Ten Degrees UHI In Pittsburgh

Temperatures in downtown Pittsburgh are 5-16 degrees warmer than outlying areas. NCDC says UHI is 0.1 degrees, because if they corrected accurately it would wreck their global warming story.

ScreenHunter_7748 Mar. 06 07.04

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13 Responses to Ten Degrees UHI In Pittsburgh

  1. rah says:

    Would not a city that has it’s largest concentration of structures and population situated along the confluence of two major rivers and several smaller rivers or streams and thus located in valleys with surrounding hills that block air currents, not be expected to have a relatively elevated UHI?

    • rah says:

      Lets try that again: Would not a city that has it’s largest concentration of structures and population situated along the confluence of two major rivers and several smaller rivers or streams and thus located in valleys with surrounding hills that block air currents, be expected to have a relatively elevated UHI?

      • nielszoo says:

        No, it’s an ideal location for a measurement station that will get a well deserved place on the USHCN’s list where it’s pristine data will be used for many sciency things. Chief among them will be to do “quality control” on all those poorly sited stations within a few hundred square miles that are obviously suffering from inaccuracies. Some of those stations are so bad that they don’t even reflect the scientific consensus that man is cooking the planet. They may be peer reviewed for best practices, statistically homogenized in state-of-the-art computers, stripped of all anomalous readings, folded, spindled, mutilated and then completely replaced using data from the highly accurate and politically correct Pittsburgh data. This new, more profitable accurate date will be denoted by the letter “E” in official, unassailable records to denote baseless politically driven fabrication excellence. (Do I need the </sarc> tag?)

      • David A says:

        I wonder which station they use and which ones they throw away, to read the entire county

  2. gator69 says:

    No, it’s the RCO, or Rural Cool Ocean effect. Lack of hysteria, crime, noise, pollution, and leftists causes a cooling effect outside of cities.

  3. rah says:

    Oh BTW, though OT I thought I would bring it up here. Due to a massive tax hike that came into effect on Thursday, Pennsylvania now has the highest diesel fuel prices in the lower 48 states. Your talking high when you beat out CA. I believe that applies to gasoline also. A good thing to know for those planning road trips to come I think.

    • Back when we lived in Philly, we always took the opportunity to fill up in NJ when going on road trips. It feels weird having someone else pump the gas for you, but even then it was 20¢/gal cheaper. Looks like it’s running nearly 40¢ now.

  4. oz4caster says:

    UHI may be a bit tricky to assess in cities with hills or mountains because of complicating terrain effects. I’ve never been to Pittsburg, but it looks a bit hilly, similar to Austin where I saw temperatures ranging from 17F to 32F across the area this morning. The lowest temperatures were in outlying hilly areas and the highest were near the center of the city. I saw terrain differences of 18F to 27F over just a couple of miles on the northwest side of the city where Lago Vista Airport on a hilltop at 1,230 feet MSL reported the 25F and a nearby home weather station in the bottom of Nameless Valley at 920 feet MSL reported the 18F. In my backyard under heavy tree cover the temperature went down to 25.5F, but the closest home weather station about half a mile away by a creek about 40 feet lower in elevation reported a low of 20.9F. That station reported a high of 59.8F today compared to my shady backyard high of 52.3F so that station probably is not under trees which could also account for some difference on both the high and low. The “official” Austin city record low was 25F, so much of the area was below the record, but not all of the area.

    Assessing temperature variations both in time and spatially is obviously subject to a lot of variables that make it difficult to get an accurate assessment over large areas – and especially on a global scale. This is why I believe global temperature estimates have large uncertainties, probably in the range of 0.3C to 0.5C or more.

    • rah says:

      oz4caster

      As a truck driver I have driven through or into both Austin and Pittsburgh many dozens of times. Spent some time in both. Son worked at Maggie Mays in Austin when we visited him while on vacation. Wife is from Aliquippa, PA near Pittsburgh and we spent time in the city when I was courting her and she has family that live in the city that we visit on occasion.

      Except along the course of the rivers, Pittsburgh’s pretty much surrounded by very close in and steep surrounding prominences. Austin is not. In fact Austin is situated on pretty much flat land compared to Pittsburgh though I know there are some rises and falls in the city it’s self. For example there are over 1/2 a dozen major tunnels in Pittsburgh and two of them are for the two busiest major Interstates that provide access in and out of the heart of the city. Without studying topographical maps of each, just from my experience, there is very little similarity in the topography between the two.

      • oz4caster says:

        rah

        The biggest hills in the Austin area are on the west side around Lake Travis, where the highest hills rise about 300 to 600 feet above the lake. It doesn’t take very big hills to make cold air drainage patterns on clear light-wind winter nights. Even smaller hills 50 to 100 feet tall are enough to cause substantial cold air drainage effects with the right conditions.

        Looks like on Google Maps that the middle of Pittsburgh has hills about 200 feet tall with peaks around 1,200 feet and valleys around 1,000 feet. Elevation in the Austin area gradually increases from about 400 feet in eastern Travis County to over 1,200 feet in western Travis Count, north of Lake Travis. Lake Travis when full is around 670 feet, but lately is down around 625 feet because of drought.

  5. rah says:

    Hah! Speaking of Pittsburgh. Just got called for my next load. Depart Sunday NLT 4 PM for Etna, PA (Near north side of Pittsburgh. Drop and Hook at the A. Dui Pyle cross dock and then go to Tonawanda, NY (Buffalo) to pick up Monday morning and bring back to the terminal in Anderson, IN.
    Driving into Etna pass through the Ft. Pitt tunnel over the two bridges at the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers right through town passing and follow Hwy 28 right by PNC Park along the North bank of the Allegheny for 4 miles to my destination.

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