federal internal control standards, as well as to strengthen congressional and public confidence in the data the network provides, the Acting Secretary of Commerce should direct the Administrator of NOAA to develop an NWS agencywide policy, in consultation with the National Climatic Data Center, on the actions weather forecast offices should take to address stations that do not meet siting standards.
Agency Affected: Department of Commerce
Status: In process
Comments: When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
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Sharper00 said: “We are already taking action – we’re burning fossil fuels and dumping enormous amounts of C02 into the atmosphere. This is not a situation we’re currently doing nothing and advocates of two different courses of action (“burn fossil fuels”, “use non-fossil fuels”) are trying to convince society to act according to their preferences. We’re already performing one of those actions and the best scientific evidence available strongly suggests that action will produce consequences most consider undesirable. ”
There is no scientific evidence. There are only computer models, and they have failed to predict climate behavior even over the last 10 years. Many, many assumptions have to be put into the models, and unknown coefficients have to be tuned. Even the amount of temperature increase that we have supposedly measured over the last 100 years is small enough to be well within the error of the instruments. If there is evidence, or data, please direct us to it. Saying things like the spring thaws seem to happen earlier, or there seems to be more storms, or mosquitos are found farther north is not very strong due to many factors besides warming and often times the measurements of these things are not very rigorous.
Now of course there is general agreement that in isolation, doubling CO2 concentration should increase temperature approx. 1C, but the climate is not in isolation. Other complex and poorly understood processes unfold, and the result is clearly not predictable at this time.
So, what happens as they remove the stations from rooftops, next to AC units and BBQ grills, and in parking lots while keeping the well-sited stations? I would think that there could be a downward temperature shift, but I know there are complex homogenization routines that may do something unpredictable (to me anyway). I would also imagine that new homogenization/normalization routines would be created to avoid the look of a temperature decrease. Does anyone have any thoughts on this?
@ur momisugly Lucy Skywalker,
OT but Steve McIntyre has temporarily jettisoned his insistence on focusing purely on statistics and is addressing the issue of monthly centering and the use of anomalies in determining climate trends. IRRC you took issue with these methods many moons ago here at WUWT. See http://climateaudit.org/2011/09/28/monthly-centering-and-climate-sensitivity/
The poor quality means how many decimals degrees or even more than a degree of temperature wrongly measured?
God Bless the volunteers of USHCN –it isn’t their fault. I met a few –they care and made sacrificises in the context over long periods of time in the context of what they were asked to do by those responsible for asking them. Nothing but love for those folks.
It is a planetary disgrace that the richest nation on the globe had to rely on a voluntary effort (surfacestations.org) to uncover the limitations of the official effort, and that was resisted at every step by the status quo to bring those issues to light.
I’m proud to have contributed. I’m ashamed of my country that it was necessary for such an effort to be lead privately.
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again –Anthony, we done good no matter the impact, and shame on the status quo for leaving it to us to do without their leadership and organizational resources. Reducing uncertainty is damn straight worthwhile when the stakes are those we’re dealing with here.
Hey, I’m a “peer network” guy. I’d have been happy to do the same for an official effort. But “official” wasn’t interested. “Official” just wanted us to go away.
Lucy Skywalker says:
September 30, 2011 at 3:22 pm
pablo an ex pat says: September 30, 2011 at 1:01 pm
…1) The same white car is in the same parking space in both pictures.
2) The Church in the background has moved many feet to the left in the lower photo.
3) The pedestrian crossing on the left side of the upper picture has disappeared in the lower one.
(1) Yes. (2) Not correct. (3) Not correct.
Look very closely. Take this exercise as a parable of the improvement in observational skills that Climate Science needs. Or perhaps you did look closely, and are testing us??
==============================================
(1) The owner of the car still owns the white car and has exclusive use of the parking space … note the pickup in the background is not there.
(2) The position of the church is a consequence of the changed position of the photographer.
(3) That pedestrian would have long been picked up on vagrancy charges or run over if he/she was still attempting to cross the road.
🙂
Anthony,
As usual, your contributors are long on empty rhetoric but very short of legitimate argument.
For example Smokey says (yesterday 2:06 pm) “The climate alarmist contingent completely ignores the scientific method, rejects transparency, hides out from real debates, and continues to sound a false alarm“. In your dream-world may be. Back in the real world, there is nothing that has happened (or not happened) in the last 6 years that would or could invalidate what George Monbiot said in 2005: “It is hard to convey just how selective you have to be to dismiss the evidence for climate change. You must climb over a mountain of evidence to pick up a crumb: a crumb which then disintegrates in your palm. You must ignore an entire canon of science, the statements of the world’s most eminent scientific institutions, and thousands of papers published in the foremost scientific journals.“
And to others (too many to mention), I would say this, thanks to my recent completion of an MA in Environmental Politics, I am very much aware of all of your unfalsifiable and/or self-referential arguments – and the origins of this website. Therefore, I am very confident that within say 10 years you will all be consigned to the dustbin of history (if not the ICHR for crimes against humanity). So, as I have said before, enjoy your fun while it lasts. We are onto you; and your days are numbered!
