Plus answers to yesterday’s Fun puzzle: Name these official stations.
Given that California Governor Jerry Brown has recently setup a website at the governor’s office basically telling skeptics to “shut up” I thought this would be a good time to publish this.
This is a paper that was presented at a climate conference by Jim Goodridge, former State Climatologist of California, titled Population and Temperature Trends in California at the Pacific Climate Workshop, in Pacific Grove, CA March 22-26, 1987.
In this paper, Jim presented what I believe to be the very first photos bringing attention to the issue of station siting. Yesterday, I published both of those photos on WUWT here: Fun puzzle: Name these official stations.
The answer to the first photo was correctly made by commenter “Hoser”:
Hoser says:
August 15, 2012 at 10:32 pm
It’s been a long time, but the top one might be Mt. Hamilton, Lick Observatory. That might be the astronomer’s dormatory behind the car. Yikes, 25 years since I’ve been there.
Yes, the official temperature at the Lick Observatory is measured on a concrete slab rooftop where cars can park and there’s a chimney nearby:
Surprisingly, that station is still in operation today. It has been converted to MMTS electronic thermometer, but from what I can tell, still appears to be at the same location as before. Note the walkway bridge and chimney shadow:
Interactive source map: http://binged.it/PscDx2
NOTE: Perhaps one of our WUWT readers in the Bay Area can make a trip up to the Lick Observatory this weekend to advise with a photograph if the station still exists on the same spot or not. You’d think that on such a hallowed grounds of science, they’d know enough to put the thermometer away from the chimney and concrete. Let’s see if they’ve figured it out in 25 years since then.
As for the other station near the incinerator, that is a Taylor max-min thermometer used by the Quincy, CA Highway Department, now since closed. Nobody got that one, but there were some good guesses. 
Siting issues aside, Jim made some important discoveries in this paper where he looked at rural -vs- urban temperature trends. He only has a paper copy left, as the Mac disks this was done on have long ago been lost. I took the paper copy to Staples and had it scanned into a PDF file, which is presented in full below.
This page 9 of graphs below, figures 4 and 5 tell the story for California Surface Temperature data:
Mind you, this is data that Jim used prior to the big range of adjustments that have been applied by NCDC. Jim provides all that data in the paper. It might be interesting to compare the data then and now to see what has been done to it. Another important distinction of note is that this paper was presented over a year before NASA’s Dr. James Hansen went before the Senate in June 1988, and touted his science and model predictions, deeming it so solid that they had to turn off the air conditioning in the hearing room for “theatrical effect”.
Figure 6 and 7 on page 10 are also instructive:
But this set of graphs from page 12 is really interesting:
The trend for rural stations is interesting, because Jim found a correlation for it:
Here are figures 15 to 18:
And here is Figure 19. Indeed the similarity is remarkable.
The other conclusion to Jim’s paper is that there is a correlation between population trend and temperature trend for inland urban stations, as seen in this graph:
Jim eventually went on to publish a letter in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society in 1996 on this issue. This one graph from that letter was a “light bulb moment” for me:
The reply from Kwang-Y Kim, published next to Goodridge’s letter is an interesting admission:
Kim had co-authored a CO2 regional modeling paper with Gerald North in 1995, suggesting that temperatures were on the rise to CO2, but Goodridge in his letter had suggested their base temperature data had been polluted:
I have to wonder, if somebody had put Goodridge’s 1987 paper in front of Jim Hansen in 1987 or early 1988, would it have made any difference in his claims made in June 1988 before the Senate?
Probably not, because as we’ve seen, there seems to be an unwavering belief system that climatic scale temperature is controlled only by Carbon Dioxide concentration, and anyone who presents a contrary view is immediately denigrated and labeled. For example, Hansen’s CRU compatriot Dr. Phil Jones already had formed a strong opinion of Goodridge’s work, which we see thanks to Climategate 2 (bold mine):
file 4789.txt
date: Tue, 25 Apr 2000 09:25:14 +0100
from: Phil Jones <p.jones@xxxx>
subject: Re: CA climate
to: Tom Wigley <wigley@xxxx>,Mike Hulme <m.hulme@xxxxx>
Tom,
Bryan Weare is at US Davis. He would know about some of the things you
mention. The jerk you mention was called Good(e)rich who found urban
warming at all Californian sites.
