Thursday, May 31, 2007

How not to measure temperature

As shown as Watt's up with that,

I'm surveying climate stations of record around California and documenting their condition as part of a larger project I'm doing. You'll see more about it here in the near future.



Today I visited Marysville's Fire Station, just off Hwy 70 at 9th and B Street, where they have the station of record for the city using the MMTS electronic sensor installed by the National Weather Service. The data from this station is part of the USHCN (US Historical Climatological Network) and is used in the computer modeling used to predict climate change.



The Marysville station is located behind the fire department building on a patio and is probably the worst site visited so far. In addition to the sensor being surrounded by asphalt and concrete, its also within 10 feet of buildings, and within 8 feet of a large metal cell tower that could be felt reflecting sunlight/heat. And worst of all, air conditioning units on the cell tower electronics buildings vent warm air within 10 feet of the sensor. Oh and lets not forget the portable BBQ the firefighters use a "couple times a week." The area has been constantly added to, what was once a grass rear yard was turned to a parking lot, then more buildings added, then a cell tower with one, then two electronics buildings and the air conditioners...no report on how long the firefighters were BBQ'ing back there, when they figured out why I was asking all the questions they clammed up.



I can tell you with certainty, the temperature data from this station is useless. Look at the pictures to see why, and is it any wonder the trend for temperature is upward?



Marysville_issues1.JPG



Marysville_issues2.JPG



Marysville_issues3.JPG



Above: Vehicles with hot radiators park within 6 feet of the temperature sensor!



marysville_plot.jpg



Now compare Marysville to Orland, just 50 miles away, where there's not been any significant change in the last 100 years at the measuring location. Its obvious that Marysville is measuring UHI (Urban Heat Island) effects.



OrlandCA_USHCN_Site_small.jpg



So the question is, how does bad data like this slip into the NASA GISS model database?

2 comments:

Phil said...

In 1997 NASA were adamant the satellites didn't show any warming and the satellites were correct.

http://science.nasa.gov/NEWHOME/headlines/essd06oct97_1.htm

Since then the data has been adjusted to be inline with surface measurements, even though there are many issues with the surface temperature record including the ones Jonathan has identified.

It looks fishy to me.

Phil said...

That URL got truncated.

http://science.nasa.gov/
NEWHOME/headlines/essd06oct97_1.htm