Occasional Thoughts on Climate Change

[LibertyBell]

6 minutes ago, FPizz said:

That guys track record is pretty crappy.  Research him a bit and his past predictions.  I think you'd laugh at how off he has been.

Ehrlich was off because of modern technology and farming techniques, but the main concern now is different (deforestation, pesticide use, etc.)  Hopefully we can control that too.  I saw one of the bright spots of the interview was they were paying farmers not to chop down trees.  And it wasn't even that much they had to pay them-- something like 1000 dollars per year per farmer (which added up to 1.5 million per year overall which was funded entirely by donations) and that's more than they make by chopping them down. 

[LibertyBell]

https://www.overshootday.org/

It's called Earth Overshoot Day-- we passed the tipping point in 1970

 

This year, Earth Overshoot Day fell on July 28

Earth Overshoot Day marks the date when humanity has used all the biological resources that Earth regenerates during the entire year.

[Yardstickgozinya]

https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2948/milankovitch-orbital-cycles-and-their-role-in-earths-climate/

 

 

 

 

[BlunderStorm]

https://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/un-says-ozone-layer-slowly-healing-hole-mend-2066-rcna64927
On a good note:

[ChescoWx]

The PHL Airport Heat Island Contamination is strong.....since 1940 vs. NWS COOP reports in the western suburbs. In 2022 PHL had another year of warming while the Philly burbs were actually cooler.

[chubbs]

2 hours ago, ChescoWx said:

The PHL Airport Heat Island Contamination is strong.....since 1940 vs. NWS COOP reports in the western suburbs. In 2022 PHL had another year of warming while the Philly burbs were actually cooler.

Per chart below comparing Philadelphia and Wilmington airports, Philadelphia airport had a bad sensor or some other measurement issue starting at the end of 2021 and lasting most of last year.   It was corrected in Dec and is now running cooler. So yes the Philadelphia airport was roughly 1F too warm last year, but not due to "heat island contamination"

The difference between Chester County coop stations and the Philadelphia airport is mainly caused by excess cooling at several of the the coop stations between 1940 and 1970 as the stations were modernized (clearly seen in your chart). Below is the bias-adjusted data for Chester County from NOAA since 1940. When properly adjusted, the Chester County data shows considerable warming since 1940, in good agreement with the Philadelphia airport.

 

Finally you have biased the Coatesville Coop data by tacking on your own cooler house since 2004. The non-adjusted data from Coatesville by itself matches the airport very well as shown below. If you exclude 2022, with the bad airport sensor, warming since 1970 is 3.3F at Philadelphia and 3.5F at Coatesville.

 

 What you attribute to "heat island contamination" is just poor analysis and confirmation bias on your part.

 

[ChescoWx]

41 minutes ago, chubbs said:

Per chart below comparing Philadelphia and Wilmington airports, Philadelphia airport had a bad sensor or some other measurement issue starting at the end of 2021 and lasting most of last year.   It was corrected in Dec and is now running cooler. So yes the Philadelphia airport was roughly 1F too warm last year, but not due to "heat island contamination"

The difference between Chester County coop stations and the Philadelphia airport is mainly caused by excess cooling at several of the the coop stations between 1940 and 1970 as the stations were modernized (clearly seen in your chart). Below is the bias-adjusted data for Chester County from NOAA since 1940. When properly adjusted, the Chester County data shows considerable warming since 1940, in good agreement with the Philadelphia airport.

 

Finally you have biased the Coatesville Coop data by tacking on your own cooler house since 2004. The non-adjusted data from Coatesville by itself matches the airport very well as shown below. If you exclude 2022, with the bad airport sensor, warming since 1970 is 3.3F at Philadelphia and 3.5F at Coatesville.

 

 What you attribute to "heat island contamination" is just poor analysis and confirmation bias on your part.

