Hottest Decade in History? Maybe Not - Earth-Based Climate Stations Manipulated

Senator Jim Inhofe's family built a igloo in the snows of Washington, D.C., named it "Al Gore's home," and everywhere around the blogosphere, the Left is furious at the mocking of their idol - and everywhere you can hear the chant: "this was the hottest decade in the history of weather records," and this "freakish" snow storm means nothing. Perhaps these climate change followers do not know that earth-based climate stations have been manipulated and compromised, and there may be absolutely no proof that this is the hottest decade on record.

 

 

To start this conversation, let's look at where the world's weather stations in the U.S. are located, and then take a look at how accurate each weather station is considered to be by our own govenment agency. See the many "orange" dots on the map? those equate to the rating key below the map. The "orange" is the 4th key from the left, and shows the number 4. If I understand this correctly, those particular weather station sites yield results rated as "poor," by NOAA. Fifty-eight percent of the stations yield poor results and 11% yield the "worst" results. That's your government at work folks, and just panting to spend your tax money on global warming.

The above information is from SurfaceStation, a research project maintained by Anthony Watts, the owner and editor of Watts Up With That?

There are 1,221 NOAA earth-based climate-monitoring stations in the U.S. Watts recruited a team of more than 650 volunteers to "visually inspect and photographically document" more than 860 of the U.S. stations.

We were shocked by what we found.

We found stations located next to the exhaust fans of air conditioning units, surrounded by asphalt parking lots and roads, on blistering-hot rooftops, and near sidewalks and buildings that absorb and radiate heat. We found 68 stations located at wastewater treatment plants, where the process of waste digestion causes temperatures to be higher than in surrounding areas.

In fact, we found that 89 percent of the stations – nearly 9 of every 10 – fail to meet the National Weather Service’s own siting requirements that stations must be 30 meters (about 100 feet) or more away from an artificial heating or radiating/ reflecting heat source.

In other words, 9 of every 10 stations are likely reporting higher or rising temperatures because they are badly sited.

It gets worse. We observed that changes in the technology of temperature stations over time also has caused them to report a false warming trend. We found major gaps in the data record that were filled in with data from nearby sites, a practice that propagates and compounds errors. We found that adjustments to the data by both NOAA and another government agency, NASA, cause recent temperatures to look even higher.

The conclusion is inescapable: The U.S. temperature record is unreliable.

The errors in the record exceed by a wide margin the purported rise in temperature of 0.7º C (about 1.2º F) during the twentieth century. Consequently, this record should not be cited as evidence of any trend in temperature that may have occurred across the U.S. during the past century. Since the U.S. record is thought to be “the best in the world,” it follows that the global database is likely similarly compromised and unreliable.

No wonder Watts was shocked. I'm not a scientist, but from reading his report, Is the U.S. Temperature Record Reliable? there is much I can understand just from a common sense stand point. Watts started his investigation with 3 weather sites close to his home, and here's what he found (in my words, not his):




Some weather stations, going back to 1890, and still used today, are known as a Stevenson Screen. The Stevenson Screen is a wooden box, set on stilts, with wooden slat doors on the front, and slats on at least the sides. Until 1979, the boxes were painted with a specific whitewash which was a "commonoutdoor coating of that era. When dry, it "leaves a pure white coating of calcium carbonate on the wood surface."

In 1979 the National Weather Service (NWS) change the whitewash to a simigloss latex paint. By simulating the stations with his own purchased Stevenson Screens - one untreated wood, one the same lime whitewash used for years, and one painted with the semigloss latex, he found a significant difference in temperature: 0.3 deg.F in max temp and 0.8 degF in min temp between the whitewash and the semigloss screens.

This is a big difference, especially when we consider that the concern over anthropogenic global warming was triggered by what these stations reported was an increase of about 1.2º F over the entire twentieth century.

Then Watts set out to see how many of the NWS met the mandated requirement to move to semigloss latex paint.  Of three stations close to his home, he found each had latex paint...at least one had several coats. One had two screens, one of which was converted to automated radio reporting. According to Watts, the device was situated improperly, "just inches from the temperature sensor, inside the screen," which would show a higher temp than the actual temp. The second Stevenson Screen had the several coats of latex but seem positioned well, but the third, was positioned improperly - with warm exhause air from a nearby cell phone tower blowing on the temperature sensor.

I realized this official thermometer was recording the temperature of a hot zone near a large parking lot and other biasing influences including buildings, air conditioner vents, and masonry.

From this research beginning at stations close to his home, Watts went on to conduct a review of 860 out of 1,221 stations. The results are in pdf, complete with photos showing stations positioned next to, or in, heat-producing areas.

 Here is a direct link to this very informative report. You can find the weather stations closest to your own home.

Recently, the United Nation's Intergovernmental Climate Change Panel (IPCC) has been shown to be deceptive on their reports on climate change. They have reported that  half of the Netherlands are below sea level, which is untrue, reported icebergs melting within the next 20 years - based on no authorative data, and of course, there is ClimateGate showing the manipulation and hiding of data that shows cooling - known as Hide the Decline.

This takes us back to Anthony Watts, and  earth-based weather stations, as opposed to weather satellites which have shown the earth cooling since 2001. This from Watts:

There used to be 6,000 measuring posts, they say, but now there are just 1,500. A number of weather stations in colder areas like Siberia and the Arctic were dismantled, while the remaining stations were in more moderate zones. As a consequence, data from colder areas was no longer used in the calculations.

D'Aleo and Watts also point to discrepancies between terrestrial and satellite measurements. Satellite weather stations report that the temperature of the earth's atmosphere has remained stable, with a slight fall since 2001.

Earth-based weather stations report an increase in warmth which, according to the two Americans, reflects the process of urbanisation. Measuring posts that used to be in remote rural areas have gradually been surrounded by roads, buildings or industry, all of which produce heat.

Anthony Watts is a former 25-year on-air television meteorologist, and currently operates a weather technology and contents business. He continues daily forecasting on radio.

My point is, we cannot trust the people connected to the IPCC - wherever they may be located across the globe. They will include no one on their panel with a divergent viewpoint. They refuse to release pertinent data, even when required to do so under the Freedom of Information Act, and we must consider, that really, this is all about the money.


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