Afternoon temperatures in Parker, Az peaked in the 1890s, and have never gotten that hot again, but nighttime temperatures have warmed five degrees.
Divergence between minimum and maximum trends is almost ten degrees.
The National Weather Service has reported a similar trend for Phoenix.
Possible reasons? UHI? More water? Or TOBs?
Should have specified other than natural variation in my question above.
Don’t know about Parker but in the Phoenix area we’ve paved or concreted over just about anything that can’t escape. My vote is for UHI here.
Take a look at Dr Roy Spenser’s articles on UHI
Urban Heat Island Effect vs Population density
Las Vegas: Poster Child for the Urban Heat Island Effect (using the adjusted USHCN data)
Analysis with unadjusted data is the previous post.
rah, beat me to it.
I would say
1) UHI
2) TOBs
3) general BS
I have found this trend in many, many places. The difference here is that Parker was and is a small place so UHI would have a limited effect. The specific placement of the weather station could be considered.
No the UHI is the worst going from zero to 20 people per square kilometer. It levels off ~175 people per square kilometer because everything is paved over and the high rises have been built.
(Se links to Dr Roy’s Spencer’s paper above.)
Most likely also a LOT of irrigation. Even watering lawns could raise humidity enough to have a large impact on nighttime temps.
Yep. Google a map of Parker, AZ… The entire valley SSW of Parker is now irrigated. AGW at work!
Yep.
Well, here is a puzzle for you
Acc. to Bryan Walsh and Pres. Obama (Time Mag,Aug. 16 2015), to combat climate change, we must replace fossil fueled power plants with nuclear plants. It is common knowledge that nuclear plants need lots of cold water for cooling purposes. In fact, the fish around the Koeberg plant here in South Africa have all perished. Never mind that, the warmed water of the nuclear plant obviously finds its way into the oceans. Add some sunshine, and what do you get: the [warmer] water vaporises more quickly: more water vapor….Water vapor is a strong green house gas………most surely much stronger than carbon dioxide?
So, replacing fossil fuel powered plants with nuclear plants is really not going to help against climate change. Added to this are the additional problems of safety with nuclear plants as witnessed by us by the incidents in Chernobyl and Fukishima.
Right.. these enviro jerk-off’s are against ALL coal, petroleum… nuclear… even Hydro…
I’m tired of this sh*t…
Heck… they even opposed solar plants here in CA out in the desert… claiming water issues and desert tortoise endangerment…
These same tools wont oppose more and more and more people flooding into CA which requires more and more and more Land, water, and energy resources…
Total schitziod hypocrites… plus AGW just aint happening…
Water vapor is THE dominant greenhouse gas. Which is why the ubiquitous climate temperature forecast models are so screwed up. The modelers, not knowing what to do with water vapor, essentially ignored it and made CO2 drive the temperature up to meet political temperature requirements. When that didn’t pan out as it “should”, revising the official HCN database became plan “B”.
Henry P.
The obvious solution is to harness that excess heat and use it for ocean water desalinization like Israel does.
You might see the opposite effect if you look at night time temps where California claimed it was saving a minnow. Now that the water has been shut off, night temps probably recovered…
This appears to be one of Parker’s MMTS sensors…
https://www.google.com/maps/@34.1547348,-114.2910138,3a,15y,48.94h,88.64t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sI4v0AqN729jDOlacr7Ebew!2e0!7i13312!8i6656
Please tell me you’re joking…
Not joking. It’s listed here…
http://www.surfacestations.org/USHCN_stationlist.htm
26250 PARKER 6NE
Another view…
https://www.google.com/maps/place/34%C2%B009'17.7%22N+114%C2%B017'27.2%22W/@34.1549167,-114.2908889,318m/data=!3m2!1e3!4b1!4m2!3m1!1s0x0:0x0
Well at least it isn’t out by the Airport runway or the Casino parking lot!