 

Chubbs/Charlie follows the NOAA view of adjusting for that pesky "excess cooling" with "proper adjustments" at those Chester County Stations from 1940-1970. My data (as noted with the disclaimer in my signature below) will continue to trust the multiple NWS COOP observers and am quite confident that they all did not have faulty equipment at the same time. Just no proof of that at all! So we must continue to only analyze the actual approved NWS data validated at the time it was submitted to the NWS office. Unfortunately, for Charilie it does not support the warming story as well without that critical "excess cooling" adjustments. I would also add that the fact I simply produce the actual raw data for all of these Chester County locations without adjustment does not allow me to have any so called "confirmation bias on my part" I can't adjust the numbers for any perceived pesky excess cooling or warming as that may introduce some analyst bias which I won't ever do.

[chubbs]

1 hour ago, ChescoWx said:

Chubbs/Charlie follows the NOAA view of adjusting for that pesky "excess cooling" with "proper adjustments" at those Chester County Stations from 1940-1970. My data (as noted with the disclaimer in my signature below) will continue to trust the multiple NWS COOP observers and am quite confident that they all did not have faulty equipment at the same time. Just no proof of that at all! So we must continue to only analyze the actual approved NWS data validated at the time it was submitted to the NWS office. Unfortunately, for Charilie it does not support the warming story as well without that critical "excess cooling" adjustments. I would also add that the fact I simply produce the actual raw data for all of these Chester County locations without adjustment does not allow me to have any so called "confirmation bias on my part" I can't adjust the numbers for any perceived pesky excess cooling or warming as that may introduce some analyst bias which I won't ever do.

Yes, I am going to stick with NOAA over an amateur who is motivated to get an answer that differs from expert opinion.

The link below describes one source of bias in the US Coop data.

https://judithcurry.com/2015/02/22/understanding-time-of-observation-bias/

 

[ChescoWx]

1 hour ago, chubbs said:

Yes, I am going to stick with NOAA over an amateur who is motivated to get an answer that differs from expert opinion.

The link below describes one source of bias in the US Coop data.

https://judithcurry.com/2015/02/22/understanding-time-of-observation-bias/

 

Charlie you miss the point there is no slant or cherry picking data with my analysis....I have no incentive to skew anything I simply analyze the factual reporting of all available NWS COOP and spotter reports for a long period of time for Chester County PA. The fact is does not support the global warming hypothesis is not my problem. You never say my data is wrong....simply that it needs to be massaged. You can continue to post your adjusted pooled multi-station data for Southeast PA....and I will continue to report on what the trained observers and spotters report and report the facts both warm and cold for the available long term stations in my county.

[chubbs]

17 minutes ago, ChescoWx said:

Charlie you miss the point there is no slant or cherry picking data with my analysis....I have no incentive to skew anything I simply analyze the factual reporting of all available NWS COOP and spotter reports for a long period of time for Chester County PA. The fact is does not support the global warming hypothesis is not my problem. You never say my data is wrong....simply that it needs to be massaged. You can continue to post your adjusted pooled multi-station data for Southeast PA....and I will continue to report on what the trained observers and spotters report and report the facts both warm and cold for the available long term stations in my county.

Come on Paul, you have strong unorthodox views on climate change that skew your outlook and analysis.  You complain about NOAA, but you are making huge adjustments in your own analysis. You are appending the records of three separate Chesco stations end-to-end-to-end to make a one longer record. Three stations with different elevation, latitude, sun exposure, equipment, etc. I've provided plenty of information on the dissimilarity of your stations. The data isn't wrong, but your analysis is. You have missed 3 to 5F of warming compared to other analyses.

[ChescoWx]

11 minutes ago, chubbs said:

Come on Paul, you have strong unorthodox views on climate change that skew your outlook and analysis.  You complain about NOAA, but you are making huge adjustments in your own analysis. You are appending the records of three separate Chesco stations end-to-end-to-end to make a one longer record. Three stations with different elevation, latitude, sun exposure, equipment, etc. I've provided plenty of information on the dissimilarity of your stations. The data isn't wrong, but your analysis is. You have missed 3 to 5F of warming compared to other analyses.

