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.
Victor Venema @ur momisugly July 29, 2012 at 4:04 pm
It was the same author. He refined his analysis and it has been adopted as the Global Standard for rating weather station locations; this is not some shmuck sucking his finger. See my previous comments.
L 742-747
You use an “amplification factor” to match surface and lower troposphere results. The value is from Klotzbach 2010 (not 2011). It seems not well adapted for CONUS, because this is for global temperature, not for extra-tropical land !
Furthermore, Klotzbach states “the expected global surface/lower-troposphere amplification
that is calculated from the lapse rate enhancement in the global models”, and then gives three references: two references are about TROPICS only : [Santer et al., 2005; Karl et al., 2006;
Douglass et al., 2007].
Santer, B. D., et al. (2005), Amplification of surface temperature trends and
variability in the tropical atmosphere, Science, 309, 1551 – 1556,
doi:10.1126/science.1114867.
Douglass, D. H., J. R. Christy, B. D. Pearson, and S. F. Singer (2007), A
comparison of tropical temperature trends with model predictions, Int. J.
Climatol., 28, 1693– 1701, doi:10.1002/joc.1651.
IMHO, the “lapse reate enhancement” is mainly a tropical and oceanic phenomenom. You should provide other references to support your “amplification factor”. Other references seem to demonstrate a higher surface trend as compared to lower troposphere trend over extra-tropical land, especially in arctic, due to polar amplification.
[SNIP: Sorry, no. -REP]
Finally, someone is doing some real science on the data. Thank you, Anthony and friends.
This is a wonderful shot across the bow of all Warmistas who, to a man, insist that any two temperatures from any two places on the globe are comparable. The scientific response to such nonsense is Hell No! Empirical work must be done to identify what counts as a valid temperature reading. And that empirical work must reveal the physical conditions underlying the recording of temperatures.
Bravo! Anthony and friends.
Ian W says:
July 29, 2012 at 1:51 pm
Unfortunately Ian, I think we’re fighting a losing battle her & everywhere else. I’ve even suggested, (not seriously,) heating an oven to 200°C and then opening the door, feeling the nice warm 200°C air coming from the top of the door, then comparing that to putting their hand into a pan of 100°C boiling water. Disclaimer, do the first bit but if you dip your hand in boiling water, you’re an idiot.
DaveE.
I can remember waiting at the local airport for my dad to come home from a business trip – in 1955! The parking area was less than 200 yards from the door to the airport terminal (they only had 4 or 5 flights a day). On the other side of the fence was the “weather station” equipment – like those you see in SurfaceStation.org pictures. But back then there was at least 30 yards (meters) of grass around the station. After joining the Navy I had not been back to this airport in over 60 years, however, on a recent trip back to my hometown I noted that this weather station has been encroached upon by the new terminal, air conditioners, the drop-off lane and even the aircraft blast shields. It looked similar to the recent picture of the Bartow, Fl station on WUWT site a few days ago. How can anyone possibly think that the temperature that this station provides is in any way related to the actual temperature? How can they use this data in any scientific analysis? How many other stations throughout the world are just like this? The AGW group has only provided us with proof that the airports are getting warmer and staying warmer!
Hush, you!
He said reasonable.
Haven’t gone through the paper yet. Just looking at the ppt files right now. One thing that I find striking is the comparison between airport vs. non-airport COMPLIANT stations. Now, if they were compliant, should they not have a similar trend? Does this suggest a need to revisit what exactly a compliant station should be? Airport compliant stations show fully twice as much warming as non-airport compliant stations.
Anyways, looking forward to reading the paper, but this seems like it puts into question not just the temperature datasets, but also the definition of compliant stations. Or at the very least, their consistency. And I haven’t even mentioned the adjustments that you go into on top of that. In any other field, I can’t see people letting it go this far.
Am I misunderstanding? This consequences seem way bigger than I could have imagined.
dana1981 says:
July 29, 2012 at 3:58 pm
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.
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Take a moment and think about it. The amplification factor once agreed upon was based on the temps which had been homogenized. Clearly, the assumptions were based upon poor surface temp data handling. Thus, the agreed upon amplification factor can and should be raised, to about 1.5/1.6.
But, you knew that. This is what the paper is about. As people above have noted, the CONUS is only about 2% of the globe. But, the way the data is handled, ……. well, that’s 100% of the globe.
David Ross says:
Absolutely. This is a historical moment – as opposed to the hysterical movements we’ve seen.
To borrow Churchill: Climategate was “not the end. It was not even the beginning of the end. But it was the end of the beginning” – exposure of bad science and bad practice.
I think this paper is going to prove to be what Anthony cracked it up to be, and truly the “beginning of the end” – an unsuppressable paper concerned with the fundamental rebuilding of proper scientific standards, dealing with the most fundamental measure of CAGW: recent global temperature changes. Lack of jazzy title matters little because of its imperturbably fundamental nature and importance.
If journals try to ignore this paper, their behaviour will be condemned from the rooftops.
If warmists try illegitimately to debunk it, this too will be shouted from the rooftops.
