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.
LazyTeenager says: July 27, 2012 at 5:14 pm
[…]
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.
Like this: http://i42.tinypic.com/2luqma8.jpg
I think a larger issue is at hand than air conditioners and ground albedo.
I live in Lakeland, FL about 4 miles from the airport where our local temp and rainfall readings are taken. They’re reporting a total of about 5.5 inches of water in July and I just dumped eleven inches of water out of an aquarium in the back of a pick-up in my driveway which has been setting exposed only since July 5th. Setting in sunlight every day that we had it from 10:30am through 5pm inside a five by six foot by 18 inch tall black lined bed it has received more than double the amount reported for the area.
I’m of the deep statistical suspicion that the reasons we select construction sites for airports make them specifically invalid as locations for environmental and climate data collection stations. Either the air-port is receiving below-average rainfall for the area or my house happens to receive above average rainfall – or both of these statements are wrong.
I doubt any data collected by ANY government placed station, be it Aeronautical or Meteorlogical in nature, can ever be used to produce a model of any form of accuracy.
The simple act of placing all the stations where we can get to them easily has already destroyed the entire historical data set. The information is useless to any form of modeling. Over my lifespan the weather forecasts have become more and more inaccurate. A two headed-coin toss gets it right more often than the local forecast.
LazyTeenager says:
July 27, 2012 at 5:14 pm
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?
————
LazyTeenager says: @ur momisugly July 27, 2012 at 5:14 pm
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.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
And if you believe that, I have a bridge I want to sell….. or maybe I should let Lazy do the selling for me.
On the error in temperature measurements:
Three graphs where GISS (Hansen) progressively adjusts temperature. Text link 1 and link 2
US temperature difference between Raw and final for 1999 – So much for Lazy’s claim that if “..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” ROTFLMAO
Station dropout is another method to make the global temperature “increase”
And then there is this method: Another GISS miss: warming in the Arctic – the adjustments are key
Here is an actual Analysis of Error by a NASA engineer showing When we look at the CRU error budget and error margins we find a glimmer of reality setting in, in that there is no way to detect the claimed warming trend with the claimed accuracy.
Additional data backing up the above Error Analysis link
And as the real kicker, the temperature data set they forgot to ‘adjust’ Study finds stream temperatures don’t parallel warming climate trend
And the real reason WHY of the “adjustments” link
Sorry Lazy that dog don’t hunt any more. He is dead lame in all four feet and his nose has been cut off. I suggest you give it a pass the next time the subject comes up.
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.
Speculation ! plus “biased”
Gail Combs, thanx for the links. Just eyeballing the AMO index sinewave function on one of your links, it appears the peaks and valleys are increasingly higher over time.
Steve Keohane,
You da man!!
petermue says:
July 28, 2012 at 2:52 am
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?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
OOPs sorry thats what I get for having more than one window up and trying to imbed it. The actual link is: http://www.norfolkairport.com/airport-information/norfolk-airport-authority/mission-and-history
agwnot says:
July 28, 2012 at 5:14 am
Gail Combs, thanx for the links. Just eyeballing the AMO index sinewave function on one of your links, it appears the peaks and valleys are increasingly higher over time.
___________________________
Yes there is more than one climate cycle that has been identified.
Joan Feyman (Richard Feyman’s sister) has found for the particular 850-year period they studied. NASA: …The Nile water levels and aurora records had two somewhat regularly occurring variations in common – one with a period of about 88 years and the second with a period of about 200 years. The researchers said the findings have climate implications that extend far beyond the Nile River basin. The link to the peer reviewed paper.
The Milanchovitch cycles are the well known classic. The link to the peer reviewed 2006 paper updating the cycles by looking at the rate of CHANGE in the amount of ice volume.
E. M. Smith discusses the well known 1470 year cycle of Bond Events and Dansgaard-Oeschger events. link 1and link 2 and link 3 and link 4
If you really want a long cycle there is Dr. Nir J. Shaviv and his The Milky Way Galaxy’s Spiral Arms and Ice-Age Epochs and the Cosmic Ray Connection
Dr. Nir J. Shaviv is an Israeli‐American physics professor, carrying out research in the fields of astrophysics and climate science. He is currently an associate professor at the Racah Institute of Physics of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
If you are unaware of the cyclical nature of the earth’s climate then you can be stampeded by the propaganda designed to part you from your wealth and freedom. It is the reason most geologists or anyone with training in geology laugh there heads off at CAGW.
