h/t to Dr. Ryan Maue
In Spain, Paco Eslava García has been following my lead on the poor quality of weather stations that produce record-high temperatures. I recently pointed out how the tentative all time high temperature in Africa could very well be due to being at an airport. I also pointed out that high temperature records in the Los Angeles area could be a product of poor siting. Such as this station on the roof of the Santa Ana fire station:
But what Paco has found in Spain is truly laughable.
Here’s his Tweet showing why:
Translation:
This is the meteorological station, which has the highest temperature record in Spain, is located in the municipal district of Montoro… maybe a little maintenance would not hurt!
What Paco is speaking of is the Stevenson Screen. The box with slats to allow airflow. That’s where the thermometer is located. It’s supposed to be white, to minimize the solar heating effect. But as you can see, it’s not white at all, it’s brown due to lack of paint, which seems to have worn off:
It also appears that the front door of the screen may be missing. The vegetation is too high near it, blocking wind, and there’s a large concrete structure nearby.
Paco adds this photo, where you can see the station in the distance just under the word “Vega”:
Here’s the rub as to why this station is a problem.The 2017 heat wave that brought a new all-time high temperature record.
Spain records hottest day at 47.3C (117F)
I wonder if the State Meteorological Service of Spain (AEMET) bothered to go look at the weather station at Montoro before they verified that all-time high record. Probably not. That’s an embarrassing failure of science either way.
Fortunately, it doesn’t appear that this station is part of GHCN, so it doesn’t make it into temperature trends. But it does make it into climatic citations for all-time-records, and plenty of headlines. That’s still unacceptable.
Surface albedo matters when it comes to high temperatures, and a Stevenson screen that has lost it’s paint and exposes darkened wood absorbs more incoming solar radiation during the day, making the interior warmer than it should be.
But hey, let’s just call it “climate change” and nod to the consensus, as AEMET apparently did.
A friend of Paco, Juan Antonio Salado has found some other issues. He writes (translated):
Here you can see three central AEMet stations. The first manual, the second with two wind towers in the front of the building and between the Grove and the last, the automatic which is officially used on the terrace.
For example, here’s another Stevenson Screen with a dark roof.
Another freind, Zdenek Nejedly writes of another poorly sited station (also with a dark roof and chipping paint) that set the previous record:
Be cautious about Tmax on some Spain stations in next days. I have doubts about Montoro (p.1) st. Every day is 1-2 °C warmer than other hottest st. in Spain P.2 Murcia Alfonso X measured 47,2 in 1995, BUT…
Measuring temperature in the street, on rooftops, and using poorly maintained equipment is just irresponsible, and isn’t what you’d expect of science. One wonders if AEMET is just lazy, incompetent, or both?
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I may be very naive but if there are standards for weather stations why are they not followed and if they fail to conform why are their readings used at all? Back in 70’s I use to pass in-flight weather reports via HF radio as I navigated across the pond. I took great care because that was before the large number of satellites were in place so military planes we a big source of weather data. We took it very serious.
The standards aren’t followed because those responsible for following them aren’t held accountable for the lack of maintenance. The readings are used by different people who trust those responsible for maintenance are doing their jobs. It’s a misplaced trust, but even when alerted to the problem, those in charge don’t do anything until publicly embarrassed (even then its usually a cover-up action). It’s a scandal Anthony has publicized many times. The mainstream media ignore it because it throws huge doubt on their alarmist agenda.
Reminds me of another poster who has been assuring us that it doesn’t matter if the calibration data is missing, because these guys are professionals and would never neglect maintenance and proper calibration.
One wonders if AEMET is just lazy, incompetent, or both?
Hey , you do realise that this is southern Spain we are discussing, right?
Pablo, that Stevenson screen is looking very shabby, make sure it gets a new coat of lime otherwise our temperature records will not be valid.
Si, si, señor . Mañana mañana .
Good data , or ‘useful data ‘ gets used , bad data or useless data gets ‘adjusted ‘ to make it ‘good data ‘
The trick of course is on how you pick what is ‘good ‘ and what is ‘bad ‘ and how that relates to careers, grant funding and invites to events such has the IPCC.