If IPCC try to ignore it, this too will be shouted from the rooftops.
All the papers that have, as described above, metastasized from the original illness of the thermometer records etc, will have to be cut down to size. Syllabuses will have to change. Research descriptions. NAS and RS statements on AGW. And more. All of which will constitute the true “end” of the climate science wars…
…oh wait, there is the small matter of CO2 queries, and Loschmidt’s challenge to 2LoT… but these can wait a bit longer…
Congratulation, Anthony et al. Excellent work.
The IPCC’s deadline for inclusion in AR5 is 31-July-2012 (Gergis is aiming to resubmit their paper by then, see http://www.warwickhughes.com/agri/AIMS%20Emails%20J.Gergis%20and%20J.Lough(1.1.10-19.6.12) .pdf ).
Seems obvious that Muller, just like Gergis, were rushing for their papers to be published by that deadline. Now that your paper meets that – does it mean it is elligible for assessment by IPCC’s AR5?
I think what they’re getting at is the standards mainly look at permanent fixtures of the station … and that the effects of those, while significant, get dwarfed by big honking petrol-fuelled machines intermittently taxiing about.
Congratulations Anthony, Evan, Steve and John. Your hard work is too important to be ignored, though the orthodoxy will likely pretend to. Very best of luck with it.
J Burns
Maybe “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.” would be better as “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 upward adjustments of well-sited stations.”?
Line 124: “it was it was”
Another question to ponder…..
I wonder how many sites at the beginning of the time series had transitioned from rural, to urban and from class 1/2 to class 5 over time. For instance assume that a rural site with an average 0.1 per decade after 10 years slowly turns into a semi urban with a .2 per decade and then 10 years later is an urban with .3 per decade. Would the graph of that site’s temperature over time look just like a hockey stick?
Isn’t it funny, the more you learn the more you want to know? Thanks Anthony for giving me more to learn.
“and a trend of +0.309 C per decade after NOAA adjusts the data”
It’s not clear to me what that is the trend of? Is it the poorly sited stations according to this new criterion? If so, how did NOAA come to adjust that data?
I calculated the 1979-2008 trend from NOAA’s ConUS figures. It came to 0.24 °C/decade. That compares well to the UAH trend of 0.23 °C/decade (for 1979-present).
It’s ironic that both Spencer and Christy have published trends that differ, for different reasons, from the “NOAA trend”, but that equally differ from their own satellite trend, which agrees with NOAA.
Figure 1 Legend
“Figure 1 – USHCNv2 stations that with complete metadata ….”
“..stations that with complete…” Typo ??
Figure 20
Present the data. Not “What the data says.”
For example, replace “What the NOAA final adjusted data says” with just “NOAA final adjusted data” or some such.
It would also be nice to have the regions [and in figure 2] labelled or numbered so that the reader can cross reference with data in figures 4 to 8. Not all readers/reviewers might be so familiar with the geographical divisions and abbreviations. Similarly figure 3 might be better with the regions shown, if possible.
Figures 21 and 22
The axis text seems too small and is difficult to read at 100% size in the .pdf viewer. Some color might improve the figures.
Figure 21, First panel.
The width of the bars is not significant, but having them wider than in panels 2,3, and 4 distracts the viewer’s attention from the data being presented.
Figure 22 panels 1,2, and 4
Is the data effectively zero in all three panels [as compared to panel 3]? The value of multiple panels to present zero data like this seems questionable.
Figure 23
The text at the top of each panel appears slightly deformed [and incongruous bold&font], as do the lines between data points, and the icons used for the data. Maybe it’s an artefact of the pdf. I don’t know, but it looks almost hand drawn.
PS: Where is your “tip jar” hiding? Can’t find it…
[REPLY: Look on the right side of the page. Scroll down the page a bit. When you hit the Free World Climate Widget a very modest “donate” button is located just below it. Thank you for your support. -REP]
Congratulations, Anthony, et. al.! It’s nice to see a another, even more significant contribution resulting from all that work.
Hit that donate button, folks!
Hit it like you mean it!
This major effort is pure research-grade gold.
Bravo, Anthony et al !!!!
Can anybody speculate on what this means for Jim Hansen’s predictions?
It would seem to suggest that he has been a bit over-alarmist and that Thermageddon may have to be postponed at least until Thanksgiving…..
Yeah, I thought about this too. In fact, it’s one of or even the major point — that’s where a lot of the change may have come from. Well, that NOAA didn’t pencil in!
Just a small note. I see in the graphs that 8 of 50 of the adjusted temperature readings are less than the raw measurements in the graph. If there were an equal chance of the “raw” measurements being higher or lower than the “adjusted” measurements, then that would yield about 1 chance in 1,000,000 that 8 or fewer “adjusted” measurements of 50 would be less than or equal to the “raw” measurements.
Watts et. al. 2012 invalidates all the major data sets and your’re “dissapointed”? No pleasing some people… -REP
Well I was already convinced the global warming thing was a scam. When their temp sensors are next to AC vents and BBQs the data is invalidated already, to my mind anyway.