This is interesting, and of course it goes hand-in-hand with what I have been saying for years.
Scott Sistek, of KOMO News/Weather reports:
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For several years the thermometer at SeaTac airport has been reporting temperatures 1-3 degrees above surrounding areas.
Instead, it seems the thermometer at Sea-Tac is finally back on track, reporting temperatures more realistic with respect to other nearby thermometers. It’s been a long suspicion among some local meteorologists that the thermometer at the airport been running a bit warm over the past few years, frequently reporting temperatures 1-3 degrees warmer than surrounding sites. (Both UW professor Cliff Mass and I have done blogs on this apparent warming in the past.)
Here is just one example from July 16 last year when Sea-Tac reported a high of 88 degrees but everyone else around the Sound was closer to 83-86. (KSEA is Sea-Tac, the numbers on the far right are the preliminary highs for the day. This link will help decode the other cities listed here.)
UW research meteorologist Mark Albright has been tracking this anomaly for the past couple of years and has been among the most vocal in this apparent discrepancy. As just one example, he found for those first two weeks last July that the Sea-Tac gauge ran an average 2.3 degrees warmer than four other neighborhood thermometers placed within a couple miles of the airport.
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Apparently, they fixed the ASOS thermometer, and the problem went away.
Read the whole story here: http://www.komonews.com/weather/blogs/scott/Did-Seattles-climate-cool-15-degrees-in-a-blink-of-an-eye-254419491.html
h/t to reader Steve Z.
And as I’ve documented before, such errors remain in the climate record. Like the malfunctioning airport sensor in Honolulu, where the skewed temperature set new high temperature records. See this interview with a NOAA/NWS meteorologist on the issue:
But, even after knowing they were caused by a malfunction, the NOAA/NWS leaves the bogus high temperature records intact. Only government could screw up data this badly.
Here is where the sensor is:
The SeaTac ASOS, according to NCDC HOMR, is located below.
SeaTac is part of the GHCN network used for climate. But was it surrounded on three sides by heat holding asphalt in 1948 when the weather records began there?
Doubtful.
First Sea-Tac Airport Terminal, ca. 1946
I wonder what this revelation will do to this study, which used Sea-Tac and other GHCN stations as the basis for the claim?
New study finds “nighttime heat waves” increasing in Pacific Northwest
UPDATE: more on why these sorts of failures tend to be mostly hot failures:
A BLESSED PASSOVER TO ALL OUR WONDERFUL JEWISH COMMENTERS (AND SILENT READERS)!
In celebration of that most miraculous event, the escape from Pharoah, and to celebrate something we can all rejoice in, especially at this time of year, the wonder of finding our true love,
WOW — MOM
“Wonder of Wonders, Miracle of Miracles” — Fiddler on the Roof
Motl the Tailor singing to his Tzeitel
REJOICE!
Your Gentile Friend,
Janice
P.S. Sorry so late for most of you — I’m in PDT land… where it is now 5:19pm on 4/14/14.
In what other areas of science is junk data knowingly included because “the averages will even out?”
It’s all in pursuit of a large denominator: The more data points, the more likely you are to hit that magic “95% confidence”.
Fiddler on the Roof
Tmax, Tmin,
Tmax, Tmin . . .
I live a few miles from Seatac and I’m guessing that someone else has mentioned the construction of the third runway to the west of location shown on image. http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2008204574_thirdrunway26m.html
RE: SEATAC 3rd runway. The linked news article is from 2008 and the runway was supposed to be used as a second runway operating in low visibility conditions for landings only, maybe only 20% of the time.
This blog post from 2011 analyzes how the third runway construction project may have changed the local climate. It is worth a read.
http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2011/07/did-sea-tacs-third-runway-change-our.html
An airfield thermometer should always read hot! The safety margin for the air density calculation is on the high side. If you could design an airport thermometer, you would want one that always read hot, except around freezing – then it would read low.
Re anomalous temperature readings at Sea-Tac and Honolulu International Airports, these pale into insignificance when one examines anomalies elsewhere. For instance, I recently took the opportunity to point out to Dr. Jeff Masters at Weather Underground that his daily summaries for most, if not all, Canadian weather stations incorporate daily averages of Tmax and Tmin that run “hot” for six months of the year and “cold” for the other six. Put simply, the raw monthly averages used to determine running daily averages appear to be anchored to the first day of the month. Therefore, calculated anomalies for specific weather stations are errant for much of the year!
