Here is a story that always makes me smile. The author looks at where we have temperature reading stations...and why they shouldn't be relied on to confirm global warming...
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2012/08/how-bad-data-contribute-to-global-warming-hysteria.php
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2012/08/how-bad-data-contribute-to-global-warming-hysteria.php
Climate realists are generally willing to assume, for the sake of argument, that the Earth has warmed somewhat in recent decades. In fact, though, it is not obvious that even this modest claim is true. Satellite data show no net warming for as long as such data have been collected, i.e., back to 1979. Ocean measurements show no net warming over that period, either; the evidence for warming is based on land measurements. But the accuracy of land measurements depends on proper siting and maintenance of weather stations. One obvious factor is the urban heat island effect: many weather stations are located in cities, which grow warmer as more people and buildings accumulate. Thus, increasing temperatures at such stations may be measuring urban development rather than the climate. We all know that the urban heat island effect is real–”chance of frost in outlying areas”–yet the data that alarmists rely upon do not take it into account.
onclusive proof of global warming, right? Well, not so fast. It turns out that other stations in the Sierras show no warming at all over the same period. Here is one such station, in Tahoe National Forest:
This is a newer station, but its temperature record shows no warming trend:
This is the record from a ranger station just 15 miles from the one at Tahoe City, going back to 1949. No warming trend starting in the 1980s:
So what is going on here? Is Lake Tahoe really warming dramatically, or not? This is the weather station that shows the warming trend that so alarms Governor Brown:
Note the trash burning barrel just five feet away from the weather station. That was removed after a global warming skeptic pointed it out. But that isn’t what drove the sudden temperature increase in the early 1980s. Rather, it was the construction of the adjacent tennis court and apartment complex, which occurred at that time: