Global warming and data collection...

Anthony Watts is examining all the weather stations across the US - what he is finding is not pretty..

Watts is in the business of selling weather station equipment and related services. A former television meteorologist, he took note of climatologist Roger Pielke Sr. lamenting the absence of comprehensive data on the physical characteristics of USHCN monitoring sites. An emeritus professor at Colorado State University–Boulder, Pielke has advocated systematic documentation of the condition of these stations and their surrounding environment. Heeding the call in June of this year, Watts launched a web site (www.surfacestations.org) and began recruiting volunteers to photograph all 1,221 sites.

Visuals Abound

It didn’t take long to collect photos of stations virtually guaranteed to produce inflated temperature readings: sensors mounted among air conditioner exhausts on flat, downtown rooftops, on brick walls above paved parking lots, on a heat-absorbing wooden deck no more than 20 feet from both an air-conditioner exhaust and the asphalt tie-down area of the local airport. One hilarious example showed a sensor (not an MMTS) a few yards from paved tennis courts and five feet from a steel burn barrel used to incinerate rubbish.

It’s not hard to imagine enthusiasts for such a survey being inclined to gather the most absurd examples possible (where’s the fun in documenting that something’s the way it’s supposed to be?) so we asked Watts if he was concerned about oversampling deficient stations.

“There’s a built-in element of randomness that I have no control over,” Watts replied. “I have no control over who collects the data or what stations they choose to document,” he said. Watts reasons that those who defend the quality of network data have just as much opportunity as do critics to furnish examples that support their views.

In any case, Watts seems to take very seriously his goal of surveying all 1,221 stations. In June, he welcomed our initial interview request, but said speculating on outcomes would be “completely wrong until a large enough sample of stations is in place.”

That doesn’t mean he’s liking what he’s seen so far. One recurring feature is the siting of temperature sensors at wastewater treatment plants. Those are troublesome sites, Watts says, “and yet it appears that there are at least a hundred throughout the USHCN record, just based on an eyeball count of my own.

“A sewage treatment plant is a heat bubble, especially in the winter,” he explains, because it’s processing vast quantities of water that’s been artificially heated and is virtually certain, especially in cold weather, to warm the surrounding air.

Watts documented 404 stations by mid-September, with 87 percent flunking published NCDC standards for error-free measurement. Fifty-five percent have site conditions associated with errors exceeding 3.6 degrees, Fahrenheit. Fifteen percent have a nine-degree error potential. Watts told us “The majority of the biases would be positive,” that is, most temperatures would read too high.