Chester County PA - Analytical Battle of Actual vs. Altered Climate Data

[ChescoWx]

The new home of all things concerning real vs.altered data....

[ChescoWx]

Below is a great illustration of how the post observation NOAA/NCEI adjustments are skewing the analysis. They are continuing to warm even the current decade - following the chilling adjustments made to the hottest summer decades back in the 1930's thru 1950's. If you believe the red NCEI trends we are warming pretty quickly....if the actual raw blue data is viewed....almost flat! No summer warming here in Chester County PA....

[rcostell]

ChescoWX- Would you mind going back into the "Climate Change Thread" and letting a couple folks know that you created this new thread for the "Chester County" observations battle. Thank You

[ChescoWx]

As we have just passed Christmas in July....and for the many of you on Team Snow - why not list out all of the greatest annual snow seasons (October-April) on record across the Chester County NWS cooperative and trained spotter observation sites. That 1957-58 winter looks like the snow winner.

[ChescoWx]

Below is an analysis of the actual average annual Chester County PA temperatures over the last 100 years from 1924 through 2023. We have been in our current warming cycle since the 1990's but have to date still failed to reach the warmth we experienced in the 1930's. Will we get as warm as then before our next cooling cycle??

[Brewbeer]

dedicated thread for this - great idea

[ChescoWx]

I thought we would focus just on the post hoc NOAA adjustments they made to the average annual high temperatures for Chester County PA for the last 128 years since 1895. They chilled the actual NWS recorded highs for the first 95 consecutive years across Chester County PA. Unsurprisingly they have now started to warm the actual readings for each and every year for 21 of the last 24 years since 2000. Included warming adjustments added to each and every year for the last 18 consecutive years. The impact of these adjustments is clear....the red shows strong warming signals...while the actual raw data shows effectively NO WARMING at all.

[chubbs]

Below is Coatesville with a very rough adjustment for the town-->outside of town move, 2F phased in between 1946 and 48 (2 moves in that period). This single, crude, move adjustment removes most of the difference between NOAA and the raw data.  The agreement isn't perfect, but you wouldn't expect it to be.  Coatesville 1SW had multiple in town locations and Chescowx is 3 different sites (Coatesville 1SW, Coatesvelle 2W and East Nantmeal). Each move would have some impact on measured temperatures.  There can be non-move station changes as well. With all the station moves at Coatesville and West Chester, you get a much better answer by accounting for station changes.

[Stormchaserchuck1]

I know locally it doesn't seem like things are too much warmer vs when I was a kid. For all this panic about +2 anomalies, humans sure can possibly do much more damage than that.. We are also surrounded by Space that is absolute zero. I'd say the rate of warming to concern is less than our capacities. Also Russia and Canada are pretty much empty. There is a jet stream shift north though, that is occurring with more south wind. Hard to say if that is something independent of technological revolution effects. 

[ChescoWx]

On 8/11/2024 at 2:24 PM, chubbs said:

Below is Coatesville with a very rough adjustment for the town-->outside of town move, 2F phased in between 1946 and 48 (2 moves in that period). This single, crude, move adjustment removes most of the difference between NOAA and the raw data.  The agreement isn't perfect, but you wouldn't expect it to be.  Coatesville 1SW had multiple in town locations and Chescowx is 3 different sites (Coatesville 1SW, Coatesvelle 2W and East Nantmeal). Each move would have some impact on measured temperatures.  There can be non-move station changes as well. With all the station moves at Coatesville and West Chester, you get a much better answer by accounting for station changes.

Right! They are of course only 3 sites in the county....but because of that we should accept that NOAA chose to chill 106 straight years?? In most cases below any recorded station in the entire county?? But don't ask that Paul.....it's just science and we should not question it!!!

[ChescoWx]

August Average Temps since 1893.....don't be scared!!!

[ChescoWx]

thoughts I would split down the middle the entire Chester County PA data set. With an annual average temperature analysis of the first 66 years of data from 1893 thru 1957 vs. the last 65 years from 1958 thru 2023.

The average temperature from 1893-1957 was 53.0 degrees

The average temperature from 1958 - 2023 was 52.6 degrees

The last 65 years have been 0.4 degrees cooler than the previous 66 years.....alarming!!!!

[forkyfork]

here's a graph of real data for you

[chubbs]

Using monthly raw data and comparing to nearby County sites it is very easy to spot when the West Chester station was shut down for several months and moved to a cooler site in 1970. The 1970 station move accounts for the bulk of the West Chester bias adjustment over the lifetime of the station.  The older stations in Chester County were in much warmer locations than the stations we have today, older towns mainly, in the south and east portion of the county where people lived. Over the years stations moved to more rural sites and shifted north and west to better cover the whole county. If you assume that the Chesco monitoring network is the exactly the same today as it was 130 years ago you will be way off.

 

[ChescoWx]

Updated Chester County Average Temperatures by Decade 1890's thru 2020's (only 4 years) IF we don't start to see some cooling over the remainder of the decade we have a chance that the 2020's could be the warmest complete decade since reliable climate data began to be recorded in the 1890's. So far in the 2020's we are running 0.6 degrees warmer than our warmest full decade - the 1930's.

[chubbs]

You can't understand Chester County's recent climate history if you don't account for station moves at Coatesville and West Chester. Easier to spot the cooling associated with moves from built-up towns---> less built-up sites, by separating before- and after-move portions of the station records. The moves are easily identified by the difference in the timing of move-related cooling: Coatesville cooled between 1945 and 1948; while, West Chester cooled in 1970. NOAA's scientific approach, using raw data from additional stations, confirms that the move-related cooling is spurious.

[ChescoWx]

Below is an analysis of average September Temperatures from 1893 through 2023. Here in the Philly burbs of Chester County PA the first month of Autumn has been getting chillier on average.

[ChescoWx]

Below is an analysis of the average fall (September - November) temperatures across the Philly burbs of Chester County PA since 1893. The data shows our falls are actually getting cooler over the last 130+ years.

[ChescoWx]

NOAA has adjusted the actual temperatures upwards for Chester County for the summer of 2024.

Below is the actual and the adjusted NOAA average temps

June -  Actual 72.5 - adj to 72.8 = +0.3 degrees

July - Actual 76.8 - adj to 77.9  = +1.1 degrees - only 2 stations of 18 was this high

August - Actual 72.6 adj to 73.7 +1.1 degrees - only 1 station of 18 were this high

[AdMC]

How's your echo chamber going? Haven't read any of it, and I suspect no one else has either.