You only have to look at the MET office to see that you need to make the ‘right choice ‘ if you want any career in the area.
Cold data is bad, hot data is good, DUH!
It seems the opposite is true here.
Accurate data is good here, Griff. After all this time you know this, but choose (are paid) to post nonsense.
Why indeed. I see a lot if lazy work pretending to be science to wow the masses with alarm. Sameoldsame old.
A reading of 140 F some decades ago (which would have been THE world’s record), reported from Delta, Mexico, had to be disqualified because ofa similar question of overexposure to roof radiation!
My personal weather station is sited better than these. https://photos.app.goo.gl/nhmS4fii1MbWcwWf9
Why does it look like it is in a bird bath?
Just kidding. Thanks for the view, Steve.
I should do one. We live in a rural setting about 5 miles north of a small airport (KLEN, Ellensburg, WA), so I could site one according to regulations.
Ellensburg (KELN) is an interesting case. The KELN ASOS has been running about +5 to +7 warmer than surrounding sites on sunny afternoons. Here is an example from last week when KELN had 101 F while across the street at C1456 the temperature was 94 F:
Another ASOS with a warm bias may be Chino CA which recorded 120 F on July 6, 2018. But surrounding sites with Davis Vantage Pros reported highs of 118.6, 114.2, and 117.2.
And it looks like C1426 is either in the lee of something, or its windgage is malfunctioning. It’s 90 degrees off from everything else.
looks very modern Steve but surrounded by trees. Don’t they shelter it a little? Shade and or wind
The worst sited one I ever saw in Spain was at Seville airport – sited on tarmac in front of the terminal, bathing in the sun and reflected sun. Also, possibly subject to the occasional jet blast.
The heat in Spain is caused mainly by the plane?
Nothing wrong with that siting, Peter, for the use of it’s data by pilots about to land or take off at Seville.
It is only a problem IF the data is used to further the CAGW scam by being included in official temperature records of organisations such as GISS, or is used to create alarmist headlines in the msm.
as most of those at airports seem to be
What do you mean? Most airport weather monitoring equipment tends to be close to the runway. Who woulda thunk it?
The fake heat in Spain is hard to beat, but stays mainly on the paper sheet.
fake heat in Spain is hard to beat = Fake News.
Sung to the Fandango, quite catchy.
Every year there will be some temperature records set. Has anyone done the math to figure out how many that would normally be?
For a new station, every maximum and minimum will be a record. There’s a 100% chance of setting records.
For a station that has been in place for 150 years, the chances of setting records is greatly reduced, but not zero. It depends on the system’s signal to noise ratio.
A year or 2 or 3 ago Luboš Motl (TRF) had a post about temperature records. The idea was that with a slowly rising or falling temperature — for whatever reason — records would be set in the direction of the change regardless of how small that trend was.
I look at these charts ( Yakima, WA ) and see that in our little corner of the world nothing out of the ordinary is happening. Note that our local atmosphere is part of the global atmosphere.
The Yakima warm bias was corrected in May 2018. Cliff Mass has blogged about it here:
http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2018/05/time-to-fix-yakima-airport-temperature.html
http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2018/06/fixing-warm-temperature-bias-at-yakima.html
Waaaay off topic: Is Yakima Canutt remembered there?
Thanks for the memory.
“For a new station, every maximum and minimum will be a record.”
This is claimed to be a record for Spain, not just Montoro.
Did anyone claim that Montoro was a new site?
These are the sort of sites that Nick prays for.
Quality does notmatter, so long as there is lots of it to adjust.
The site at Montoro is not as described here.
Either way it is bogus
Given that the climate is chaotic one would expect a lot of noise in the signal. So, there’s always a chance of a record based on that. For a new station the chance is 100%. For an old station chance is much less. I was trying to delimit the probabilities.
For any given Spanish station the chance of a record for all of Spain is small. On the other hand, the chance that some Spanish station will set a national record is much higher.
Nick, the world’s highest recorded temp is easily beaten in my kitchen regularly…..
If the new station isn’t there it wouldn’t had recorded the (fake) Spain record. If the station was there in the same site two hundred years ago it likely would have had the Spain record previously.
The simple fact being the more stations covers the surface area increase the chance of a record occurring.