TerryS says:
July 28, 2012 at 4:15 am
“You would think that with all the billions getting pumped into climate science that they could spare some money to perform actual experiments and measure the effect.”[of development on weather stations]
They have; try this one.
http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/ushcn/v2/monthly/menne-etal2010.pdf
Entropic man says:
July 28, 2012 at 6:44 am
But with a little more thoroughness a publication that differs in its conclusions was written: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/05/11/the-long-awaited-surfacestations-paper/
funny, reading this thread a scene from Holy Grail popped into my mind, when Arthur is trying to have a chat with Dennis the Peasant:
“HEP! I’m bein’ repressed! I’m bein’ repressed! See the violence inherent in the system! See the violence inherent in the system!!!”
of course he should never have told Arthur that “strange women lyin’ in ponds distributin’ swords is no basis for a system of government!”
I comne to the Watts site to get informed and read and be educated by the intelligent commentary of the many regular commentors here . I thank all of you for that and for the relatively easy to obtain education . I’ve also learned to ignore a few commenters such as lazy teenager and entropic man and w. connelly who bring deception and no valuable contribution other than the intelligent rebuttals that come from the regular commentors.
Entropic man says:
If my two primary conclusions are wrong then the whole premise on which the stations website is based is also wrong.
Absolute nonsense.
The premise of the stations website does not depend on non-climate signals in the temp record being only abrupt step changes, Your “argument” does. And, not uninterestingly, so does the mechanism of the popular homogenization schemes employed by “climate scientists”.
You have been presented above with examples of circumstances which may cause the installation of an air conditioning unit in the vicinity of a temp station to behave other than as an abrupt step change:
1) The magnitude of the introdued signal may be smaller than the variability of the data.
2) As air conditioners age, they become less efficient. They produce more waste heat for the same operation parameters.
3) The operation parameters frequently change over the life of the unit.
3a) When a unit is installed, it is often just used to clip the peaks off the hottest days of the summer. As people become more used to indoor climate control, they begin to use it to maintain a constant indoor temperature, and that temperature tends to drop. This causes the temp at the heat exchanger of the unit to rise.
3b) Over time, heat generating activities within the building tend to increase, causing the air conditioning unit to run harder. My first home had a 30 watt electrical service. If you ran the toaster and the radio at the same time, the kitchen fuse would blow. Today, standard residential electrical service is 200 watts. A nearly seven fold increase in the amount of heat dissapated within the building is ultimately funneled thru the waste stream of the cooling system.
3c) Actual temperature increases in the microclimates of the building and air conditioning unit, (whether natural climate change, anthropogenic climate change, or some other non-climate signal such as UHI) function to both increase the cooling load on the unit, and reduce its efficiency. This causes the unit to amplify those other signals.
If you are reasonably intelligent and honest, you can probably come up with additional examples of your own.
Gail Combes, thank you. When I put the two Norfolk graphs on a light box the results were interesting. From 1960 on, the two graphs showed a strong link with each other (and, approximately, with the AMO). The airport showed a consistent warming of about 0.5C compared with the city, which could well be the new runway
Before 1960 the city was about 2C warmer than the airport, despite the runway laid in 1938. The airport station seems to behave more like the rural stations.
Without detailed data on the area I would hypothesise that the main driver in the changes to the airport station was urbanisation of the northern part of the city from 1960, the old runway not having much effect on airport temperatures. Any thoughts?
JJ says:
July 28, 2012 at 7:55 am
“If you are reasonably intelligent and honest, you can probably come up with additional examples of your own.”
And therein lies a lot of the problem! You gave a masterful description regarding the complexities of air conditioner operation, but it rather makes the problem worse.
Menne et al concluded that the overall effect of environmental distortion was was neutral; Watts et al concluded some false warming. Both agreed that a large proportion of the stations suffered some +ve or -ve distortion.
If the processes generating the distortion are so complex that we cannot reliably compensate , 90% the temperature data become useless and neither side, warmist or coolist has much chance of proving a case using it.
Before either side can prove its point, we need a more positive attitude. I would encourage Mr. Watts to stop running the record down and look for ways of salvaging the maximum amount of data from it. Any ideas?
From Entropic man on July 28, 2012 at 3:37 am:
So bad data is better than no data at all?
If what’s being measured is trends in airplane traffic or air conditioner usage, or there are spikes from using the barbee or burning trash, how does that serve science? All that does is yield higher high temperature readings. And if that’s what you want, to show modern temperatures are higher than in the past (when an instrument didn’t have those influences), then proper siting is much less of an issue.
