A New Paper on California Climate Variability

Today I obtained the paper: LaDochy, S., R. Medina, and W. Patzert. 2007. Recent California climate variability: spatial and temporal patterns in temperature trends. Climate Research, 33, 159-169 You can download the paper in PDF format in its entirety here: ca_climate_variability_ladochy.pdf

I’ll post more on this paper later, but I wanted to make it available for everyone to read beforehand.

This paper references my good friend and colleague, Jim Goodridge, former California State Climatologist in its bibliography. As you may recall, I posted on Jim’s work here a couple of months ago. One of the maps that Jim has prepared, seen below, closely matches the mapped results from the LaDochy et al paper.

A good year for CO2 in 2006

Just released: new DOE figures showing that the US has reduced CO2 production 1.5% last year in 2006, even without the US signing on to Kyoto.  You can read the full report here (Adobe PDF file).

 Here are some of the numbers for 2006:

• Total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in 2006 were 1.5 percent below the 2005 total—the first annual drop since 2001 and only the third since 1990.

• The total emissions reduction, from 7,181.4 million metric tons carbon dioxide equivalent (MMTCO2e) in 2005 to 7,075.6 MMTCO2e in 2006, was largely a result of reductions in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. There were smaller reductions in emissions of methane (CH4) and man-made gases with high global warming potentials (high-GWP gases)

• U.S. carbon dioxide emissions in 2006 were 110.6 million metric tons (MMT) below their 2005 level of 6,045.0 MMT, due to favorable weather conditions; higher energy prices; a decline in the carbon intensity of electric power generation that resulted from increased use of natural gas, the least carbon intensive fossil fuel; and greater reliance on non-fossil energy sources.

Despite my stance on the measurement and interpretation errors associated with the surface temperature record, I’ve always felt that reducing pollution is a good thing. At the same time I’ve always felt that our environmental movement is too often focused on panic driven ideas.

Coupled with the news about the 2007 hurricane season being very low in my post below, I believe we’ve seen evidence that things aren’t all they are claimed to be, particularly by Gore. I think the best approach overall is to not panic, and to work on alternate energy solutions and better efficiency as a way to wean ourselves from foreign oil. The key here is slow change. It took us 100 years to get to this point, it will probably take us at least half that to reverse the trends in a sensible way with new technology.

2007 Hurricane Season ends quietly

November 30th marks the official end of hurricane season. Below is some good news, courtesy of Ryan Maue at Florida State University COAPS :

The 2007 Atlantic Hurricane season did not meet the hyperactive expectations of the storm pontificators. This is good news, just like it was last year. With the breathless media coverage prior to the 2006 and 2007 seasons predicting a catastrophic swarm of hurricanes potentially enhanced by global warming a la Katrina, there is currently plenty of twisting in the wind to explain away the hyperbolic projections. The predominant refrain mentions something about “being lucky” and having “escaped” the storms, and “just wait for next year”.

Before we prepare for the obvious impending onslaught of the next “above-average” hurricane season, let’s review some very positive aspects of what 2007 offered:

• The 2007 Atlantic Hurricane season was below-normal and tied for 2002 as the most inactive since the El Nino depressed 1997 season in terms of storm energy. Note: Hurricane Energy is measured through the Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE) index
• The North Atlantic was not the only ocean that experienced quiet tropical cyclone activity. The Northern Hemisphere as a whole is historically inactive. How inactive? One has to go back to 1977 to find lower levels of cyclone energy as measured by the ACE hurricane energy metric. Even more astounding, 2007 will be the 4th slowest year in the past half-century (since 195 .
• Fewest Northern Hemisphere Hurricane Days since 1977. 3rd Lowest since 1958 (behind 1977 and 1973). See the Hurricane Days Graphic below.
• When combined, the 2006 and 2007 Atlantic Hurricane Seasons are the least active since 1993 and 1994. When compared with the active period of 1995-2005 average, 2006 and 2007 hurricane energy was less than half of that previous 10 year average. The most recent active period of Atlantic hurricane activity began in 1995, but has been decidedly less active during the previous two seasons.
  When combined, the Eastern Pacific and the North Atlantic, which typically play opposite tunes when it comes to yearly activity (b/c of El Nino), brushed climatology aside and together managed the lowest output since 1977. In fact, the average lifespan of the 2007 Atlantic storms was the shortest since 1977 at just over two days. This means that the storms were weak and short-lived, with a few obvious exceptions.

Hurricane Days by Year

2007 Departure from ACE and Climatic norms:

Basin	Current ACE	Climo ACE	% Departure
Northern Hemisphere	373.4	525.2	-28.9%
North Atlantic	67.7	93.8	-27.8%
Western Pacific	209.2	286.8	-27.1%
Eastern Pacific	52.2	131.2	-60.2%

How not to measure temperature, part 40

Rounding out a review of California weather stations this week we visit Gilroy, CA, the garlic capital. This COOP station has an MMTS temperature sensor on a pole just a few feet from a concrete slab. We’ve seen a lot of that lately. But look closely - roasted garlic anyone?