I have made no adjustments to any analysis ever. I am a believer in climate change (it is real and constant throughout history and will continue forever) but believe this change is cyclical and not unusual.  The 3 stations have been analyzed and deemed valid for analysis based on the following detailed reviews. The data set comprises only the National Weather Service COOP observations from 1888 to 1982 for Coatesville 1SW when that station moved per NWS direction to a nearby location in Coatesville beginning in 1983. That location was only 2 miles to the NW at an additional 300 ft elevation change - that station remained in use till 12/31/07. The data of both of those stations was deemed acceptable and combined by the Pennsylvania State Climate Office and is posted on their website with climatology stats using the combined 2 stations. So now we have data from 1888 through 2007 that is included in this data set.

However, the Coatesville NWS observer stopped reporting in December 2007. Without that data I was required to do a statistical analysis to determine if the daily data that had been recorded at both the Coatesville NWS observer station and my NWS spotter data in East Nantmeal for Chester County (at the same elevation ~660 ft ASL) which were taken concurrently daily from 12/1/2003 through 12/31/2007 would be found statistically the same - this is critical because if this statistical significance test had failed we would not have been able to use this data for the ongoing analysis I perform. However, based on the detailed statistical analysis performed we were able to show that both data sets are statistically one and the same based on the highly significant ( p-value results were well under 0.05 required). This detailed statistical analysis provided the support that allows us to have high confidence that the total data set being used is valid and appropriate for analysis. 

Sorry for the long winded explanation (more than most folks would want) but want to ensure why we are so confident in these raw Chester County data sets.

Thanks! Paul

[chubbs]

10 hours ago, ChescoWx said:

I have made no adjustments to any analysis ever. I am a believer in climate change (it is real and constant throughout history and will continue forever) but believe this change is cyclical and not unusual.  The 3 stations have been analyzed and deemed valid for analysis based on the following detailed reviews. The data set comprises only the National Weather Service COOP observations from 1888 to 1982 for Coatesville 1SW when that station moved per NWS direction to a nearby location in Coatesville beginning in 1983. That location was only 2 miles to the NW at an additional 300 ft elevation change - that station remained in use till 12/31/07. The data of both of those stations was deemed acceptable and combined by the Pennsylvania State Climate Office and is posted on their website with climatology stats using the combined 2 stations. So now we have data from 1888 through 2007 that is included in this data set.

However, the Coatesville NWS observer stopped reporting in December 2007. Without that data I was required to do a statistical analysis to determine if the daily data that had been recorded at both the Coatesville NWS observer station and my NWS spotter data in East Nantmeal for Chester County (at the same elevation ~660 ft ASL) which were taken concurrently daily from 12/1/2003 through 12/31/2007 would be found statistically the same - this is critical because if this statistical significance test had failed we would not have been able to use this data for the ongoing analysis I perform. However, based on the detailed statistical analysis performed we were able to show that both data sets are statistically one and the same based on the highly significant ( p-value results were well under 0.05 required). This detailed statistical analysis provided the support that allows us to have high confidence that the total data set being used is valid and appropriate for analysis. 

Sorry for the long winded explanation (more than most folks would want) but want to ensure why we are so confident in these raw Chester County data sets.

Thanks! Paul

Lets look under the hood at your dataset. Below is chart of 90F days at the three sites you are using. Plus a table comparing the three sites with Philadelphia (non-airport prior to 1940). 100+ years ago Coatesville 1SW was often the warmest site in the Philadelphia region, with more 90F days than Philadelphia. Coatesville 1SW had cooled by the 1970s, probably due to station modernization. The two Coatesville sites are similar. I am comfortable combining them but only after 1970, when the Coatesville 1SW bias adjustments are small and can be ignored. The chart I posted earlier showed that all the Coatesville sites (1SW, 2W and Coatesville airport after 2007) and Philadelphia airport have had very similar temperature trends since 1970. 

East Nantmeal has many fewer 90F days than either of the Coatesville sites. On hot summer days East Nantmeal is often the coolest site in the Philly region. Your dataset has a relatively warm site at the beginning and a cool site at the end, relative to other regional stations. Not a good basis to estimate long-term regional climate trends or to evaluate the quality of nearby stations like the Philadelphia airport.

