Fifty years ago, scientists knew that UHI causes more than four degrees warming in the Washington DC area. That effect is much worse now, some days close to 10 degrees.
NCDC and NASA diligently attempt to ignore this phenomenon, and adjust about 0.1 degrees F for UHI.
The MO tacitly include UHI in their weather forecasts on BBC TV. The weather girls (and boys) will often say several degrees (degrees C in the UK) colder in rural areas/Scottish Glens/ Out of Town.
These several degrees become 0.1’C for everything else from the MO.
Any evidence that doesn’t confirm the global warming theory is downplayed or ignored by NOAA NCDC and NASA GISS. Both are driven by a single-minded impulse to please their agency bosses and political masters and to keep the “climate change” research funds flowing. Any observational evidence that undercuts their model-based predictions is given short shrift. Hence, the UHI effect is downplayed; it doesn’t fit the human-CO2-is-warming-the-planet scare story.
Any of the so-called scientists promoting the global warming theory should be laughed at and banned from polite company. They’ve abandon whatever principles or scruples they might have once embraced.
NCDC and GISS should be completely de-funded and their leadership prosecuted for fraud.
How cool is that dome graphic?
It also works that way over plowed fields, barren rocky areas etc.
http://www.aviationweather.ws/095_Thermal_Soaring.php
“We live on an island surrounded by a sea of ignorance. As our island of knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.”
-John Archibald Wheeler
how does ncdc and nasa giss compare to the satellite and balloon records?
presumably, the data from those satellites are not contaminated with UHI.
is there anyway to determine the size of UHI by comparing the different types of measurements?
Dr. Roy Spencer, one of the keepers of the satellite data looked into UHI.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2010/03/global-urban-heat-island-effect-study-an-update/
I recall that phil jones’ hadcrut adds “an amount” to the error bars rather than adjusts downwards for UHI, in which case i would consider this deceptive since UHI is always going to be a positive value, and the layman is going to only see a line graph ignoring error bars, if they are even presented to him.
Error bars?
Those things are more endangerd than a Hudson Bay polar bear.
You have that right! If people understood error bars and they were put on global temperature charts in a realistic manner we could all go home.
Ecosystem, Vegetation Affect Intensity of Urban Heat Island Effect 12.15.09
Scientists first discovered the heat island effect in the 1800s when they observed cities growing warmer than surrounding rural areas, particularly in summer. Urban surfaces of asphalt, concrete, and other materials — also referred to as “impervious surfaces” — absorb more solar radiation by day. At night, much of that heat is given up to the urban air, creating a warm bubble over a city that can be as much as 1 to 3°C (2 to 5°F) higher than temperatures in surrounding rural areas.
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/terra/news/heat-islands.html
I used to sleep in a major city and take a 2 hour drive out of the city to work early in the morning. In the city I could sleep practically naked with the window open and then encounter very cold conditions just outside of the city in the early morning. anyone who thinks UHI is negligible is an idiot. since I know this and i see no sensible adjustment for UHI, until someone proves otherwise, i think most of what is claimed “global warming” is UHI.
If your knowledge of geography is at least that of a fifth grader, this animation shows without a doubt that the GHCN ‘warming’ is due to station selection. Note the stations they removed and imagine the effect on the average global temperature.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58mDaK9bH5o&feature=player_embedded
gator69,
Wow, if you start @4:00 minutes you can see what they’ve done.
It was this cherry picking of stations that was my first glimpse of major fraud from the alarmists. I knew for a fact that the rural stations, for hundreds of miles around me, had not warmed for over a century. Only UHI effected stations were showing warming.