Accuracy, schmacuracy

Don emails to point out an article examining an astonishing statement from NOAA, the US Weather service:

The following remarkable statement now appears on the NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) site:

For detecting climate change, the concern is not the absolute temperature — whether a station is reading warmer or cooler than a nearby station placed on grass — but how that temperature changes over time.

The root of the problem? NOAA’s network for measuring temperature in the United States has become corrupted by artificial heat sources and other issues.

Surfacestations.org is a cooperative effort that has had volunteers physically most of the US weather stations that feed data into the climate record databases. The volunteers take photographs, and stations are analyzed for compliance with NOAA siting guidelines. NOAA recommends that stations be sited in grassy areas far from asphalt, buildings, and machines generating waste heat (for example, ait conditioning compressors).

How many stations comply? 10%.

Are they truly saying the accuracy of the temperature readings don’t matter? Yes, they are! But why?

The NOAA climate measuring network is so broken there is literally no way to fix it. Reacting to criticism of this annoying fact — and to cover up its significance — NOAA now says accuracy simply doesn’t matter, the temperature reading itself is not as important as the trend. This is clearly a deceptive political statement meant to distract the reader from the truth.

Of course the accuracy of the temperature reading matters!

Remember, a warming of only one degree Fahrenheit over the last 160 years is what the warmists claim to be evidence of manmade global warming. (And of course, half of that warming occurred from 1910 to 1945, before they claim the presence of any significant human influence.)

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This means that among numerous other violations, most climate measuring stations have artificial heat sources within 33 feet of the thermometers. Examples of these heat sources: buildings, roads, air conditioning vents, heat reflecting surfaces, stations located on top of roofs, in confined areas that restrict air flow, at waste treatment plants that generate heat, and on asphalt parking lots.

All of these influences introduce a warming bias to the measured temperature. Many of these warm biases were introduced in the last 25 years. During this time, a new generation of thermometers — the MMTS/Nimbus thermometers — were gradually installed across the country. These thermometers are hardwired to the weather station or building where the readings are recorded. Because of this wiring, the thermometers have been repositioned closer to heat sources. The older, more pristine locations were too far away to run the cables — there were too many things in the way like buildings, roads, and other infrastructure. The installers simply moved the thermometers closer to make the installations easier and more economical.

Longtime readers have heard me repeatedly complain about the very poor quality of the temperature record databases. It's a very poor reflection on the state of climate science that this is simply accepted as a normal way of doing business. It's mighty convenient to turn a blind eye to critical flaws in the data, when the flaws reinforce your conclusions.

The problem for climate scientists, of course, is that even sixth graders can do better science.