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Dial “M” for mangled – Wikipedia and Environment Canada caught with temperature data errors.
Watts Up With That? ^
| April 22 , 2010
| Anthony Watts
Posted on 04/25/2010 12:09:21 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
UPDATE 4/23 4PM: Ive been in contact with the Eureka Weather Station manager, and despite the incredible nature of the temperature jumps that are outside of normal experiences, such as July 14 2009, they do appear to be real. The METAR coding errors are another issue. I have many pictures now, plus a plan map, and a better meteorological insight than what can be gained from the meager online metadata. Ill have an updated post later tonight or tomorrow Anthony
Ecotretas find more cases of missing Ms and mangled data in METAR reports making it into climatic temperature data. Ive reposted his findings below and added some of my own notes [in brackets] to strengthen his findings. This time its Eureka, Nunavut, Canada. From Up Here magazine:
The first High Arctic Weather Station in history, Eureka was established in April 1947 at 80-degrees north latitude in the vicinity of two rivers, which provided fresh water to the six-man United States Army Air Force team that parachuted in. They erected Jamesway huts to shelter themselves and their equipment until August, when an icebreaker reached Eureka as it has every year since and brought permanent buildings and supplies. For decades after that, small, all-male crews would hunker down for entire winters, going a little stir-crazy from the isolation.
Photo by Eric Charlton from Flicker used under creative commons license
As I pointed out last Saturday theres a common reporting flaw in world meteorological stations that use the METAR weather data format to report their hourly temperatures. Just one bad report in a cold location in the Arctic or Antarctic is enough to throw off the whole months worth of data when averaged. And it is monthly data that is used for climate. The all time high temperature error identified below has found its way into Wikipedia as factual when it is clearly wrong.
Some METAR and other kinds of unidentified errors also seem to be finding their way into official Environment Canada data. Ive made screencaps. Given the importance of this weather station as the last surviving GHCN station that far north, also used in GISS, youd think better quality control would be done, particularly when EC has a statement about data quality on each data page. What has been found seems to point to a corrupted dataset there.
- Anthony
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TOPICS: Computers/Internet; Science; Weather
KEYWORDS: climatechangedata; climategate; globalwarming; globalwarminghoax
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To: All
More...this regarding Wikipedia:
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thegoodlocust
Yeah well in wikipedia the truth doesnt matter too much. It is filled with obstructionist pseudo-intellectual morons and enabled by admins who are in on the carbon credit scheme.
Yeah Im serious check this out:
http://pediawatch.wordpress.com/2010/04/21/administrative-conflict-of-interest/
**********************************From Wikipedia Watch*********************************
Wikipedia Watch
Climate Change Antics of Note at Wikipedia
Posted by: thegoodlocust | April 21, 2010
Administrative Conflict of Interest?
I was browsing the climate change enforcement page, a place where a set of sanctions apparently designed to make it easier to ban POVs contrary to the wikipedia party line are enforced and I noticed a post from Bozmo, where he states:
Six years ago I was responsible for Gas, Electricity and Carbon permit trading (plus a billion dollars of other stuff).
Bozmo is one of the major admins involved in harassing editors skeptical of climate change his former (current?) professional interest in the subject comes as no great surprise.
Also, on the same page, the famously hard-assed admin Nuclear Winter amusingly opined that the climate change pages would be better administrated by climatologists apparently forgetting that the kook they claim is a climatologist, Will Connolley, was such a horrible admin (blocking people who disagreed with him) that he had to be relieved of his authority by the ruling body of wikipedia.
It seems like the only difference between philosopher-kings and philosopher-tyrants is that the former has a nice title to hide behind.
Minor Update: Bozmo (Andrew Cates) apparently frequents Connolleys blog, Stoat, and Im sure that has nothing to do with Bozmo consistently defending Connolley from sanctions under the Climate Change probation at wikipedia. Considering how often enforcement requests come up against Connolley then youd think Bozmo would recuse himself especially if he has a financial interest in the carbon credit market, but this sort of conflict of interest is pretty typical in this area since the administrators who police the climate change articles have volunteered to do so.
Of course, I suppose I could get really paranoid and mention that he lives near the University of East Anglia and near William Connolley as well. Perhaps these two mathematicians have met up for tea?
To: All
This guy seems to know something about the equipment:
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tim channon
The Antarctica AWS stations are not good. Stay with this a twist is coming.
The Harry data led me to start looking and what turned up was not good.
Turns out the AWS hardware is problematic.
Then I found what I am quite sure is a bus error and then lots of instances of hardware malfunctions. To make it worse, the radio links are awful, inadequate error detection. Try a 20C jump in a matter of minutes and then back.
Cutting that part of the story short, I had the high resolution data when BAS were fiddling around with their web published public version so I could back calculate, all highly amusing. Antarctica Treaty and BAS omitted to say they have to give the data to others and they make it available to the public.
