New USGS study shows heat retaining concrete and asphalt have encroached upon US Climate Stations

Watts Up with That? ^ | September 22, 2016 | By Anthony Watts

[VTenigma]

Duh, everyone knew that years ago.

[2111USMC]

That’s what I thought.

This was exposed years ago.

[Pearls Before Swine]

How did this administration ever let that report out?

It unsettles the settled science.

Heresy.

[SpaceBar]

It took two government paid scientists to figure out that a thermometer above a concrete slab may not be completely accurate.

[Secret Agent Man]

Now add in the fact we know they placed temp sensors in some very awful places, like next to heat exchangers and next to exhaust vents and such, and you can see how the “data” has been deliberately manipulated.

[doug from upland]

Just stand on asphalt in the summer

[T-Bone Texan]

This little known fact is kept little known.

[BuffaloJack]

Captain Obvious.

[ExSES]

Gee..., the "Brains" FINALLY wake up to the fact that if your data recording location has become surrounded by asphalt and concrete (Heat Island)..., perhaps...., your data is flawed! Garbage in Garbage Out!

There is NO positive correlation between education and common-sense (of course this has been known for EONS!)

[GingisK]

Not only that, those blokes purposely put those sensors in unusually hot places.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

It used to be adjusted for in the datasets.

[inchworm]

Makes sense to me. In the city you can feel more heat radiating from the ground than you do in the country, and you will see all the small front lawns surrounded by concrete all brown in the summer, but drive out to the country and you’ll see the front 3-5 acre lawns looking pretty good that same time of year

[vooch]

everything the gubbint touches it wrecks

[ully2]

School children understand that.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

"Wotta ya mean I shouldn't put it up here on the roof? It's easy to get here and the view is great. I think we'll just leave it here. Besides, it can't make that much of a difference."

[Gideon7]

[Gideon7]

[HiTech RedNeck]

How does “adjustment” even happen without a quintessential begging of the question (i.e. no solution to the set of equations)?

[C210N]

I believe there are many other factors as well...

One I recall right off the bat - there are standards for construction of a station, including what to paint it with.
The standard was oil-based paint, and the standard was changed at some point to latex paint. Turns out that change has a heat effect change as well... and, naturally, in the direction you’d expect if you wanted your stations to report higher temperatures over time. The phase-in of the paint change was gradual, as stations needed new coats of paint, or new stations get worked into the system, thus the overall increase in temperature was moderated (easier to hide, and portray as the glowbull warming they wanted).