Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Surface stations (again)

In daylight:



Infra red:



And that's after a light rain, and overcast sky (just starting to clear when the images were taken).

13% of stations so far surveyed (540 ish, with 600 to go) are like this, sited directly over heat sources.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Peter,

This looks like a fancy rain gage (Fisher-Porter?) and a temperature sensor. Both may be too close to the blacktop but I don't belive they are exactly over a heat source. I suspect the air plume over the black top may be causing hot air to mix with the cooler air coming from away from the blacktop but this all depends on the wind direction. The heat plume could be pushed away from the temperature sensor.

I suspect the blacktop sidewalk was put in to make it easier for observers to reach their gear. It would be better if they just walked thru grass.

Besides, consider how often temperature sensor and rain gages have been moved and you can't really expect any continuinity in your long term records.

We have such contaminated weather records in the US of A.

Peter Risdon said...

Yes, this is from the USA. By NASA's ratings, it's a 5 - the lowest quality standard.

The location histories are also being tracked, and there are problems there too (inadequate or perverse adjustments).

This survey is showing that some stations are compromised, not completely invalid.

Anonymous said...

A "compromised" measurement is essentially junk, Peter. Arbitrary fiddling with measurements is an attempt to transmute base metals into gold: climate alchemy. Passing this stuff off as "science" is a bloody disgrace.