Photo from NWS, San Franciso/Monterey CA

While it’s likely the BBQ grill is not used daily, one has to wonder just how much bias it’s proximity imparts into the temperature record. This station  COOP number is 04-3417 as is part of NOAA’s “A” network which reports climate to NCDC. It is located at the Fire station in Gilroy, seen below. Notice that is is also near a large parking lot and major intersection downtown. So much for NOAA’s 100 foot rule for station siting.


Click on the picture for a larger interactive view

The recently released paper from LaDochy et al. showed that “urban” stations warmed at a rate of 0.20°C per decade while the “non-urban” stations warmed only 0.08°C per decade, with the lack of attention to the measuring environment such as we see here, is it any wonder?

How not to measure temperature, part 39

One of the most surprising things I’ve learned from the surfacestations.org project is that for some odd reason, there are a number of climate monitoring stations of record in the USA at sewage treatment plants. If you’ve ever driven by one of these in the wintertime, they tend to look like steam saunas. They are localized heat bubbles from the waste-water processing.

At Orangeburg, SC not only is the official USHCN climate station of record at a sewage treatment plant, it’s also a nonstandard thermometer (a climate station normally looks like this), and strapped to the side of a telephone pole. I don’t know about you, but experience with creosote treated telephone poles tells me that they’d tend to create a hotter local measurement environment.

Photo by www.surfacestations.org volunteer surveyor Don Kostuch. See the complete image gallery here.

Then there’s the brick building to radiate heat at night, the asphalt parking lot, the effluent channel running nearby, and the overall sewage treatment plant waste heat to consider. I doubt there is an easily applicable set of equations which can untangle the myriad of potential microsite biases.

Then there’s sewage. As population growth occurs, sewage plants add more vats and equipment to handle the increased volume. The increased volume of effluent loses some of it’s heat at this location during the purification process.

Click graph for larger version, data from NASA GISS

The real question is: What are we actually measuring at this location? Are we measuring temperature as an indicator of climate change or are we measuring waste heat from increases in sewage processing that mirrors local population growth?

UPDATE and CORRECTION:

I made an error, this is not a sewage treatment plant. It does treat water, and the description in the site survey from the surveyor was “water filtration plant” which I mistook to mean “sewage treatment” since so many other locations have been at sewage treatment facilities. For example, one of the worst is Titusville, FL, which has been highlighted in this blog in Part 31 and also surveyed by the same volunteer. I looked at the photos he provided, and did not discern initially that the tanks were not for sewage treatment.  Some sharp eyed readers have pointed out the identification problem, which I’m happy to correct.

The questions about the validity of the temperature measurement environment in the midst of a sewage treatment plant are still valid, but do not apply to this location.  So the question we now have for this location is; do the large water filtration pools on this site provide an evaporative cooling effect or do they release heat?

The water vapor impacts at the facility are likely a factor, possibly for Tmin overnight, which is more prone to such effects. Note that there has been new construction at this location, and given the apparently new water filtration pools added on site, there may still be an effect of measuring the local population increases by proxy.

How not to measure temperature, part 38

In our last episode, we looked at a COOP station on a roof of a fire station operated by the NWS in San Diego. Moving north, we have another COOP station operated by the San Francisco/Monterey Weather Service office that is also on a rooftop. You can see the MMTS sensor in the photo provided.

This station, COOP number 04-1838 is in Cloverdale, CA is just a few feet away from a chimney flue and an exhaust stack of a diesel generator. Note also the rain gauge placement. This station, while not a USHCN station, is part of the “A” network, which does report climate for NCDC.

Photo from NWS SFO/Monterey

For those unfamiliar at spotting NOAA issued MMTS temperature sensors, its the post on the leftmost portion of the lower roof, directly beneath the satellite dish.

To see other stations, try my blogs “weather_stations” link under the categories at right. To see stations in your state see www.surfacestations.org and click on the online image gallery link. You may even wish to signup to help survey a station in your area.

Good News! Pielke is blogging again!

Dr. Roger Pielke Sr. has started up his Climate Science blog again, sans comments, as an informational source only. This is some very good news. See his post below.

November 27, 2007: Climate Science Is Relaunching As An Information Source

As a result of very positive encouragement from many Climate Science readers, I have decided to relaunch the website. The format will be different than in the past, however, in that comments will not be permitted. The posting of information will not be on a schedule, but when new information on a climate science issue is available that is otherwise not very visible, or has been misrepresented in the media.

The presentation of climate science in the media, unfortunately, remains biased, as has been documented numerous times on Climate Science. Thus, I have decided to reenter this mechanism of providing information. While comments will not be permitted on the website, guest presentations will be invited when there is value in providing this source of information.

Climate Science will thus provide a source of information on climate that, hopefully, will be useful to others, as part of a much needed effort to provide a balanced view of climate science.

Thanks to those who have found my website of value and take the time to read it!