I’m away until today until May 5 in Nice and Geneva. I hope you can do
the temperature plots yourself and that Mike can do the precip ones.
Mike has the data as 5 degree grid boxes, so the it would be good if
you could define these for him. I think he’s back tomorrow.
It would be possible to use the 0.5 degree grid boxes but we’d have to
get Mark New to do that for us.
Cheers
Phil
At 12:13 PM 4/24/00 -0600, Tom Wigley wrote:
>Phil and Mike,
>
>I have to attend a meeting organized by EPRI and the California Energy
>Commission on June 12, 13. The focus is future climate scenarios and the
>implied impacts. It will include discussions of GCM results and
>statistical and LAM downscaling. They want someone to address observed
>climate (homogeneity problems; E-W and N-S contrasts; ENSO effects;
>changes in circulation — such as increased offshore cyclogenesis, changes
>in storm tracks; etc.), but they don’t have anyone invited yet. Chuck
>Hakkarinen (EPRI) says there is someone at UC-Davis who is an “expert” on
>CA climate. Who is this? Do you know any other Californians who are in
>the observed climate game and who you respect? (From memory, there are
>some nitpicky jerks who have criticized the Jones et al. data sets — we
>don’t want one of those. Wasn’t one of these guys called Goodrich?)
>
>For myself, I would like to have some monthly time series for the CA area
>average. I can possibly do this for temperature, but certainly not for
>precipitation. Is there any way you two could send me time series within
>the next day or so (before I leave for Australia)? For the regions, I’d
>like results for the following separate areas (as near as you can do it):
>(1) 32-36degN, 115-121degW
>(2) 36-42degN, 118-124degW
>(3) 32-42degN, 114-124degW
>(4) 36-42degN, 106-114degW
>The last one represents the headwaters of the Colorado River.
>
>Finally, if you had some PDSI time series for the region, I’d very much
>like these too.
>
>Many thanks,
>
>
>Tom
>
>
>
>**********************************************************
>Tom M.L. Wigley
>Senior Scientist
>ACACIA Program Director
>National Center for Atmospheric Research
>P.O. Box 3000
>Boulder, CO 80307-3000
>USA
>Phone: 303-xxxx
>Fax: 303-497-xxxx
>E-mail: wigley@xxxx
>Web: http://www.acacia.ucar.edu
>**********************************************************
>
>
Prof. Phil Jones
Climatic Research Unit Telephone +44 (0) 1603 xxxx
School of Environmental Sciences Fax +44 (0) 1603 xxxx
University of East Anglia
Norwich Email p.jones@xxxxx
NR4 7TJ
UK
—————————————————————————-
Tom Wigley and Phil Jones are some piece of work, aren’t they?
The entire 1987 paper by Jim Goodridge is available here as a PDF: Goodridge_1987_paper (16mb)
We owe Jim Goodridge some thanks, not only for the work he has done, but also for the abuse he’s suffered alongside us all from “The team”.
faustusnotes, JG’s criteria were objective, as indicated by the sites he illustrated as suffering from artefactual temperatures (Mt. Hamilton and Quincy).
Your description of “fairly closely” and “most of the sites” as ‘criteria’ is incorrect. They’re not criteria. They’re descriptive statements. JG’s criteria for site choice must have been those of a professional climatologist. He didn’t list them, but he did provide the noted illustrations of sites subject to artifacts; and the sources of artifacts at Mt. Hamilton are explicitly described on page 3. We can surmise, therefore, that JG applied professional criteria in his correlation of rural/urban vs. temperature slope. JG’s known professional career as state climatologist supports that surmise.
Further, you have not addressed the significance of the correlation of SST with rural land surface temperature, and the lack of that correlation with the urban land surface temperature. That correlation/non-correlation is an independent confirmation of JG’s distinctions and data.
Your construct rests entirely on an implicate insinuation that JG is a careless dilettante. In terms of actual content, you don’t have a case.
Philip Mulholland, you’re right. Kukla, Gavin and Karl 1986 cite Jim Goodridge’s results and take them as valid. There they are, supporting data in a peer-reviewed climate scienceTM paper. Who’d dare gainsay them now.
