Weather station temperature claims are overheated, report claims

[Geee]

Fox News:

The temperature record from stations across the U.S. has been systematically overinflated due to faulty data manipulation and “encroaching urbanity” -- locations near asphalt, air conditioning and airports -- according to a new study. And if correct, it calls into question just how hot our planet is getting.

Global warming believer-turned-skeptic Anthony Watts, a former TV meteorologist, posted a new report online questioning the reliability of weather stations in the U.S. Historical Climatology Network, a 120-year-old weather system that forms one tent pole of climate measurements. As the country has evolved, building urban metropolises and airports and pouring parking lots, the weather stations haven’t moved -- and poorly cited stations are spoiling the data.

“The best stations get adjusted up to the level of the worst stations,” Watts told FoxNews.com. “It’s like making a temperature smoothie. You put all these different fruits in to represent different qualities of stations and you run it through a blender and you get a milk shake.”

That problem of poorly cited stations is well established. A sensor in Marysville, Calif., sits in a parking lot at a fire station next to an air conditioner exhaust and a cell tower. One in Redding, Calif., is housed in a box that also contains a halogen light bulb, which could emit warmth directly onto the gauge.

Watts cherry-picked the well-sited stations and studied their data; his results show the planet warming at just 0.155 degrees Celsius per decade, rather than the 0.309 C per decade cited by the government.

“I believe global warming is real. No doubt about it. Not a bit of doubt,” Watts told FoxNews.com. “However, I don’t think it’s catastrophic, or as bad as it’s been portrayed.”

'I believe global warming is real. No doubt about it. However, I don’t think it’s catastrophic, or as bad as it’s been portrayed.'

- Anthony Watts

Skeptic-turned-believer Richard Muller -- a University of California-Berkeley professor -- posted a new study online Saturday with equally sweeping conclusions. Muller’s Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature(BEST) study also say the planet is warming -- and concludes it’s solely because of man’s actions.

On the basic fact of warming, the two scientists seem to agree. On the details? Not so much.