Unintentional Skewing of Temperature Data

[Innoc]

In the January Newsletter of a group to which I belong someone wrote a piece talking about this site called http://www.surfacestations.org/. In the article they talked about temperature monitoring stations and the growth of cities around them. Apparently no one ever considered the impact of "development" on temperatures and those monitoring stations.

A monitoring station that was once in a field....clearing....forest...whatever... is eventually surrounded by asphalt and concrete. No one apparently accounted for the impact that development had.

Honestly, I never considered such an issue myself. Just curious about your thoughts guys.

[FrenchToast]

The entire issue never even entered my mind, but I have a hard time believing nobody involved ever thought of it.

Do you have a link to the article or is it only in hard copy?

[uBeR]

The idea is rubbish, and FrenchToast's supposition is correct. It was thought about, and it has a term, which is called the urban heat island. Scientists have always been aware of the urban heat island, and it's been corrected for, though the impact is not significant at all (see here). For those wondering, the effect has been noted in works that go back 200 years. For a contemporary discussion in the scholarly literature, see here. So, yes, it's well-known, and this is just a very poor (to be kind about it) attempt at discrediting what's been dubbed an "inconvenient truth" for them (that is, science).

[YomMamasHouse]

Originally Posted by uBeR

The idea is rubbish, and FrenchToast's supposition is correct. It was thought about, and it has a term, which is called the urban heat island. Scientists have always been aware of the urban heat island, and it's been corrected for, though the impact is not significant at all (see here). For those wondering, the effect has been noted in works that go back 200 years.

Figured as much; I never thought about it because I haven't been giving a lot of thought to global warming, but it would have surprised me if it had never been taken into consideration.

Apparently no one ever considered the impact of "development" on temperatures and those monitoring stations.

It would seem otherwise, as there is a term to describe the effect and a reasonable body of research done on it. I'm not gonna say that the newsletter writers were outright lying - they may not be very educated on the subject and urban heat islands are probably something that requires a degree of familiarity with the topic to know about. That said, they could have searched in Google at the very least and looked for the issue.

[FrenchToast]

Originally Posted by YomMamasHouse

That said, they could have searched in Google at the very least and looked for the issue.

I think perchance you should read said article before making judgements like that. Or at all.

[YomMamasHouse]

I would like to read it, if an electronic version is available - but I can't imagine a situation where they would have done research and not happened across the term.

I already know what the term is thanks to Uber telling me so I can't actually say for certain, but I am reasonably confident that if I was told to find research on the effects of urban development on local temperatures, that a few well thought out Google/wikipedia searches would at least result in me happening upon the term and the relevant research, which would at least insure that I would not make statements indicating that the scientific community has not given thought to idea.

Innoc - what exactly do they say about it? Do they actually say that no one accounted for the impact of development or is that you interpreting their version of it?

[stray kitten]

Originally Posted by uBeR

The idea is rubbish, and FrenchToast's supposition is correct. It was thought about, and it has a term, which is called the urban heat island. Scientists have always been aware of the urban heat island, and it's been corrected for, though the impact is not significant at all (see here). For those wondering, the effect has been noted in works that go back 200 years. For a contemporary discussion in the scholarly literature, see here. So, yes, it's well-known, and this is just a very poor (to be kind about it) attempt at discrediting what's been dubbed an "inconvenient truth" for them (that is, science).

Fantastic articles. I tend to disagree a little on what is significant. When we are talking the small degree of temperature change that facilitates what could be called a "disaster" for mankind. A 10th of a degree screw (US Average as a whole) where it is found, and not account for, is very significant. Key word there is not accounted for and I believe for the most part it is.

[Scuzzy]

What I wouldn't be surprised at is the tempuratures were reported and individual governments, scientists, etc were allowed to make their OWN adjustments to those tempuratures... meaning some looked and kept only the raw data, others adjusted by their own formulas, and others did so to make their case politically.

Scuzzy

[Innoc]

I take it most of you won't bother to read the site and are simply dismissing what they have to say out of hand? I say that as nothing posted ITT yet seems to indicate that anyone has actually gone to it. Here's a couple of excerpts from The "about" page

In 1999, a U.S. National Research Council panel was commissioned to study the state of the U.S. climate observing systems and issued a report entitled: “Adequacy of Climate Observing Systems. National Academy Press”, online here The panel was chaired by Dr. Tom Karl, director of the National Climatic Center, and Dr. James Hansen, lead climate researcher at NASA GISS. That panel concluded:

"The 1997 Conference on the World Climate Research Programme to the Third Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change concluded that the ability to monitor the global climate was inadequate and deteriorating."

Yet, ten years later, even the most basic beginning of a recovery program has not been started. No online photographic database existed of the USHCN stations, and despite repeated requests from Dr. Robert A. Peilke Senior at CIRES the project has not been undertaken. Given the lack of movement on the part of NOAA and NCDC, Dr. Peilke also made requests of state climatologists to perform photographic site surveys. A couple responded, such as Roger Taylor in Oregon, and Dev Nyogi in Indiana, but many cited "costs" of such work to thier meager budgets as a reason not to perform surveys.

If you do read the site I am curious as to your thoughts on it.