Dr. Roger Pielke Sr. draws attention today to a new study that cites Fall et al. 2011 aka the “Surfacestations Paper” that I co-authored, which was a follow up to my original surveys published in Watts 2009. The new paper is:
Martinez, C.J., Maleski, J.J., Miller, M.F, 2012: Trends in precipitation and temperature in Florida, USA. Journal of Hydrology. volume 452-453, issue , year 2012, pp. 259 – 281
They took a look at USHCN stations in Florida, and found some problems, such as trend aberrations introduced in the conversion from Cotton Region Shelters to MMTS starting in the 1980’s that aren’t fully removed by the Menne et al USHCN v2 adjustments.
Dr. Pielke writes:
they conclude in their paper
This work provides a preliminary analysis of historical trends in the climate record in the state of Florida. While this work did not attempt to fully attribute the cause of observed trends, it provides a first step in future attribution to possible causes including multidecadal climate variability, long term regional temperature trends, and potential errors caused by station siting, regional land use/land cover, and data homogenization.
We need more such detailed analyses, in order to further examine the multitude of issues with the USHCN and GHCN analyses of long term temperature and precipitation trends. Despite what is written on the NCDC website for the USHCN website; i.e. that
The U.S. Historical Climatology Network (USHCN, Karl et al. 1990) is a high-quality moderate sized data set of monthly averaged maximum, minimum, and mean temperature and total monthly precipitation developed to assist in the detection of regional climate change.
they are really not as of as high a quality as claimed.
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Entropic man says:
“An abrupt additional heat input to the vicinity of a surface station should cause a step in the temperature graph for that station, with the slope before and after the installation unchanged.”
That is one of those statements whose truth depends on numerous unstated assumptions. Investigate those assumptions, and you will find that many are not necessarily true. In fact, if you ask yourself why you believe your two primary conclusions (that installation of an air conditioner would cause a dramatic step change and that the slope of any trend before and after would be the same for the life of the station) you will probably be able to imagine circunmstances under which neither of those would happen.
Re: suspension of publishing; Cimategate 3.0?
Matt on July 27, 2012 at 9:52 am My contribution: Watts running for president as an independent.
While Romney, Johnson,or my dog Jake would be a vast improvement over the current occupier…er, occupant, Anthony would get my vote over all of them. Well, not over Jake, he’s kind of special to me.
“First, I am well. This isn’t a health issue for me or my family.”
==========
Thank you Anthony, now our thoughts turn to lesser concerns.
JJ says:
July 27, 2012 at 1:08 pm
Entropic man says:
“An abrupt additional heat input to the vicinity of a surface station should cause a step in the temperature graph for that station, with the slope before and after the installation unchanged.”
You reply “That is one of those statements whose truth depends on numerous unstated assumptions.”
“ask yourself why you believe your two primary conclusions (that installation of an air conditioner would cause a dramatic step change and that the slope of any trend before and after would be the same for the life of the station)”
If my two primary conclusions are wrong then the whole premise on which the stations website is based is also wrong.
I still havent had much data. Gail Combes has suggested graphs, but left me to do the legwork myself, assuming her point is immediately obvious, which it is not.
Without knowing more about the history of the airport station, such as when it was built, paved and repaved and when its surroundings became urbanised , how can I properly interpret the graph?
What would make my day on Sunday is to learn that the Romney campaign is announcing that Anthony Watts will be their official advisor on weather and climate issues.
Drum rolllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll ……………………
Dickens Goes Metro on July 27, 2012 at 8:04 am
If every adjustment introduces an error, and if the adjustments are done sequentially, does not the overall adjustment process amplify errors and especially those that were introduced at the beginning of the sequence?
————
No.
The adjustments are intended to remove some forms of error.
While its possible that the adjustments introduce errors of their own those errors are not necessarily all biassed in the same direction and in fact are likely to cancel out to some extent.
lol – the speculation and mystery around the upcoming announcement…
reminds of when my wife says “Um – we have something real important we need to talk about… but you go ahead and do what you need to do first.”
ARRRGHH!!! How can I do anything with that kind of thing hanging over my head????
and then it turns out to be whether we should change the landscaping or something.
Do air conditioners get more powerful with time?
Context is everything.
Air conditioners tend to get used more often over time, though the rate at which they do so tends to be related to what they are being used for. A restaurant accumulating electronic devices or customers tends to need more to maintain the same temperature. A new datacenter tends to be only moderately filled, and over time every nook and cranny gets filled with heat-producing devices…until they get ripped out and replaced and the process begins again.
Entropic man says:
July 27, 2012 at 3:29 pm
…I still havent had much data. Gail Combes has suggested graphs, but left me to do the legwork myself, assuming her point is immediately obvious, which it is not.