Ah.. so there’s a build up of nearby scrap metal rather than bitumen ! 🙂
Apart from that.. it looks pristine 😉
Yep, leave something metal exposed to the hot sun in a desert and then go try and pick it up without gloves. A friend of mine that worked in the oil industry in various places in N. Africa told me that if you leave a wrench out of the shade there is no way to pick it up without gloves. I imagine most of us have experienced something like that at one time or another. It also got me to thinking that perhaps there is a reason, other than cost, why handles on modern vehicles are generally now made of plastic.
Steering wheel is aweful hard to touch after the car is parked in the sun for awhile.
My “truckers tan” is in it’s full blown glory now. My left arm, which is by the window is darker than my right arm, because we Americans do the natural thing and drive on theright side of the road and thus have our steering wheels on the left.
Huge body of water there now with the Parker dam. Thermal mass
Thanks, Steven aka Tony, for reminding readers of the reality Big Brother has tried to hide from the public: Today’s world leaders are only POWERLESS TYRANTS trying to hide their powerlessness from the public:
Precise experimental data show the Sun’s pulsar core is the Creator, Destroyer & Sustainer of every atom, life and planet in the Solar System, including Big Brother!
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/10640850/STALINS_SCIENCE.pdf
globally
minimum temperatures have dropped
https://i0.wp.com/oi62.tinypic.com/33kd6k2.jpg
one station out of step means there is something wrong with the temp. recording, either past or present
fyi
AGW theory has it that minimum temperature rises [as a result of AGW] pushing up means.
Would be interesting to seen what happened to means in Parker, Az.?
Could it be El Nino: http://oceansgovernclimate.com/california-draught-and-el-nino/?
Over the last five years? This one hadn’t even really gotten started last winter!
I should add though that she sure is kicking ass now! http://iceagenow.info/2015/08/this-el-nino-is-huge-video/
And yet very little sign of the normal spike in the atmospheric temperatures. !
I heard / read long ago that expected effects of global warming included milder winters and warmer night time lows. I still don’t see how those are bad things.
Well the models are right. It is Nature that is wrong.
In the desert, the main greenhouse gas is water vapor, just like everywhere else (but the poles). Just because there are cactus it doesn’t mean the water vapor goes anywhere near 400 ppm. Anybody who thinks night time lows will increase just because CO2 increases is forgetting that water vapor in the desert is still ~ 10,000 ppm.
In other words, it’s the water vapor, stupid.
Alarmists claim a warming world would have more water vapor. The GHG theory postulates that the signal would be found in higher nighttime lows. The question I have is what empirical proof is their for either?
They also built a large dam on Col. Riv. 8 or so miles north east of Parker, opened in 1938.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parker_Dam
Seems a bit of a break in the Parker AZ data ex ante ex post.
“It’s the water, stupid”
Very much appreciate Tony’s open mind here. Maybe not the water. Water absorbs significant “top down” incoming solar radiation in the near IR during the day. CO2 is nearly transparent in these bands. CO2 rules the night. Water overlaps the bands in the true IR but really can’t compete in the saturated 15 micron CO2 band, especially in the desert. Saturated means in this case that all of the available light is absorbed in the troposphere and none escapes to higher atmospheric layers or to space.
Adding more CO2 does not increase the net radiative forcing to the overall atmosphere in saturated bands, but it lowers the altitude of total absorption (and energy) and brings it closer to the surface. The heat of the night.
I still fail to see how less night time cooling is a bad or dangerous thing.
Me neither.
This would explain why deserts typically drop many 10’s of degrees at night, while humid areas drop <10 degrees, eh? CO2 must be much higher in the humid areas… 🙂
Additional water vapor warms the nights and cools the day.
This data is from May (2012)
Barcelos, Brazil
….monthly min 20C, monthly max 33C, monthly average 26C
Average humidity 90%
Adrar, Algeria
…..monthly min 9C monthly max 44C, monthly average 30C
Average humidity around 0%
The effect of the addition of water vapor (~ 4%) is not to raise the temperature but to even the temperature out. The monthly high is 10C lower and the monthly low is ~ 10C higher when the GHG H2O is added to the atmosphere in this example. The average temperature is about 4C lower in Brazil despite the fact Algeria is further north above the tropic of Cancer. Some of the difference is from the effect of clouds/albedo but the dramatic effect on the temperature extremes is also from the humidity.
