PrintMay 10, 2009
US Temperature Records Biased on High Side
After surveying 70% of the 1,221 weather monitoring stations in the US, Anthony Watts of the Watts Up With That website, finds that the temperature record is “unreliable”. In addition, about 90% of the stations are sited poorly, such as being surrounded by asphalt parking lots which act as heat islands. The result is that most stations are reporting “higher or rising temperatures” due to poor siting alone according to Watts.
The weather stations are supposed to meet certain criteria and are part of a weather monitoring program run by NOAA. The network is called the United States Historical Climatology Network or USHCN.
Since there is this warming bias in the US temperature record, there is may be one in the world temperature record also.
The US surface temperature record is one indicator which is used as a basis for making claims about global warming. Orbiting satellites can also provide data which can be translated into temperatures.
Anthony Watts and his volunteer army numbering 650 performed yeoman’s work in amassing this data. The results are chronicled at Watts’ website at SurfaceStations.org. The project was funded entirely by volunteers without corporate or government assistance.
While there is little dispute that the world had seen a small amount of warming over the last century, the question is whether the rise will accelerate due to greenhouse gases or whether the rise is just part of the natural variation in climate. In the past 10 years, it appears we are in a cooling phase. If the surface temperature record is biased on the high side, perhaps some of the observed warming is overstated.
These results also provide additional evidence that the science of global warming is not settled, and that we should not embark on a costly efforts to control CO2 emissions when the underlying data is faulty.
But the real question is why it took a dedicated group of volunteers to find the numerous faults in our temperature record rather than the heavily funded governmental and educational institutions which are continually warning us about global warming.
