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Title: NOAA Relies On ‘Compromised’ Thermometers That Inflate US Warming Trend
Source:
DailyCaller
URL Source: http://dailycaller.com/2015/12/17/e ... hat-inflate-u-s-warming-trend/
Published: Dec 18, 2015
Author: Michael Bastasch
Post Date: 2015-12-18 08:37:49 by Tooconservative
Keywords: None
Views: 999
Comments: 5
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s reliance on poorly-sited weather stations to calculate surface temperatures is inflating the warming trend of the U.S. and maybe even the rest of the world, according to a landmark study looking at three decades of data. “The majority of weather stations used by NOAA to detect climate change temperature signal have been compromised by encroachment of artificial surfaces like concrete, asphalt, and heat sources like air conditioner exhausts,” Anthony Watts, a seasoned meteorologist and lead author of the study, said in a statement Thursday. These “compromised” weather stations run hotter than stations that are well-sited, and are used by NOAA as a benchmark to make upward adjustments for other weather stations that are part of the agency’s official temperature record. Watts and his fellow researchers found only 410 “unperturbed” weather stations out of the 1,218 stations used by NOAA to determine U.S. climate trends. These “unperturbed” stations don’t need to be adjusted by NOAA because they had not been moved, had any equipment changes, or change in the time temperatures were observed. Watts found well-sited stations show significantly less warming than poorly-sited stations from 1979 to 2008 — the time period was chosen in order to respond to NOAA papers from 2009 and 2010 justifying its weather station adjustments. Now, Watts has years of evidence showing NOAA is relying on shoddy weather stations to make its temperature adjustments. “This study demonstrates conclusively that this issue affects temperature trend and that NOAA’s methods are not correcting for this problem, resulting in an inflated temperature trend. It suggests that the trend for U.S. temperature will need to be corrected.” Watts said. Source: Watts Up With That What’s more troubling, is that similar siting problems have been observed at weather stations around the world, meaning the global warming present in the surface temperature record may be overblown. Watts’ study comes after NOAA published a June study making further adjustments to temperature data and purported to eliminate the “hiatus” in global warming. Watts’ new paper casts more doubt on NOAA’s temperature adjustments — which always seem to increase the warming trend. Correcting for these poorly-sited stations could also bring surface warming trends more in line with observations from satellites, which show no statistically significant warming for about two decades. “We believe the NOAA/NCDC homogenization adjustment causes well sited stations to be adjusted upwards to match the trends of poorly sited stations,” according to Watts’ study. “The data suggests that the divergence between well and poorly sited stations is gradual, not a result of spurious step change due to poor metadata.” Watts says the warming trend at well-sited stations was “found to be collectively about 2/3 as large as U.S. trends estimated in the classes with greater expected artificial impact.” NOAA data adjustments greatly reduce those differences but produce trends that are more consistent with the stations with greater expected artificial impact.” NOAA has come under fire in recent months for “homogenizing” the temperature data, a process used by scientists to correct for biases in the data. Scientists go in and either ratchet up or down temperatures from thermometers up or down based on things like changes in the time of day temperatures are observed, the equipment used to take readings, or changes in the actual locations of thermometers. NOAA has defended its data adjustments are necessary to get more accurate data. But there’s a bigger question: why is NOAA relying on so many poorly-sited thermometers to collect temperature data? “It’s one of the factors they did not consider,” Dr. John Christy, a climatologist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville and co-author of the study, told The Daily Caller News Foundation. “Many of the thermometer sites have been contaminated,” Christy said, adding that poor siting “increases the warming rates.” Christy and his colleague Dr. Roy Spencer created the first satellite datasets to observe global temperature trends in 1989, and have global data going back to 1979. Christy’s and Spencer’s satellite measurements, which collect temperature data from the lower atmosphere, show no statistically significant warming since 1994 — a period of 21 years. “We prefer satellite data because it’s a measurement of the bulk atmosphere,” Christy said, adding this is where global warming should be most apparent. Satellites also don’t need to go through the level of adjustments surface thermometers do. Watts’ study is likely to be challenged by the global warming “establishment” because it challenges data they believe supports the idea that greenhouse gases are pushing the world towards dangerous warming. “If you want the truth about an issue, would you go to an agency with political appointees?” Christy said. “The government is not the final word on the truth.” Poster Comment: From the source blog link to WattsUpWithThat, a few more revealing photos. Figure 1 – USHCN Temperature sensor located on street corner in Ardmore, OK in full viewshed of multiple heatsinks. Figure 2 – Analysis of artificial surface areas within 10 and 30 meter radii at Ashland, NE USHCN station (COOP# 250375) using Google Earth tools. The NOAA temperature sensor is labeled as MMTS. . . . We do allow for one and only one adjustment in the data, and this is only because it is based on physical observations and it is a truly needed adjustment. We use the MMTS adjustment noted in Menne et al. 2009 and 2010 for the MMTS exposure housing versus the old wooden box Cotton Region Shelter (CRS) which has a warm bias mainly due to [paint] and maintenance issues. The MMTS gill shield is a superior exposure system that prevents bias from daytime short-wave and nighttime long-wave thermal radiation. The CRS requires yearly painting, and that often gets neglected, resulting in exposure systems that look like this: See below for a comparison of the two: Some might wonder why we have a 1979-2008 comparison when this is 2015. The reason is so that this speaks to Menne et al. 2009 and 2010, papers launched by NOAA/NCDC to defend their adjustment methods for the USCHN from criticisms I had launched about the quality of the surface temperature record, such as this book in 2009: Is the U.S. Surface Temperature Record Reliable? This sent NOAA/NCDC into a tizzy, and they responded with a hasty and ghost written flyer they circulated. In our paper, we extend the comparisons to the current USHCN dataset as well as the 1979-2008 comparison. . . . 
