How not to measure temperature, part 5

Today I visited the City of Lodi, California, since they have a USHCN weather station that produces data used in the climate record and also in climate change computer modeling.

Wow was I surprised, not only because of how bad the weather station siting was, but because I found two.

First site is the Lodi Municipal Service Center, 38.11619N 121.29003W. FYI, Lodi runs their own municipal district, which is why they own a substation. Note the bank of fans on the big transformer. they are about 30 feet away. I wasn’t about to get close enough to the transformers to measure for sure. The fans exhaust the waste heat the transformer produces. Note that when temperatures are at their highest, so is electrical energy use for air conditioning. And of course, our thermometer will track this trend.

The picture to me is like “when worlds collide” where the solar power to offset GHG’s (charging the car) meets the reason for global warming in the first place (the waste heat from the power transformers).

How not to measure temperature, part 4, at the Royal Observatory

This is a Google Earth satellite photo of the Royal Observatory in Edinburgh. The weather station, at 55°55′22.71″N 3°11′17.69″W is the white box in the middle of the grass circle. Of concern is not just the nearby roads, but also the buildings. It appears the station is almost completely encircled by tall buildings.

This means that the heat from the buildings will significantly bias the temperature, and reduce wind which adds further bias.

You’d think top scientists would know better?