Missouri Weather Stations And Global Warming

The models for global warming predict warming trend lines that grow increasingly until we all burn like Father's Day pop-tarts made by your three year old.

That's been a problem lately, as the temperature in 1998, which wasn't even as warm as that in the 1930's heat wave, was the highest on record in the last several decades, but was a high point that has not been matched in the next 11 years.  In fact, we have seen no global US warming in the lat 11 years.  None. 

And the warming that has occurred since the 70's is suspect.  One - the 70's was cold.  There was some warming bound to happen.  Two, the way in which we measure temperature has changed. One of those ways is measuring surface temperatures through weather stations.  These simple stations have thermostats and a pole sticking up from the ground. We use the stations to determine trend lines over time, and they are the most reliable readings in the world.  All that means is US weather stations have more reliable data than their counterparts in other parts of the blog because we had the infrastructure and manpower to set them up and monitor them.

That data is important to the Global warming movement.  Climate is very complex.  There are several layers of atmosphere that show different temperature readings, and so data is aggregated worldwide on the assumption that it is accurate.

Here, take a look.

 

Do you see anything that might alter temperatures?  That sensor is going to be several degrees hotter than it would be if it were on a plain somewhere.  That kind of data is corrupting.  Think about St Charles or O'Fallon.  2,000 people in 1990, 120,000 people in 2004.  More houses, more urban heat islands, and higher temperatures at the sensor level, but not because of global warming. 

Can you be part of the solution?  Join the Surface Station project, which chronicles the placement of weather sensors in the US so we can get an accurate reading of temperature.  If the globe is warming, we need to know it. It's not helpful when bad data gives us false positives. 

 

These are weather stations in Missouri that still need checking.

If you live in or near these sites, could you pop by and take a picture sometime this summer?  Regardless of your position, you should want accurate data.  Help the surface station project gather real data and make accurate reports.  Plenty of information is there on how to help out. 

Comments

[Clark]

Not sure what you think you're showing. Climate studies already take urbanization and urban heat islands into effect, referencing nearby rural stations to see if the trend is any higher for the urban station than for the rural one, and then recalculating to correct for this effect.

[Clark]

Also, you obviously either don't know what you're talking about, or you're deliberately ignoring the facts.

You claimed that the Earth has not warmed since 1998. Not true, since 1998 isn't even the warmest on record. 2005 is. The idea of global warming doesn't mean that every year will be warmer than the last. It means that the rolling average will climb ever higher until an equilibrium is reached. And that's what we see. The top 11 warmest years on record all occurred in the last 13.

[-Jim Durbin]

Two things - first - yes - I wrote too fast. That was changed up above. It should read there has been no warming in the US since 1998, which is only the second hottest year on record (beat out by 1931, which happened prior to all of the greenhouse gas accumulation). This is important because the US has the most reliable data, and if NASA can make mistakes over an extended period of time where their data (in Excel sheets) misrepresents that fact, how can we trust other data around the world?

The surface station project - is designed to improve the reliability of our data - that data is taken at face value, despite concerns raised over false readings. It's very important since those data sets are used to make pronouncements like - warmest year on record, rising temperatures, and comparisons with past decades.

You act like the surface station data is looked over carefully, when in fact it's outdated as to the urban/rural mix (St Charles being a great example). This data is used to plot trendlines going back over the last century, and if it's not accurate, one has to question whether predictions made from computer models 100 years out can be accurate.

The global temperatures have been rising, we think, - but as I point out, temperature measurement is not particularly reliable, even in the US. To attempt to make grand statements about climate change when the world's most advanced country uses bad data points is absurd. Thus the surface station project offers to do what NASA would not - provide a photographic database of our data stations to create accurate climate models. If we performed the same kind of quality check on ocean and Arctic sensors, the argument would go a long way towards being factual. What is actually happening to the climate?

This is one of those no-brainers - everyone should be on board, no matter their views on global warming. It does suggest that much of the hyperbole is based on wanting a conclusion to be true, rather than actually measuring the data correctly. That NASA doesn't think this is important (but protesting Coal Companies in West Virginia is), speaks far more to the lack of scientific rigor of the global warming debate than anything I could come up with.

How can you have settled science when we don't even know if the data is accurate? You can't, Clark. It's yet another example of the anti-science positions of the Democrats in Congress (satisfied grin).

[-Jim Durbin]

Here's a question - satellite temperatures recorded 2002 and 2005 as the second warmest year on record, behind 1998. NASA now admits that 1998 was the second hottest year on record, behind 1931. Since we had no satellites in 1931, could it be that the information we have is short-term and short-sighted.

If satellites were considered the most accurate measure, and we launched the first ones in 1998, then the trends line would show a cooling trend, and the story would be that the earth was cooling.

