In the interest of science

[W8EJO]

From yesterday's Pittsburgh Tribune-Review:

"Remember in January when the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)  trumpeted that 2006 was the warmest year on record for the contiguous United States?

NOAA based that finding   on the daily temperature data that its National Climatic Data Center gathers from about 1,221 mostly rural weather observation stations around the country" which  "NOAA calls its United States Historical Climatology Network (USHCN). "

Now it turns out that many of these stations do not meet the NOAA's own requirements (should be 100 feet from buildings, not placed on hot concrete, etc. ).

See: http://www.surfacestations.org/odd_sites.htm


You can help in the effort to document the conditions at these test stations. Go to:


http://www.surfacestations.org/

Follow the Get Involved link.


Terry
W8EJO

 

[Jim, W5JO]

did they use junk science or what?  Makes one doubt most any pronouncement from most scientists.

[W8EJO]

did they use junk science or what?  Makes one doubt most any pronouncement from most scientists.

The stations that read the temp. are supposed to measure the temp of the air without the influence of local factors such as proximity to any hot (or cold) air source, or buildings or parking lots that are essentially heat storage areas.

The problem this guy is finding is that many of these official NOAA temp recording sites are in fact near sources of heat. They may not have been when originally set up, but things change. Buildings are built, asphalt is poured etc.

The result is that he is finding sites that no longer comply with NOAA standards (like those in the link) but are still being used to compute average US temp.

I find this fascinating particularly in light of all the hype in the past few years.

Evidently the situation is the same or worse worldwide.

http://www.surfacestations.org/about.htm

Terry
W8EJO

[Jim, W5JO]

These stations are supposed to be 4 ft. off the ground and in the shade.  In addition they should be in an area where any breeze could circulate around the instruments.

I forget the horizontal distance required, but it is substantial. What they are supposed to measure is the composition and temperature of free air plus the direction and speed of wind without influence of nearby obstructions. 

[W1JS]

Michael Crichton (Andromeda Strain, Jurassic Park) writes about this subject in his novel,   "State of Fear" .

http://www.crichton-official.com/fear/index.html

[wa2zdy]

did they use junk science or what?  Makes one doubt most any pronouncement from most scientists.

I already doubted the government, scientists and otherwise.

What's really fun is to look at NOAA's doppler weather radar.   See the precip then change to the adjacent radar site (here that means changing from Tampa to Melbourne.)   With the same timestamps on each image, the locations of the precip are totally different.

Ain't THAT confidence inspiring?

[AF9J]

Yeah, but are they using the same radar for the images you're seeing?  Remember, LOS, curvature of the Earth, etc. 

Ellen - AF9J

[Bacon, WA3WDR]

Frankly, I also have to wonder about the location of the world's main CO2 sensor on a volcano.  Can we be sure that volcanic CO2 emissions are not affecting the readings?  And I'm a global warming believer, too.

http://www.mlo.noaa.gov/programs/esrl/volcanicco2/volcanicco2.html

[W8EJO]

Here's an official NWS temp reporting station reported yesterday (6/22). It's in Bainbridge, GA which is down near the FL border:

 http://www.norcalblogs.com/watts/weather_stations/

There are a few other official NWS temp reporting stations documented on this site.
Check out the one in Petaluma California.

Seems the "science" here is literally "cooked".

Terry
W8EJO