Questioning Official Climate Stations
When trying to look at the last 100 years of weather data here in the United States, we typically turn to the "official climate record" which is defined by NCDC (the National Climatic Data Center, part of NOAA and the U.S. government). These 1,221 stations are referred to as the United States Historical Climatology Network (USHCN).
The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reports that an independent meteorologist and blogger from California, Anthony Watts, has taken on the project of documenting the locations and surroundings of these stations. See, any weather-fearing meteorologist knows better than to put a temperature sensor near anything but open grass, but as you can see on Anthony's site, SurfaceStations.Org, many of these USHCN stations are nearby various man-made heat sources. (NOTE: His website is taking on an inordinate amount of traffic because of the recent publicity -- if it's down, check his blog for some examples of offending stations). He provides graphs of the "good" and "bad" stations which seem to indicate that some of the locations are being heated artificially.
This may be no vast warm-wing conspiracy though... the stations may have been installed correctly years ago, but man-made effects have gradually crept in over the years and the government may have not given the proper oversight to check back and make sure the stations are still correctly placed. NCDC has quality-control procedures outlined for station re-locations and instrument changes, overall urban warming, and even "other station changes," but Anthony is skeptical whether their remote data tweaking procedures can really account for what he's seen by visiting stations in-person. He presents photos of potential location violations on his website, including (as a meteorologist, these make me wince):
- Proximity To Asphalt
- Located Next To Air Conditioning Exhaust
- Aircraft or Vehicle Parking Lot Next to Station
To be fair, he also documents stations that are "well maintained and well sited." Whichever way you feel, he is asking for your help in documenting the details of your local USHCN station.
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