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All IPCC definitions taken from Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Working Group I Contribution to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Annex I, Glossary, pp. 941-954. Cambridge University Press.

What the science says...

Microsite influences on temperature changes are minimal; good and bad sites show the same trend.

The website surfacestations.org enlisted an army of volunteers to photograph US surface temperature measurement stations and document stations located near parking lots, air conditioners, or anything else that might impose a warming bias. They found that 89% of the stations did not meet the US weather service siting criteria in one way or another. That is not good. Does this prove that a US warming trend is just the artificial influence of parking lots and air conditioners on the temperature record coming from "bad" stations?

No. Actually, an analysis shows that "good" and "bad" stations show very similar trends for temperature over time. The chart below compares data from stations that surfacestations.org identified as "good", as well as "bad" stations. Notice that "good" stations track very closely to "bad" stations, and actually the "good" stations show more of a warming trend!

Maximum and Minimum Temperature Anomaly for good and bad sites

Figure 1. Annual average maximum and minimum unadjusted temperature change calculated using (c) maximum and (d) minimum temperatures from good and poor exposure sites (Menne 2010).

The volunteers from surfacestations.org deserve credit for pointing out siting problems of the US Weather Service temperature measurement stations. Unfortunately the fact that "good" and "bad" stations show the same upward trend proves that warming in the US is not just a measurement problem. Temperatures are trending upward around the globe, not just in the US. Microsite influences on temperature measurements in the US can't explain the US temperature rise, much less the global rise.

Updated on 2010-08-31 by Jim Meador.

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