NC Media Watch

More science confusions, more misquotes by reporters.

Russ Steele

Here is the set up from Climate Audit:

Anthony’s presentation at Roger Pielke Sr’s seminar at UCAR appears to have been well-received. He’s posted some interested online reports at his blog . . .

In response to the criticisms about the failure of sites to meet standards, Lawrimore of NOAA said that they already adjusted for these problems:

“For the USHCN stations being checked by Watts and others, Lawrimore said there are checks to ensure the data is accurate. Some stations are placed on less-than-ideal sites, but he said it’s important to note the impact of those has been analyzed and accounted for.”

The closure:

I [Steve McIntyre] emailed Lavrimore asking him about whether there were manuals or technical reports assessing the impact of adjustments needed to account for site biases. He replied as follows:

“This reporter misquoted me. Not only did he call me chief of NCDC, but he also misrepresented my discussion of adjustments for factors such as station moves, instrument changes, and changes in observer practices - which are accounted for. I had a 30 minute conversation with him and it appears he stuck together pieces that had no business being together and left out other critical points. Jay”

The emphasis is mine, this statement caused a flash back to the hours I have spent on the phone explaining the depth and breath of a technical issue to local reporters only to be misquoted, or ignored.  My guess is most reporters cannot understand the complexity of science issues, a failure to understand how real science works.   

Sensor gone missing?

Russ Steele

Continueing our quest to find USHCN Stations we visited Panquitch, Utah near Cedar Breaks National Monument. As you can see  the Stevenson Shelter is missing from it’s stand behind the Forest Service Office in Panguitch. The Forest Service Office was listed in the NCDC’s Meta Data file as the location and manager of the station.

When Ellen and I discovered that the temperature shelters was missing I went in to the USDA Agriculture Office, which was the closest to vacant stand and asked about the shelters where abouts. They said the Forest Service, next office down, was responsible and not the USDA. See the graphic

Click for a larger image.

.

The lady in the Forest Service Office said she had no idea where the Stevenson Shelter was, or an automate sensor.

When was it move I asked?

“Some time back,” she said.

How far back I asked.

“A while ago”, she said.

Changing my strategy I asked about any other Forest Service facility in the area that might know where the temperature sensor was.

“None,” she said.   Hummmm. . .

Back in our GMC I got out my laptop and looked at the Google Map of the shelter site.  Doing some map matching we found, the Forest Service Maintenance Yard, or as they call it the Service Center.  On our arrival we drove around the yard looking for a MMTS sensor, or a Stevenson Shelter.  While there were multiple cars in the yard, no once could be found to answer our questions about the shelter or an MMTS. We drove around the block, behind the facility, and searched the site with high powered binoculars. No MMTS, or shelter but we did see a green truck drive in to the yard. Returning to the Service Center we asked two people about the temperature sensors MMTS.

“Not here.” they said. “Boyd in the down town office should knows where it is.”

We returned to the down town office, and this time found another lady who said, “Boyd has the afternoon off.”  She thought temperature sensor had been moved to the Middle School.

“Where is the Middle School,” I asked?

“Go to the four way stop, turn left, go one block, turn right, the Middle School will be one block on the left,” she said.

“Let me write that down,” I said, scribbling in my note book.

We followed the directions, but it was an Elementary School, not a Middle School. Hummmm.
The Elementary School Principle, said Casper was not at his school. He called the Middle Schools, but no one answered. We followed his directions to the Middle School and searched grounds. No MMTS or Stevenson shelter.  The school seemed to be boarded up.  Why put a temperature sensor, that has to be read every day at a boarded up Middle School?   Having come to the end of the business day, and our search options, we decided to move on to our next weather station target in Parawan. We had to be on out way, as it was a holiday and everyone has gotten an early start.

I plan to call Boyd someday real soon now and ask him, “What did the Forest Service do with the weather station?” 

Roundabouts for better air quality

Russ Steele

I was in downtown St. George Utah, I mean right down in the center of the historical area part of the city, where I discovered this beautifull and efficient roundabout enabling a smooth flow of traffic through the center of town. No pollution creating two stops like at Zion and Ridge Road in Nevada City, just a nice air quality friendly flow of traffic through the downtown intersection.  I will never understand Nevada City’s reluctance to have a roundabout in the city.  I guess it was like the first stop light, it was a life saving issue. Now maybe we need a roundabout to save the air and more lives.  Stop and Go traffic produces more air pollution that free flowing traffic. When STAinNC have their Air Quality Summit, may be they should be look at the amount of stop and go intersections in Nevada City that could be eliminated with roundabouts, such as at SR-49 and Gold Flat and in the Plaza at the foot of Boulder and Sacramento Streets.  Wow, another workable solution for reducing ozone in Nevada County.   