New records are meaningless anyway because of poor coverage and especially new stations that have barely covered 30-50 years never mind 200 years.
The question to ask Bob is what is the ratio of hot to cold records and is it changing.
Then ask yourself if anyone’s ever documented an “Urban Cold Island” effect.
still using the same invalid thermometers.
I would hope a good number of these data collection sites would be rejected, but then where would the media get the false alarms from?
There might even be no warming if we factor only land stations active since at least 1918. Hachojima (Tokyo Station), Syowa (Antarctica Station) the USHCN stations show no warming trend in past 100 years. https://realclimatescience.com/2018/08/plummeting-august-6th-temperatures-in-the-us/
This, in the 21st Century!
How can temperature records from 50 years ago be trusted to a fraction of a degree when no one actually gave a monkeys about global temperatures?
No one knew about UHI and mercury thermometers were used. A tall guy wouldn’t get the same reading as a short guy.
And what scientist wanted to go out in the snow and rain when they had a tea boy to do the job? He probably ran round the corner to shelter, had a smoke and took the figures from the previous day.
There really is a difference between “scientist” and “academic.” Academics are the one’s with “tea boys.” Also, times change. Much of the original weather observations in the US were made by people who actually had reasons for observing. The National Weather Service supported commerce (in fact look what Federal department runs NASA and NOAA now). Useful forecasts were critical to harvest, shipping, planting, and many other real kinds of work. Now, well, in the US we hardly have shipping anymore. Agriculture is dominated by agribusiness and those guys frequently are simply collecting payments from DOA not to plant various crops. It is the real farmers who get bitten badly by crappy forecasts (like in the upper midwest this year and last year). Most other work is urban, “service,” provided indoors, and is not affected by weather to any great degree unless it becomes really extreme.
Those observers were truly dedicated and well trained. Yes there was an error possible in the angle of reading but that was minimised by training.
Also, it is not scientifically acceptable to alter past data without a full review, calculation of effect, proof that an error had occurred. None of these have been published, that I have seen, to justify the huge adjustments made by NOAA, NASA, UKMO
“But it does make it into climatic citations for all-time-records”
Makes me think of Alley blithely declaring that more high temperature records is proof that CO2 is causing dangerous warming.
But deniers simply deny because they believe the weather has changed before. Deniers do not know how to anaylyze…
hahahahahah. I think we know who the deniers are – the people allowing land stations to have as much UHI effect as possible with the belief C02 affect UHI.
And I absolutely believe that the ASOS stations in the US have issues. I follow the temperatures very carefully multiple times a day from the stations in my NWS region. I make note of the high and low temperature of these stations every day. And it is super obvious when the stations start to record anomalous readings, and when it happens they are always too hot. I am reminded about the bad ASOS at Reagan National which was replaced a few years ago after running too hot for years. And the data, including “record” high temperatures were never adjusted. And they become part of the global database that we use to track earth’s climate? And when you start to think about this issue globally, then wow. There was a peer reviewed science article published within the last year (can’t find it right now–maybe I found it here?) calling for a global network of 1000 weather stations, that would all be well sited and maintained, to track global temperature. What was funny about the article was how in the introduction they bent over backwards to claim that their proposal isn’t meant to mean in any way that the existing weather station network has problems.
I have been tracking warm bias problems with ASOS for years, like Yakima WA, Ellensburg WA, Chino CA, and Thermal CA too name a few from 2018. John, I would be interested in learning more about what you have found.
Anthony,
“…high temperature in Africa could very well be due TO being at an airport.”
I recall some time ago a when glass clad sky scraper was put up in London and there were times when you could fry an egg in a surrounding street and some wing mirrors started melting on parked cars. – Never heard how they fixed that problem.
Well, nobody at the time ever wondered if the Heathrow or Gatwick temperature readings would be “impacted”. They were right, weren’t they?
Ah, yes, 20 Fenchurch, aka “the Walkie-Talkie,” Constructed with a concave glass wall, made the news in 2013 for melting cars.
In the fall of 2014, made the news again with a fix…. shades.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2786723/London-skyscraper-Walkie-Talkie-melted-cars-reflecting-sunlight-fitted-shading.html
It actually melted the body work of what I think was a BMW Q series. Plastic cars are common to save fuel.
