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You're completely misrepresenting the observations and conclusions of the surface stations project led by Anthony Watts. [1] [1] http://www.surfacestations.org

by mkempe 12y ago

You're completely misrepresenting the observations and conclusions of the surface stations project led by Anthony Watts. [1] [1] http://www.surfacestations.org/Fall_etal_2011/fall_etal_media_resource_may08.pdf http://www.surfacestations.org/Fall_etal_2011/fall_etal_medi...

snowwrestler 12y ago
No I'm not. I've been reading Watts for a long time. His original hypothesis in reviewing weather stations (starting with his "how not to measure temperature" series of blog posts) was that poor siting was allowing urban heat island effects to create a false impression of warming. Well, as the paper explicitly states, it does not. Mean warming trend at the stations they reviewed is the same as for the national network overall. They found differences in volatility (min/max extremes), which is interesting, but does not disprove the overall warming trend--which was Watt's expectation from the beginning.
- mkempe 12y ago
  The surfacestations.org project of Watts is completely different from the linked project. The OP project is focused on understanding adjustments made by NOAA et al. (changing the values of past raw temperature data) not on the quality of location of measurement stations.
  - snowwrestler 12y ago
    They come at the same issue from opposite directions. Scientists make statistical adjustments to the raw data in an attempt to eliminate or mitigate sources of bias, including siting effects like Watts is concerned with. Watt sought to show that siting bias effects were too significant to mitigate, or were not properly mitigated, thereby calling into question the reliability of the surface temp data sets that show warming. Instead, the data he collected showed that actually, even poorly sited stations show a very similar warming trend. Since attacking the validity of the station data itself did not provide fodder for the political campaign, this project seeks to generate vague doubts about the statistical adjustments. The agenda is plainly clear when you consider that they bothered to embed a graph from NOAA, but somehow failed to link to the NOAA writeups that discuss--and in some cases provide source code for--the very adjustments they are wondering about. Version 1 (source of the graph): http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/ushcn/ushcn.html http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/ushcn/ushcn.htm... Version 2: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/ushcn/ http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/ushcn/

by mkempe 12y ago

snowwrestler 12y ago

No I'm not. I've been reading Watts for a long time. His original hypothesis in reviewing weather stations (starting with his "how not to measure temperature" series of blog posts) was that poor siting was allowing urban heat island effects to create a false impression of warming. Well, as the paper explicitly states, it does not. Mean warming trend at the stations they reviewed is the same as for the national network overall. They found differences in volatility (min/max extremes), which is interesting, but does not disprove the overall warming trend--which was Watt's expectation from the beginning.

mkempe 12y ago
The surfacestations.org project of Watts is completely different from the linked project. The OP project is focused on understanding adjustments made by NOAA et al. (changing the values of past raw temperature data) not on the quality of location of measurement stations.
- snowwrestler 12y ago
  They come at the same issue from opposite directions. Scientists make statistical adjustments to the raw data in an attempt to eliminate or mitigate sources of bias, including siting effects like Watts is concerned with. Watt sought to show that siting bias effects were too significant to mitigate, or were not properly mitigated, thereby calling into question the reliability of the surface temp data sets that show warming. Instead, the data he collected showed that actually, even poorly sited stations show a very similar warming trend. Since attacking the validity of the station data itself did not provide fodder for the political campaign, this project seeks to generate vague doubts about the statistical adjustments. The agenda is plainly clear when you consider that they bothered to embed a graph from NOAA, but somehow failed to link to the NOAA writeups that discuss--and in some cases provide source code for--the very adjustments they are wondering about. Version 1 (source of the graph): http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/ushcn/ushcn.html http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/ushcn/ushcn.htm... Version 2: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/ushcn/ http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/ushcn/