Bishop Hill Climate station spotting
May 31, 2007 Climate: Surface Fancy becoming a climate station spotter?
There's a very interesting new climate research site being set up by Anthony Watts of Watts Up With That? He's been investigating the quality of the land-based temperature records used by climate scientists and is setting up the new site to encourage others to help him out. The idea is that people will go to an automated weather stations, take a few photographs so as to document its exact siting and surroundings, and make a few other observations of the procedures used.
He's already done a few stations around his California base himself with some pretty jaw-dropping results. One of these was Forest Grove, and Anthony's photo of the station is shown below. He has helpfully marked the distance between the temperature gauge and the exhaust outlet of the airconditioning unit which is installed in the adjacent window. It's possible that some UK readers may be unfamiliar with these strange contraptions which are used in foreign climes to make rooms cooler. You may also not be aware that these outlets give off a lot of heat. A lot of heat!
Anthony also shows the historic temperature plot for the Forest Grove station, which I've inset in the corner of the picture. It's no surprise that this shows things warming up quite remarkably in recent decades. I wonder if attentive readers can work out why this is? A clue - it's nothing to do with global warming.
Now this is an single instance of a problem and could easily be written off as a one-off. But fear not! Anthony has also documented Marysville, which comes equipped with an asphalt carpark, an aircon outlet, a barbeque and a sharply rising temperature plot.....
---and Redding which comes equipped with a lightbulb!!
Even if you have no scientific background whatsoever this is clearly wrong. Any observed increase in temperature at these stations must surely be due to the local, man-made heat sources rather than any purported change in the climate. It is extraordinary that these stations have found their way into the IPCC's temperature records without being noticed corrected.
Now this sample represents only a small percentage of the stations in the global network, but it does look as if there is a possibility of a serious data quality problem. As in any good audit, if you find errors the first thing to do is to extend your sample.
So if you have a camera (and an anorak, no doubt) you might well like to get involved with surveying stations in your locale. Just think of how you could annoy every greenie and leftie you know. Details of how to sign up here.
Reader Comments (3)
Why must it 'surely'? Has anyone calculated the effect to be significant (never mind sufficient to explain the warming that has been seen) or is this yet another raised eyebrow as it appears?
Do the man made sources get warmer each year as they would have to in order to explain the upward trends that have been observed?
And is the warming that the denialists used to claim wasn't happening until there was evidence that it was happening and which they once again claim isn't happening still due to the sun and cosmic rays?
I'm sure they have. The placement of the temperature gauge breaches the relevant guidelines so I think it's fair to say that these stations can no longer be considered reliable.
http://www.campbellsci.com/documents/apnotes/siting.pdf
The problem with upward trends is that they can be caused by many things - progressive urbanisation, trees and shrubs growing up in the vicinity and so on - not just climate.
I don't really know anything about the sun/cosmic ray argument. I've glanced at one of the relevant papers, but I couldn't even have claimed to have read it.
As an aside, what do you make of the issue of materials availability (lack of) and the truncation of inconvenient trends in the IPCC reports. Does this dent your confidence in the science at all?
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