Occasional Thoughts on Climate Change

[ChescoWx]

On 10/18/2024 at 3:00 PM, chubbs said:

Whether you can accept/understand or not, the raw temperature and other data is clear. When the stations moved, they cooled by roughly 2F relative to nearby stations. We know the locations of the stations before and after the moves. We know when the moves occurred. We know the temperatures at all the local stations. The photos are just the icing on the cake.

 

 

Charlie as we clearly see below all 3 of the available NWS COOP stations during the period 1941 thru 1975 had a statistically significantly identical trend line of chilling as is clearly demonstrated in the below actual raw data chart. I assume you have "nearby stations" from outside of the county that you wish to introduce to support any post hoc adjustments? If so which station and how far from Chester County is that station that we should look at???

[chubbs]

12 hours ago, ChescoWx said:

Charlie as we clearly see below all 3 of the available NWS COOP stations during the period 1941 thru 1975 had a statistically significantly identical trend line of chilling as is clearly demonstrated in the below actual raw data chart. I assume you have "nearby stations" from outside of the county that you wish to introduce to support any post hoc adjustments? If so which station and how far from Chester County is that station that we should look at???

The 2 main station moves can be spotted in your plot, but they are hard to see with all the other station changes. Those 3 stations should move in sync from year-to-year because they experience the same weather. When they don't a station change has occurred, which is why bias adjustment is needed.

Much easier to see the station moves when the before-move and after-move sections are separated. The move-related cooling is clear by comparing to the 2 stations which didn't move (West Chester and Phoenixville 1946-47, and Coatesville and Phoenixville 1970). Looking at the before or after move periods individually, there is very little temperature trend at Coatesville or West Chester. The before-move portions are flat and the after-move portions are flat, just at different levels reflecting the site moves. The cooling in the 1941-75 period at those 2 stations is mainly due to the moves. Fortunately the moves occurred at different times which allowed their "chilling" effect to be identified.   No move at Phoenixville, but as we saw previously, Phoenixville ran very warm in from the 1930s to 1950s.  Phoenixville cooled significantly relative to the other two station at the end of the 1950s. Another station change.

Since you want to look at data from outside Chester County, here are the Mt Holly NWS climate sites for this period (Atlantic City data is from the Weather Bureau Office on the roof of the Tuna Club building). Despite being further apart, these 4 station are much more in sync from year-to-year than the Chesco sites. Why? They are higher quality sites with fewer site changes.  The overall trend over the period at these 4 stations is flat.  There is a slight downtrend to the 1960s, but warming at the end brings 1975 up to 1941 levels.  If these 4 stations are flat,  you can be sure that Chester County is flat as well. All experience the same weather. Non weather effects, like station changes or heat island near the station, would impact each site differently and would be easily spotted by bias adjustment software.

 

For the past several months you have been promoting a misleading denier strawman. The NOAA analysis uses only raw data as input, same as you; but, NOAA is doing a much better job of analyzing the raw data than you are. Well-proven science and a large database make the NOAA analysis bullet proof. We've confirmed that in our Chesco County deep dive. NOAA's individual Chesco station adjustments line up perfectly with station moves, time of day bias, warm sensors,  etc. No its your analysis that produces a result that is far from our actual climate history.

 

[Kevin Reilly]

Looks like Climate Change has hit here in Delaware County PA.  Here in Media, we have picked up 0.38" of rain since August 18th.  It is very dry, and Springton Lake Reservoir is down about 10-15 feet and counting. 

[ChescoWx]

13 hours ago, chubbs said:

T

For the past several months you have been promoting a misleading denier strawman. The NOAA analysis uses only raw data as input, same as you; but, NOAA is doing a much better job of analyzing the raw data than you are. Well-proven science and a large database make the NOAA analysis bullet proof. We've confirmed that in our Chesco County deep dive. NOAA's individual Chesco station adjustments line up perfectly with station moves, time of day bias, warm sensors,  etc. No its your analysis that produces a result that is far from our actual climate history.

 

So to quote my favorite climate alarmist Charlie he says "When the stations moved, they cooled by roughly 2F relative to nearby stations. We know the locations of the stations before and after the moves". Well if that is true then why did NOAA cooling adjust those to levels equal to or colder than any of the County stations in 29 of those 35 years between 1941 and 1975??  Charlie goes on to say that "Fortunately the moves occurred at different times which allowed their "chilling" effect to be identified. "

So again if a chilling effect was identified why the heck was the adjustment to the Chester County wide data NOT to warm the data?? But instead to correct this chilling bias NOAA chose to chill them even further in the vast majority (83%) of those very years!!! Why?? The red line below shows this fabricated altered NOAA data which certainly was used to depress temps to better promote the warming story in Chester County PA since 1970.

