PRESS RELEASE – U.S. Temperature trends show a spurious doubling due to NOAA station siting problems and post measurement adjustments.
Chico, CA July 29th, 2012 – 12 PM PDT – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
A comparison and summary of trends is shown from the paper. Acceptably placed thermometers away from common urban influences read much cooler nationwide:
A reanalysis of U.S. surface station temperatures has been performed using the recently WMO-approved Siting Classification System devised by METEO-France’s Michel Leroy. The new siting classification more accurately characterizes the quality of the location in terms of monitoring long-term spatially representative surface temperature trends. The new analysis demonstrates that reported 1979-2008 U.S. temperature trends are spuriously doubled, with 92% of that over-estimation resulting from erroneous NOAA adjustments of well-sited stations upward. The paper is the first to use the updated siting system which addresses USHCN siting issues and data adjustments.
The new improved assessment, for the years 1979 to 2008, yields a trend of +0.155C per decade from the high quality sites, a +0.248 C per decade trend for poorly sited locations, and a trend of +0.309 C per decade after NOAA adjusts the data. This issue of station siting quality is expected to be an issue with respect to the monitoring of land surface temperature throughout the Global Historical Climate Network and in the BEST network.
Today, a new paper has been released that is the culmination of knowledge gleaned from five years of work by Anthony Watts and the many volunteers and contributors to the SurfaceStations project started in 2007.
This pre-publication draft paper, titled An area and distance weighted analysis of the impacts of station exposure on the U.S. Historical Climatology Network temperatures and temperature trends, is co-authored by Anthony Watts of California, Evan Jones of New York, Stephen McIntyre of Toronto, Canada, and Dr. John R. Christy from the Department of Atmospheric Science, University of Alabama, Huntsville, is to be submitted for publication.
The pre-release of this paper follows the practice embraced by Dr. Richard Muller, of the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project in a June 2011 interview with Scientific American’s Michael Lemonick in “Science Talk”, said:
I know that is prior to acceptance, but in the tradition that I grew up in (under Nobel Laureate Luis Alvarez) we always widely distributed “preprints” of papers prior to their publication or even submission. That guaranteed a much wider peer review than we obtained from mere referees.
The USHCN is one of the main metrics used to gauge the temperature changes in the United States. The first wide scale effort to address siting issues, Watts, (2009), a collated photographic survey, showed that approximately 90% of USHCN stations were compromised by encroachment of urbanity in the form of heat sinks and sources, such as concrete, asphalt, air conditioning system heat exchangers, roadways, airport tarmac, and other issues. This finding was backed up by an August 2011 U.S. General Accounting Office investigation and report titled: Climate Monitoring: NOAA Can Improve Management of the U.S. Historical Climatology Network
All three papers examining the station siting issue, using early data gathered by the SurfaceStations project, Menne et al (2010), authored by Dr. Matt Menne of NCDC, Fall et al, 2011, authored by Dr. Souleymane Fall of Tuskeegee University and co-authored by Anthony Watts, and Muller et al 2012, authored by Dr. Richard Muller of the University of California, Berkeley and founder of the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Project (BEST) were inconclusive in finding effects on temperature trends used to gauge the temperature change in the United States over the last century.
Lead author of the paper, Anthony Watts, commented:
“I fully accept the previous findings of these papers, including that of the Muller et al 2012 paper. These investigators found exactly what would be expected given the siting metadata they had. However, the Leroy 1999 site rating method employed to create the early metadata, and employed in the Fall et al 2011 paper I co-authored was incomplete, and didn’t properly quantify the effects.
The new rating method employed finds that station siting does indeed have a significant effect on temperature trends.”
Watts et al 2012 has employed a new methodology for station siting, pioneered by Michel Leroy of METEOFrance in 2010, in the paper Leroy 2010, and endorsed by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Commission for Instruments and Methods of Observation (CIMO-XV, 2010) Fifteenth session, in September 2010 as a WMO-ISO standard, making it suitable for reevaluating previous studies on the issue of station siting.