JJ wrote, “Pat is correct when he says “The selection procedure amounts to a hypothesis that rural stations have a smaller slope.” but that wasn’t how it was analsyed, wasn’t how it was presented, and it certainly isn’t how it is being interpreted here.”
JJ, in terms of the rural/urban hypothesis is exactly how the data were analyzed. JG made an explicit comparison with SST. That comparison amounts to a test that could have falsified the hypothesis, except that it did not. JG even states, page 4, that SSTs are not subject to “near by incinerators and other waste heat sources.”
JG may not have explicitly written in terms of Popperian criteria for science (deduction followed by a test that risks falsification), but it’s very clear that his study incorporated them, and presented them. That is exactly hypothesis-testing and its presentation.
How JG’s work has been interpreted here is functionally irrelevant to its scientific standing. The only relevance here is whether a given person is interpreting JG’s paper in terms of its content, or not. Faustusnotes is not. Your suggestion of tautology is explicitly refuted by the comparison of rural/urban trends with SST.
Likewise, JG’s last paragraph cites the 1986 paper of H. Diaz, who compiled the temperatures at rural stations across northern Canada, Alaska, and around Greenland. Figure 19 in that paper shows anomaly trends from 1881-1981 from these rural stations. There is essentially no trend over the entire 20th century portion of those data. They are similar, in other words, to JG’s rural station trends, as JG pointed out.
The correspondence of Diaz’s northern North American/Greenland rural trend with JG’s California rural trend, but not with JG’s urban trend, constitutes another independent and potentially falsifying test; weaker than the test using the West Coast SSTs but nevertheless a good and independent test that produced a confirmation. These independent tests wreck your claim of tautology, and faustusnotes’ as well.
To summarize, JG divided his temperature data into rural/urban by referencing the slopes of the time-wise trends. He then tested his distinction of rural/urban by matching the station lists with what he professionally knew of their physical site quality. Site quality is an independent and objective criterion. JG then did his comparative analysis. He followed that by testing the results against SSTs all along the West Coast. Local SSTs are a second independent and objective criterion. He finally drew attention to the positive correspondence of his results to the rural trends published by H. Diaz. That is a third objectively independent criterion. There is no tautology in JG’s study.
You and faustusnotes plainly have no case.
Figures 4 & 5 from Goodridge in Anthony’s lead-in above, are similar in many ways to Warwick Hughes’ 1992 compilation of Australian rural and urban temperatures.
http://www.geoffstuff.com/Warwick%20graphs.jpg
These graphs were created in part to rebut some of the early denial of UHI by Phil Jones, whose work in places has been shown to be so bad that the law has been brought to bear on some data, e.g. the China part of the Nature 1990 letter that included Australian data similar to these. Strange, I’ve not heard an apology from Phil – but it’s only 22 years after the event.
Further relevant reading is at http://www.warwickhughes.com/papers/90lettnat.htm
Pat Frank, that’s incorrect. Goodridge’s criterion for site choice is stated clearly in page 2 of the paper, I quoted it above: if they have a temperature trend greater than 0.0125 per year, they are defined as “urban” and if it is less than that it is “rural.” He did not define them directly in terms of whether they are actually urban and rural. Even if he had, Goodridge is a climatologist, not a geographer, and typically geographers or demographers define whether a location is “rural” or “urban” (see e.g. the ONS’s definitions of “hamlet” and “village” in the UK – these are specific categories). Goodridge gives no indication in the paper of the standard by which he judges whether a site he “mostly” visited is rural. There are objective criteria for these kinds of things.
So once again: Goodridge’s definition of urban/rural is not objective, it presupposes the result, it is not blinded to the temperature trend in the station (as it is defined from that trend) and he is not an expert on definitions of rural/urban in any case.
This question Anthony is interested in can be answered, of course, by finding the site definitions and matching them to an objective criterion of rural (I would suggest a census bureau or mapping organization’s definition, or as someone else has suggested the existing categories in NOAA’s database). Anthony went to great pains in the past to do this analysis using low and high density population counties, but that is a weak proxy (since it pools urban and rural station sites within the counties). A better approach would be to label the individual sites explicitly and then analyze them.
This won’t get at notions of causality though. It may just be that the biggest settlements are more likely to be placed in areas that are vulnerable to warming. Correlation does not equal causation.
