[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

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As Anthony Watts pointed out at Watts Up With That, the Eureka station registered the biggest rise in temperature probably seen on the Earth’s surface: 86ºC in one hour, on March 3, 2007!

Now this data is available on Weather Underground, but seems not to exist in Environment Canada. The graph differences are clear below:

But that seems not to be the case in other examples. Take January 1st, 2007, for instance. Both Weather Underground and Environment Canada agree: there was a mighty spike at noon. Seems like the “M” problem affects both:

[Here's the METAR data with the missing "M", note at  11AM the M reappears]

There are times where differences are not so big, but the “M” problem is still there. Check the images from Weather Underground and Environment Canada for September 26, 2006:

Other times, changes are so significant, that something must be wrong. Check out the temperature rise on June 20, 2005. On the left, the weekly graph from Weather Underground shows a great surge in temperatures, confirmed by the Environment Canada graph for the day.

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Thanks to Ecotretas for his sleuthing, I’m sure there are many more like this yet to be discovered. It seems with Eureka, more is going on than METAR errors. The temperature rises reported seem impossible given the meteorological conditions, and because they seem to be automated, suggest sensor error or perhaps sensor environment contamination (like a vehicle or other heat source). If you look at this 1997 image from Wikipedia (and click it to get the super hi-res version and pan around) you’ll see a number of vehicles near buildings. Where is the temperature sensor? – I don’t know, but if someone can find out it might shed some light on this mystery.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Yesterday from WattsUpWithThat?:

Inside The Eureka Weather Station

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24 04 2010

In my previous post Dial “M” for mangled – Wikipedia and Environment Canada caught with temperature data errors. we identified some problems with temperature data from the Eureka Weather Station.

Today I’m starting what may be a two or three part series having a detailed look inside the Eureka Weather Station and the data it produces. Thanks to the manager of the station Rai LeCotey, we have a lot of new information that had not previously been available on the web. Mr. LeCotey has been most gracious and forthcoming and I commend his openness, which as we have seen in Climate Science, is a rare quality. Here’s an aerial view of the station.

click for a larger image

Ecotretas and I looked at  a number of what we identified as errors in data from Eureka, Nunavut, Canada weather station. Some errors are real, such as the January 1st 2007 METAR error (caused by transcription error).

We identified what we thought were errors on July 13th and 14th. The Station Manager Mr. LeCotey says that the July 14th new record high temperature “error” was real (meaning meteorological data, not a transcription error), and a function of wind direction bringing air from the North that has been warmed by terrain.  He also says he’s working to get the error on Jan 1 2007 corrected in the record. He’s sent along some photo documentation of the July 14th 2009, event. We’ll get to that in a subsequent post, but first some background on the station itself.

Here’s what the Meteorological Instrument Complex looks like: