Do we need to discuss the surface temperature measurements again?

Question

Several AGW doubters have once again raised the issue that surface temperature measurement stations are sometimes located in urban heat island areas. We've discussed this several times before, but apparently it needs to be discussed again.

"The evidence points to a warming of about 0.6-0.8°C over the past century and a neglible effect on this from the [urban heat islands]. While some 'contrarians' appear determined not to accept this finding, the evidence they cite appears thin indeed compared with the published research"

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=43

Further discussions here:

http://ams.confex.com/ams/pdfpapers/102322.pdf
http://www.logicalscience.com/skeptic_arguments/urban-heat-islands.html
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v432/n7015/abs/432290a.html

The fact that satellite measurements agree with surface measurements, and that there's no reason for nearby sources to provide steadily increasing amounts of heat should be enough to dismiss this claim.

In short, to claim that some or most of the measured global warming over the past decades or century are artifacts is to deny the scientific data, which proves otherwise.

coocachoo - I didn't link all those papers for my own health. Read them. You're wrong.

Answer 1

It's because their reaction is emotional, not objective. That emotional response shows up in all the comments from the skeptics that go something like: "Climate change is another reason for the government to tell you what kind of car to drive and house to live in." If you are scared of boogie men like federal agents taking away your car or mcmansion, any little thing you can use to deny the whole thing sounds good.

The evidence for UHI effects corrupting the measured trend in surface temperature is non-existent, and that silly website where the guy goes around finding problems with surface measurements is a great example of data misrepresentation. For example, in my response to this question, how easy it is to show he misrepresents data from central California:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AtQR0WezEp36M756pFr_Iffty6IX;_ylv=3?qid=20071003181256AA1Zh08&show=7#profile-info-pZi3HXdnaa


The continued use of the relatively new chestnut that "nothing in the southern hemisphere is warming" is another example. Aside from the fact that the continental margins of Antarctica are warming shows it is untrue, this claim is like a doctor proclaiming a man with gas gangrene in both arms, a sucking chest wound, and severe blunt-force trauma to his head perfectly fine because neither of his ankles are broken.

Climate is a holistic subject, you cannot ignore a huge body of evidence simply because the implications scare you.

One question I think would be interesting to ask, but I know would not receive serious answers, would be to ask the most outspoken skeptics what level of evidence they would accept to be convinced anthropogenic release of greenhouse gases is affecting climate. Would it be a collapse of the Greenland ice sheet in 25 years? Methane clathrates dissolving in the arctic raising atmospheric methane levels over 10 ppm or so? I suspect most of them would say something like "nothing would convince me because it's not true, it's all solar/natural variations/Scooby-Doo's Weather Machine." I realize that is a straw-man argument and lots of the skeptics would say "not true, we wouldn't say that." So once they say that, ask *that* question. The lack of objectivity from the skeptics will be staggering.

Personally, if someone came up with a physically realistic method for the planet to compensate for the radiative forcing of the greenhouse gases but whose implied effects agreed with the observations, then I would be skeptical that anthropogenic greenhouse gases could affect climate in the long term. However, none of the skeptics can do that because to do so you have to invoke weird physics or predict effects that are not observed in nature (a great example of this is Lindzen's Adaptive Iris Hypothesis, where the latent heat flux data simply don't agree with the premise).

Answer 2

You know what. I'm tired of people who can't see both sides of the picture. I can see good points on both sides of the "Global warming crisis". A good point for the skeptics which I will stick to b/c it involves this question. Is that the surface air temperatures are inaccurate. You can't tell me that surface and satellite temps match b/c that is entirely incorrect. How can the temperature gage at an airport not read higher. You have concrete, taxi services, and not to mention freakn jets!!!! So basically your telling me that the Urban Heat Island effect doesn't exist when it clearly does, its been PROVEN!! The Urban Heat Island effect will create warmer daytime measurements and especially warmer night time measurements since that's when most of the heat is being dispersed back into the atmosphere. Gages should be placed in grassy fields and no where else. The problem with that is maintenance. The only temperature gages that did have good agreement is the weather balloon temp readings and the satellite, not satellite and surface readings. Satellite readings show a 0.1 degree Celsius increase where ground show a 0.5 or so increase. That's a decent difference. You cannot say it doesn't make a difference. I'm not saying man is not creating global warming I'm just saying there are other factors at play as well that we have no control over and nobody ever mentions. If we are causing global warming then the whole earth should be warming not just the northern hemisphere. The southern hemisphere is showing a slight cooling when you use satellite temp readings. Can you global warming enthusiasts honestly sit here and tell me that you know it is man causing global warming. I can't honestly tell you it's not. So don't disregard evidence of poor surface readings just b/c it doesn't fit into your belief, that you don't have all the facts for anyway!!

Answer 3

James69sk82001, coocachoo13 - How about these? They are just a few of many.

D. E. Parker (2004). "Climate: Large-scale warming is not urban". Nature 432: 290.

David E. Parker (2006). "A demonstration that large-scale warming is not urban". Journal of Climate 19: 2882–2895

T. C. Peterson (2003). "Assessment of Urban Versus Rural In Situ Surface Temperatures in the Contiguous United States: No Difference Found". Journal of Climate 16: 2941–2959

The idea that climatologists have not considered this, have not critically evaluated the data, or are risking their reputations on questionable data is simply absurd.

Answer 4

YES, those AC units located 10-30 ft from thermometers are obviously throwing them off by several degrees and temperature readings were never taken in cities until the 70s.
Also, I notice NOAA has very few temperature stations located on top of mountains, are mountains not part of the global temperature data? I think its obvious that these thermometers are liberally biased.

Answer 5

One thing that never is brought up about temperature measurements is the fact that 2/3s of the planet has only been measured for about 20 years and the other 1/3 has been poorly measured prior to 50 years ago. There are few stations worldwide that have data going back any long periods of time.

Answer 6

realclimte:

"This is more likely to occur in calm conditions, when air near the surface is less well mixed with air higher up. Since the UHI effect is reduced in windy conditions,"

I dispute this statement Dana, if a temperature sensor is surrounded by dwellings, why would windy conditions eliminate the effects of urbanization. Meteorology 101 indicates that windy conditions will result in less radiational cooling because of mixing of air at various altitudes as well as ground coupling. One could deduce from this logic that the greenhouse process is overshadowed by the process of conduction in windy conditions.

It is shocking that 54% of the stations surveyed are within 10 meters of artificial heating sources, and the best defense you can come up with, is that because during windy condtions, the temperature does not cool at the temperature stations indicated.

Give me a break.


http://www.surfacestations.org/USHCN_stationlist.htm


The sattelite data indicates that the surface warmed faster than atmosphere. For AGW to be the cause you know that cannot be true.

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/img/climate/research/2006/ann/msu2006-pg.gif

As far as your statement about satellite measurements agreeing with the surface, the UAH is far from agreement with surface measurements, but I admire your consistent cherry picking.


And gcnp58 Scooby Doo? perhaps you should put the bong away for a while.
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Answer 7

Why do you keep insisting on calling it "Global Warming" when it's clearly NOT Global?

Temperatures for the last 80 years in much of the US show a DECLINE. Globally, the temperature has not gone up for 10 years (even using your precious "GISS" temps) while manmade CO2 has not only continued to be pumped into the atmosphere, but at a higher rate than ever.

Anthropogenic Global Warming exists only in the flawed computer models used by the IPCC to "project but not predict" climate conditions based on currently "poorly understood" forcings.

James Hansen, the great Global Warming Guru from NASA (who has received $450,000 in grants from George Soros for the "Politicization of Science") says we don't even have a good definition of what "Surface Temperature" MEANS!

Answer 8

They aren't Urban Heat Islands, they are 100% Urban Heat Generators first and they are contributing extreme heat.

With all due respect to the science of urban heat, it is completed in a calculator.

Buildings are designed with temperature but imagine this, the entire national to municipal building industry is signed off as compliant, insured and never verified.

Example: Buildings are simply designed to resist the flow of heat through them so we can stay warm in the winter and cool in the summer. The governments pass on the regional design temperatures and architects design as well as insulate for those specific temperatures. In my area, we use -4 F to simulate the coldest time and 92 F to simulate the warmest time of the year. Codes specifiy to watch out for solar radiation but the entire process was calculated and otherwise blind.

The point is that all of your reference information is assumed because professionals couldn't see the temperatures to qualify them. The argument that urban heat isn't significant to climate change is based on calculation and assumption.

Cities pass buildings as compliant so there is this assumption that buildings are doing well. All the laws are in place, all the codes and all of the argument here is based on assumption.

My background is architecture, engineering and electrical energy provision. I designed buildings in a calculator, tendered them, constructed them as well as provided the energy that would create emissions.

I work for a company that wanted to qualify urban heat by using the most advanced thermography applications in the world in conjunction with applicable professionals.

The 10,000 hours of research produced alarming results that contradicted my own education in the calculator. It was assumed that buildings were absorbing the sun's rays when in fact the rays were causing buildings to generate EXTREME heat. UV is a fast moving wavelength, burns us and in effect burns buildings.

The real shocker was to see what we were doing to respond to the heat symptoms in heat waves. Imagine that California used ozone depleting refrigerants, massive electrical waste, massive toxic GHG emissions and generated extreme heat atmospherically, got knocked off the power grid, lost lives, etc treating a symptom. Did you know air conditioning is refrigeration?

This information is important for you to see but look at it objectively. The buildings at the link were as hot as 198 F on a 92 degree F day. They are designed for 92 and the only reason they passed inspection is because they couldn't see. There isn't a building professional that would take responsibility for that heat on their product so understand the information is accurate.

You will be amongst the first to see Canadian buildings superheating the atmosphere in the winter. Go to http://www.thermoguy.com/globalwarming-heatgain.html

We are releasing a timelapsed video soon showing the shocking effect indoors

Answer 9

All the skeptics and/or deniers will say is it's BS. Yeah, now I'm convinced.
Edit: Now there's another reply but it's pretty unconvincing itself. 'pseudo-scientific'...please. as if oil/war mongers don't have their own pocketbooks in mind, trying to convince the 'regular folks' there's nothing humans can do. Why, there's just too few of us to make a real difference. So, go ahead. Use more and more waste. It won't hurt. So what if history contradicts that?

Answer 10

You can stack it as high as you want BS is still BS.

"oil/war mongers" Another science fiction reader I'd guess

Oh well let me try and convince myself "Oh great eco god! show me a sign that I should recycle and paddle around on a bicycle." Eco god speaketh, "I say warily onto you , If Algore start to actually acteth worried anywhere else but in front of a camera then you may ponder global warming."

Answer 11

I'm ready to move on.
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