Maus says: “…your post isn’t fit for publication. And if you have any decency you’ll remove it post haste….your post is capricious, non-responsive, and makes no attempt to establish the ‘genuine’ nature of any of alleged mistake…red herring…irrational and unthinking nonsense … your even more arbitrary sycophantism is even less fit still.”
You call my “post” non-responsive, but it’s impossible to respond to others before they say something. Now that you have opened your mouth, I shall respond: Your comment is rude, ill-mannered, false, and deliberately insulting. Faustus established the nature of the procedural error most clearly: Data was first sorted by trend and then used to show that one bin had a higher trend than the other. No further “attempt to establish the genuine nature” of his statement was necessary. Constructive suggestions for fixing the paper were made, and Anthony replied in kind.
To those ‘nit-pickers’ – I would say that you have completely missed the point of JG’s work. If this had been taken seriously at the time, (which it perhaps slightly was, by a few, as the above citations confirm) – then some more serious analysis of the data (at that time) could have been undertaken and corrected way before all the autocorrection/algorithmic computing done today and all the subsequent data concerns (Nasa/giss adjustments, etc, etc) avoided !! – (or at least reduced – can’t get rid of the political human ‘adjustments’, I guess!)
My take on the paper, is that it was simply one mans ‘view’ of the validity of station data and, upon closer inspection – some correlation with urbanisation seemed apparent. Now, whether this was actually published or not, is totally irrelevent. Similarly, if there are, shall we say, supposed or intuitive decisions in assigning data to ‘classes’ for analysis – that is different to current methods – then those who say this invalidates the findings really need to re-assess/rewrite using the current methods using the original data and see if there is still any correlation. Conversely, if this showed he was essentially ‘right’ – then the current method needs re-evaluating. Harping on about one guys ‘choices’ and calling them unscientific is rather crass, IMO.
This kind of historical analysis is, and should be seen as, quite valuable. If I were not so busy, I would do the comparison to the currently ‘held’/’used’ historical station data myself – I waonder just how much adjustment has been made………
JJ says:
August 16, 2012 at 11:20 pm
I partly agree – but I don’t see that the grouping of high and low trends seperately is necessarily completely invalid. For example, there are likely to be urban stations, sited in inner ‘rural’ (e.g large parks?) locations which could potentially ‘match’ proper ‘rural stations (especially over the time period we are talking about, less A/c’s, cars, etc). Similarly, there could be so called rural stations, as in the example, located in poor sitings and affected by closeby ‘urban’ effects.
The grouping may seem arbitrary, for his analysis, but it is not necessarily ‘wrong’ and presumably his use of his own staion siting knowledge would have helped that process?
No doubt about it though.. Global URBAN Warming exists !!
Very interesting comparison of urban and rural temperatures by Jim Goodridge. It seems that he was simply looking for the truth based on accurate data from weather stations in California. It may not have been a peer reviewed paper but it clearly demonstrates the UHI effect.
The paper has been cited by H. Akbari who wrote ‘Energy Saving Potentials and Air Quality Benefits of Urban Heat Island Mitigation’, which was published by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
http://escholarship.org/uc/item/4qs5f42s#page-1
Mind you Hashem Akbari’s solution to global warming is to paint your town white. The BBC interviewer suggests painting the moon black. :o)
http://heatisland.lbl.gov/publications/hashem-akbari-speaks-bbc-radio-world-service-about-global-cooling
http://heatisland.lbl.gov/
I don’t know if you’re interested in this, but I ran across a 1971 index of California climatological stations, compiled by Goodridge, at http://archive.org/download/jk4climatologicalst165calirich/jk4climatologicalst165calirich.pdf
faustusnotes says that ‘correlation does not equal causation.’ which is quite true….except for rising levels of CO2 causing rising temperature, of course. Hence the Warmist panic now that the data is showing falling temperature as CO2 continues to rise.
Pat Frank, you have now made two references to the correlation of rural trends with SST, but I think you’re barking up the wrong tree. My understanding of AGW science (admittedly limited) is that SST is predicted to warm more slowly than land temperatures. If so, then the correlation with rural temperatures is just an artifact of Goodridge’s method. He has divided the data set into the fast-warming and slow-warming stations. If AGW science is true then it is natural that the SST will correlate with the slow-warming stations, since the SST is itself slow warming. Goodridge has chosen to call the slow-warming stations “rural” but remember, that’s not how he selected them.
