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.
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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.
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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.
Just woken up down here, haven’t read the paper yet. (having eye problems at the moment so could take quite a while, also try to ignoro typos)
But from the descriptions , these new calculations seem to deal with the actual sites and at-site changes in heat absorbing surfaces. Good stuff 🙂
I problem I have is that some of the few sites still classed as “good” may also be affected by urban expansion in the general vicinity. For example, if a site is downwind (prevailing), but close to, an ever expanding urban area, how much does this affect temperature measurements? Is there any way of quantifying this?
Dear Anthony et al. – hearty congratulations, and my personal thanks for including a nice simple powerpoint presentation.
May I suggest a more punchy title for the press release might be:
“Applying UN standard shows half of US warming is spurious.”
And somewhere near the top:
“The US climate network has generally been considered one of the highest quality in the world.”
I look forward to the next study covering 1998 to the present!
Is there a Klotzbach et al (2011). which refers to the amplification? Did I miss an update?
Flew the pattern at Turner Field, north-northeast of Philadelphia 1963-4, when in high school. Early morning in some seasons, there would typically be crunchy, white frost on the ground in our countryside and every square foot north, and a thaw line running right around the built-up suburbs, looking toward the city, beyond which all was dark.
Heat Island Effect is visible, mile after mile, decade after decade. Hundreds of thousands of pilot witnesses can’t all be greedy, hateful conservatives.
AnonyMoose said on July 29, 2012 at 1:11 pm
The pooch is a physicist, and a he-dog? Worse than we thought.
How to Teach Physics to Your Dog
How to Teach Quantum Physics to Your Dog
How to Teach Relativity to Your Dog
Leading to this news item:
Canine Physicists Close in on Elusive ‘Dog Particle’
Shall we now guess the specialty of respected Union of Concerned Scientists’ member Kenji Watts?
BTW, it would be interesting if Anthony would provide Kenji a copy of the NYT, or at least the relevant printout, so Kenji can provide a critical evaluation of Mueller’s opinion piece. Anthony can post a photo of the marked-up response. (Why not? No Friday Funny last week, certain ungrateful cretins feel we’re owed a humor piece.)
This stuff is so solid, it may even force converted sceptics convert once more.
However, there are good points Muller has made in NYT op-ed:
“Hurricane Katrina cannot be attributed to global warming. The number of hurricanes hitting the United States has been going down, not up; likewise for intense tornadoes. Polar bears aren’t dying from receding ice, and the Himalayan glaciers aren’t going to melt by 2035. And it’s possible that we are currently no warmer than we were a thousand years ago, during the “Medieval Warm Period” or “Medieval Optimum,” an interval of warm conditions known from historical records and indirect evidence like tree rings. And the recent warm spell in the United States happens to be more than offset by cooling elsewhere in the world, so its link to “global” warming is weaker than tenuous.”
Nothing else has convinced me but that.
Thanks Anthony et al. Great timing.
PS: and it goes without saying.. GOOD WORK , all involved :-)))))
[cross post with Bishop Hill] I think that JonasM and Matthu are emphasizing an absolutely critical point.
[first make all necessary caveats that Watts et al (2012) must go through extensive scrutiny, peer review etc…..IF it survives that relatively unscathed none of us here can assess all the implications for other papers…. BUT]
IF the implications of Watts et al (2012) are roughly what Roger Pielke, Sr. has stated (and he was the technical proofreader so evidently has had some considerable opportunity to analyze this paper)…..
THEN there must be large numbers of prior papers in a variety of areas which must be re-assessed, re-written, superseded by new papers with different data etc. One need not attribute any ill intent or ill behavior to anyone in the past to observe that a lot of papers are out there which rely upon data from the surface records which are now in doubt.
Recall how Myles Allen expressed here awhile ago his concern (relating to “Climategate” matters) that *IF* there had been problems with the datasets of surface temps then a large number of his own papers might be in question.
That is the potential “tectonic” implication of this Watts et al (2012) paper, I would think… again speaking hypothetically, since I can’t assess it, but taking Pielke Sr. as a point of discussion…. how many papers out there relied upon the surface temp data which has now been undermined???
So guess who crawled out of the BEST woodwork today in response (I guess)….
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/28/converted-skeptic-humans-driving-recent-warming/
The scientific community will probably react with a collective sigh of relief, having averted the prospect of incorrect scientific results leading to misguided policy prescriptions.
They’ll probably treat Watts like a hero, since I’m told that all they’re interested in is doing good scientific work. It will warm my heart when I (will soon) see the scientific community accept the conclusions driven by the data, no matter what those may be. I can’t wait!
Two thumbs high up in the air!
Well done!
@ur momisugly Justthinkin says:
“an unprecedented thunderstorm in Edmonton”
Methinks you may have been reading too many alarmist newspaper reports 😉
As attested by the authors itself, TOB change is a major bias in the recent US temperature data (L. 783):
“We are investigating other factors such as Time-Of-Observation changes which for the adjusted USHCNv2 is the dominant adjustment factor during 1979-2008.”
