14th coolest December in 115 years.

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

I had a science teacher in a class last semester that told us we couldn't trust any of the temperature number coming back from the measuring stations because of the types of areas they were placed in.  But, it's been a hot winter in SoCal - no sweaters this year, and I get so sick of hearing from my classmates that this is "global warming".  I wanna tell them that I've got family back in Florida that are getting snowed on for the first time in their lives!!

There all sorts of crazy rules and guidelines that have to be observed when installing a weather station.  Break the rules and there's a good chance that the recorded data will be skewed by the faulty installation.  For instance, if you install a thermometer above a dark-colored ground cover (ashpalt, black dirt, whatever) the sun will heat the ground and generate rising warm air convections that make the temp appear hotter than it really is.

Many (most?) of the weather stations across the country and around the world are set up improperly, and the data that they produce is skewed by the faulty setup.  

Examples of really bad weather station installations:
http://www.norcalblogs.com/watts/weather_stations/
(Read it from the bottom up - this page originally started at the bottom and later/newer additions were place at the top)

Better link here:
http://www.surfacestations.org/

[Nitrogen]

I had a science teacher in a class last semester that told us we couldn't trust any of the temperature number coming back from the measuring stations because of the types of areas they were placed in.  But, it's been a hot winter in SoCal - no sweaters this year, and I get so sick of hearing from my classmates that this is "global warming".  I wanna tell them that I've got family back in Florida that are getting snowed on for the first time in their lives!!

Your teacher was right; stations placed in an urban or surburban area can show warmer temps than those out in a clearing.  The "urban heat bubble" effect is pretty well studied and I think we can account for it by looking at variance at other nearby stations.  This accounting for variance is one of the "tricks" that the climategate scientists got castigated for.

The type of situation that happened last week is one of the reasons you really can't call it "global warming", the changes we're making to the atmosphere can cause wilder swings in weather that you'd see looking at climate data.

The situation you're talking about in Florida is a good example.  Florida's climate might only show a 2 degree change (I'm making this up, I have no idea what the models might show) but a wilder swing of the North Atlantic Oscillation can give Florida 5 days of brutally cold weather, ruining the citrus crop that year.

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

If the models predict that anything is possible, then they're useless.  If anything that could conceivably happen is purportedly accounted for in the models, then again, the models are useless.

I've been told at various times that the "climate change" models account for rising temperature.  And for falling temperature.  And for unusually strong storm activity.  And for low or no storm activity.  And for droughts.  And for floods.  And for normal weather.  And for snow.  And for ice.  And for anything at all under the sun, including the sun itself.

Well gee, thanks.  I knew that already.  No need to spend millions of dollars on global warming political science to learn that.  No need to strip my rights away over that, thankyouverymuch.

(And for the record, no, the weather station abnormalities are NOT accounted for in the climate research data.)

[FloridaEllie]

Thanks for the nice welcome everybody!!!  I'm still getting used to the format of this forum.  Hope to be more active soon!