New study shows half of the global warming in the USA is artificial

If this is the best such land area surface temperature assessment system on the planet (covering, as well, a broad range of metropolitan, suburban, and rural areas), and the quality of the system is now proven to be demonstrably more prone to error than had been previously assumed – with the preponderance of error shown to produce the impression of warming in excess of real conditions prevailing – what may be reliably inferred about surface temperature monitoring systems data from even less reliable thermometers all over the rest of the world?
There’s also the matter of the algorithms used for sites inside the U.S. and for sites outside the U.S. being different; the UHI non-detection being even more extreme outside of the U.S. (cities of a quarter million being marked rural); there being just a dearth of used stations in many areas of the world; as well as algorithms used showing more warming for an area than any measured sites circumscribing that area.

Scott says:
July 29, 2012 at 12:14 pm
Anthony,
Can you translate the implications of this for mere mortals like myself?
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To the several who have asked … here’s at least my attempt at a slightly more plain language synopsis … these are the actual words, condensed to what seem (at least to me) the key points, with minor changes to help readability:
U.S. Temperature trends show a spurious doubling due to NOAA station siting problems and post measurement adjustments.
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”, 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.
In the paper ‘Fall et al, 2011’, results from the ‘Surface Stations Project’, surveying the U.S. Historical Climatology Network (USHCN) were presented, using a siting classification system developed by Michel Leroy for Meteofrance in 1999 – the same system employed by NOAA to develop the U.S. Climate Reference Network (USCRN) in 2002.
In 2010, Leroy improved upon this system with a new area and distance weighted classification system. While the Leroy (1999) system performs well for new station siting evaluation, it does not take into account the surface area of heat sinks and sources that may encroach upon a temperature measurement station over its lifetime. Leroy (2010) adds inclusion of the surface area of heat sinks and heat sources within the viewshed of thermometer, and as a result, does a more complete job of siting assessment, particularly when applied retroactively to existing stations, than the original distance only weighted classification system described in Leroy (1999).
The new Leroy (2010) siting classification system has been approved and endorsed by the World Meteorological Organization. Similar to the Leroy (1999) system, it adds total surface area (of heat sources and heat sinks) to the distance measurement as an additional metric for determining station site rating.
The use of Leroy (2010) resulted in a dramatic and statistically significant improvement in the stations quality ratings, as distance alone does not quantify the amount of heat emitted by a source or sink within the thermometer viewshed.
The analysis of this paper demonstrates that siting quality matters. Well sited stations consistently show a significantly cooler trend than poorly sited stations, no matter which class of station is used for a baseline, and also when using no baseline at all.
Further, our review shows, not only does the NOAA USCHNv2 adjustment process fail to adjust poorly sited stations downward to match the well sited stations, it actually adjusts the well sited stations upwards to match the poorly sited stations.
Additionally, it is demonstrated that urban sites warm more rapidly than semi-urban sites, which in turn warm more rapidly than rural sites. Since a disproportionate percentage of stations are urban (10%) and semi-urban (25%) when compared with the actual topography of the U.S., this further exaggerates Tmean trends.
NOAA adjustments procedure fails to address these issues. Instead, again, poorly sited station trends are adjusted sharply upward (not downward), 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.
There is also the issue of equipment inhomogeneity. Modern MMTS sensors show a significantly lower warming trend than the obsolete CRS shelters. Yet rather than lowering the trends of CRS stations, the trends of MMTS stations are, yet again, sharply adjusted upwards.
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.

Robin says:
July 29, 2012 at 3:57 pm
….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….
_________________________
I take it you are referring to this. I noticed it had a pull-down with all the US departments listed. It really does looks nasty.

2012-2021 Strategic Plan
Integrating federal research on global change and climate change….
This Strategic Plan recognizes that effective response to global change requires a strong scientific foundation. The following four strategic goals frame the Program’s Strategic Plan:
Goal 1. Advance Science: Advance scientific knowledge of the integrated natural and human components of the Earth system.
Goal 2. Inform Decisions: Provide the scientific basis to inform and enable timely decisions on adaptation and mitigation.
Goal 3. Conduct Sustained Assessments: Build sustained assessment capacity that improves the Nation’s ability to understand, anticipate, and respond to global change impacts and vulnerabilities.
Goal 4. Communicate and Educate: Advance communications and education to broaden public understanding of global change and develop the scientific workforce of the future.

(It has a link to a pdf of the full plan)
Their Communication and Education sounds like straight out brainwashing 101. GEE, maybe this is what Mike Mann has been working on as part of his ‘communication skills’

… There is a growing imperative for the actionable climate and environmental information that is needed to inform resource management, planning, and other decisions taking place across the Nation.
Communications, education, and engagement is therefore a growing priority of the USGCRP….

Well they want ‘engagement’ so I guess this is where we should be sending this paper and all the other papers and data showing CAGW is a hoax. ~ “If you have questions or suggestions about USGCRP communications efforts, please email the Communications Manager.”