Previous papers all used a distance only rating system from Leroy 1999, to gauge the impact of heat sinks and sources near thermometers. Leroy 2010 shows that method to be effective for siting new stations, such as was done by NCDC adopting Leroy 1999 methods with their Climate Reference Network (CRN) in 2002 but ineffective at retroactive siting evaluation.
Leroy 2010 adds one simple but effective physical metric; surface area of the heat sinks/sources within the thermometer viewshed to quantify the total heat dissipation effect.
Using the new Leroy 2010 classification system on the older siting metadata used by Fall et al. (2011), Menne et al. (2010), and Muller et al. (2012), yields dramatically different results.
Using Leroy 2010 methods, the Watts et al 2012 paper, which studies several aspects of USHCN siting issues and data adjustments, concludes that:
These factors, combined with station siting issues, have led to a spurious doubling of U.S. mean temperature trends in the 30 year data period covered by the study from 1979 – 2008.
Other findings include, but are not limited to:
· Statistically significant differences between compliant and non-compliant stations exist, as well as urban and rural stations.
· Poorly sited station trends are adjusted sharply upward, and well sited stations are adjusted upward to match the already-adjusted poor stations.
· Well sited rural stations show a warming nearly three times greater after NOAA adjustment is applied.
· Urban sites warm more rapidly than semi-urban sites, which in turn warm more rapidly than rural sites.
· The raw data Tmean trend for well sited stations is 0.15°C per decade lower than adjusted Tmean trend for poorly sited stations.
· Airport USHCN stations show a significant differences in trends than other USHCN stations, and due to equipment issues and other problems, may not be representative stations for monitoring climate.
###
We will continue to investigate other issues related to bias and adjustments such as TOBs in future studies.
FILES:
This press release in PDF form: Watts_et_al 2012_PRESS RELEASE (PDF)
The paper in draft form: Watts-et-al_2012_discussion_paper_webrelease (PDF)
The Figures for the paper: Watts et al 2012 Figures and Tables (PDF)
A PowerPoint presentation of findings with many additional figures is available online:
Overview -Watts et al Station Siting 8-3-12 (PPT) UPDATED
Methodology – Graphs Presentation (.PPT)
Some additional files may be added as needed.
Contact:
Anthony Watts at: http://wattsupwiththat.com/about-wuwt/contact-2/
References:
GAO-11-800 August 31, 2011, Climate Monitoring: NOAA Can Improve Management of the U.S. Historical Climatology Network Highlights Page (PDF) Full Report (PDF, 47 pages) Accessible Text Recommendations (HTML)
Fall, S., Watts, A., Nielsen‐Gammon, J. Jones, E. Niyogi, D. Christy, J. and Pielke, R.A. Sr., 2011, Analysis of the impacts of station exposure on the U.S. Historical Climatology Network temperatures and temperature trends, Journal of Geophysical Research, 116, D14120, doi:10.1029/2010JD015146, 2011
Leroy, M., 1999: Classification d’un site. Note Technique no. 35. Direction des Systèmes d’Observation, Météo-France, 12 pp.
Leroy, M., 2010: Siting Classification for Surface Observing Stations on Land, Climate, and Upper-air Observations JMA/WMO Workshop on Quality Management in Surface, Tokyo, Japan 27-30 July 2010 http://www.jma.go.jp/jma/en/Activities/qmws_2010/CountryReport/CS202_Leroy.pdf
Menne, M. J., C. N. Williams Jr., and M. A. Palecki, 2010: On the reliability of the U.S. surface temperature record, J. Geophys. Res., 115, D11108, doi:10.1029/2009JD013094
Muller, R.A., Curry, J., Groom, D. Jacobsen, R.,Perlmutter, S. Rohde, R. Rosenfeld, A., Wickham, C., Wurtele, J., 2012: Earth Atmospheric Land Surface Temperature and Station Quality in the United States. http://berkeleyearth.org/pdf/berkeley-earth-station-quality.pdf
Watts, A., 2009: Is the U.S. surface temperature record reliable? Published online at: http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/surfacestationsreport_spring09.pdf
World Meteorological Organization Commission for Instruments and Methods of Observation, Fifteenth session, (CIMO-XV, 2010) WMO publication Number 1064, available online at: http://www.wmo.int/pages/prog/www/CIMO/CIMO15-WMO1064/1064_en.pdf
Notes:
1. The SurfaceStations project was a crowd sourcing project started in June 2007, done entirely with citizen volunteers (over 650), created in response to the realization that very little physical site survey metadata exists for the entire United States Historical Climatological Network (USHCN) and Global Historical Climatological Network (GHCN) surface station records worldwide. This realization came about from a discussion of a paper and some new information that occurred on Dr. Roger Pielke Sr. Research Group Weblog. In particular, a thread regarding the paper: Pielke Sr., R.A., C. Davey, D. Niyogi, S. Fall, J. Steinweg-Woods, K. Hubbard, X. Lin, M. Cai, Y.-K. Lim, H. Li, J. Nielsen-Gammon, K. Gallo, R. Hale, R. Mahmood, R.T. McNider, and P. Blanken, 2007: Unresolved issues with the assessment of multi-decadal global land surface temperature trends. J. Geophys. Res.