If you move to a new site without those influences, and get cleaner data that actually measures the real local climate, how can that not be a benefit? Call the old data corrupted and start a new record.
Why the worry about the local micro-climate? Hansen has GISS smearing temperature data up to 1200 km, more than the distance between Chicago, Illinois and Atlanta, Georgia. People are quite willing to complain about global warming without worrying about even regional temperature trends. If “experts” don’t worry about such continuous records when deciding what the long-term trends must be, how can that be an issue?
That you could even propose such says a lot about you. You would prevent a farmer from clearing a wooded area on their own land for farming, which would be a land-use change, for the sake of a thermometer? You would prevent someone from building a house, or garage, or putting in a paved driveway?
And it’ll have to be a national law for consistency. Repeated in every country supplying temperature data for the global indexes. Perhaps you want it as a UN law, so it covers Antarctica and the oceans as well?
And you think the unwashed masses, excuse me, the general population, would be the ones who wouldn’t stand for that? Fascinating.
Entropic man says:
JJ says:
“If you are , you can probably come up with additional examples of your own.”
And therein lies a lot of the problem!
I concur. The problem is that you are not reasonably intelligent and honest.
You gave a masterful description regarding the complexities of air conditioner operation,…
Actually, what I gave was multiple counterexamples to your conclusion/assumption that a signal contaminant such as an air conditioner next to a temp station would necessarily be an abrupt step change incident at the time of installation, with unchanged slope before and after. Talking around it doesn’t address it.
“… but it rather makes the problem worse..
No, it makes the problem clearer.
Menne et al concluded that the overall effect of environmental distortion was was neutral;
Menne’s homogenation methodology operates on abrupt step changes. Perhaps you see the relevance.
If the processes generating the distortion are so complex that we cannot reliably compensate , 90% the temperature data become useless and neither side, warmist or coolist has much chance of proving a case using it.
The sides are not ‘warmist’ and ‘coolist’. The sides are ‘we are certain of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming’ and ‘no, you are not’. Only one of those ‘sides’ is hampered by contaminated data.
Given that the data in question were not collected for the purposes of predictive global climatology, we should not be surprised that they are not sufficient for that purpose. Pigs ears, silk purses, etc.
Entropic man on July 28, 2012 at 9:07 am:
Menne 2010 used an incomplete list from the surfacestations project, only 43%, that wasn’t current and wasn’t quality controlled, said data basically misappropriated from Anthony and the project in what was termed a “professional discourtesy”. Others would call it stealing.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/01/27/rumours-of-my-death-have-been-greatly-exaggerated/
Based on that incompleteness, problems in methodology and what was actually being (erroneously) compared to reach their conclusions, etc, Menne 2010 should be disregarded.
The other paper that should be considered, which would not be the earlier Watts 2009 but the more-complete follow-up paper Fall et al 2011 (aka the Surfacestations Paper), should be regarded as authoritative.
Please feel free to convince fellow “warmists” they should stop using those records to claim dangerous global warming is occurring.
Meanwhile you can stick to the satellite record for modern times.
Before you can identify how to salvage the data and how much should be salvaged, first step should be identifying how the data has been screwed up. Thus your recommendation is Anthony should stop checking and reporting how it is screwed up?
Mueller with newrelease
http://reason.com/blog/2012/07/28/new-global-temperature-data-reanlysis-co
The “converted sceptic” meme still doesn’t sound convincing in the context of his climate business background and prior quotes.
Let’s see if his work improves anything from the last piece, which includes the implausible UHI result, and the total neglect to explain deviation of land temperatures from ocean temoperatures and satellite data.
Most important is probably the last point, “I expect the rate of warming to proceed at a steady pace, about 1.5 degree F over land in the next 50 years”.
That would just be about 2 degrees Celsius in a 100 years over land and much less over land and oceans combined, without doing anything and comes pretty close to sceptics estimations and is far off the IPCC estimate.
I wonder why he is talking in Fahrenheit, looks bigger that way…
Entropic man says: @ur momisugly July 28, 2012 at 9:07 am
….If the processes generating the distortion are so complex that we cannot reliably compensate , 90% the temperature data become useless and neither side, warmist or coolist has much chance of proving a case using it.
Before either side can prove its point, we need a more positive attitude. I would encourage Mr. Watts to stop running the record down and look for ways of salvaging the maximum amount of data from it. Any ideas?
_______________________________
I think you would have to examine each record very carefully. As you just saw with the two Norfolk data sets, you have the influence of the ocean, urbanization and the airport. Other records are discontinuous, the stations have been moved and Cthulu knows what else.