Thanks KD!

The paper needs graphs.
They will show lots more interesting things.

Assuming there are no substantive objections made to this paper, and the inclusions of Steve McIntyre as an author make me suspect there cannot be (not to diminish the tremendous work surrounding getting an accurate thermometer!!!), I wonder whether there is an inkling as to how this will affect the ROW (rest of the world) temperature “anomalies”? My suspicion is the algorithms used are very similar (after all, it’s easy, right?)
Assuming this is the most accurate analysis, would ROW temperature trends follow suit?
R/Ed.
P.S. I hate the word “anomaly” applied to temperatures, as if there is a perfect temperature and anything other is strange.

Oh, and least I forget, the above is a multi TRILLION dollar question. Will money help? What would you use it for? Let me know. It seems to me you are doing fine without it, but if it would help, please let all of us know in what way.

Someone should tell Ehrlich that when it comes to ‘rep’ it’s Christy +1, Penn State 0.

Well I’m not a scientist but an admirer of the scientific method. I’ve put this comment on Jo Nova’s blog but it really belongs here
I’d like to add my congratulations to Anthony and his co authors on what is the culmination of a huge amount of work by them and the team of volunteers involved in the surface stations research
As someone rightly said Watts et al ‘brings it home’. We weren’t disappointed by the wait
There are some articles – Climate Depot of course, then The Examiner http://www.examiner.com/article/devasting-blow-to-temperature-records-u-s-temp-trends-spuriously-doubled;
“
(Dr. Richard Muller et al used an older siting classification system. Muller also wrote a NYT op-ed piece stating the rise in temperatures was caused by greenhouse gas emissions. However, this new classification system shows that siting does have a major impact on the data.
Then there’s the irrepresible Delingpole http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100173174/global-warming-yeah-right/
“
Poor Professor Muller has been telling anyone who’ll listen – his amen corner in greeny-lefty MSM, mainly – that as a former “skeptic” he has now been forced by weight of evidence to conclude that global warming is definitely man-made and there has been lots of it (a whole 1.5 degrees C – Wow! that’s like almost as much as you’d get if you drove from London to Manchester!!!) since 1750. Tragically – as Watts has very reluctantly and by-no-means-experiencing-any-kind-of-Schadenfreude had to point out is that the data used by Muller to draw these conclusions was unreliable to the point of utter uselessness.
So, in the spirit of magnanimity in total crushing victory I would urge readers of this blog not to crow too much about the devastating blow Watts’s findings will have on the Guardian’s battalion of environment correspondents, on the New York Times, on NOAA, on Al Gore, on the Prince of Wales, on the Royal Society, on Professor Muller, or on any of the other rent-seekers, grant-grubbers, eco-loons, crony capitalists, junk scientists, UN apparatchiks, EU technocrats, hideous porcine blobsters, demented squawking parrots, life-free loser trolls, paid CACC-amites and True Believers in the Great Global Warming Religion.
That would be plain wrong.
It’s a day for celebration that we still are lucky enough to have these tireless scientists who do research the old fashioned way – in the field (that includes Warwick Hughes, Jo and others who are my heroes)
And of course Anthony and his co authors and his team

A few implications if the study holds up to scrutiny:
– Similar analyses must be carried out globally.
– Climate recordbooks will have to be rewritten.
– Climate models will be more wrong than ever before.
– Predictions for ice melt and ocean rise (esp. Rahmstorf) must be reduced.
– For the first time, the IPCC report will be LESS alarmist than the previous one.
Others?

BEST and Muller being savaged by many – including warmists:
David Appell:

Attributing climate is more like figuring out the structure of DNA than it is like figuring out the laws of quantum mechanics — simple curve-fitting (“exponentials, polynomials”) doesn’t cut it. In fact, it makes you look kind of foolish.

And former BEST author Judith Curry (by way of Revkin):

Their latest paper on the 250-year record concludes that the best explanation for the observed warming is greenhouse gas emissions. Their analysis is way oversimplistic and not at all convincing in my opinion. There is broad agreement that greenhouse gas emissions have contributed to the warming in the latter half of the 20th century; the big question is how much of this warming can we attribute to greenhouse gas emissions. I don’t think this question can be answered by the simple curve fitting used in this paper, and I don’t see that their paper adds anything to our understanding of the causes of the recent warming.

Warmist William Connolley – Muller still Rubbish:

‘And what they say…appears absurdly naive’

Michael Mann (h/t Tom Nelson):

My view is that Muller’s efforts to promote himself by belittling the collective efforts of the entire atmospheric/climate research community over several decades, though, really does the scientific community a disservice …. It seems, in the end–quite sadly–that this is all really about Richard Muller’s self-aggrandizement 🙁

Johninoregon: “vast majority of expert scientists who have published peer-reviewed papers ”
John, is that a mantra that they pound into your head at Greenie Boot Camp, like “This is my rifle, this is my gun?”
“Vast majority:” false
“Peer-reviewed:” false