As if the problems with models and mis-placed incentives weren't enough, now there's good reason to be skeptical of the historical climate data that underlies the actual observations of global warming! Some skeptical climate scientists are calling into question the way in which the temperature data is being collected.Here's the problem in a nutshell: it appears that some number of the weather stations used to collect temperature data are located improperly, in spots where the temperature is artificially high because of asphalt, reflections from buildings, or even hot equipment. The photo above shows the Wickenburg, Arizona measurement site. The temperature measuring instrument is in the white finned coffee-can shaped container sitting atop a pole – on an asphalt parking lot, next to buildings, and right next to hot equipment!
Certainly not all stations are located badly like this. Of particular interest of the stations that started out in perfectly ok locations, but which had cities and big towns grow around them, and perhaps had site “improvements” made which would introduce temperature bias. One skeptical climate scientist decided to enlist citizen help to reach the goal of surveying all of the 1,200+ stations – check out his web site here if you'd like to help. The results so far (160 sites surveyed) show a definite and substantial problem: many sites are located such that you'd expect to see temperature increases from local effects. These are the measurements being used to predict global warming, but what they're really doing is telling us that the asphalt is hot. Doh!
One of my favorite bloggers surveyed two sites, including the one in the photo above. Check out his report.
It's still true: the more I learn about global warming, especially anthropogenic global warming, the more skeptical I become...