2. Some files in the initial press release had some small typographical errors. These have been corrected. Please click on links above for new press release and figures files.
3. A work page has been established for Watts et al 2012 for the purpose of managing updates. You can view it here.
==========================================================
Note: This will be top post for a couple of days, new posts will appear below this one. Kinda burned out and have submission to make so don’t expect much new for a day or two. See post below this for a few notes on backstory. Thanks everybody! – Anthony
NOTE: 7/31/12 this thread has gotten large and unable to load for some commenters, it continues here.
Steve Koch says:
July 29, 2012 at 1:04 pm
Congrats, great stuff. Wonderful to see the meteorological standard being used to standardize the methodology. Also great to see the wide distribution of the paper before submission, should make for a more honest and thorough review process and expedite feedback from all perspectives. Poor Muller, your paper takes the wind out of his sails (GIGO).
Beyond the scope of your paper, why is the emphasis in climatology on average temps rather than total heat (why isn’t humidity factored in?). Also don’t understand how surface temps can be used to calculate global warming or cooling when the vast majority of climate heat is stored in the oceans. Last, it seems like the process of computing ocean heat content is not as open as it might be.
Steve – I have stated multiple times that the climatologists are all gathered under the lamppost as its light there – using atmospheric temperature when they should be measuring atmospheric heat content in kilojoules per kilogram taking account of the enthalpy.
Gail Combs has effectively tasked me to assess this 😉 . I hope to generate the integral of heat content for some weather stations using various humidity and enthalpy formulas. I have an idea that the daily heat content may not actually change as the humidity drops and the temperature rises and vice versa.
Great job!
Very well done Anthony et al. It appears to be an excellent and very robust analysis and paper. Roy Spenser just updated his US temperature trend from the satellite record, http://www.drroyspenser.com, it seems to agree quite well with your results.
Turns out the experts were right … Most of their warming really was man made!
– dT
/slow clap
Donation forthcoming – my small part.
I enjoyed the initial read.
Now we need a mechanism to evaluate the adjustments to the historic record, particulally the lowering pre-WW2.
MISO isn’t going to be very happy that they were left out of this ‘operating’ their own territory; please, we went through this once before.
Notice the PJM vs MISO areas: http://www.miso-pjm.com/
The text you copied from Fox has issues …
.
Typo line 789: missing the word “in”
Line 790: “its” should be “their”
So in the end it was BEST versus WATTs et al hahaha. Mosher has been a great contributor but best at Gleick type investigations please leave meteorologists do their work no hard feelings
evanmjones says:
NOBODY!
NOBODY!
NOBODY BEATS THE REV!
Music to my ears, Evan. Only yesterday I was remembering those words of yours, that I’ve not heard for a long time. I am very happy for all of you, for this time all four authors have integrity and the one who deserves to carry the name is carrying it. Anthony Watts.
Very warm congratulations
ps I look forward to audit from ALL sides, including “Funny Bunny” Rabett. And I look forward to reading the paper myself with a bit more care.
pps I think I was right on all three of my prognostications at CA. 🙂
Anthony, et al,
Excellent paper. Lot’s of well-researched data, comprehensive analysis, good use of graphics, compelling conclusions. It will be interesting to see how others respond to you work.
