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(went to the trouble of writing this post, http://www.politics.ie/environment/1...upiswrong.html It would be nice to get a chance to actually discuss it)
Anthony Watts has been on a crusade against climate scientists for years now through his website, wattsupwiththat.org and his surfacestations.org
The former is just a propaganda site where deniers gather to propagate myths and lies about global warming science, the latter is supposed to be a scientific blog that catalogues poorly located weather stations and alledges that climate records are incorrect because of the 'urban heat island effect' and he lists examples of weather stations located nearby to ventilation pipes or in urban areas where the natural weather data may be compromised by the surroundings.
The central premise of this project is that climate scientists do not take into account these artificial factors which are leading to a warming bias in the records.
Well, a peer reviewed paper published in the Journal of Geophysical Research in August 2009 and revised in December last year, explored this issue in detail in order to do some actual experimental science and find out if there was in fact a warming bias from these poorly located weather stations.
Read that again, the bias from these poorly located stations is actually tilted towards a cooling bias rather than a warming one.Results indicate that there is a mean bias
associated with poor exposure sites relative to good exposure sites; however, this bias is
consistent with previously documented changes associated with the widespread conversion to
electronic sensors in the USHCN during the last 25 years. Moreover, the sign of the bias is
counterintuitive to photographic documentation of poor exposure because associated instrument
changes have led to an artificial negative (“cool”) bias in maximum temperatures and only a
slight positive (“warm”) bias in minimum temperatures.....
....Adjustments applied to USHCN Version 2 data largely account
for the impact of instrument and siting changes, although a small overall residual negative
(“cool”) bias appears to remain in the adjusted maximum temperature series
Step forward Anthony Watts, you have done the world a service, you have uncovered evidence that shows that global warming might actually have been slightly underestimated due to a bias in the temperature record.
As a true sceptic, I'm sure he will be delighted that his work has been tested and that it has led to an advancement in climate science.
The highlighted section shows the difference between science, and propaganda. Watts showing pictures of weather stations and then leaving the viewers to come to their own conclusions that they must be skewing the temperature record in a certain direction is an example of propaganda, it is not science, especially if they keep doing the same thing after their issues have been addressed and investigated.5. Conclusion
Given the now extensive documentation by surfacestations.org (Watts [2009]) that the
exposure characteristics of many USHCN stations are far from ideal, it is reasonable to question
the role that poor exposure may have played in biasing CONUS temperature trends. However,
our analysis and the earlier study by Peterson [2006] illustrate the need for data analysis in
establishing the role of station exposure characteristics on temperature trends no matter how
compelling the circumstantial evidence of bias may be. In other words, photos and site surveys
do not preclude the need for data analysis, and concerns over exposure must be evaluated in light
of other changes in observation practice such as new instrumentation.
Indeed, our analysis does provide evidence of bias in poor exposure sites relative to good
exposure sites; however, given the evidence provided by surfacestations.org that poor exposure
sites are predominantly MMTS sites, this bias is consistent with previously documented changes
associated with the widespread conversion to MMTS-type sensors in the USHCN. Moreover,
the bias in unadjusted maximum temperature data from poor exposure sites relative to good
exposure sites is, on average, negative while the bias in minimum temperatures is positive
(though smaller in magnitude than the negative bias in maximum temperatures).
Watts has never conducted his own comparative study comparing the bad stations with the good and seeing if there was a negative or positive temperature bias. That is the natural step that he should take if he truly believes in his own theory rather than simply dismiss this study outright for some political reason
Full report is available here
http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/u...e-etal2010.pdf
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Originally Posted by sharper