The scoop on satellite temperature data

There’s a story at the Telegraph UK from Christopher Booker where he states “…the latest US satellite figures showing temperatures having fallen since 1998, declining in 2007 to a 1983 level…”

Wanting to make sure that there was some data to reference this claim for my readers, I’ve presented some graphs of satellite microwave sounder data below.

MSU data are produced by Remote Sensing Systems and sponsored by the NOAA Climate and Global Change Program. Data are available at www.remss.com

Below are the trend graphs for the data since 1979. Note that these graphs are multi channel, which represent different microwave sounder wavelength channels from the spacecraft. These channels represent different measured levels of the atmosphere.

Channel. TLT - Lower Troposphere
 
Channel TMT - Middle Troposphere

Channel TTS - Troposphere and Stratosphere combined

Channel TLS - Lower Stratosphere

Above: Global, monthly time series of brightness temperature anomaly for channels TLT, TMT, TTS, and TLS.

All matter emits microwave radiation that varies with its temperature, among other factors. Microwave sensors on weather satellites can take more than 60,000 temperature measurements of oxygen in the atmosphere, from the surface to about 10 km (6 mi) altitude.

NOAA and it’s affiliated researchers have compiled almost three decades of data showing how atmospheric temperature has behaved over the entire globe.  At UAH (University of Alabama, Huntsville) where Dr. John Christy and Dr. Roy Spencer have been keeping watch on this trend for some time as well, they have tabular data online should you care to plot it. Here is an ongoing history of the data. You can see some of their other work here.

For Channel TLT (Lower Troposphere) and Channel TMT (Middle Troposphere), the anomaly time series is dominated by ENSO events and slow tropospheric warming. The three primary El Niños during the past 20 years are clearly evident as peaks in the time series occurring during 1982-83, 1987-88, and 1997-98, with the most recent one being the largest. Channel TLS (Lower Stratosphere) is dominated by stratospheric cooling, punctuated by dramatic warming events caused by the eruptions of El Chichón (1982) and Mt Pinatubo (1991). Channel TTS (Troposphere + Stratosphere combined) shows a mixture of both effects.

Temperatures in the lower troposphere (for non weather geeks, that is the portion of the atmosphere where we live) have shown a series of ups and downs since 1979, mostly in a ±0.4oC band, with negligible trends over that period. This contrasts with the near surface temperature record that shows a warming during the same period of time. The graph below is from Wikipedia.

Note in the TLT graph above, the strong 1997-98 El Niño event caused significant lower tropospheric warming in late 1997, and record warmth in February 1998 as evidenced by the spikes shown in the TLT, TMT, and TTS graphs above.

Satellite measurements of the lower stratosphere (TLS) reveal two marked warm periods (as much as 1.5oC warmer), caused by sulfuric acid aerosols deposited in this layer by the eruptions of El Chichón in 1982 and Pinatubo in 1991.

These two warm periods are concurrent with a strong cooling trend over the 19-year period that has been attributed to ozone depletion in the lower stratosphere. In 1997, record low stratospheric temperatures were recorded.

On the TLT graph, for the years 1998 to present, there appears to be a slight downward trend in lower stratospheric temperature, and this is what I believe Christopher Booker is referencing in his article in the Telegraph.  Note that there have been other downward trends in the nearly 30 year measurement history, but the overall trend in the TLT, TMT, and TTS channels has been positive, so a short downward trend doesn’t necessarily prove anything. The TLS channel shows a negative trend, and along with the ozone depletion factor, indicates that we aren’t getting much heat transport from the troposphere into the stratosphere.

The real question is whether this small downturn in the tropospheric temperature trend is a short term anomaly, or something indicative of a longer term event. Only time will tell.

How not to measure temperature, part37

The National Weather Service office in San Diego, CA operates a cooperative observer network of weather stations, as do all NWS offices. The station in Coronado, CA, is particularly interesting since it is located on the roof of the Fire Station there.

Given that the MMTS sensor shown below is only about 2 feet above the tar and pea gravel roof, which is known to be a hot environment during the day, and a source for re-radiated heat at night, you have to wonder: “What were they thinking?”

Photo from NWS San Diego, click photo for larger image

The NOAA’s credit, this station is not part of the USHCN climate station network, but still, of what possible value could an air temperature measurement just 2 feet off the rooftop be to anyone?

How not to measure temperature, part 36

Surfacestations.org volunteer surveyor Russ Steele brings us this gem of a climate monitoring station from Panguitch, UT. I’ve seen stations over asphalt, such as the University of Arizona station in Tucson, but this one has a special feature; they made a concrete traffic island especially for the station so that it wouldn’t get collided with by nearby parked vehicles. How’s that for diligence? The station mount was set right into the concrete. So much for the 100 foot rule away from asphalt, concrete and buildings issued by NOAA

Click image for larger version

The station was recently closed, and the instruments and wooden portion of the shelter put into storage, which is why you don’t see any Stevenson Screen shelter in the picture above, only the mount. Since it’s permanently set into the concrete, they couldn’t easily remove it. Not well thought out, I’d say.

The GISS temperature plot has an offset just before the year 2000, care to bet when the concrete for the traffic island was poured?