Ban plastic cars now!
Can’t wait to hear Stokes excuses about this one!
They are here.
J Mac said:
“Can’t wait to hear Stokes excuses about this one!”
Can’t wait to hear your response to Stokes “excuses” !
The center of the extreme heat halfway between Madrid and Lisbon (July 2017 map) is an area called ‘Extremadura’. There’s more than a hint in the name.
over 30 people died today where i live.
from the poorly measured temperature.
How did you manage to xcape?
Andrew
Mr. Mosher, you’ve become a mendacious fool. Cheap shot of the worst kind.
No doubt, everybody in the world who dies of old age, disease, or traffic accidents this summer will be counted as a victim of extreme heat?
You must have been the lucky one.
And we are the unlucky ones.
They died today … before noon …?
Holly Molly that’s scary. please update us tonight as to how many have died from the afternoon heat.
“Well ma’m, we have the results, we have measured you core body temperature 115 degrees F and … I am sorry to inform you … you are deceased.”
“No!, No Doctor, can assure you I am not dead; look, I can wiggle my eyebrows.”
“I’m sorry Ma’m, we’ll have no more of that. I’ve had 29 other complainers just like you this morning and I am getting a bit tired of it. We’ve used this same thermometer for the last 45 years and have never had a problem … there is no reason to expect that there would be a problem now. Please, just climb into the body bag so’s I can zip you up and get onto my next patient.
How the hell can I be expected to do my job with all these comments & complaints from the peanut gallery!?”
Mosh, this is just sad. Are you OK? I’ve been a lurker here for many years and though I disagree with you almost 100% of the time, you used to at least make me take pause and think now and again. Lately though you seem to be reduced to throwing out intellectually lazy stink bombs.
[The mods note the irony of a self described lurker being drawn into the conversation by Mr. Mosher. 🙂 -mod]
Nobody’s said it hasn’t been hot, just questioning the accuracy. Total red herring
When red herrings are all you got …
Eat them for breakfast. Hang on, haven’t kippers been determined to be so bad for people that they are not recommended for human consumption.
Are you trying to argue that every time someone dies from heat, it’s proof that it’s a record?
Do you take the same stance whenever someone dies from cold?
Or do you just exist to make inane comments?
30 people huh, can we see the official data. I cast doubt because in the whole of USA (330 million people) the figures for 2016 for instance was 94 deaths, 2017 it was 107 deaths.
http://www.nws.noaa.gov/os/hazstats/heat16.pdf
http://www.nws.noaa.gov/os/hazstats/heat17.pdf
So you have an amazing death rate to heat where you live.
Now lets give you perspective on that number … USA car deaths in 2017 were 40,100 and USA deaths to fire arms was 15,549.
I suspect what you have fallen for is the typical Climate Change junk invent a statistic.
So can we see the data?
In the past these issue where known about but not consider significant because weather prediction is a bit ‘hot and miss ‘ by nature and a measurement in one place . such has airports ,may not tell you much about a greater area anyway.
What changed is the idea of ‘settled science’ where now same problematic data has been given the status of ‘straight form the mouth of god’ and where PR impact is valued far above scientific accuracy .
With all the money that has poured into the area , and given we told its ‘the most important thing ever and there is no time to lose ‘ you think that one thing they would do is create a first class and scientifically valid means to collect such important data. But no the have not , and large parts of the world still have NO data for there is nothing to measure them, but instead use ‘smearing ‘ over hundreds or even over a thousand mile to claim one place gives you valid data for another . When that is not even the case in the same city given local variations .
A year or so ago I suggested that it wouldn’t be beyond the wit of man, no pun intended, to drop an automatic weather station from a plane flying over the areas where there are no weather records. Has this ever been done?
If it can be done with the Argo floats, why not something similar on land?
It would at least provide better data than extrapolating figures over hundreds of miles.
Sounds good, but in practise it is a very bad idea.
First, you would have to land & position the station securely, so a chopper would be used – slow & expensive.
Second, there may be no towns, but there are still people living in these areas, who would likely not respect the integrity of this bizarre device they discovered a few weeks or months after it was installed. And if the local humans did not interfere with it, the first antelope to come along would scratch itself on the thing & probably damage it.