It's ridiculous to make these grandiose claims on bad data, using scientific jargon as a cover, when the truth is science is dirty, messy, and the collection methods vary over time.

Admitting that - leaving your records open to peer research, and not injecting global politics into the debate would be a positive step forward. It has not been done, and we stand poised to implement cap-and-trade, knowing full well it will not reduce global emissions.

[Clark]

Jim, we're looking at global warming, not US warming. Until you can recognize that fact, we're not going to get very far.

Gavin over at Real Climate addressed pretty much everything you've presented here and then some. Basically, climate scientists are already aware of microsite effects and correct for bias in their calculations. There's a lot of other evidence of global warming, like receding ice and glaciers, plant growth pattern changes and warming oceans. All of this points the same way as historical temperature readings - the Earth is warming.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/07/no-man-is-an-urban-heat-island/

[Jim Durbin]

Clark,

I'm not denying warming has occurred, but the amount and the rate are certainly in question. If we're going to tie it to human actions in a significant manner, shouldn't we at least have the correct readings? Are you suggesting that surface stations in the US aren't important, and the bad data we get, even when it leads to sensationalist headlines that are factually innacurate (1998 being the hottest year in the US), should be brushed aside?

The fact is the science is far from settled - whether that's a minor matter or a major one (global warming significant and man-caused or insignificant and normal) isn't the issue - we need correct readings to best handle the crisis.

You claim that climate scientists are aware of microsite affects and correct for bias. Uh - that's quite a leap. Considering they didn't know there were problems with the data until surfacestations.org was started, when exactly did they make those changes? Are you suggesting they have been massaging the data all along? Which direction? Are they doing so to reinforce the science, or in a way to make the data fit preconceived notions of what is happening?

A lot of the "science" is shoddy. One would think if this is a serious and urgent matter, scientists would want to make sure the data was as accurate as possible. Instead, we see a lot of conjecture, a lot of whitewashing bad data, and a lot of assumptions that would get you laughed at in a 10th grade earth science class, but someone get stamped by the IPCC.

Global warming is different than US warming, but mistakes made in the most advanced nations on temperature measurement should give us great pause as to the accuracy in other areas.

Let me point you to that RealClimate article.

"The purpose of the CRU and GISS efforts is to produce large scale data as best they can from the imperfect source material"

Now you can say that climate scientists are all over this, but you'd be wrong. They announced last October 2008 was the warmest October on record, but it turned out that all of the warming was caused by a mistake in merging data. Russian's September was duplicated twice. It was a math error, and a technology error, that was not caught. And yet it made headlines, while the correction was barely touched.

One has to ask why data points showing drastic warming are trumpeted, while data points showering skepticism are hidden and individuals attacked.

One would think we are all on the same side on this. If Global warming is real, significant, man-made, and catastrophic - I'd want to do something too. That the people suggesting change offer joke legislation that empowers international bodies and foreign governments at the expense of the US economy, all without actually solving any problems, is worrisome.

It makes me think that maybe this is about power, politics and money (yes, I'm mocking Al Gore and the IPCC), and not climate change.

[Jim Durbin]

Oh, and as for the 2005 was the warmest year on record - keep in mind this was reworked NASA data, and not simply a reporting of satellite data.

"perhaps you haven’t read the data from the UK Meteorological Office’s Hadley Center for Climate Studies as well as two other widely used global temperature data sources - earth-orbiting satellites UAH (University of Alabama at Huntsville) and RSS (Remote Sensing Systems.) All three show decreasing temperatures over the last decade, with present temperatures barely above the 30 year average."

IF we cannot understand how data is collected, when it was collected, and the accuracy of that data, then we're just making it up as we go along - and as been demonstrated time and time again, those who are pushing legislation are not above cherry picking data to push that legislation.

http://www.uah.edu/News/climatebackground.php

[Jim Durbin]

Clark, the NOAA has come up with "talking points" to address the surface station project. There's just one problem - they don't address current data, don't cite sources, didn't address Watts, and make a number of mistakes.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/06/24/ncdc-writes-ghost-talking-points-rebuttal-to-surfacestations-project/#more-8837

The argument is the NOAA makes changes for those surface stations, but as is made clear, they 1) don't have an understanding of the underlying data they are making assumptions with, 2) remove stations that are found to be faulty by the project, and 3) the underlying trend of increased temperature reading due to urbanization cannot be recognized except on a station by station basis.

The problem is increased building in all areas - using the urban heat island excuse doesn't address the problem of increased temperatures at separate stations.

In other words - high mucky mucks play with data sets because they are afraid to look at the physical problems with gathering that data, and then claim they've solved the problem because they dared address it.

That's not science. It's politics and money.