	Phila	Chescowx
1894-1930	17	23
1970-81	22	13
1982-2003	29	16
2004-22	30	5

 

[ChescoWx]

As clearly shown below the trend away from the PHL heat island airport for 90 degrees is clearly falling over the last 10 years - the disparity when compared to PHL continues to grow. The suburban locales averaging high single digit amount of 90+ days while PHL now heating up into an average of low 30's per summer. This is all over no more than a 30 nautical mile distance from the airport.

[chubbs]

1 hour ago, ChescoWx said:

As clearly shown below the trend away from the PHL heat island airport for 90 degrees is clearly falling over the last 10 years - the disparity when compared to PHL continues to grow. The suburban locales averaging high single digit amount of 90+ days while PHL now heating up into an average of low 30's per summer. This is all over no more than a 30 nautical mile distance from the airport.

Nice job of cherry-picking. Pottstown has a bad sensor and kqms is a site with a relatively low # of 90F days. Per chart below the other regional airports all trend with Philadelphia. I have excluded 2022 because of the bad sensor at Philadelphia.

You have also ignored my comment about the inconsistency in your dataset. Other sites in Chesco had the following # of 90F days last year: Phoenixville 33, Glenmoore (very close to East Nantmeal)  18, West Chester airport 19. These are in-line with the data from Coatesville posted above. East Nantmeal only had 1 90F day last year, an outlier to the other Chesco sites, and poor choice to combine with older Chesco data to determine climate trends.

 

[LibertyBell]

37 minutes ago, chubbs said:

Nice job of cherry-picking. Pottstown has a bad sensor and kqms is a site with a relatively low # of 90F days. Per chart below the other regional airports all trend with Philadelphia. I have excluded 2022 because of the bad sensor at Philadelphia.

You have also ignored my comment about the inconsistency in your dataset. Other sites in Chesco had the following # of 90F days last year: Phoenixville 33, Glenmoore (very close to East Nantmeal)  18, West Chester airport 19. These are in-line with the data from Coatesville posted above. East Nantmeal only had 1 90F day last year, an outlier to the other Chesco sites, and poor choice to combine with older Chesco data to determine climate trends.

 

Wow thats weird so few 90 degree days-- we've had more 90 degree days than that here on the south shore of Long Island

Also, high temperatures get muted with more cloud cover and higher humidity unfortunately-- I love very hot 100+ dry days...

[ChescoWx]

37 minutes ago, chubbs said:

Nice job of cherry-picking. Pottstown has a bad sensor and kqms is a site with a relatively low # of 90F days. Per chart below the other regional airports all trend with Philadelphia. I have excluded 2022 because of the bad sensor at Philadelphia.

You have also ignored my comment about the inconsistency in your dataset. Other sites in Chesco had the following # of 90F days last year: Phoenixville 33, Glenmoore (very close to East Nantmeal)  18, West Chester airport 19. These are in-line with the data from Coatesville posted above. East Nantmeal only had 1 90F day last year, an outlier to the other Chesco sites, and poor choice to combine with older Chesco data to determine climate trends.

 

Always funny you fall back on faulty sensors or observation reports when the figures don't work out....

[ChescoWx]

1 minute ago, LibertyBell said:

Wow thats weird so few 90 degree days-- we've had more 90 degree days than that here on the south shore of Long Island

Also, high temperatures get muted with more cloud cover and higher humidity unfortunately-- I love very hot 100+ dry days...

We have some modest elevation at the KMQS and East Nantmeal stations (~660 ft ASL) that seem to make some diffference...although honestly 88 or 91 with humidity is still hot any way you slice it!!

[LibertyBell]

1 hour ago, ChescoWx said:

We have some modest elevation at the KMQS and East Nantmeal stations (~660 ft ASL) that seem to make some diffference...although honestly 88 or 91 with humidity is still hot any way you slice it!!