But global climate policy inertia must continue because debate has ended. I’m sure peasants in feudal systems faced situations like this with dictators going in opposite directions from the growth of factual information or quality concerns. The emperors have no clothes and the surface temperature stations have no paint. This is the point where you call in the online message manager trolls to claim surface temperature measures are more accurate that satellite measures.
Purposely placing and leaving stations they know are poorly cited, is is um FRAUD yeah FRAUD
“This is the meteorological station, which has the highest temperature record in Spain”
Are we sure of that? There is an interesting article here on Met stations in Montoro. It says there are four that are defunct, and that AEMET has an automatic weather station in the town, from 2008. And here is a page which does look very like AWS data for Montoro. It gives temperatures with times to the nearest ten minutes.
Here is a graph of temperatures during a previous hot day in Montoro. They don’t look like readings from that screen:
Nick, do you want to vouch for the proper siting of the AWS?
I don’t know where it is sited. But they clearly have one, and are not getting the data from the old screen pictured.
I agree, Nick.
Seems a correction for this article is now required.
Ohhhh my! “DW Rice” (known previously as ‘Pud’ !) I didn’t know you were still around. I haven’t seen your name since the days of James Delingpole on the Telegraph blogs – years ago. Seems you haven’t altered your stance much, lol.
That’s right Luc, still asking people to be reasonable 😉
The “all-time record” should then be changed to “decade record”.
No, it’s a record for Spain, not just Montoro.
It is only a record for Spain because it is a relatively new station in hot spot of Spain and wasn’t able to record previous records before.
Even this is only a record because of previous records discarded, not supported.
Like the 38.5c record in Faversham, Kent, England back in 2003. This location was a relatively new station in a hot spot when it comes to the source coming from the continent.
Nick are you sure about that? The place pictured in Paco’s tweet can be found on Google maps here https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@38.0126348,-4.3301106,3a,75y,12.55h,86.86t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1suffI9c8cSBoZCG_AZPBmfw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656
It is a hydroelectric station on the banks of the river Guadalquivir. It is quite some distance from the town of Motoro proper. From the article you cited, it seems that the AWS is located somewhere there too.
I have attempted to translate that article.
Montoro: town of extremes
If there is a place where extremes in both maximum and minimum are really remarkable, this is Montoro, in the province of Córdoba, about 50 km from the capital.
Some time ago I wanted to comment on this curious place, [site] of one of the highest temperatures recorded in Spain. And, despite its low elevation (below 200 m), it [also] holds the record of minimum [temperature] for the province of Córdoba – an impressive -14.5ºC in February 2005. [ . . . ]
Regarding the maximum, note that there have been several stations [ . . .] in Montoro, in different locations along the valley between the town and Villa del Río. So the data is somewhat irregular and scattered. [They are:]
Montoro (C. de A.): Index No: 5366; Altitude: 195 mAMSL; Active period: 1955-2006
Montoro (I.N.M.): Index No: 5366A; Altitude: 200 mAMSL; Active period: 1985-2013
Montoro (Presa de Yeguas): Index No: 5348D; Active period: 1991-2007
Estación automática (Aemet)
Montoro Vega Armijo: Index No: 5361X; 155 mAMSL; Active period: 2008-2013
I do not know of any town that has had so many stations.
In any case, what is very clear is that in the Upper Guadalquivir [valley], in an area between the municipalities of El Carpio and Andújar, they have registered the highest temperatures in Spain, being even warmer than the airport area, (where the Aemet station) is located and as torrid as the capital itself.
The maximum registered in 1995 was at station ‘Montoro (C. de A)’, (now defunct), when 48ºC were measured. [ . . .] On August 1, 2003, 47.1ºC was recorded at station ‘Montoro-Presa de Yeguas’ (or Montoro Yeguas Dam – a large reservoir some 10km NE of Montoro) [ . . .]
However, the 48oC record is in doubt – because the adjacent stations [recorded much lower temperatures – as shown below.