(5 images)
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#1. To: TooConservative (#0)
back in November ,NOAA was stonewalling the Lamar Smith chaired House Committee on Science, Space and Technology. They refused to hand over data, including email communications, subpoenaed by the committee . https://science.house.gov/sites/republicans.science.house.gov/files/documents/11 -4-15%20CLS%20to%20Sullivan%20Subpoena%20compliance.pdf At issue was the climate change 'pause' or 'hiatus'. Even with earth bound sensors placed in completely inappropriate places for legitimate scientific research ,reliable data provided by orbiting satellites, show no global warming for the past 18 plus years. Still in June ,NOAA published a report saying that there was no pause. http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2015/noaa-analysis-journal-science-no- slowdown-in-global-warming-in-recent-years.html This report even contradicts the conclusions of die hard climate alarmists .Can we call NOAA 'hiatus deniers' ? Chairman Smith said ,“It was inconvenient for this administration that climate data has clearly showed no warming for the past two decades,” “The American people have every right to be suspicious when NOAA alters data to get the politically correct results they want and then refuses to reveal how those decisions were made. NOAA needs to come clean about why they altered the data to get the results they needed to advance this administration’s extreme climate change agenda. The agency has yet to identify any legal basis for withholding these documents. The Committee intends to use all tools at its disposal to undertake its Constitutionally-mandated oversight responsibilities.” As of today NOAA boss Kathryn Sullivan refuses to comply. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
I found the info on the temperature stations interesting, given how much of the data comes from them. You may recall that both nolu and I posted a Telegraph article that mentioned the six climate stations in Paraguay.
Congress allows these sorts of shenanigans all the tyme; it is their singular, purpose to appease 0bama.
I guess we are assuming that the emperor will not force his administrators to comply with Congress . So their choice is to issue a contempt charge and try to get a court order forcing compliance (fat chance of that happening .) Or maybe they can send the Sgt at Arms to arrest her . Congress could defund the dept . But Congress is pretty brow beaten because they don't know how to counter the negative press when they do things like shutting down the government . So it's not likely they will ever press the issue. I guess you could call that appeasement . But the Republicans are damned if they do and damned if they don't . Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
I almost loathe these mutherfuckers for not doing their duty to the US Constitution; they are true traitors not just to their own selves but their own families and all American citizens. How they persist in Congress is beyond human comprehension considering we live at a tyme and age that is supposed to exalt individual dignity.
#2. To: tomder55, nolu chan (#1)
Two weeks ago, under the headline “How we are being tricked by flawed data on global warming”, I wrote about Paul Homewood, who, on his Notalotofpeopleknowthat blog, had checked the published temperature graphs for three weather stations in Paraguay against the temperatures that had originally been recorded. In each instance, the actual trend of 60 years of data had been dramatically reversed, so that a cooling trend was changed to one that showed a marked warming.
#3. To: tomder55 (#1)
As of today NOAA boss Kathryn Sullivan refuses to comply.
#4. To: buckeroo (#3)
Congress allows these sorts of shenanigans all the tyme; it is their singular, purpose to appease 0bama.
#5. To: tomder55 (#4)
But Congress is pretty brow beaten because they don't know how to counter the negative press when they do things like shutting down the government .
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