In that month, Barcelos, Brazil had Twelve days that were sunny. I had to toss the data for two days because it was bogus. The average humidity was 80% for the ten days left. The high was 32 with a range of 1.7C and the low was 22.7C with a range of 2.8C. Given the small range in values over the month the data is probably a pretty good estimate for the effects of humidity only.
You still get the day-night variation of ~ 10C with a high humidity vs a day-night variation of 35C without and the average temp is STILL going to be lower when the humidity is high and the effect of clouds is removed.
DATA from classic(DOT)wunderground.com/history/station/82113/2012/5/22/MonthlyHistory.html in 2012 (It has probably changed by now….)
H/T to Sleepalot
Horse manure. CO2 in the desert is 400 ppmv and water is 10,000 ppmv.
Water vapor rules the night, stupid. And in the suburbs. And everywhere.
Ok, but water is inefficient at 15 microns, pretty much top dead center of the earth spectrum intensity and the CO2 strike zone. That 15 micron band is saturated. I’m not saying it warms the planet. I’m suggesting CO2 increases may transfer energy from a higher altitude closer to the surface.
Show me a huge increase in desert humidity and I may repent.
What happens when they irrigate the desert for agriculture? What happens when they put 8 golf courses in a new city that pops up in the desert, and where everybody waters their lawn?
It should show up as relative humidity in the same weather stations that record the temperature. Still have not found the time to check the RH trend for Parker.
Irrigation and grass definitely evaporate and transpire a lot of water. For that matter, combustion produces twice as much water as CO2.
People just don’t realize that half of the “greenhouse” effect during the day is top down solar near IR absorption by water in the air. If you will argue that water is warming the night, you must explain why it is not also warming the day.
If water vapor absorbs top down, it would warm the top and not the down.
Fair enough, but the water near IR top down absorption bands are not all saturated. Light makes it all the way to the surface. Atmospheric water is strongly concentrated near the surface anyway.
Even ignoring the top down factor, why would the same amount of atmospheric water warm the night and not the day? Daytime clouds maybe, but now we have another research project along with RH.
Typical left-wing weasel wording. “Near IR absorption bands are not all saturated, light makes it all the way to the surface.”
Near IR is not light, idiot. But you knew that. Liar.
The near IR is saturated, and doesn’t make it to the ground, you idiot. http://www.hyzercreek.com/Infrared%20Sky%20001.jpg
But you knew that too, liar.
Nice rant. Feel better now? Your link is for CO2 outgoing radiation which has already been confirmed as saturated. All radiation is light (dip shit). Rather enjoy being an idiot because it is license to smoke out superstition on both sides of he debate. I can be mistaken, but I don’t lie. This stuff is way too important for that. Tony gets it. Why do you think he made this post?
Just in case you are willing to start thinking again, here is the incoming solar spectrum:
https://geosciencebigpicture.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/drawing.png
As you can see there are substantial portions around wave numbers 1300, 1800, and beyond 2500 that make it all the way to the ground. Granted, the wave numbers 1800 and 2500 are in the true infrared, but this is all top down stuff.
Take your rant energy and do some real work. Dig into the data and show us that relative humidity has increased in Parker Arizona.
All radiation is light, you say. Hmmmm. Radio waves are light, x-rays are light, and gamma rays. I’ll write that down. I sure don’t want to be a dip shit.
Write it down. All light.
Also, just to correct a trivial point, those aren’t wave numbers on your graph, as you said. Those are wave lengths, in nanometers. Divide by 1000 for microns. In nanometers the numbers are really big so I can see why you thought it was wave numbers.
I don’t think you’re an idiot, just a commie pretending to be a scientist, as you all do.
My bad. C’mon, show us that relative humidity has increased in Parker. I admit to pretending to be a scientist. A commie? No, not at all. I hate the socialist aspect of the trend in institutional climate science at least as much as you do.