23/7/1995
5366 MONTORO C. DE A. 48,0
5366A MONTORO INM 44,5
5348D MONTORO PRESA YEGUAS 45,0
5402 CORDOBA 46,6
There have been many debates among amateur meteorologists as to whether these records are true or not, (i.e. if there has been a decalibration of the current Aemet station, etc.) But it is clear that the Aemet station, which has been in operation since 2008 and which is located next to a meander of the Guadalquivir, on the outskirts of the town, is a real basin where heat accumulates and it increases when the wind blows west. It is a zone very protected from the winds because it is surrounded by hills between 300m and 400m AMSL. [Furthermore] in winter, mists are the norm – as cold air collects in some truly spectacular thermal inversions. This [phenomenon] occurs in the so-called Hoya de Villa del Río (marked in yellow on the map – halfway between Montoro and Villa del Rio). The Aemet Montoro station is located [right there]. [ . . .]
There can be a difference of several degrees between the upper part of the village and the lower part, 50 meters below, (as documented by amateurs living in the village). Weak frosts above become much harder frosts below, and the same goes for the heat. [ . . .]
This same phenomenon has been seen [at Cordoba] between the Airport Aemet station on the river flats, and the Cordoba PCE stations located at the top of a 6-storey building. The latter is almost always a few tenths of a degree more than the Aemet station [ . . .]
The 2 stations of Montoro that appear on the [above] map are located 1.5 km [apart], and there are [bloggers] like ‘Vigorro’ who have studied the maxima of both and [found] a 1-1.5 ° C [difference] in favour of Aemet station. The confinement of the [Aemet] station in the river, in the lowest part of the basin (155 mAMSL), [ . . .] can explain this marked difference. [The ‘Board station’ on the other hand is at 200mAMSL and lies outside the basin of the Hoya de Villa del Río.
The total thermal range is (48 + 14.5 = ) 62.5oC – really exceptional.
[It may be that in] the last 2 years there may have been a decalibration of the Aemet Montoro sensor, or a loss of tightness of the housing, because maxima have been triggered more than necessary. Or at least that is what is believed, because Aemet continues to report that the station is correctly calibrated and that these differences may be due to local factors. [. . .] With these data we could say that Montoro is [indeed] the [frying pan] of Andalusia.
(Posted by Francisco Jesús García Delgado on Friday, July 31, 2015)
“One wonders if AEMET is just lazy, incompetent, or both?”
Lazy or incompetent are overly-kind assessments. We are supposed to believe that somebody ACCIDENTALLY painted the roof black on one and dark green on the other, but didn’t bother to do anything with the sides? Probably because white paint is so uncommon and expensive, right? /sarc
Do you even know if that site is actually in use? Are you taking it on faith that the person taking the picture, or the person writing the article, actually bothered to check before publishing?
Whilst you might be right that the station is no longer in use, is there any documentary evidence that it is not in use?
As Ray Boorman noted, the long undisturbed grass is a good sign.
On the contrary, the fact that the grass in front of the screen is cut and trampled while the grass behind is out of control, would be evidence both that the screen is still in use and that it is not being properly maintained. Take another look at the picture Nick.
That’s just evidence that the outside area has been mowed. Doesn’t look much like regular foot traffic to me. And, yes, I grew up on a farm.
The CAGW faithful are vigorously defending their latest “miracle” I see.
Look, the weather has been hot lately and that’s not my point to claim otherwise. What I ask is why, if the screen has been abandoned, would anybody paint any part of it? Isn’t it less labor just to tear it down? And if it hasn’t been abandoned, why only paint the top a dark color? It could be gross incompetence but I’m skeptical.
If the article is mistaken, that should be acknowledged but the same “incompetents” who paint screens black are likely to be siting the automatic weather stations?
The Spaniards are broke.
If you tossed a lighted match into all that grass you would set a new record. I’m sure that the temperature record would make the headlines before the grass fire would.
Don’t forget the Portuguese record. It happened at Alvega. Check the GPS position at IPMA. Insert it into Google Maps and have a great laugh! Not sure if the ice cream truck was there though…
has there ever been a temperature record broken in the last twenty years by a bona fide well maintained and correctly sited station ? it seems this situation occurs every single time a record is “broken”. i thought the “broken” part was supposed to be the temperature record, not the equipment doing the recording.