Global Warming Conference: The Science of Climate Change
Nicolas Loris /
The first panel at the Heartland Institute today brings together four of the world’s best scientists when it comes to climate change study. The first speaker is Anthony Watts, creator of the website SufaceStations.org, “created in response to the realization that very little physical site survey data exists for the entire United States Historical Climatological Network (USHCN) and Global Historical Climatological Network (GHCN) surface station records worldwide.” SufaceStations.org is a project that monitors the quality of data at America’s 1,221 weather stations. Once a believer that manmade carbon dioxide had a significant effect on the earth’s atmosphere, Watts’ change of heart is largely based on the lack of credible science.
Watts is widely known in the climate change science community for visiting weather stations across the country. He found that several biases in the location of many of the temperature reading devices. Many are on unnatural surface temperatures: on cinder, asphalt, wood chips, and concrete. They lay on top or roofs or on airport runways. Other spots for stations included spots next to an incinerator, waste management facilities (where it’s much warmer) and outside of an air conditioning unit right next to where the warm air is released. One station in Baltimore had readings of over 100 degrees F when no other nearby station did. That station has been shut down but the climate records remain. His conclusion is that most of the weather stations have an upwards bias of 1 degree Celsius and in many cases it’s two degrees C. Check out Watts’ project, SurfaceStations.org for much more.