[chubbs]

20 hours ago, ChescoWx said:

So to quote my favorite climate alarmist Charlie he says "When the stations moved, they cooled by roughly 2F relative to nearby stations. We know the locations of the stations before and after the moves". Well if that is true then why did NOAA cooling adjust those to levels equal to or colder than any of the County stations in 29 of those 35 years between 1941 and 1975??  Charlie goes on to say that "Fortunately the moves occurred at different times which allowed their "chilling" effect to be identified. "

So again if a chilling effect was identified why the heck was the adjustment to the Chester County wide data NOT to warm the data?? But instead to correct this chilling bias NOAA chose to chill them even further in the vast majority (83%) of those very years!!! Why?? The red line below shows this fabricated altered NOAA data which certainly was used to depress temps to better promote the warming story in Chester County PA since 1970.

You are playing rhetorical games. Yes, we know that NOAA doesn't match the raw data, that's a positive because the raw data is biased. Coatesville and West Chester moved and cooled relative to nearby sites. This is very easy to see by comparing Coatesville, West Chester, and Phoenixville. For instance, Coatesville was 0.23F warmer than West Chester from 1941-45 and 1.98F cooler from 1948-52. Other stations outside of Chester County confirm the timing and impact of the moves. NOAA gets the timing and impact of the moves as reflected in the bias adjustments. For instance, the average bias adjustment for West Chester from 1895-1969 is -1.95 vs +0.02 for 1970-85 after the move in early 1970. The West Chester bias adjustment is primarily move-related.

The moves are a good test for the analyst. You can't get an accurate picture of Chester County's climate without accounting for the station moves. We only have 3 stations with long-term data; and 2 of them had significant moves that biased the raw data, The science-based method that NOAA employs nails the moves, a good example of why bias adjustment is important.

[ChescoWx]

1 hour ago, chubbs said:

You are playing rhetorical games. Yes, we know that NOAA doesn't match the raw data, that's a positive because the raw data is biased. Coatesville and West Chester moved and cooled relative to nearby sites. This is very easy to see by comparing Coatesville, West Chester, and Phoenixville. For instance, Coatesville was 0.23F warmer than West Chester from 1941-45 and 1.98F cooler from 1948-52. Other stations outside of Chester County confirm the timing and impact of the moves. NOAA gets the timing and impact of the moves as reflected in the bias adjustments. For instance, the average bias adjustment for West Chester from 1895-1969 is -1.95 vs +0.02 for 1970-85 after the move in early 1970. The West Chester bias adjustment is primarily move-related.

The moves are a good test for the analyst. You can't get an accurate picture of Chester County's climate without accounting for the station moves. We only have 3 stations with long-term data; and 2 of them had significant moves that biased the raw data, The science-based method that NOAA employs nails the moves, a good example of why bias adjustment is important.

Yet still no answer - why chill almost every year below any station in the entire county?  Is sounds like the rationale is - let's find some station up in Berks or Lehigh County and let's chill down all 3 of those pesky warm Chester County stations to that more appropriate chilly level - why don't we pick that station up in Allentown???  And 50 years after the observation let's adjust all of those stations!!! Heck! West Chester, Coatesville and Phoenixville should of course be as chilly at Allentown!!

[TheClimateChanger]

On 10/18/2024 at 11:37 AM, TheClimateChanger said:

So what we can see is relative to the actual observations, NCEI adjustments generally slightly cooled the 1940s and 1950s. However, beginning in the late 1950s and continuing through the mid 1960s, there is a period where NCEI substantially warmed the actual observations. Thereafter [and continuing through the late 1970s], NCEI adjustments favored a small cooling. In the early 1980s, NCEI adjustments were a general warming of the actual observations. From the mid 1980s through the mid 1990s, there was a significant cooling adjustment.

NOTE: This adjustment from 1985-1995 appears to be related to the defective HO-83 hygrothermometer, which produced spuriously high readings in that era at first-order sites. I don't think there's any express adjustment for the instrument, but rather it's adjusted through comparison with other observations.

Following the installation of the ASOS in 1996, adjustments have generally been modest with either no change to the data or a small warming adjustment applied.

The overall effect of adjustments on the trendline at PHL is small, although it does slightly increase the trend from .441F/decade to .489F/decade.

Here are the numbers comparing Philadelphia County to PHL. The county figures are probably more relevant than the city figures, as these are utilized as part of the divisional averages, state averages and national averages. The county averages are almost uniformly lower than the PHL airport averages, except for a couple years in the 1960s. That was also the period where there was the least overall difference. The largest cooling is in the early 1990s, likely related to the HO-83 hygrothermometer in place at the time which lead to spuriously high readings at the airport. Overall, the adjustments make the trend slightly less. As noted, the raw data from PHL suggests a trend of +0.441F/decade since 1941, while the NCEI averages for Philadelphia County suggest a trend of 0.42F/decade.