________________________________
SIGHhhh
Here is the Norfolk International Airport History complete with time line beginning in 1903 and with commercial flight starting in April 7, 1938
I really hate writing a book in a comment
C’mon mods, everyone knows that the original source of that Heartland thing is George Soros. Will entropic man acknowledge this?
Maybe Kenji has been appointed chairman of the Union of Concerned Scientists.
Either that or he has won a Nobel Peace Prize.
Matt says: My contribution: Watts running for president as an independent.
Great!
One “as” too many in last line.
Keith Pearson, formerly bikermailman, Anonymous no longer says:
July 27, 2012 at 6:52 pm
“C’mon mods, everyone knows that the original source of that Heartland thing is George Soros. Will entropic man acknowledge this”
I dont know where it came from.
[snip – rather than propagate inaccuracies after which the story moved on, jove ~Mod]
Gail Combs says:
July 27, 2012 at 6:18 pm
Entropic man says:
July 27, 2012 at 3:29 pm
…I still havent had much data. Gail Combes has suggested graphs, but left me to do the legwork myself, assuming her point is immediately obvious, which it is not.
________________________________
SIGHhhh
Here is the Norfolk International Airport History complete with time line.
I really hate writing a book in a comment
Thank you for the dates. Now I can analyse the graph better.
I’m afraid this is how a scientific debate should work. If you want to persuade an opponent, you have to do the persuading.
[SNIP: Your continued efforts to present forged documents as “evidence” is wearing thin. You do NOT have a right to comment here and if you keep this up the privilege will be revoked. -REP]
Gail Combs says:
July 27, 2012 at 6:18 pm
Here is the Norfolk International Airport History complete with time line beginning in 1903 and with commercial flight starting in April 7, 1938
————————————————————-
Wrong link?
Gdn says:
July 27, 2012 at 5:48 pm
Do air conditioners get more powerful with time?
Context is everything.
Air conditioners tend to get used more often over time, though the rate at which they do so tends to be related to what they are being used for. A restaurant accumulating electronic devices or customers tends to need more to maintain the same temperature. A new datacenter tends to be only moderately filled, and over time every nook and cranny gets filled with heat-producing devices…until they get ripped out and replaced and the process begins again.
Perhaps the station website should go into more detail regarding the context of the stations it condemms.
I would have thought that after the survey and the surrounding publicity at least the worst positioned stations would have been relocated to better places. Or am I too simple not to grasp the full implications of keeping this data as poor as it now is?
John Marshall says:
July 28, 2012 at 3:16 am
“I would have thought that after the survey and the surrounding publicity at least the worst positioned stations would have been relocated to better places. Or am I too simple not to grasp the full implications of keeping this data as poor as it now is?”
For the meteoroologists this is a no win situation. If you leave the station where it is, you get degraded data because of the development.
If you move to a new site, with a new microclimate, you lose the continuous record which is important for assessing long term trends.
One solution would be a law banning any development liable to distort the data from a weather station, though I doubt that the general population would stand for it.
Moderator, would you please stop removing my posts regarding the Heartland Institute and Mr. Watts. When I arrived on this site a few days ago a moderator assured me that you had an open moderation policy, and any inaccurate statements would be corrected by your posters.
Now you are censoring me!
[REPLY: Richard, an open moderating policy does not mean that you can post false and malicious information. Your continued efforts to do so reek of dishonesty and will not be tolerated. I have no intention of arguing this with you. -REP]
Close to my home is a station in a frost hollow, which gives the lowest winter temperatures for 200 miles. The meteorologists are reluctant to move it after 132 years in place, and have learned to correct for its minor eccentricity.
Entropic man says:
July 28, 2012 at 2:40 am
[SNIP: Your continued efforts to present forged documents as “evidence” is wearing thin. You do NOT have a right to comment here and if you keep this up the privilege will be revoked. -REP]
YOU asked ME to document a guess regarding the Sunday announcement being discussed here, and then removed my response. This is not the open moderation you promised me a couple of days ago.
[REPLY: Nice try, but don’t try it again. If you have links, post them. Expect criticism if they really are untrustworthy. Expect argument if the descriptions are shonky. Very little gets snipped here and it has to be pretty egregious. The moderators will let you know if it is. Stay civil, obey site policy, and everything will be fine. Casting aspersions is a cause to be snipped. Please don’t do it again. -REP]
[Reply – since you are new here – your guess about the announcement was OK but the links were not and some of the ‘facts’ were wrong. To allow you to post this and have have other commentors correct you would have taken the thread off topic which we try to avoid. Regulars here know the story was well covered at the time including the links you provided – here: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/15/some-notes-on-the-heartland-leak/ and corrections. jove, mod]
[REPLY: “open moderation” is for people who are honest. You do not have the right to post to false and forged documents. -REP]