A non trivial correction of your chart is….those blue bands where you say the IR makes it all the way to the ground…..those are actually absorption bands where the atmosphere is opaque. Just so you’d know.
Also, I’m not familiar with your phrase “true infrared.” I have not heard that term before, and wonder what it means. I’m only an infrared astronomer and optometrist so I don’t know much about light and IR.
You are right. My graphic was a really lousy illustration of the point, and I likely had the saturated bands upside down. It may have been the other bands that reach the ground.
The Y axis units get really confusing. Sometimes it is intensity as a second derivative, sometimes it is transmission to the tropopause…You have already shown that I am completely capable of getting the X axis units wrong.
The real problem is the HITRAN data don’t deal with water very well. You can get useful stuff like this:
https://geosciencebigpicture.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/rte-lbl-15layer-200mb-280vs560ppm.png
That clearly shows the saturation of the Q channel CO2 transmission to the tropopause, but nothing equivalent that shows transmission of top down near IR to the surface. Maybe because the top down aspect is an original concept.
Likewise, “true” IR was invented to distinguish “near” IR from the rest of the long wave spectrum. The logical break point might be where the incoming transitions to the outgoing at about 5 microns.
Keep an open mind. if you can’t show any increase in RH at Parker, maybe that crazy CO2 is doing something after all. Not warming the planet. Just transferring energy from a higher to a lower altitude and helping explain why the satellites disagree with the thermometers.
BTW, dip shit was rhetorical.
June-August mean low temperature anomalies from overall average,
Phoenix Sky Harbor Int’l Airport vs Casa Grande, 41 miles SSE.
https://verdeviews.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/phoenix-casagrande-avg-lows2.gif
Difference in 1948 average: Casa Grande 0.1° warmer.
Difference in 2008 average: Phoenix IAP 11.8° warmer.
Didn’t I read somewhere that there is no UHI effect at airports?
26 hours in moderation, after posting with a WordPress account? Apparently, new commenters aren’t welcome here.
Gail Combs says:
August 24, 2015 at 6:13 pm
“Additional water vapor warms the nights and cools the day.”
And that is the bottom line really.
Parker has been booming with agriculture and tourism over the last twenty years. I would be surprised if the mean or average temperature has increased over the last twenty years, however. Downstream at Yuma we are experiencing nighttime temperatures in the 80’s, but the maximum temperatures have decreased during July and August. In the valley area of Yuma toward the Mexican border south of us (its also east of us) there has been booming growth with increases in humidity due to irrigation of yards and new fields. You have to drive out of these areas before you realize you are in a desert environment. I live just off the so-called Mesa in Yuma and there are many healthy pine trees in the neighborhood and a couple of dozen varieties of broad leaf trees. Palms are slowly being eliminated out of neighborhoods because they have become so tall they threaten two to three homes in any direction.
I have seen morning humidity in the past 2 years and I am seeing mornings in the 60 and 70 percent range. Daytime temperatures have decrease since the early and mid nineties. We had a week of temperatures above 115 last week and all the younger generations thought they were going to die.
Days above 110 and 115 have been decreasing since the 90’s. There has been a slight uptick this year, probably because of the El Nino and warm waters off the Pacific Coast.
At the Parker GHCN station, from 2008 through 2015, the 30 months of May, June, July, and August are each missing a minimum of 5 days of temperature data. 25 of those months have between 10 and 21 days missing.
How can anyone make accurate assessments with so much missing data?
Upstream at Lake Havasu City there’s a much more complete recent record, and it shows a decline in Jun-Jul-Aug mean minimum from 2000-2007 and little change since.
BTW, Lake Havasu City station didn’t open until 1991. Three years later the all-time state high temperature record of 128° was set there on June 29. Parker held the previous record of 127 set in 1905. Unfortunately, Parker only recorded two days of temperature data in June, 1994, and the 29th wasn’t one of them.
Confirmed UIH, day time temp adjusted to match night time temp. NOAA making good data match bad data again.