It is especially if it's humid. Do you have any data for near Allentown? I spend a lot of my summers up there, and just north of there near Lehighton and Jim Thorpe.

 

[LibertyBell]

Antarctic sea ice also decreasing now.

[bdgwx]

Apparently Exxon Mobil was really good at predicting the warming. Who would have thunk it?

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abk0063

[ChescoWx]

21 hours ago, LibertyBell said:

Antarctic sea ice also decreasing now.

4th lowest in satellite era for December....of course satellite era is not very long...current warm cycle doing it's thing!!

[ChescoWx]

Below is the updated analysis comparing PHL Airport vs. All long running Chester County Observation Sites from 1940 through 2022.

For the year 2022 all Chester County locations reported lower average temperatures vs. 2021. ranging from 0.4 to 1.0 degrees cooler than the prior year. Philadelphia was 1.0 degree warmer than 2021.

The analysis for the last 82 years since 1940 shows overall trends of modest cooling at the Chester County stations at Glenmoore and slight warming at Phoenixville and West Chester with Coatesville/East Nantmeal showing the most warming but only very modest warming at best. Philadelphia's trends of course shows pronounced steady warming that is continuing to accelerate.

[chubbs]

4 hours ago, ChescoWx said:

Below is the updated analysis comparing PHL Airport vs. All long running Chester County Observation Sites from 1940 through 2022.

For the year 2022 all Chester County locations reported lower average temperatures vs. 2021. ranging from 0.4 to 1.0 degrees cooler than the prior year. Philadelphia was 1.0 degree warmer than 2021.

The analysis for the last 82 years since 1940 shows overall trends of modest cooling at the Chester County stations at Glenmoore and slight warming at Phoenixville and West Chester with Coatesville/East Nantmeal showing the most warming but only very modest warming at best. Philadelphia's trends of course shows pronounced steady warming that is continuing to accelerate.

Lets broaden out the analysis. Here is the philadelphia airport vs other Mt Holly long-term climate sites and the NOAA climate series for SE Pa. Yes Philadelphia was too warm last year. The problem started at the end of 2021 and ended late in 2022. Easy to see by comparing with nearby stations. Over the long-term though there is good agreement among the climate sites and with the NOAA regional record. phl is warming a bit faster and abe a bit slower, but good agreement overall.

What about the coop stations? Lets go back to the 1940s. The COOPs were using mercury max/min thermometers that were reset between 5 and 7 PM. This alone added roughly 1F of warming bias, vs the climate sites that were on a midnight-to-midnight basis. There may have been other differences between the climate sites and coop stations.

Secondly, The chart you posted shows poor agreement among the Chesco sites both year-to-year and over the long-term. As an example below is a chart I have handy comparing Glenmoore and Coatesville 2W. Both of these stations can't be right. Fortunately the NOAA bias adjustment can sort out the station updates and measurement problems. In the chart below Coatesville is good and Glenmoore way off. After adjustment the coops come into much better agreement and look like the other regional data.

Regarding "heat island" effects. You've been reading too much Tony Heller and other climate deniers. This isn't a rapidly growing area. The airport doesn't change much from year-to-year or even decade-to-decade. Certainly not enough to impact temperature measurements.

 

 

[chubbs]

On 1/12/2023 at 10:42 AM, ChescoWx said:

Always funny you fall back on faulty sensors or observation reports when the figures don't work out....

When something doesn't look right I compare to other observations. Measurement problems at phl last year and ptw over the recent past have been well documented on the other weatherboard.

[bdgwx]

On 1/11/2023 at 1:49 PM, ChescoWx said:

Chubbs/Charlie follows the NOAA view of adjusting for that pesky "excess cooling" with "proper adjustments" at those Chester County Stations from 1940-1970. My data (as noted with the disclaimer in my signature below) will continue to trust the multiple NWS COOP observers and am quite confident that they all did not have faulty equipment at the same time. Just no proof of that at all! So we must continue to only analyze the actual approved NWS data validated at the time it was submitted to the NWS office. Unfortunately, for Charilie it does not support the warming story as well without that critical "excess cooling" adjustments. I would also add that the fact I simply produce the actual raw data for all of these Chester County locations without adjustment does not allow me to have any so called "confirmation bias on my part" I can't adjust the numbers for any perceived pesky excess cooling or warming as that may introduce some analyst bias which I won't ever do.