For those analysing the two pictures Anthony shows, and the angle of the sun shown, I have discovered that WolframAlpha will produce sun angles for locations and dates.
At the website:
http://www.wolframalpha.com/
I entered : “angle of sun at Ardmore Oklahoma jan 2, 2009” , without the quotes, and all sorts of information is displayed that you can use for your own analysis. I am
too lazynot higly motivated at the moment to do any further analysis.It’s not the fact that the stations were poorly sited that is so worrying. It’s that they deny they were poorly sited in public and then admit that they were behind closed doors.
Dishonesty like this is an iceberg. What we see will always be a very small fraction of what is really going on. For every misdeed we spot, there will be an order of magnitude more misdeed which we cannot see. That is why no one will ever trust anything from these scoundrels again.
If they had come out, thanked those who had done the reports. Came back with a response saying: “we intend to change these stations and this is how we intend ensure the temperature record is not contaminated either by their inclusion or removal”, if they were open honest and willing to listen, then they would be trusted.
They just don’t behave like real scientists … look at CERN. The results challenge a fundamental law of science, and after thoroughly checking they make public their work because they had ruled out anything obvious and needed their work scrutinised.
There’s no comparison. CERN = real science. This bunch of climate loons are charlatans who don’t deserve to be running a plumbing business … because plumbers are far better than them!
Congratulation Anthony – you’ve been one of the lone voice pushing this story for YEARS! This must give you a great feeling knowing you were accurate in your reporting – and through you – we were informed of the problems associated as written. Because of that this is not news to any of your readers either – this is merely an admittance informed reader waited a long time to read for themselves.
In my mind the problems then are very real – much of the global warming or climate change or whatever they’re calling themselves these day are as a result of badly flawed NOAA reports with were heavily used by East Anglia cutting into the black heart of the climate debate itself. However the chances of anything actually changing are nil and never even know the data itself is badly flawed.
Of the ~7500 NOAA NWS weather stations only 2680 generate what you might call reliable weather data 24/7 where we know where they are.
Out of the 2680 ~10 more have gone rogue through 2011
To produce this http://91.192.194.209/averagehourlytemp3.png I was weeding out duff weather stations for about 4 months. It’s rough at the coal face of temperature measurement.
At the end of 2011 I will cull the rogues from the database and re-run the raw data so we will always be able to compare apples with apples and not banana’s
The figures so far:
Jan 2011 1.44C
Feb 2011 2.90C
Mar 2011 6.98C
Apr 2011 12.26C
May 2011 16.16C
Jun 2011 20.43C
Jul 2011 22.79C
Aug 2011 22.17C
Sept 2011 18.73C
unadulterated raw averages from raw (don’t worry I won’t lose it) data 🙂
Dave
Well, I guess most of us can now see what Martin lacks:
the admits being a student of the Environmental Political system and quotes Monbiot.
He must have a heart or he couldn’t be posting and he shows courage by trolling here, so perhaps he could follow the yellow brick road of truth and the Wizard at the end will give him what he lacks?
🙂
I’m sick and tired of hearing about CO2 being an evil gas. It is not discussed in most chemistry or plant propagation literature, but one of the major nutrients that is missing from good crop growth is CARBON. Plants DO NOT uptake Carbon via their roots; Carbon comes from leaves absorbing CO2, releasing the Oxygen and using the Carbon!
Greenhouses have CO2 generators that attempt to double the CO2 levels to 800 ppm or more. Plants grow astonishingly well in an environment rich the following: CO2, fertilizer, warmth, humid air. Since I learned these items, my Orchids have doubled their growth rates, exceeding all but the best growers.
CO2 increases in the environment have occurred after the Sun warmed the regions: not before. By burning fossil fuels and increasing the CO2 levels; we are doing the best climate interactions that man can do!!! Let us hope that the increased CO2 levels will counter-balance the effects of a quiet Sun, and “trap more of that missing heat”!
Martin Lack:
Yet here you are, using a computer, and running a blog, which relies on a HUGE infrastructure, mainly powered by CO2 emitting sources, and manufactured from evil industry. Are you going to be the first against the wall when the revolution comes? Or will you voluntarily give up ALL modern conveniences developed since, say 1700, and return to the short and brutal life of your ancestors? If you really think there is a catastrophe going on, then you are a huge part of it.
Practice what you preach, then maybe we’ll listen to you.
Jeff (@8:33 am), If that is the best you can do in the way of a well-reasoned argument to counter my pointing out to you that you are all being taken for a ride by big vested interests (letting you do all their dirty climate chage denial work for them), I feel doubly sorry for you.
Martin_Lack says:
October 1, 2011 at 9:55 am
What makes you think you’re not being taken for a ride?
