Climate Audit

Street

Steve: found a nice Google Earth tool for viewing GISS station data. Not sure if it’s raw of adjusted (probably adjusted), but still handy.

http://edgcm.columbia.edu/~mankoff/StationData/

Adrian Ocneanu

A google world map with clickable stations leading to raw temperature measurements would be tremendously powerful in helping people look with their own eyes, rather than go for pre chewed data…

xyzlatin

I read somewhere recently (unfortunately cannot remember where) that the reason that the temperature figures are changed or updated, is because only thermometers that have been in existence for 20 years are taken into account initially, but then as they reach 20 years, they are added into the measurements as are their measurements which go back 20 years.
Firstly, is this correct?
Secondly, if this is so, how many of these thermometers in waiting are there, and where are they situated.
In view of the long term planning to hoodwink the public (in my view of course), I would not put it past some people to have placed thermometers in locations which will favour the increase.
This is also related to the demise of many thermometers in rural locations as already documented.
I look forward to some comment on this.

• ThosTHos
  Posted Mar 14, 2010 at 4:14 AM | Permalink | Reply

  “In view of the long term planning to hoodwink the public (in my view of course), I would not put it past some people to have placed thermometers in locations which will favour the increase.”

  It may be your view, but that doesn’t mean you don’t need evidence. My experience of climate scientists is that they couldn’t give a toss whether the public believes them or not – and nor should they. It’s good if your work turns out useful, but you don’t know that until you’ve done it. As to placing the thermometers – how would you choose sites that “favour the increase”? I’ve been a meteorologist for 30 years and I would have thought it was impossible. Also, thermometers are located to aid weather forecasting, usually up to 5 days ahead at most and mostly for aviation, military, or agricultural purposes. The use of the data by climatologists is incidental; they have no influence over the siting of most instruments, even in the UK Met Office there is no overlap.

Jennifer

The USHCN files for 1-2 and 3-5 station site ratings include 5 of the Pennsylvanian stations. On the survey results maps it looks as if most, if not all of them, were rated.

Is there a table of the surface station ratings (1-5) for all the surface stations rated? While I found the documentation for the surveys at http://surfacestations.org I was unable to locate such a table.

• John Slayton
  Posted Mar 19, 2010 at 10:50 PM | Permalink | Reply

  Jennifer,
  You may already have this, and it’s not actually a table, but Menne has posted a map showing two groups of ratings (1-2 and 3-5) for all the surfacestation.org ratings that Anthony has released:

  ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/ushcn/v2/monthly/menne-etal2010.pdf

  I should remark that these were only a preliminary and partial release, and that Mr. Watts is (justifiably, imho) bent out of shape at Menne’s precipitous use of this data.
  Good luck in your explorations.
  John Slayton
  Azusa CA

  • Hilary Olsen
    Posted Apr 22, 2014 at 10:39 AM | Permalink | Reply

    John Slayton,

    My name is Hilary Olsen from Cal Poly. I work at the ITRC, and I have draft of the Coop Weather Station 047851 Narrative History. If you get this, please email me back for I have a few questions.

    Thanks,
    Hilary

• John Slayton
  Posted Mar 19, 2010 at 10:51 PM | Permalink | Reply

  Meant to add, the map is around p. 20 or 21.
  JWS

  • John Slayton
    Posted Mar 19, 2010 at 10:56 PM | Permalink | Reply

    Whoops, save your time. Menne’s version has less information than the surfacestation.org site itself. Oh well, ….
    js

    • John Slayton
      Posted Mar 19, 2010 at 11:14 PM | Permalink

      Back again. Maybe these two lists will be helpful

      ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/ushcn/v2/monthly/ushcn-surfacestations-ratings-1-2.txt

      ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/ushcn/v2/monthly/ushcn-surfacestations-ratings-3-4-5.txt

      js

    • Jennifer
      Posted Mar 23, 2010 at 12:46 AM | Permalink

      I really appreciate the effort. When I first found those lists I figured that I had everything. But, if you compare the number of stations Watts, et al surveyed (look at their map) with the information over at NOAA it looks incomplete to me.