Furthermore, there is a disconcertingly high incidence of extraneous readings interspersed among the raw METAR data, which frequently get caught up in the daily figures for Tmax and Tmin. Needless to say, many of these are markedly warmer than the corresponding METAR data. For instance, according to Weather Underground, on the 19th March this year the weather station at Tuktoyakuk Airport (CYUB) in the Canadian Arctic yielded figures of -1 and -27-degrees C for Tmax and Tmin; the maximum temperature occurring at 6:00pm in the evening. However, the figure of -1 was not official METAR data drawn from CYUB. Rather, it was inserted from an external source (AAXX 20004). In spite of the fact that the METAR report for CYUB produced a figure of -23 degrees C at 6:00pm, it was the decidedly warmer figure from the external source that found its way into the summary table! A newer weather station at the same airport (CZUB) produced a METAR reading equivalent to the 6:00pm METAR reading at CYUB; thereby demonstrating that the insertion was 22 degrees high for that day. This is not a once-off instance at Tuktoyaktuk. More often than not, the figures for Tmax are significantly higher than the METAR data would allow.
Then there are the spikes in the daily METAR data sets. For instance, the weather station on Midway Island in the Pacific Ocean occasionally incorporates sudden spikes (usually in the middle of the night), when temperatures can suddenly jump up to 50+degrees C, and then, just as quickly, drop back down to a normal night temperature. These spikes are never removed. So much for quality assurance!
Put simply, the raw data that feeds into GISS and Hadcrut is seldom, if ever, proofed. Others might suggest fraudulent.
By the way, I am still awaiting a response from Dr. Masters.
Greg Beasley
(Prospect, NSW)
Please,
Can I suggest a useful group exercise?
Select a familiar airport. Estimate or obtain daily fuel use. Select a volume around the airport, such as the lower 500 feet within the perimeter. Calculate a temperature change plausibly caused by the combustion of that fuel within the specified volume over a nominated time.
We often see claims that fuel combustion can raise airport air temperatures. Combucstion, from first principles, will raise temperature, but by how much? My gut feeling is that the warming would be tiny. What say you?
In science , data is never discarded. A line is drawn through the data with ink, and the data is filed away for reference if required.
Stephen Rasey,
We would all be enlightened by construction and comparison of a new temperature version – perhaps for CONUS at first – where’d the ONLY records used are those from the first ten years, perhaps alternatively the first five years, after a new weather station is emplaced, or the first ten or five years after a documented change that was designed to restore the station to ‘as new’ including resiting to move away from UHI locations.
Such an exercise is beyond most home computer capability and would best be done by a group like BEST.
There is compelling logic behind this proposal. It uses the best data that a new station should have been capable of producing and it has some ability to offer further insight to the difficult UHI problem.
Cliff Mass is squarely in the warmist camp. He runs an otherwise excellent weather blog. So I was really shocked to see him post this on his blog:
Thus, problematic sensors and equipment are contributing a warm bias in official temperature records. How big a problem is this? I am not sure we have any kind of handle on this.
Yes Anthony. That concrete runway is emitting more radiation than soil. On very hot day you can fry eggs on asphalt. Average 2.4 C increase in temperature is easily attainable near concrete structures.
brians356 says:
April 14, 2014 at 9:18 am
‘Why is it that when one of these thermometers “goes bonkers” they only ever report higher temperatures, ?’
Why isn’t it recommended for a psych assessment when it goes “bonkers”? Anyone recommend a psych?
There should be a link to Cliff’s recent blog about this:
http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2014/04/the-great-sea-tac-temperature-mystery.html
Jim G says:
April 14, 2014 at 9:50 am
Anthony Watts says:
“So no, it doesn’t make sense to keep these records. They are false and don’t “even out”.”
If the erroneously high records are kept then the temperatures registered by the new more accurate instruments will indicate cooling compared to historical data. So the truth will win out in the long run,
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With the trillion dollar harm already done by these Blackbeard rule the world CAGW nut jobs, we do not have time anymore for the long run.