FWIW, you haven’t made a well-reasoned argument, so a well-reasoned response isn’t really warranted. All you’ve done is call us names and threaten us. I asked you that if you really think there is a catastrophe going on, doesn’t it behoove you to completely give up the “carbon” lifestyle? Or do you think changing your light bulbs and riding a bike will make it all better? Alarmists such as yourself are demanding a return to pre-industrial levels of CO2. The only way to do that is to get rid of ALL industry. So I’m waiting for alarmists to take that step and give up all their modern conveniences.
I don’t deny “climate change”, but it sounds like you think it should be completely static.
Philip Bradley (@4:15 pm yesterday) “Martin_Lack, I followed the link you provided to your blog. In order to save others time, I’d summarize it as conspiracist nonsense” (emphasis mine).
You’re accusing me of having been duped by a conspiracy? That is the funniest thing I think I have ever heard in my enitre life (and no I am not a humourless hermit – indeed I am reading this blog aren’t I…?). In this context, you really ought to read my latest post, a comment by Robert Cook, and in particular my response to it. You might actually learn something!
[snip]
Martin Lack is a blinkered fool spouting CAGW nonsense. He’s trolling here to get people to click on his pathetic blog in order to raise his low traffic numbers. Don’t take the bait.
Lack lacks any understanding of the null hypothesis, which falsifies the alternate CAGW hypothesis. Lack should get up to speed before emitting his nonsense here at the internet’s Best Science site.
The current global climate, temperature, trends, and rates of change are not only well within the parameters of the Holocene, they are especially benign. We are truly living in a “Goldilocks” climate.
Mendacious propagandists like Lack try to tell people that every weather occurrence, and every unusual event of any kind is proof of CAGW. But those are simply routine fluctuations that happen all the time. Lack needs to study up on the null hypothesis before spouting his alarmist nonsense here.
Smokey, Ignoring for a moment your pathetic, peurile, attempts to make fun of my name, you seem to be overlooking the fact that I am not some spotty-faced teenage philosopher, I have a degree in Geology (so I can put what is now happening into its proper context myself without lectures from you thanks), I have an MSc in Hydrogeology (so I know all about the carbon cycle and the water cycle) and now I have an MA in Environmental Politics (so I understand how so-called “sceptics” have been duped into acting as a “front” for the real criminals in all of this – those that do not want you to change your behaviour in any way).
I am not sure why you keep mentioning null hypothesis but, when conservative think tanks (in the UK at least) start admitting that AGW is real* (even though they still dispute what we should do about it) – I think you guys should accept that the game is up (you lost).
*. e.g. the Adam Smith Institute, Policy Exchange, and the Taxpayer’s Alliance.
Martin_Lack says:
October 1, 2011 at 11:00 am
Hmm – I don’t dispute that there are those on the skeptic side that believe it is an elaborate hoax – conspiratorial skeptics, if you wish – but the vast majority are skeptical because either they understand the science and ‘see’ that its wrong/falsified/over-hyped * (*=delete as required!)
and those that don’t necessarily understand the ‘science’ but can clearly read or observe that climate variation is natural and again, over-hyped in the context of AGW thereby making them skeptical.
Claiming skeptics are conspiracy theorists to boot is rather puerile, IMHO – and clearly demonstrates a likely limited dialogue with scientific type skeptics!
Any elaborate AGW hoax/scam/call it what you will – may well be shown one day – in the meantime, you and your fellow AGW-proponent types need to prove the ‘concensus’ science is correct rather than diss skeptics in such a manner.
extremes vdelete as per your own thoughts)
How about the conspiracy to redefine peer-review, or to hide the decline? Do you think all AGW proponents agree on all aspects of AGW?
Of course you still failed to respond to my main point I made originally, that the only way to reduce CO2 to pre-industrial levels is to get rid of ALL industry, period. Since you’re not inclined to give up your modern conveniences, one can only conclude that you don’t believe what you’re peddling. Maybe you’ve got some fancy degrees, but I can tell you I’ve met some very smart people who had zero common sense.
Again, do you think climate should be static? Do you think a couple degrees of warming is worse than a couple degrees of cooling?
As some of us here seem to be perpetually pointing out…
Temperature is NOT energy
To get the Earths energy, we have to take humidity into account too.
DaveE.
Just like to point out that the eminent Mr. Lack, who has suddenly appeared here like a rabid dog is the very same gentleman who felt motivated to write a damning review of Delingpole’s new book (Watermelons) on Amazon. The review goes into great detail about why the book is wrong in so many ways. Unfortunately, Lack admits that he hasn’t actually read the book.
I think this says more about Lack than he would care to admit.
Just saying……
Steve, the criterion of quality in a surface station air temperature record is accuracy, not inter-station correlation. What were they using as their calibration instrument, to supply an accurate temperature standard at the test stations? Thanks.