Hence I discovered the hardware errors in the real data.
Whats this to do with the Arctic, surely they are poles apart?
Seeing that ancient mil spec A/D are likely or similar and being a former equipment designer I took a guess, grab calculator.
The temperature jumps from 6.9 to 13.0 and back to 7.4 at 10:00 hrs and again 9.5 to 13.7 and back to 7.2 at 17:00 hrs.
Only takes condensation to do this, given it happens at room temperature.
13 6.9=6.1C not interesting. But this is american equipment.
6.1*9/5 = 10.98 and that looks likely, is basically internally F, the higher numeric resolution. Kind of things folks do.
13-7.4*9/5=1008
13.7-9.5*9/5=756
13.7-7.2*9/5=1170
Bet that unlike the BAS stuff which appears to use an old BCD interface this is binary and a duff bit, 1024, bit 9, 2^10
Is about right on resolution. Wouldnt be surprised if 1.024 or 10.24 is the internal reference
Look for jumps around 5.7C
If a higher bit is dodgy, might get 22.8C jump.
However on looking at some of the examples, could be at least 3 bits playing games
11.4
11.4+5.7=17.1
One of the plots shown might have several instances where actually the temperature variation was rather boring.
It gets worse, the reading are probably averaged and faults are noisy so anything is possible.
Might not be the only pattern and so the entire record is suspect, other malfunctions are possible. The equipment housing probably has an air leak.
The above is guesswork so I might be very wrong.
To: All
And a casual observer comments:
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pwl
Im flabbergasted that temperature data collection can be prone to so many errors in so many dimensions from siting issues to human errors of data entry and misunderstanding the limits of statistics, though on to human analysis fabrications (intentional or otherwise). How can any of it be taken seriously?
Has anyone made a list or flow diagram showing all the steps and all the places that errors have been found to creep in?
To: All
Continuing:
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crosspatch
It should not be hard to automate the discovery of the most blatant errors. A computer is pretty good at making comparisons in data. If a temperature rises some extreme amount from the previous and subsequent readings, particularly at a time of day when temperature should not be rising, it should be flagged for scrutiny.
I believe this shows the complete lack of scrutiny this data gets. We are asked to allow lifestyle modifying changes to be made in our laws (income modifying, too, I might add) based on these readings yet they take no serious responsibility for making sure those data are correct. It is yet again another indication of the lack of respect for and apparent contempt in which the tax paying citizen is held by those in these various government agencies and research organization.
How can they expect us to believe a word they say when such obvious errors slip through, possibly on a daily basis?
To: All
ROFL:
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James Sexton
Just got back from a horrible match of pool. Im
.this is
well, to quote my vice president
this is a big f
n deal!!!!!! Were they really that stupid??? I havent read the discussion because
.well, Im back from the bar, but wtf? Is that really the station that is causing all the warming????? Ive got a good 1/2 hr left in me tonight
.. someone give me a yes or no!!!! IS that the one that is making the arctic so hot??
To: Ernest_at_the_Beach
Well, well——IF YOU REPEAT A LIE OFTEN ENOUGH
26
posted on
04/25/2010 2:06:40 PM PDT
by
BOBTHENAILER
( EPA will rule your life)
To: BOBTHENAILER
More from the comments:
************************************EXCERPT****************************************
Roy
The quality of the posts here are truly excellent. I enjoyed the well written ad- hominen discussion by IAMDIGITAP, an excellent history of the human bias factors very intelligently presented.
If I may be so bold to add:
Lets face it, the major cause of this entire AGW hoax was such a behavioral issue in the first place. We should expect matter of factly, without being judgmental about it, that research grants, like laboratory food pellets will change peoples behavior in undesirable ways. We all like to think that we ourselves would never be scientifically dishonest. George C Scott said, as he portrayed the conniving swindler, theFlim Flam Man, in the movie of the same name, when asked if everyone had avarice in them, Every thermometers gotta register something. How coincidentally apropos to this discussion dont you think?
And in this particular instance, lets face it, another warming report coincidently in favour of AGW. At the very least we have the writer getting his little food pellet for the article he wrote, probably from his editor, publisher and incoming emails. We broke the news and you heard it first here blah blah, good work son and all that. Long live B F Skinner and his lab rats. So competent researchers should expect these errors as normal and work to eliminate them.
The best plan in overcoming this that I can see is right here with websites such as this combined with freedom of information. Its the naked raw numbers which contain the truth. I would object to computer algorithms doing anything more than to searching for and identifying suspicious data. I would rather have someone pointing them out, as is done here so we all can see. Weve all had enough of secret data bases from Phil Jones and the tree ring boys.