      For now I am continuing my analysis without this information. It would have been so nice to run a full comparison, but that can be added in when I’m done with the rest.

    • John Slayton
      Posted Apr 15, 2011 at 5:03 PM | Permalink

      Jennifer,
      This is a very late reply, and probably therefore irrelevant, but I finally found Menne’s station list at http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/ushcn/#menne.et.al.2010
      Look for links to “Set 1”, “Set 2”, “Set 3”, and “Set 4”.

gimply

While you, personally may find it inconceivable, the climategate emails, WATTS observations and the diarizations on this blog suggest to ME that such a practice is at lesat negligent, and may be both deliberate and widespread.

gallopingcamel

Steve,
It seems to be well established that the number of stations reported at GHCN is dropping (Peterson & Vose 1997, 1998 recently updated by D’Aleo & Watts).

I used to earn a living collecting energetic photons (up to 170 MeV). It would never have occurred to me to discard 80% of the data before starting the analysis. Is there any reasonable explanation for doing so in “Climate Science”?

Solomon Green

I asked on WUWT when the measurement of temperatures was switched from Tave =(Tmax+Tmin)/2 to Tmean being directly taken from the area under the curve, since instruments can now measure continuously. I was told that this had not been done as it was unnecessary since, over a period,
Tave-Tmean->0. I was also told that it was the difference between the trends in Tave and Tmean that mattered, not their absolute values, and this trend was alwys zero. It was added that the work proving this had been done many times. So I asked for the reference to a single paper where this had been shown. I have had no reply. Can you refer me to any paper where these assertions have been shown to be correct, please?

• John Slayton
  Posted Jan 4, 2011 at 2:14 AM | Permalink | Reply

  Solomon,
  Can you give me a WUWT thread or link?
  John

m_ciantar@hotmail.com

Is there a thorough history (current measurement conditions, discontinuities of metrology, local site changes) of every site preferably with reference to appropriate local or similar to local climate studies on the thermal history distortions. Even what to consider with record holes.

That’s what people really need to correct the temperature not what GHCN and the all the rest do which is lazy maths.

Like Max and Min temperatures tells the whole story- there are temperature inversions.

• John Slayton
  Posted Jul 9, 2011 at 6:22 PM | Permalink | Reply

  Is there a thorough history of any site? Overly cynical, but the point survives the exaggeration. Example: Clayton, New Mexico. I drove up there this week and took some nice pictures of the present (AWOS) installation. To try to build a history, I contacted the local history museum. Incredibly, they have saved the old Stevenson screen for a display the museum building. One of the curators remembered exactly where the screen had been positioned in front of the airport office, so I went back to take pictures of that location. The museum curators put me in touch with the surviving spouse of a man who had been the weather observer for many years. She, in turn, told me of a different well-defined location where the instruments had been when the station was first moved to the airport. So it was back to the airport to get pictures of that location. Somewhere along the line somebody pointed out that the station had been on top of the local gas company office (1930-1937). Yes, that building apparently survives, so it’s downtown to get pictures of that location.

  By now I have pictures of 4 separate locations, and still do not have a complete record. I do not even now how to adjust for what is known. It’s a safe bet that the roof of a downtown office building was warmer than the entrance gate to the small airport. But how much warmer?

  The existence of century-old weather data was at first beguiling. Just adjust for knowable biases, and use statistical treatment over a number of stations to tease a signal out of the background noise. But after looking at a good number of these stations, my personal conclusion is that it’s an impossible project. They have almost all been moved multiple times and it’s impossible to reconstruct previous environments.

  Of course, there are other reasons to document these stations. The COOP system is a remarkable success story of volunteers who work in the public interest. Many of their personal histories are fascinating, particularly those of the 19th century. Somebody should write a book. : > )

stephen richards

A remarquable piece of detective work. Incredible, well done!!

Eric Barnes

The V2 GHCN stations ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/ghcn/v2/v2.temperature.inv file no longer seems to exist?

Unfortunately v3 uses this for station data as well.