Bad Paint Job Skewing Temperature Data? (Global Warming)

http://www.norcalblogs.com/watts/2007/05/rising_surface_temperatures_ba.html ^

[chessplayer]

"After reading an excellent paper about the biases that have crept in to temperature measurements world wide titled: Unresolved Issues with the Assessment of Multi-Decadal Global Land-Surface Temperature Trends I decided to contact the main researcher."

[Rodney King]

I decided to contact the main researcher."

and?

[SauronOfMordor]

In a nutshell, nobody seems to have experimentally investigated this issue I raised. Last year I posted an essay on the subject of paint and weather stations shelters at www.globalwarmingindex.com but the idea I've had goes back to the early 1990's, and I haven't experimentally investigated it either. It seems that weather stations shelters known as Stevenson Screens (the white chicken coop like boxes on stilts housing thermometers outdoors) were originally painted with whitewash, which is a lime based paint, and reflective of infra-red radiation, but its no longer available, and newer paints have been used that much different IR characteristics.

Why is this important? Well, paints that appear "white" and reflective in visible light have different properties in infrared. Some paints can even appear nearly "black" and absorb a LOT of infrared, and thus biases the thermometer. So the repainting of thousands of Stevenson screens worldwide with paints of uncertain infrared characteristics was another bias that has crept into the instrumental temperature records. Read here a report from the Arizona State University department of Physics and Astronomy of the response of paint pigments to infrared:

Almost all the paint pigments have the same properties as Si and Gallium Arsenide. They are transparent to infrared light. This transparency to IR occurs because the paint pigments are nearly all oxides (such as titanium white, titanium oxide) or sulfides (such as the red vermilion, mercury sulfide). In pure form, they are insulators or semiconductors with almost no electrons available for light absorption in the IR. - Arizona State University read more

[ConservativeMind]

Bump for later.

[Mark Felton]

What about the concrete pads the station is mounted to, or other small man-made structures within 2-3 m?

A major bias, very major, is due to the “heat island effect”.
The majority of ground based temperature sensing stations are located in close proximity to cities, towns or close-by denisties of man-made structures. The glass, concrete, roads, etc of the cities cause a huge temperature increase of 3-10 degrees due to the solar loading on the material and the thermal inertia (retain heat and release it slowly, keeping average temps higher).

Fields and untouched ground has moisture which evaporates as the sun warms the surfaces and keeps the area cooler (but humidity hugher).

But man-made surfaces have no moisture and temperature is significantly increased for that reason alone, even neglecting the effects of the heat capacities of the materials.

I would bet that the increase in average temperatures are due to the increase surface area of urban development and road construction.

I’ve no doubt there is a strong correlation.

Global Warming science is hardly a science anymore given the huge degree of errors that are deliberately ignored.

Note: I learned about heat island effects in 1978 at 15 in Aberdeen grammar School, Scotland. This is not rocket science.

[Frobenius]

I remember reading this a few years ago and thinking, "Wow - the whole global warming thing *is* bogus."

But then I read a bit later that new satellite data was confirming that the temperature is, in fact, slowly increasing over time apparently at a rate of something like 0.18C/decade or some such -- see Wikipedia on Satellite Measurements.

I believe that the odds are that the temperature is really increasing even though the satellite measurements are not actually direct but, rather, are derived. It is also not clear (at least to me) exactly what the satellites are measuring - or where (stratosphere, troposphere) they are measuring it or even what that means.

To me, the important questions are: Is the temperature going to continue to increase over time or is it just a natural short-term (10 - 30 year) fluctuation -and-

Is the temperature increase (if it is real) man-made or is it caused by something that we have no control whatsoever over - like less aerosols in the atmosphere -or- a slight increase in solar radiation output.

...and I have no idea what the real answer is to any of that or what to believe with this incredibly politicized issue...

[muawiyah]

Adding to all of that, the chemical underlying acrylic is sometimes added to covers made of other materials so that ultraviolet and infrared light can warm them up.

Exterior acrylic paints used to be pretty expensive. They've become much cheaper and easier to use in recent years ~ no doubt these Stevenson Screens have become more exposed to non-visible light radiation than in past years.

[muawiyah]

Uhh, in vast stretches of the world, the Congo for example, there's only one working radio sonde station (note, "working"). Data collected there is used for a "proxy" for the entire area ~ which is darned close to the size of the continental United States or Brazil.

An awful lot of the data entered into the U.N. models is "proxy".

Imagine what the effect of the paint job, or lack thereof, on the Stevenson Screen at that one Congo station has on the aggregate results of the Tropical portion of the "model".

[penowa]

Nothing new here. When the EPA wanted to monitor emissions in order to force testing of cars, they placed their monitors above the ramp where the buses idle at the Trailways bus station and over the entrance to the tunnels where the biggest backup of traffic occurs during rush hour. Their data proved what they wanted it to prove.

[coloradan]

Given that there’s warming on Mars, Triton, and Uranus, too, it would seem that the don’t-think-just-act-NOW!!! crowd are being a bit arrogant.

[Publius6961]

BUMP!

[Covenantor]

Spot temps and proxy data may play hell with the overall temp differentials.

But as the sun remains the most massive source of radiant energy it is foolish to ascribe any increases due to man's puny games. And we are at the mercy of the sun's activities like it or not.

Water vapor accoutns for aprox 4% of the atmospheres volume while CO2 a mere 0.035% by volume.

Interestingly none of the so-called models [ that I've seen]of the man-made cause accounts for the overwhelming surface area of the earth's cloud cover in any given period.

So that picture of the globe showing the cloud cover is worth more than a thousand of the guilt inducing politically generated and tickled studies.

These geek gnomes living off the public teat must never get out of their basements to experience weather and climate. Meta studies and such aren't yet up to the task, if GIGO is the operative strategy.

[Smokin' Joe]

What about the concrete pads the station is mounted to, or other small man-made structures within 2-3 m?

It makes you wonder how many formerly grassy areas are now adjacent to paved (blacktop or concrete) parking lots now. A number of smaller airports have gone from gravel roads and parking areas to pavement in the last 40-50 years, and those lots have been expanded at virtually every location.

I would think there may be considerable potential measurement error as a result. Not that the instrument readings themselves are faulty, just that the comparisons between current readings and past data are comparing apples to oranges.