I had to laugh. Governor Jerry “moonbeam” Brown has created a comical clone of the Skeptical Science website at his state office website, and announced it today in lake Tahoe with this missive via the Sacramento Bee’s Capitol Alert:
The Democratic governor, in Stateline, Nev., for the annual Tahoe Summit, has long been frustrated by conservative politicians who say the effect of global warming is overstated, or who argue government intervention to address climate change is a drag on the economy.
“Global warming’s impact on Lake Tahoe is well documented. It is just one example of how, after decades of pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, humanity is getting dangerously close to the point of no return,” Brown said in a prepared statement. “Those who still deny global warming’s existence should wake up and honestly face the facts.”
Well documented? I suppose Gov. Brown has never seen the kind of problems associated with the official NOAA weather stations, like this one I documented at Lake Tahoe with a trash burn barrel nearby:
No wonder the data looks steep:
And when you look at other nearby data at properly sited weather stations, you have to ask, where’s the warming? Russ Steele has the story:
by Russ Steele (from Is it 2012 In Nevada County yet?)
In Part I of this fact checking project, I will start with the section titled California’s Changing Climate. The first sentence set off my alarm bells right away, as I have been studying the climate change in the Sierra since 2004.
Observed changes over the last several decades across the western United States reveal clear signals of climate change. Statewide average temperatures increased by about 1.7°F from 1895 to 2011, and warming has been greatest in the Sierra Nevada.
I have not see any great changes in the Sierra temperatures over the last several decades except at one Lake Tahoe Surface Station. This station neighbors include a tennis court, and for a while a trash burn barrel. More on this site later in the analysis.
There was no indication in the report where the Sierra temperatures were measured. But in previous reports there was a high dependence on the COOP station at Lake Tahoe, as it had the longest record in the basin.
As you can see there was a significant jump in temperature starting around 1980. A jump that is not evident in other sites around Lake Tahoe and the Sierra. Some investigation revealed that 1980 was about the time a concrete tennis court was installed next to the surface station. According to the condo property manager that an investigator spoke to said the court was installed in the “early 80′s”, though she was not there at the time. This tennis court heats up during the day and gives up energy at night, warming the area. According the grounds keeper, he picked up trash during the day and burned it at the end of the shift, leaving a warm burn barrel to increase the night time temperatures.
Starting in the late 1980s the Forest Service started installing remote automated weather stations (RAWS) well way from built up areas with potential heat sources like the Tahoe tennis court. These remote rural sites do not show any significant Sierra warming.
Owens Camp, El Dorado National Forest, near Kyburz was one of this RAWS sites.
There is a modest increase in the night time temperatures and a decline in the day time temperatures, which average out to no average change.
Quincy Ranger Station, Tahoe National Forest, is another RAWS station
As you can see the temperatures vary from year to year, but according to the regression analysis the temperatures are essentially flat for the 19 years examined. It appears that from about 2002 to 2010 the temperatures have been in declining year over year.
There is also a COOP station in Truckee with recored that goes back several decades that is only 15 miles from the Tahoe station.
As you can see there is no significant warming just 15 miles away from the COOP site at Lake Tahoe. No significant jump in 1980.
There you have it, three Sierra sites that do not show any significant warming. So, where did the scientist at the Climate Change Center find the Sierra warming data? If they only used the Tahoe Site, they were fooled by a poorly sited weather station. Real scientist would not use a single site, but look at the whole Sierra. This report appears to be more the work of political hacks than scientists. Here is the lead authors web site: http://www.susannemoser.com/ You decide?
=================
h/t to Marc Morano for the Sac Bee alert
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Apparently Governor Brown, has also never visited sanity either. Isn’t it time to exile him to Siberia, or recall him, or what ever it is you do in California with incompetents…
Russ Steele: “Starting in the late 1980s the Forest Service started installing remote automated weather stations (RAWS) well way from built up areas with potential heat sources like the Tahoe tennis court. These remote rural sites do not show any significant Sierra warming.”
Nor does the Lake Tahoe site. So I don’t get the significance of this point. It is the jump around 1980 that is contentious not what happened in the late 1980’s and beyond.
kasphar says:
August 13, 2012 at 2:55 pm
No. Doesn’t work either. I give up.
Strange. On this list (closest stations to Tahoe City) most worked around 30 mins ago. Now many close to Tahoe City do not appear to work. The only thing I can see in common is that the ones which give 500 Internal Server Error have records after around 1990, and within about 150km of Tahoe City. The ones which work tend to end before 1990. Probably nothing, just maintainance, but it seemed a little strange. Particularly since I’ve never seen a similar error on the site before.
Thank goodness the Calif. Governors Office of Planning & Research taxpayer funded website http://www.opr.ca.gov/s_climatechangefacts.php offers refreshing KoolAid categories like:
… “Common Deniers Arguments”
…”The Scientific Consensus”
… “The Deniers”
… and “THE Science” …
If everyone just read those facts by Moonbeam light there would be nobody be left to “…spread doubt and confusion to prevent action.”
Even without rubbish burning in it, that dark metallic barrel converts visible light into higher air temperatures and some additional infra-red. A slight breeze in the right direction would magnify the impact on the weather station.
I’d be interested to know how a burn barrel manages to be used without burning the wooden pallet that it’s sitting on. Perhaps it isn’t actually used.