The same artifact applies to the correlation between “urban” (that is, rapidly warming) series and population. If you divide a group of time series into “increasing linearly” and “not increasing” then the former will be correlated with any other time series that is increasing in the same dimension (time). A good way to think about this is to imagine that the warming trend is due to a solar cycle, i.e. completely independent of population. Because temperature and population are increasing in a linear fashion, they will be correlated.
What is it you guys are always saying? Correlation does not equal causation? Need to be careful about that …
Incidentally, correlation coefficients are not a good way to compare time series. You need to apply a common differencing function to render both series stationary, and then use cross-correlation functions. That Goodridge didn’t do this is a bit of an oops, but Box and Ljung had only written their work about 10 years previously (I think), and it hadn’t filtered through to a lot of people, so I suppose he can be forgiven. As I understand it (I could be wrong), Mann made no such mistakes in his hockey stick work.
Incidentally, if Goodridge has found an urban heat island effect, then the only solution for handling historical temperatures, since we can’t measure them again, is an adjustment. Which climate scientists apply all the time. But that’s considered to be a big bad no no around here, isn’t it? Even though it’s been going on in every field of science for time immemorial. I guess you guys must all be pointing on weight hand over fist, because you refuse to zero your scales in case you get accused of tampering with the data …
Also Anthony, your original post includes private communication between two scientists that contains the single word “jerk,” and which you seem to think makes them bad people. Since I started posting on this thread, a quick review tells me that I have been called a Nazi, accused of personal attacks, called a heckler, called a hater (by you), called stupid (for 25 years!), told I’m a warmista who can’t understand what someone writes, been accused of getting “uppity” and “worked up” (by you), accused of “idiotic objections by nit-pickers” (ironic, don’t you think, in light of your response to the exact same complaint in those private emails), and you’ve had to censor one commenter for using a bad word about me. All in the space of what, 60 comments? In a public forum, as opposed to a private email. Also, even though I clearly don’t want my identity revealed, you’ve tried to do that, including publishing my place of work, in a forum full of hostility.
Do you think that might provide some perspective on that part of your post, and do you think maybe your cohorts here might need a bit of a reminder of the boundaries of polite debate? The behavior in the last 60 comments makes it clear that the scientists you quote in those personal emails are way, way better behaved than a good third of your commenters.
You should all think on that.
REPLY: Those are now public emails, known worldwide now. I make no apologies for printing public domain information. As for publishing your place of work, that is public information too. Read the policy page “know your opponent”. I’ve seen so many like you that fit the mold you represent here that attack here, so maybe I’m a bit sensitive. I’m just not too worried about it if you are upset. – Anthony
faustusnotes,
Adjustments are not the problem. The problem is the incessant ‘adjustments’ made to the temperature record with no explanation of how they were arrived at, what the methodology was, or what the original raw station temperatures were. And the ‘adjustments’ are always of two types: either lowering past temperatures in order to sho more rapid warming, or ‘adjusting’ current temperatures upward. You don’t seem to have a problem with those shenanigans. Why not?
There is an enormous amount of money at stake. Without complete transparency of all data, metadata, methods and methodologies, the presumption is that they are lying for money. The simple fix is to open the books: post everything on line. Instead, they kep it hidden from the public that paid for it. Why? The reason is clear. They are trying to alarm the public, because that brings in the money.
My second comment just got eaten, so I’m going to post it again. You have put up two private emails between scientists (which is in itself a pretty shameful act) in which one calls Goodridge a jerk, and you seem to think that means they’re bad people. Since I’ve posted on this thread I’ve been called a Nazi, accused of personal attacks, called a hater (by you), stupid, accused of getting “uppity” and “worked up” (by you), accused of “nit-picking” (ironic in light of the emails you’ve published), accused of being incapable of understanding what others write, and you’ve had to censor one comment for saying bad things about me. Also, even though it’s clear that I don’t want my identity revealed, you’ve tried to do so and have even published my place of work, in a very hostile forum.
In light of that, don’t you think that your complaint about what two scientists said to each other in a private forum is a bit … weak? And do you think you should perhaps be reminding your cohorts of how they should behave in polite debate? Because the behavior in this thread suggests to me that at least a third of your commenters are just as bad as, or worse than, the scientists in the quoted emails. I think you and most of your commenters should think about your manners a little.