Frank Lancer has done some work: http://hidethedecline.eu/pages/posts/ruti-global-land-temperatures-1880-2010-part-1-244.php
And of course so have a lot of people here a WUWT: such as :link and link
AJ Strata, a NASA engineer, did an error analysis: link that sums up the situation best. We just do not have the accuracy or precision to be making the statements that are being made from the historical land based data. Joanne Nova confirms this with her article Australian temperature records shoddy, inaccurate, unreliable.
And this is from another large chunk of land where we would expect the data to be of the best quality!
On top of that as a few commenters have mentioned the heat content of the air is not just temperature but has to also include the humidity. The relative humidity has been decreasing over the time period that the temperature was increasing (1948 – 2004) link
From my point of view the data is being treated as if it came out of a precision analytical lab with calibrated equipment and college educated lab techs when it is actually coming from field measurements using also ran equipment and who know what type of operators.
Silk and sows ears come to mind.
johnmcguire on July 28, 2012 at 7:27 am
I comne to the Watts site to get informed and read and be educated by the intelligent commentary of the many regular commentors here . I thank all of you for that and for the relatively easy to obtain education . I’ve also learned to ignore a few commenters such as lazy teenager and entropic man and w. connelly who bring deception and no valuable contribution other than the intelligent rebuttals that come from the regular commenters.
For a layman such as I, the back and forth that is elicited, whether from lazy teenager, or from Dr Svaalsgard (no disrespect to him, there are just discussions of facts), is usually helpful. If there’s trolling or laziness involved, people such as Gail jump into the breech with a cluehammer built from facts. Other times, there is a legitimate back and forth between people who both know their stuff, but just differ on conclusions. Either way, it’s helpful for me, and no doubt many others, and is much appreciated.
Do air conditioners get more powerful with time?
Based on my experience, it likely is not the air conditioner’s power that changes –but rather people’s expectations and presumed right to be comfortable. 40 years ago, air conditioners were rare in my state. 30 years ago, the well-to-do had air conditioners. 20 years ago, air conditioners were common, but were used only on really hot days — why spend money unnecessarily? 10 years ago, people adopted the attitude that they had the right to be comfortable all the time, but they still opened windows on cool evenings. Now, opening windows is too much work, and most air conditioners are now running 24/7.
Dickens Goes Metro says:
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?
Unless you can prove you have knowledge of the error factor somewhere between 1 and 0, yes.
LazyTeenager says:
July 27, 2012 at 5:14 pm
Lazy Teenager,
You are making quite a leap of faith here.
I know adjustments SHOULD be intended to remove some form of error; but sad to say, the results of most adjustments are reinforcements of someone’s agenda. GISS has many unexplained adjustments to its database:
http://www.climate4you.com/ClimateReflections.htm#28012012: Reflections on effects on NCDC and GISS global data series by transition to GHCN version 3
In a world interested in the facts, raw databases would always be available. Adjusted versions of those databases would have detailed explanations of EVERY single adjustments. This, sadly, is not the case. We are simply informed (sometimes) that adjustments have been made to “correct errors.”
Imagine the uproar if votes in the upcoming election were ‘adjusted’ by poll monitors.
However if I’m wrong, please demonstrate how GISS has made its adjustments.
”
An Inquirer says:
July 28, 2012 at 9:29 pm
Do air conditioners get more powerful with time?
Based on my experience, it likely is not the air conditioner’s power that changes –but rather people’s expectations and presumed right to be comfortable. 40 years ago, air conditioners were rare in my state. 30 years ago, the well-to-do had air conditioners. 20 years ago, air conditioners were common, but were used only on really hot days — why spend money unnecessarily? 10 years ago, people adopted the attitude that they had the right to be comfortable all the time, but they still opened windows on cool evenings. Now, opening windows is too much work, and most air conditioners are now running 24/7.
”
Actually, more and more people were able to afford some comfort and chose that over misery and over heat stroke. A/C efficiencies have risen tremendously over the years just as prices have dropped. However, efficiencies tend to drop due to maintenance issues and common wear and tear. This is perhaps what is being wondered about in the original post on A/C changes over time.
Living in places where A/C units sometime have to run during the Christmas holidays, I don’t think we pay much more for the A/C power now (in kWh not in $) than back when we first got A/C and I was able to retire the fan and close the window. Not having to spend the night in 90% + humidity and 80+ deg. heat also permits one to sleep, reduces the amount mold and mildew present, and cut back a little bit on the need for multiple showers per day and the economic costs of those.