In case nobody has seen there’s a typo in the first word line 387 should read Many I think.
Excellent work! Even the usual trolls daren’t touch this one until they have considered the implications for themselves.
As a heads up, line 387 has a typo. It says, “May airports, due to….” Obviously, that should be, “Many.”
here is Josh
http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/artwork/josh/josh_skewered_best-muller.jpg
dana1981 says:
July 29, 2012 at 1:34 pm
An interesting question, dana, but you haven’t thought it all the way through. Since the 95% confidence interval on the UAH trend is ± 0.13°C/decade, and the UAH value after the Klotzbach correction is 0.22°C/decade, I don’t see a problem …
w.
At 1:13 PM on 29 July, Rogelio Diaz had posted:
Well, that was pretty obvious from the moment the United Nations began the process resulting in the creation of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 1988.
This preposterous bogosity was first brought to my attention in 1981 by Dr. Petr Beckmann, with whom I was regularly corresponding in the days before e-mail made exchanges and attachments so wonderfully swift and easy. By that date, Dr. Beckmann had been collating the results of AGW alarmists’ publishing efforts and commentary thereon, and he thought I’d be interested in it. He knew I was a fan of “hard” science fiction, with much amateur attention paid to the craft of “world building” in speculation about what conditions might be like on particular planets where SF stories were set. The late Hal Clement (a high school science teacher in his day job) had regularly provided presentations on constraints and potentialities as part of the “writing” track at science fiction conventions for many years.
Though I’m just a family doctor, Beckmann claimed to be interested in my “take” on these allegations of detrimental CO2-induced global temperature increases.
With the caveat that I’m better educated in physiology than atmospheric physics, I sent Dr. Beckmann my “horseback diagnosis:”
I mean, how could anybody competent to assess the results of an arterial blood gases analysis and regulate a patient’s supplemental oxygen administration not realize that?
Dr. Beckmann had set up a dial-in computer bulletin board system (BBS) he called “Fort Freedom” to make available the materials he’d been aggregating on this and other subjects, and he kept compiling information there until his death in 1993.
But Dr. Beckmann was the first to bring this hokum to my attention, and he had it tagged from the beginning as one of Mencken’s “endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary” being exploited by the politicians “to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety).”
Good job, guys. The paper is very informative, and surfaces issues that we should know about. Thanks for all your hard work, Anthony. Plus, your surface stations project has yielded definite dividends.
Is there an addendum showing all the calculations?
Excellent paper on first reading and with some very important results. My congratulations.
Line 387 ‘May’ should be ‘Many’. Line 582 I wouid not capitalise ‘Will….’ as it follows on, perhaps 1.) and 2.) should finish with a comma.
“is to be submitted for publication” To which journal?
I like the article and it should be published in a respected journal. Congratulations to everybody who worked on it!
Scott – quite right. I should have referred to the vast majority not having a clue. My mistake. The overall theme of my post i.e. be critical, and not just with respect to the presentation, is far from misplaced, however.
“Watts, McIntyre & Christy”
T’was glad to know ’em, dear gentle hearted men, they were, most o’ the time anyway.
REPLY: Do not DARE to dismiss Mr. Evan Jones. I am in his perpetual debt. His work was critical to this study. – Anthony
Fig. 17 top center one data point off the bottom of the graph. One off the top in bottom center.
Certain UN plans, you know the one that has an “Agenda” direct people out of the rural areas into urban areas to limit human footprint on earth. But now we see that it’s the urban areas that are cause the ambient warming signal, if any. The rest seems to be minimal or background IMHO.
Best reminds me of our typical big government cronies, who all revel in the ribbon cutting ceremony, but who are never around to deal with the fallout from their failed ideas.
WOW, Pielke, Sr. is quite confident that this paper is “seminal” and a “game changer”:
Pielke, Sr. praises Watts et al (2012)
He had time for careful advance review as noted in the paper’s acknowledgements:
acknowledgement at end of paper:
“Special thanks are given to Dr. Roger Pielke Sr. for inspiration, advice, and technical proofreading of this study”
Ooops – Figure 16……