BTW, GISS is diverging from RSS at over 1.1C per century
That ASOS failure makes me shiver: ASOS is a standalone unit that collects data without human supervision. So, it seems to me that if one instrument shows false readings, safety of air traffic might be severely endangered.
I positively know of other automatted wx-reporting-systems, that all relevant instruments have a second circuit with a second set of instruments, thus providing mutual quality control if one instrument should fail. If ASOS does not have that feature, it ought to be retracted immediately from use for aviation purposes. Density altitude(for take-off, engine power, lift) requires correct temperature, altimeter setting requires correct atmospheric pressure for vertical separation. Humidity is another factor of influence. If just one of these data is flawed, the result might be serious trouble indeed for human lives. So I just do not understand why this masterpiece of engeneering is operated on one set of instruments only. Why did it take that long to discover? AFAIK, these instruments require official recalibration every 2-3 years. Has this been left undone? I suppose that this is a matter to submit to the FAA as well. Are there some 900 ASOS stations around where maintenance is grossly, probably deliberately, neglected?
Good night, Irene….
@ColMosby
“…then correct their invalid data using data from the
surrounding temp gauges that display consistency.”…
That seems to me the worst method. Corrupt data remain corrupt, and it seems impossible to “readjust” them. They will then be “corrupt data of uncertain readjustment”.
Best way is imho to mark these data ‘x’ and leave them out of any further processing. It doesnt’nt better any model if there are yet more corrupted data in its equations.
Of course, the original dataset must remain available.
Last year or so the temperature sensor at Richmond, VA airport (KRIC) was found to be reading high due to being clogged with grass clippings from airport mowing operations. Apparently this happened for years and readings were anything up to 4 degrees too high. The sensor housing was unclogged and now the mowers take care not to shower it with grass clippings so current readings agree with other sensors in the area. AFAIK no adjustment to temperature records was made. One wonders how often this happens at airports.
Anoter problem is that there are really very few temperature recording stations providing input to NOAA. When I look up weather for Topping, VA (where I live) I get the NOAA staion report for Middle Peninsula regional (West Point, VA) which is about 25 miles away. There can be, and often are, considerable differences in the local conditions at these two places. I would think that NOAA data is really nothing more than a “best” guess at what an average might have been. Not a very solid basis on which to destroy the world economy.
“Janice Moore says:
April 14, 2014 at 5:19 pm ”
I echo your sentiments (both Passover and Fiddler)
(goodness, I’m later still…Jeff-lag…blessings just the same).
The musical was set about 100 years ago, in times (and a place) that were extremely difficult-they needed lots of miracles. Interesting to listen to the commentary by the composers/producers on the Broadway soundtrack.
“evanmjones says:
April 14, 2014 at 6:34 pm
Fiddler on the Roof
Tmax, Tmin,
Tmax, Tmin . . .”
It made me think of the scene (in the play, not sure if it was in the movie) where
Tevye has a nightmare and changes from Lazar-Wolfe to Motl for Tzietl :
Tevye: We haven’t got the man
(Mazel Tov, Mazel Tov)
We had when we began
(Mazel Tov, Mazel Tov)
….
Somehow it made me think of Steyn singing it…
“We haven’t got the Mann, we had when we began”
(sorry….)
Strangelove,
“On very hot day you can fry eggs on asphalt.” Not true. People try this all the time at the hottest place on Earth, Death Valley, and it never works. Park staff are constantly cleaning up un-fried eggs…
Thanks, Jeff! After my apology above was dissed yesterday, it sure was nice to see a friendly comment this morning. “Jeff-lag” – lol. Are you ever, “leeeeeeavin’ on a Jeff plane?” heh.
just love this graph,
http://a.disquscdn.com/uploads/mediaembed/images/953/155/original.jpg
@richard 9:29 am
Great chart. Thanks. I would also note Norse (Viking) Greenland and Vinland at about the same interval as is labeled “Islam”
A very similar thing happened this winter (and perhaps longer) in Austin, TX…the Camp Mabry KATT ASOS was running 1.5 – 2 degrees warmer than surrounding locations, then on March 3rd, it was reset, presumably because MADIS had flagged it (only after it had gone a full 3 degrees warm). You can even see it had reported 34 degrees and freezing rain earlier in the winter! Yet nobody noticed…I guess there wasn’t anyone looking to closely at that one. Everyone assumes a site inside city limits should run warm…