PS: If I recall correctly, the Flim Flam man had a very exalted degree, an MBS CS DD, ie, Master of Back Stabbing, Cork Screwing and Dirty Dealing. Sort of rolls of the tongue doesnt it. And if I just happen to park my snowmobile a little too close to that sensor, well, whose going to know anyway. And the funding committee wow, record high temperatures eh, its a good thing were funding these people. Send them more money!
To: BOBTHENAILER
You will like IAmDigitap....comments ...see #20;
To: Ernest_at_the_Beach
Legislating unreality---for fun and profit:
Which one of them has NOT had his fundamental methodology and acumen completely revoked in broad daylight
.
But theyre a ring of government employees and Al Gore needed them to pulse his i could have been president rage tantrum.
I would, and/oe will be, the first to volunteer the duel with Al, in order for him to defend his dishonor.
29
posted on
04/25/2010 2:24:55 PM PDT
by
BOBTHENAILER
( EPA will rule your life)
To: All
Relating to post #21...and from comments to the original article:
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Sean Peake
Anthony, heres whats Wikipedia says now:
I re-inserted the deleted statement. The claim is readily verifiable by Environment Canada and the actual METAR obs show a high of 20.9C. The website expressing concerns about its strongly opposed to climate science and thus cannot be used as a source of controversy without violating Wikipedias overarching goals at achieving a neutral point of view in its articles. The claim itself does not strike me as obviously wrong; the station in question is adjacent to the Arctic Ocean. Small changes in wind direction can lead to large temperature changes in the summer. A quick glance at some other days shows that the temperatures frequently oscillate with even minute changes in wind direction. There is no evidence of any temperature sensor malfunction. 72.240.53.216 (talk) 15:58, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
This thread just keeps getting better!
To: BOBTHENAILER
He ducks interviews.....so I would doubt that he might show up for a real live DUEL......ROFL!!
To: Dr. Bogus Pachysandra; BOBTHENAILER; Arthur Wildfire! March
Deep into the comments ....we hear from the Station Manager himself:
********************************EXCERPT****************************************
Rai LeCotey (Eureka Station Manager)
Anthony, let me set the record straight!
I am the station manager of Eureka and was on site when we broke a new all time high on July 14, 2009 of 20.9°C and have the picture to prove it! The reason there was such a big fluctuation in temerature from the METARS before and after the record breaking temperature was all due the direction of the wind. If you look at the location of the weather station (and where the stevenson screens are), it is located about 300 metres inland from the north shore of Slidre Fjord. Normally our winds are from the East, South or West which cools off the air as it passes over the cold waters of the fjord. However, when the wind switches from the north the temperature will be representative of the inland over the Fosheim Pennisula. Inland temperatures can be 10 15°C warmer during the summer months than along the shoreline where we are situated.
There was no malfunction of equipment nor data entry errors. It is all due to local effects and whether the wind blows from the north (inland) or not.
Having said that, I have personally seen the effects of global warming at Eureka over the past 12 years as each summer we break a new record maxium high and we see more and more mudslides on the tundra as the permafrost melts even lower and can no long support the clay and dirt above it.
If you or anyone else wants to see my picture of our RTI showing 20.9°C please e-mail me at EurekaWxStn@ec.gc.ca
I have many more pictures of Eureka I am willing to share.
Rai LeCotey Eureka Station Manager
REPLY: Thanks, what about the day before, with 19.6? Ill drop you a note for the pix.
To: All
Checking out for some period.....need some food.
To: Ernest_at_the_Beach
At least the station manager was honest about why the temp rise occurred. Post #32.
34
posted on
04/25/2010 4:39:03 PM PDT
by
Marine_Uncle
(Honor must be earned....)
To: Ernest_at_the_Beach
Eureka? I have lived in Eureka for several hundred years and I have never seen snow that deep?
35
posted on
04/25/2010 5:04:34 PM PDT
by
tubebender
(I LOVE COOKING WITH WINE, sometimes I even put it in the food...)
To: Ernest_at_the_Beach
The station manager might be a believer, but I can’t help but note how a single shift of wind can drastically alter ground level temps. I’ve always believed that satellite surveilance of atmospheric temps would be much more accurate and practical.
36
posted on
04/26/2010 1:59:12 AM PDT
by
Arthur Wildfire! March
(Weakening McCain strengthens our borders, weakens guest worker aka amnesty)
To: Ernest_at_the_Beach
This affects all data from the Artic.Yes, it does! Not only do temperature spikes (bad data) affect averages, when the number of stations recording data is small, the effect is amplified to give higher readings on average all around.
If stations are closed, IIRC, the practice was to average data from adjacent stations to fill in the dataset. With averages similarly corrupted by questionable data, the overall picture would reflect a trend which did not, in fact, exist.
Thanks for posting this!
37
posted on
04/26/2010 4:21:40 AM PDT
by
Smokin' Joe
(How often God must weep at humans' folly. Stand fast. God knows what He is doing.)
To: Smokin' Joe
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