REPLY: You are quite mistaken, and quite wrong. There are no comments in this thread calling you a “Nazi” The only existences of the word are in this comment, and the one that got “eaten” recovered above from the SPAM filter which catches such phrases. You seem to think that is some sort of conspiracy against you, when it is just simple spam protocol.
I asked questions because I like to know who is challenging me. “Know your opponent” is my motto. You seem to think you are the only one allowed to ask tough questions. For all I know you could be another person trying to make an exploit/hack as has been done at other skeptic blogs this week. I’m well within my rights to ask those questions. But you are free to hide behind the comfort on anonymity like so many anonymous cowards who frequent here and hurl from behind the curtain.
Mostly what I’ve learned about you is that you are a complete waste of time, since you ignore the larger picture to focus on attack points, and concede nothing. To that end, I won’t waste any more with you. But I will post up Jim Goodridge’s response to your one question.
Be as upset as you wish, and thank you for your consideration. Cheers! – Anthony
Agenda 21 1992 (UN) Earth Summit, “there has to be a way found to take the cash from the rich and give to the poor” our duty to impoverish the rich countries..
179 nations including USA signed up, probably none of them knew what they were doing. But how do you do it? you pick something like CO2, make it a bad guy, and tax the hell out of everything that produces it. AGW is working for them for now, but the truth is emerging.
Bet you have an ILCEA rep in your back yard.
Should be ICLEA (apologies, typo)
faustusnotes says:
August 17, 2012 at 12:52 am
Pat Frank, that’s incorrect. Goodridge’s criterion for site choice is stated clearly in page 2 of the paper, I quoted it above: if they have a temperature trend greater than 0.0125 per year, they are defined as “urban” and if it is less than that it is “rural.” He did not define them directly in terms of whether they are actually urban and rural.
I suggest you read what Pat Frank actually said.
You are correct – the initial discrimination was as stated on page 2 based on the temperature changes. Well done – GOLD STAR – don’t hold it too tightly though.
Subsequently, this arbitrary split of sites into urban and rural was VALIDATED. First by local knowledge (something that you do not have). Secondly, by use of SST data and showing that these known rural sites correlated with SST data whereas the non-rural sites do not. Finally by citing a peer reviewed paper from Canada. So you can give that gold star back as you have disregarded the validation.
Note also as you were told many times – this was a presentation to other people interested in climatology, when it was somewhat arcane and a poor-man’s hobby and Croesus like riches were not available.
As these things are so important – I find it totally unforgivable that none of these overfunded agencies have put in place any configuration management. Their quality control only improved after Anthony’s Surface Station work stung them – and I think even then it would have been ignored except someone saw it as a funding opportunity to get some nice shiny new technology.
There are not that many surface stations in the world. Each site should have its own record with complete description and status. Any changes to the reported observations from the site should not be glossed over as ‘homogenization’ or ‘adjustments’ by algorithms implemented by people who have never left the computer lab. Instead each change of observation should be separately recorded with the reason for doing so and signed off by the person doing it and their supervisor. After all these were formally recorded observations – what right has a someone in a remote computer lab several decades later to say they were incorrect or should match another observation site – also never visited – up to a thousand kilometers away?
The lack of governance and configuration management is startling. One can only surmise that it is intentional.
Pat Frank says:
JJ, in terms of the rural/urban hypothesis is exactly how the data were analyzed.
No, they weren’t. To test the hypothesis that dividing the sites between high and low trend will correlate with urban vs rural siting, one would arbitrarily divide the sites by trend (check!), investigate each site and rank against objective siting quality criteria (not so much), and report the analysis which quantitatively demonstrates the difference in siting quality that was hypothesized (not at all). Only when that was demonstrated would one then proceed on to compare the full trends and make conclusions about what the difference means (mostly what this paper did).
I’m sorry, but saying “viewing most of the sites” and finding the characterization “fairly close to reality” is not a sufficient quantification of the results to test the hypothesis, and the talking around of the obvious busts in the characterization that Goodridge notes (urban in rural and vice versa) may be on target, or it may be ad hoc and special pleading. There is no way to discern from what was done.
I’m not saying that Goodridge’s claims aren’t valid. I rather suspect they are. They just aren’t demonstrated by what he did. And that is the “science” part. There is value here, and he should get props for doing what he was able to do on his own dime (Hansen produces absolute shit masquerading as science, and he has literally billions at his disposal) but it isn’t complete.
Your suggestion of tautology is explicitly refuted by the comparison of rural/urban trends with SST. .
Nope. Neither does the comparison to someone elses rural/urban trends. Just two more ways of “finding” the low trend that was the method for dividing the sites in the first place. If your hypothesis is that dividing the sites by trend will effectively divide them into urban/rural siting classes, you can’t demonstrate the hypothesis by looking at trend. You have to look at siting.
You and faustusnotes plainly have no case.
On that particular point, we very much do. On other matters, it is not helpful to lump us together, as we are quite far apart …
Anthony, thanks for bringing this paper to the fore. I remember some years ago when I first saw the rural vs. population densities wrt temperature trends here at WUWT. It still stands as good empirical work.
Just as a stopped clock is still correct twice a day, one of the websites referred to by Anthony (http://julesandjames.blogspot.ca/) has many beautiful “nature” photos from Japan, including one of Mt. Fuji that is quite unlike any others that I have seen and which looks more like a woodblock print than a photograph.
IanM
I just took a quick look at Mr. Goodridge’s paper. His reasoning is not immediately clear to me. If, as Faustusnotes suggests, he simply grouped rising-temperature sites in one pile (A) and falling-temperature sites in another (B), and then defined the former as ‘urban’ and the latter as ‘rural’, then the UHI conclusion would indeed be tautologous, ‘by definition’.
However, if he first defined the groups A and B by temperature trends, and then looked for an explanation for the difference, and after observation proposed that UHI accounted for most of the station values, that’s a perfectly valid method.
Since Mr. Goodridge, according to Anthony, had actually visited all of the stations in his sample, he would have easily been able to validate the hypothesis that the difference between the two groups A and B was caused by UHI. He would have also been able to suggest alternative explanations for stations that did not fit the hypothesis, e.g. in San Francisco.
My guess is that this, rather than simple-minded tautologizing, was indeed his method. The lesson, if there is one, is that, besides transparency of data and analysis, one needs to clearly show the steps and progress of one’s scientific reasoning.
/Mr Lynn
REPLY: I’ll simply ask him and post his response. Note Goodridge’s note about San Francisco. Clearly he is aware of that station, and as I’ve said he has visited most stations in California under his office. He doesn’t like to get involved in comments (like the majority of readers here), due to the trolling angry people that sometimes inhabit them, but he will respond to an email.
Anthony
I laughed when I saw the bathroom scales analogy. Calibrating the scales and then weighing myself naked is ridiculous. I like to weigh myself with all my clothes on and then make an ‘adjustment’ to reflect what I think I should weigh. :o)
What the Goodridge paper demonstrates is that papers like BEST that say there is no UHI effect have likely missed something.
Papers like BEST that find no UHI make a classic mathematical error. They are comparing apples to oranges. They compare the rate of change in temperature with absolute population levels and conclude there is no UHI.
What they fail to compare is the rate of change in temperature with the rate of change in population. It is the change in population that gives rise to the UHI. People moving into and out of a region change the temperature. When population is static, temperatures are static. When population changes, temperatures change.
California is an obvious place to demonstrate this, because of the large change in population over the past century. The Goodridge paper does not prove the UHI. What it does show is that that there is something going on that is related to population that has been missed by much of climate science.
The BEST fallacy can be easily demonstrated with you car. Find a spot of level ground. Hold the gas pedal steady. The vehicle speed will remain steady, regardless of whether the gas pedal is pressed a little (rural) or a lot (urban). From this BEST concludes there is no correlation between the gas pedal and your vehicle speed.
The speed of a vehicle on level ground only changes when the gas pedal changes. So,if you are looking for the UHI (change in vehicle speed) you need to look for change in population (change in gas pedal location).
BEST, Jones, they missed the UHI because they didn’t measure the right thing. They looked in the wrong place, and from this they concluded there was no UHI. A few days ago I lost my car keys. I looked for them in the wrong place and didn’t find them. From this I concluded that my keys did not exist. The IPCC used this very same logic to conclude CO2 causes warming.