I'm curious. How are you handling the time-of-observation changes, instrument changes, station moves, and other factors that cause discontinuities or changepoint/breakpoints in the timeseries?

 

 

[pazzo83]

6 hours ago, bdgwx said:

I'm curious. How are you handling the time-of-observation changes, instrument changes, station moves, and other factors that cause discontinuities or changepoint/breakpoints in the timeseries?

 

 

those would make it more difficult for him to back into the conclusion he's already made and to which he's trying to force the data to conform, so I doubt he is handling those very real and significant issues at all.

[LibertyBell]

On 1/12/2023 at 8:18 PM, bdgwx said:

Apparently Exxon Mobil was really good at predicting the warming. Who would have thunk it?

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abk0063

more lawsuits incoming

1977....

 

[so_whats_happening]

19 hours ago, chubbs said:

Lets broaden out the analysis. Here is the philadelphia airport vs other Mt Holly long-term climate sites and the NOAA climate series for SE Pa. Yes Philadelphia was too warm last year. The problem started at the end of 2021 and ended late in 2022. Easy to see by comparing with nearby stations. Over the long-term though there is good agreement among the climate sites and with the NOAA regional record. phl is warming a bit faster and abe a bit slower, but good agreement overall.

What about the coop stations? Lets go back to the 1940s. The COOPs were using mercury max/min thermometers that were reset between 5 and 7 PM. This alone added roughly 1F of warming bias, vs the climate sites that were on a midnight-to-midnight basis. There may have been other differences between the climate sites and coop stations.

Secondly, The chart you posted shows poor agreement among the Chesco sites both year-to-year and over the long-term. As an example below is a chart I have handy comparing Glenmoore and Coatesville 2W. Both of these stations can't be right. Fortunately the NOAA bias adjustment can sort out the station updates and measurement problems. In the chart below Coatesville is good and Glenmoore way off. After adjustment the coops come into much better agreement and look like the other regional data.

Regarding "heat island" effects. You've been reading too much Tony Heller and other climate deniers. This isn't a rapidly growing area. The airport doesn't change much from year-to-year or even decade-to-decade. Certainly not enough to impact temperature measurements.

 

 

Very cool to see that temp drop in 2012-2015. Those were the years of the RRR. Can see the super Nino in the late 90s can see a spike in temps around Pinatubo (may not be directly affecting it just interesting). One thing of note though is the variability in year over year temps is much larger (larger swings) even with an ever increasing baseline.

[LibertyBell]

14 minutes ago, so_whats_happening said:

Very cool to see that temp drop in 2012-2015. Those were the years of the RRR. Can see the super Nino in the late 90s can see a spike in temps around Pinatubo (may not be directly affecting it just interesting). One thing of note though is the variability in year over year temps is much larger (larger swings) even with an ever increasing baseline.

What was the cause of that extreme cold between 2013 and 2015?  The super el nino of 2015-16 ended that.

The thing I remember about Pinatubo was the year without a summer (1992) and then the 1993-94 very cold and stormy winter.

Going back to the 80s we also had El Chichon and some very cold winters in the early and mid 80s.

 

[LibertyBell]

16 minutes ago, so_whats_happening said:

Very cool to see that temp drop in 2012-2015. Those were the years of the RRR. Can see the super Nino in the late 90s can see a spike in temps around Pinatubo (may not be directly affecting it just interesting). One thing of note though is the variability in year over year temps is much larger (larger swings) even with an ever increasing baseline.

2015-16 winter a perfect example of the extreme variability....we went from a record warm December to a record 30"+ snowstorm in January to below zero on Valentine's Day in NYC lol.

and there is 2017-18 where we went from a blizzard in early January to 80 degrees in February to 5 snowstorms between March and early April.