Kruse Kronicle

Global Warming US Cities Getting Warmer

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by

mwkruse
in , ,

This a great piece illustrating the urban warming affect … and a sixth grader did it! As anyone who listens to the weather report in a metropolitan area, the temperature is always a degree or two warmer than in the outlying areas. The size of urban areas has been expanding over the past 100 years (as well as the heat-producing technology), while the global population has more than tripled. As this video shows, temperatures in the U.S. have been increasing in urban areas, but rural areas have not been increasing. Thus, while technically correct that the average global temperature has been increasing, is the average warming merely the result of increasing urban heat islands?

Additionally, I did a post early last year about temperature measurements in Brazil.

… Brazil has land area larger than the continental United States. Several months ago, Steve McIntyre of Climate Audit, published a post on climate readings in Brazil. Only six stations have continuous records back to the 1930s. Only one is listed as rural. Here are charts of the temperature anomalies from the average for each station. Can you identify which one is the rural station?

Brazil4

Yup! Quixeramobim (and no, I have no idea how to pronounce that). This doesn’t prove an urban island effect but it does look suspicious.

Comments

5 responses to “Global Warming US Cities Getting Warmer”

  1. Naum Avatar
    Naum

    NASA GISS takes explicit steps in their analysis to remove any such spurious signal by normalizing urban station data trends to the surrounding rural stations. It is a real phenomenon, but it is one climate scientists are well aware of and have taken any required steps to remove its influence from the raw data.
    http://scienceblogs.com/illconsidered/2006/02/warming-due-to-urban-heat-island.php
    Would have taken you < 2 minutes to discover that.

    Reply
  2. Michael W. Kruse Avatar
    Michael W. Kruse

    I can play this game too, Naum:
    http://climateaudit.org/2007/06/14/parker-2006-an-urban-myth/
    Bottom line is that studies conducted by a community that persistently denies access to their data, models, and computer code, who actively works for the suppression of contrary studies, and who uses demagoguery (ex. climate change skeptics are equivalent to holocaust deniers) to silence dissent are not trustworthy. When climate science becomes a truly open scientific pursuit I will take their claims more seriously.

    Reply
  3. phil_style Avatar
    phil_style

    I’ve heard it sadi that the UHE is taken into account in the statistical representation of temperature data. What I’d really like to see is a data set goin back say 150 years comprised of, say 100 temperature guages in rural areas, across all landmasses. And a second set INCLUDING ocean based measurements for the same period. Then a THIRD set with 100 sites’ worth of urban measurements included with the rural data (total sites = 200).
    Then I’l like to be able to look at the three data sets myslef, without people telling me what conclusions I’m supposed to draw.

    Reply
  4. Naum Avatar
    Naum

    Sorry, will take the word of a scientist over PR flacks…
    And those studies you refer to have been independently collaborated…
    Here is what we know for sure (even credible skeptics acknowledge):
    1) “Ice-core gas samples show that the current concentration in CO2 is unprecedented for at least 500,000 years.”
    2) “based on carbon isotope data, it is all but certain that the present, unprecedented rise in CO2 is due mainly to human output.”
    3) “CO2 (and methane) in the atmosphere are nearly transparent to UV and visible radiation, but absorb in the infrared, creating a “greenhouse.””
    4) “For sure, the average temperature of the atmosphere has been rising for most of the last 50 years.”
    5) “The Arctic ice cap is getting smaller, in apparent response to this global temperature increase. Sea level is rising, due to the thermal expansion of the oceans and, increasingly, to melting of the Greenland and/or Antarctic ice caps. It has been shown to most people’s satisfaction that the Greenland ice cap is getting smaller.”

    Reply
  5. Josh Rowley Avatar
    Josh Rowley

    As a non-scientist, I find Naum’s #5 to be among the more convincing pieces of evidence for global warming. A Google search will lead to numerous videos showing the shrinkage of the Arctic ice cap.
    I fail to see how urban areas tending to be warmer than rural areas disproves global warming.

    Reply

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