If the goal of the paper was to focus on sitting issues, why do you not use the TOB adjusted data ?
IMHO, the results do not allow to differenciate “good” adjustments (TOB) from “bad” adjustments…
Line 758/759
“The odds of this result having occurred randomly are quite small.”
How small?
[some reviewers might also think “odds” are for horses, and that “probability” is a better word to use]
Line 789
“…which result making it difficult…”
May read better as “…which result in making it difficult…”
Line 806
“..really warm conditions…”
“Really warm…” sounds a bit too casual and imprecise.
Line 807/808.
What is the approximate fraction/number of sites near water treatment plants in USHCN?
Line 812
“It is difficult, however, to be certain of the true effect thanks to the relatively…”
Suggest replace “thanks to” with “due to”.
Line 814/815
Suggest modification of the last sentence to specify more precisely which “U.S. Tmean trends from 1979 – 2008.” have been spuriously doubled. Is it the aggregated USHCNv2 [monthly station data] ?
Congratulations to Anthony et al and the 650 vvolunteers.
dana1981 says:
July 29, 2012 at 1:34 pm
How do you explain the fact that the UAH and RSS CONUSA trend is 0.24°C/dec, Klotzbach (corrected) says the surface-TLT land-only amplification factor is 1.1, and yet you’re arguing for a surface trend of 0.155°C/dec? That’s more than a 1.5 amplification factor.
Either UAH and RSS are biased high or your results are biased low, and frankly the former explanation is not very plausible.
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The factor varies significantly for different models. Over ocean it is even 1.6. What would it be then iin coastal regions ? The consistency of this work in itself (beautifully) , with ocean data, satellite data and prior UHI and land use change work from Pielke, McKitrick and others may actually warrant to use these results for improvment of the amplification factor estimation
Leif Svalgaard says:
July 29, 2012 at 1:38 pm
REPLY – Well, once St. Mac gives it the full and complete monty we’ll decide which one we like best. (As of so far, I vote for VM.) ~ Evan
There are standard ways of quantifying significance. If you state in the paper that the odds are ‘small’, you can probably get away with just that. Anything more, and especially VM, will require an explicit [and correct] calculation. Otherwise, the paper will not [should not!] pass serious peer-review. In the meantime you should use the phrase with the least amount of hype.
Buy a round on me. Here’s $100.00
[REPLY: Thank you very much. Your support is appreciated. -REP]
My stats maths being so poor, at last this is a comment I can comment on.
The same people pointing out that “the USA is only 2% of world’s surface….” (I always heard it was 3%…) are in likelihood the same that point to any US-only weather events as being “unprecedented” or “historical.”
Ignore them then, ignore them now.
I can only wonder what the pre-1979 analysis would look like.
Typo “387 May airports” should read “many”
GungaDin and Bill, the 2% argument will be the Warmistas first line of defence; an arguemnt from teh Denialists they have ignored forever. Now, they must resort to global temps; they will probably pretend to apply the same methodology as Anthony et. al. has employed here, to show how global temps are really as they say they are. Anthony et. al do not have the resources to challenge them; look how much work it took to do just the US.
Of course, the Warmistas will not actually do the equivalent analysis, they will just make stuff up, as usual. Then, of course, there are those pesky satellites and Argo floats; they, too, after millions of dollars of “study” will be found wanting.
I would hope a US Senator or two would want to investigate how NOAA, with public funds, can get it SO wrong; and an amateur bunch of ordinary guys can hold them up to ridicule so?
DavidMHoffer-all the redesigning of people’s behaviors, society, and the economy is based on 2 premises according to NASA, NOAA, and NSF Geosciences. The one I mentioned that this paper destroys and the one I quoted as not really being a helpful premise.
This matters because these agencies believe they can use the social sciences, education, and communication to override the actual natural science. They just explained that and they have issued the USCCRP Strategic Plan for 2012-2021 detailing the plans for our servitude regardless of the facts.
Or the accuracy of their temperature data.
REP – I’ve read more of the paper than most of the commenters here. If you don’t have the answer then just don’t answer. My question is directed at somebody who knows it. At least my comment didn’t get censored for once though. I guess that’s a step in the right direction.
Willis – I suppose you can make the ‘within the uncertainty range’ argument, but that still suggests that one of the best values of either the UAH trend or the Watts et al. trend is pretty far off. If you’re going to make the case that the temperature record is biased, then arguing for large uncertainty bars isn’t going to help your case.
Manfred – since this is land-only date (in fact CONUS only data), the ocean amplification factor is irrelevant.
[REPLY: Dana, you get “censored” here when you violate site rules, which you manage to do with depressing regularity. And thank you for the admission that you had not actually read the paper before rushing to get in a comment. -REP]
James says:
July 29, 2012 at 1:32 pm
A quick comment.
None of you posting here have any idea if there is an error in Anthony et al.’s work.
Caution and criticism are likely to be more helpful to him than simple cheering.
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Don’t you worry, the “caution and criticism ” is coming.
It just needs to work out a strategy.