Could it be the lack of sunspots?

Russ Steele

I was reading about the dropping Pacific ocean temperatures and started to wonder, could it be caused by the lack of sun spots, resulting in more cosmic rays, thus more low clouds over the northern and southern oceans. The Southern Hemisphere had record setting cold weather this year.  Sunspot tracking here.  Now this from the Gold Stream Gazette:  Despite fears of global warming, the north Pacific has suddenly turned a lot colder. . .  The ocean cooling in this part of the world isn’t the result of an El Nino, said ocean scientist Howard Freeland, who added he is “baffled” by what’s happening. He and fellow scientists don’t know what’s caused a huge chunk of the Gulf of Alaska to drop three degrees Centigrade colder than average for this time of year -- a huge change of six degrees Celcius [sic]just two years after a lengthy period of warmer than usual waters.

(Please ignore the obligatory “the earth is warming” comments by the Professor who needs to protect his research funding.)

Historically, the longer the sunspot cycle the cooler the weather patterns on earth. The Dalton Minimum was one such period. The current sunspot cycle is stretching out. See the graphic below.  It will be mid 2008 before the next cycle starts. This will produce a 12.5+ year cycle, when the average is a little less than 11 years.   It could be a 13 year cycle, we just do not know. But we do know that the longer the cycle the cooler the weather in our back yards.  But, rather than concerning our selves with sunspot cycles, we are worried about the rising levels of CO2.  Historically the lack of sunspot and cold oceans, bring cold dry weather to California. Think about the consequences of retuning to the weather to the early 1800s when crops failed, and Native American's took winter shelter in the warmer adobe buildings built by the Spanish.  I am and so should you! The Dalton Minimum could be returning, and little more CO2 could keep us just a  little warmer.   

Click for a larger image.

Doing real science while on vacation

Russ Steele

Monday Ellen and I  visited the St George Utah Fire Station and surveyed the weather station. We posted the survey results yesterday morning to http://surfacestation.org  Anthony Watts included some of these photos in his presentation at the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research in Colorado yesterday. Conference details here. Anthony also included our photos in his latest How Not to Measure Temperature Part 30.

Anthony’s success at the the UCAR Conference is also discussed here.  Our Salmon Idaho photos and findings here, were also presented at the conference in Anthony's presentation.  Now we are looking forward to Anthony posting his whole presentation at Watt's Up With That

UPDATE: Anthony's post was linked to Junkscience.org today, another 15 seconds of fame for our team.

"How not to measure temperature - part 30" - "Russ Steele is out on vacation and doing several surveys while traveling. This one below is from St. George, UT. Here we see an MMTS measuring the temperature near the surface of an elevated parking lot. The effect of the asphalt and vehicles that park near it, engine forward, probably dwarfs the effect of the nearby a/c unit. The shading may help daytime temps some, but the asphalt likely biases Tmin the most." (Watts Up With That?)

Zion in the summer rain

Russ Steele

Ellen and I had a great day in Zion National Park, hiking and marveling at the 2000 foot tall Navaho sandstone walls. We saved the National History Museum for last and arrived, just as the thunder started to rumble. The Zion USHCN Weather Station is behind the Museum, near the Administration Building parking lot.  It was a race to get my pictures of the weather station before the rain arrived. The lightning was crackling on the ridge tops as I approached the site. With in minuets the whole canyon was drenched in a summer rain storm, but I got my pictures which have been loaded to Anthony Watts’ http://surfacestations.org data base.  I have posted several of the station pictures below. Note the site does not meet the 100 foot from a heat source criteria. The parking lot.

Two more Idaho stations surveyed

Russ Steele

On our way to Utah from Idaho we stopped in Ketchum to have dinner with a writing friend, who offered to promote my book Cobalt: Legacy of the Blackbird Mine.  Kathy ran a book store in Stanley for many years, and until she retired recently worked in a Ketchum book store. She knows how to sell books. While in Ketchum we visited the Ranger Station which hosts one of the USNCN stations. It looks like Ketchum has a cooling trend until the late 1980s, about the time the Ketchum and Sun Valley experienced rapid growth.  Here the 1930s was not the warmest, but the 1990s, until about 2003 and then it starts cooling.
Note the aspens  in front of the shelter, blocking access to the door. Temperature plot below.

On the other hand there has been very little growth in Jerome a farming community directly south of Ketchum on SR-93.  We stopped to visit the USHCN station in the maintenance yard of the Northside Canal Company on the edge of town.  It also showed some warming starting in the 1980s, but the 1930s are still the warmest period in Jerome.  Go figure.