Suggest we rename it “heat island” as it occurs in both urban and rural areas. Over the last 60 years our small town of 5000 has lost 80% of its trees, has undergone a transformation from a residential area to a business center with lawns being replaced by parking lots, and has seen traffic increase 7 fold. Temperature drops 5+ degrees as you leave town which I expect you would not have seen in the 1950s.
Looking at the other pictures of sites in or near the forest shows how costly proper site maintenance is. Trees grow in all sorts of places not planned for in wild situations. Cost cutting results in unreliable temperature data sets.
From Jerry Brown:
“Many of the deniers share some traits:
Many have little or no expertise in climate science.”
Did he really mean Al Gore?
http://www.opr.ca.gov/s_denier.php
From Jerry Brown:
“Many of the deniers share some traits:
……receive funding for their efforts from industries with a financial interest in ignoring climate change. Oil companies, coal-burning electric utilities, and other companies that make their profits from burning fossil fuels…….”
Was he really meaning David Suzuki? David Suzuki receives funding from these type of companies. But I certainly wouldn’t expect Jerry brown to actually know things from the real world.
http://www.opr.ca.gov/s_denier.php
I really don’t know what’s worse, Jerry Brown or the people that reelected him even though he did a poor job the first time he was governor. Seriously, WTF is going on in California!
“I’d be interested to know how a burn barrel manages to be used without burning the wooden pallet that it’s sitting on. Perhaps it isn’t actually used.”
Not a revelation Louise, question has already been asked and answered. Check upwards !
Californians are like animals. They have no concept of the past or future, just the present. How else would anyone explain re-electing a failure from 30 years ago?
I think Josh could make a cartoon out of this … He could make a cartoon with the burn barrel and temperature sensor. Rising temps at the sensor lead to lots of government documents about global warming. Gov Brown could be feeding these reports into the burn barrel where the prevailing winds cause the temperature sensor reading to rise, causing more government reports causing more burning in the burn barrel causing increased temp readings causing ….
@Amino
“Seriously, WTF is going on in California!”
California is a State of Mind.
“Dave says:
August 13, 2012 at 1:50 pm
I love it when this happens. I know far too many people that believe UHI is some kind of conspiracy excuse. Or that regional land use could never influence “global” temperature records. I am sure this site is just averaged in with the good sites. Yep, no influence at all….”
Worse, it is homogenized with the good sites and used to excuse adjusting them upwards to match the tennis court trend. If you don’t build asphalt around the thermometer they’ll just build its effect in for you.
It would be interesting to hear from this moonbat,* Susanne Moser, once she has read Anthony’s post and this thread. I won’t hold my breath, of course. I doubt that she would have the courage to debate CAGW (or “climate change”) with the scientists and engineers who frequent this board.
/Mr Lynn
* If she can call skeptics “deniers,” I can certainly call her a “moonbat,” which is a friendly term compared to the nasty opprobrium associated with “denier.”
If the recent election of Moonbeam had been restricted to those who were old enough to “re-elect” him, he would have lost. He won because of votes from the generations that didn’t know what he was.
“There isn’t a correlation between rising temperatures and CO2 emissions – therefore, humans can’t be causing climate change.”
“This is false – as humans have put more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, the global average temperature has indeed gone up. The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere began steadily rising since the mid 1800s, and increased more rapidly over the past 50 years. Ice cores and other evidence show that the current level of CO2 in the atmosphere is higher than any time in the last half-million years. Temperature increases followed this trend, with the second half of the 20th century being the warmest 50 year period in the past 1,300 years.”
The above is from the Mr. Brown’s web page. Notice how they mention ice cores but fail to say that temperature leads CO2 not follow as said in the next sentence. This is deception at its best.
With apologies to The Coasters for adapting 1959’s hit song “Charlie Brown”:
“..Fee, fiy,
foe, fum
I smell smoke
in the auditorium ” –
Jerry Brown, Jerry Brown
“He’s a clown,
that” Jerry Brown –
“He’s gonna get caught !
Just you wait and see,
(? Why’s everybody always pickin’ on me ?)”
I don’t see any pollution control device on that burn barrel.
Louise says:
August 14, 2012 at 1:40 am
I’d be interested to know how a burn barrel manages to be used without burning the wooden pallet that it’s sitting on. Perhaps it isn’t actually used.
Looks like more than one pallet is in use. Like Caribou, pallets move.
http://2012nevadacounty.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/tahoe_city2.jpg
Louise says:
I’d be interested to know how a burn barrel manages to be used without burning the wooden pallet that it’s sitting on.
You mean like this?
http://gasp-pgh.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/burn-barrel-dreamstime_16998683.jpg
or this?
http://thumbs.dreamstime.com/thumblarge_681/1334041816pPUA51.jpg
The bottom of a burn barrel does not necessarily get hot, esp if there is a layer of accumulated ash inside, or sand/soil placed there for that very purpose.
I know metal ULD’s (Unit Load Devices) have to conform to IATA burn rate specs. Wood (pallets or otherwise) used in air freight also has specs to follow.
http://www.cougar-aviation.com/index.php?p=1_4_Technical-Details
Treated wood pallet
http://www.skybrary.aero/index.php/Unit_Load_Devices
I would think most modern wooden pallets would be scorch resistant.
If only Schwarzenegger had been a Republican…
Last time you posted on this station you were told very clearly that the tennis courts were built in 1973. Why did you repost this station “audit” with the erroneous date, which is based on hearsay?