Cumulus Support

After a very short discussion elsewhere on this forum this morning I decided to post a histogram / graph showing the average temperature for whole years only for my station in North Cheshire, England. I even used a base of 9 rather than 0 to accentuate any differences.

I'll leave you to decide if any trend is evident. It would be nice to see this from other stations around the world. Excel would do nicely although I'm sure there are free alternatives available.

For the record I see a levelling out over recent years. Does that make me a denier?

This is for my longest running station. We are on a slight East facing slope and this seems to affect the temperature noticably. We are on the edge of what is known as Antrobus Moss - as it's name suggests a damp area!
As with Ray's there is no noticable trend.

RayProudfoot wrote: ↑Thu 16 May 2024 1:05 pm For the record I see a levelling out over recent years. Does that make me a denier?

This way of expressing yourself - some passive aggressiveness - kind of answers your own question: yes you are a denier.

But let's try to be factual:

1. Please look at this page by NASA
2. This shows a (global!) increase of 1 degree Celsius since 1970. So in 53 years that means an average of 0.0188 degree Celsius/year.
3. If you look at the chart you see major fluctuations on a global scale between years which go beyond that increase per year. So locally that difference might even be larger. What is missing is the statistics here.
4. To argue well, you would need to do some statistics to at least 4 decimals on the average per year
5. In the four full years of my own station you also see an almost flat line but the values are: 2020: 10.79 °C; 2023: 11.00 °C which is 0.0525 °C/year (please set cursor on the line points to see the value). And I refuse to draw conclusions from that other than that visual inspection does not do math. Had the series been longer - e.g. > 10 yrs - I might have seen that as a local confirmation of what is happening.
6. You have significant fluctuation in your chart so it may be whatever may influence amateur weather stations but I won't take that into the argument assuming that weather amateurs going into a discussion on the basis of their data do anything to get as close to reality as possible. But if we seriously start discussing, that would be something to discuss first.
7. You argue on the basis of a chart which the reader must visually inspect. Visual inspection of a chart like that is not the best means to determine something like Climate Change which has a resolution of 0,01 °C which is much smaller that what we can see on the chart.

I could continue arguing like this but I won't: series like these (not yours, not mine) do not prove or disprove climate change. Climate change is calculated on a global scale and there is a really large chunk of statistics behind it. In fact science does not really debate IF the climate changes (that discussion has past) but HOW FAST and by HOW MUCH.

And please note: my post on the temperature sum does not take the average but the year sum as an argument as that is much easier to interpret. Compare this e.g. to the arctic ice area on a yearly basis where the last 12 years minimum are all below the -2 sigma value ... anyway, look at it yourself.

But even then, that would argue only on the amount of change in that series (11 years in San Sebastian) in that location, that it fits the bill of climate change. It could never serve as PROOF for climate change.

And you guess right: I am not a denier. But I am not a believer either. I just like numbers versus what e.g. NASA says. Climate Change is not about belief or denial. It is about numbers and the 'fun' of seeing that in your own backyard (assuming you are not too sheltered).

[Edit:] I corrected some errors on 17/5/24 @07:00

I now see @philpugh's post which is somewhat better (scale of the y-axis) but still could do with some statistics.

He does have that (see this chart), which shows (2013 - 2023, is 11 years) an increase from 9.70 - 10.65 (= 0.95 °C) which leads to 0.0864 °C/year.

Mine with a linear trend line added, it's too short a period to be meaningful.


And the average temperatures for North West England met stations since 1884, again with a linear trend line

mcrossley wrote: ↑Thu 16 May 2024 3:24 pm Mine with a linear trend line added, it's too short a period to be meaningful.

I think it is meaningful but not conclusive (as proof for climate change).

Or do I misinterpret the word meaningful?

@philpugh, I think as long as the equipment hasn’t moved your records are fine. I’m surrounded on three sides by houses and I’m estimating my temps are around 0.7°C higher as a result. Different but not wrong.

@HansR, I don’t know how you can deduce from my post I’m a denier. I just posted a graph with just an observation that recent temps have levelled out. How can I deduce temps to four decimal places when the Davis is probably accurate to +/- 0.5°C?

I don’t have the inclination to trawl through other websites. But using my own common sense I would say my area is warming up as we now get very little snow or really hard frosts. You don’t need to record weather stats to work that out. The water pipe in my garage to my washing machine last froze in 2010 and in 2022 the temperature hit 100°F for the first time.

@mcrossley, I’ll compare our averages in the next few days. I did note when I used the linear trend it was similar to yours. The one I used seemed closer to actuality.

Meaningful in a global warming sense, it shows my temperatures have been generally rising since 2010, but that is a very short period.

If you’re able counting the number of air frosts and days where the temp exceeded an appropriate level for each year might reveal something.

My air frosts are here: https://weather.wilmslowastro.com/graph ... #frostByYr

mcrossley wrote: ↑Thu 16 May 2024 5:54 pm My air frosts are here: https://weather.wilmslowastro.com/graph ... #frostByYr

Definitely a downward trend.