You can find all the photos of both sites here, click on Idaho. Temperature Plot below

Station Survey Progress Report

Russ Steele

One Wednesday we visited the Mackay Lost River Rangers stations and did surface station survey for Anthony Watts’ surface station survey project. The MMTS sensor is located on the back lawn of the Lost River Ranger Station. The Metdata Station history starts August 1948, though there is data from 1908. The station switched from Min Max thermometers to an automated MMTS in September 1998.  The MMTS does not meet the 100 foot separation criteria sent by the National Weather Service as sensor is 15 feet from a blacktop parking lot, 25 feet from the wooden structure, and 13 feet from a large tree. The Ranger in charge at the station, wanted to know if NOAA was aware of this survey. I assured them they were.

.

Here is a plot of the station temperatures from 1908 to 2005. It does not look like this rural station has experiences much global warming in almost 100 years.  Note the cooling tend in the last ten years

You can click on the image for a larger view.

Global warming chill is on the way (Updated)

Russ Steele

Consider this posted by Marc Morano, On Senator Inhofe’s  Environment and Publicworks Committee Press Blog, not that the press ever reads it and reports on what they find there, as the facts do not support the main stream press global warming scare mongers template.

New Peer-Reviewed Scientific Studies Chill Global Warming Fears

Washington DC – An abundance of new peer-reviewed studies, analysis, and data error discoveries in the last several months has prompted scientists to declare that fear of catastrophic man-made global warming “bites the dust” and the scientific underpinnings for alarm may be “falling apart.”  The latest study to cast doubt on climate fears finds that even a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide would not have the previously predicted dire impacts on global temperatures. This new study is not unique, as a host of recent peer-reviewed studies have cast a chill on global warming fears. “Anthropogenic (man-made) global warming bites the dust,” declared astronomer Dr. Ian Wilson after reviewing the new study which has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Geophysical Research.  Another scientist said the peer-reviewed study overturned “in one fell swoop” the climate fears promoted by the UN and former Vice President Al Gore.

The study entitled “Heat Capacity, Time Constant, and Sensitivity of Earth’s Climate System,” was authored by Brookhaven National Lab scientist Stephen Schwartz. “Effectively, this (new study) means that the global economy will spend trillions of dollars trying to avoid a warming of ~ 1.0 K by 2100 A.D.” Dr. Wilson wrote in a note to the Senate Environment & Public Works Committee on August 19, 2007.  Wilson, a former operations astronomer at the Hubble Space Telescope Institute in Baltimore MD, was referring to the trillions of dollars that would be spent under such international global warming treaties like the Kyoto Protocol. “Previously, I have indicated that the widely accepted values for temperature increase associated with a doubling of CO2 were far too high i.e. 2 – 4.5 Kelvin. This new peer-reviewed paper claims a value of 1.1 +/- 0.5 K increase for a doubling of CO2,” he added.

You will find a link to the whole post here.  Near the middle of his post  Morano discusses the work that Anthony Watts and his team of volunteers are accomplishing, mainly making NASA and the GISS scare mongers nervious. Numerous U.S. temperature collection data errors exposed by team of researchers led by Meteorologist Anthony Watts in 2007

“The (U.S.) National Climate Data Center (NCDC) is in the middle of a scandal.  Their global observing network, the heart and soul of surface weather measurement, is a disaster.  Urbanization has placed many sites in unsuitable locations — on hot black asphalt, next to trash burn barrels, beside heat exhaust vents, even attached to hot chimneys and above outdoor grills! The data and approach taken by many global warming alarmists is seriously flawed. If the global data were properly adjusted for urbanization and station siting, and land use change issues were addressed, what would emerge is a cyclical pattern of rises and falls with much less of any background trend,” Meteorologist Joseph Conklin wrote in an August 10, 2007 blog post.

Update:  George requested some links to blogs claiming the debate is over in his comment below.
Real Climate and Rabbit Run are run by some folks from NASA have lead the challenge against the skeptics. The folks at the Grist are true believers, you can find samples here. The closed minds at the Open Mind have made up their mind the debate is over.  But, be warned these folks are less than honest, they will not allow posts on their blogs that go against their religious preferences - man is the cause of global warming, and we are all doomed unless we repent by reducing our carbon output and returning to pre 1900 lifestyles.   

Surrounded by Fire

Russ Steele

We are having a great vacation trip, but we are surrounded by fires in Idaho and Montana. When the wind blows in the wrong direction, this is the result.  We have had several days like this, when the smoke blotted out the Sun. 

The Shower Bath Fire, near Challis has kept us out of the National Forest and a visit to Cobalt.  We wanted  to visit the Panther Creek Inn, the owner had expressed interest in our book on Cobalt and the Blackbird Mine.  Summer tourist are always asking questions, and he thought the book would help. So far our book Cobalt: The Legacy of the Blackbird Mine has been warmly received, we have multiple orders for delivery in November.