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A page in sore need of attention William M. Connolley 22:03 Feb 12, 2003 (UTC)
"the retention of thermal radiation (generally from the sun's infrared rays) absorbed during the day from sunlight" is wrong: solar radiation is mostly non-IR; etc etc. The existing explanation was confused, and I've re-written it, but it needs more work.
"some scientists say" -> "some say" before link to sepp. Etc.
I'd like to move this article from urban heat island effect to urban heat island. Then, discuss what an urban heat island is, giving 2 examples. Also, how many there are and/or how much warmer they are than the surrounding are. Plus, whether and/or how much they have been getting warmer over the decades.
Then, report what scientists say about what causes these "heat islands".
Finally, get into the controversial stuff: the relevance of urban heat islands to the global warming theory. Some say this, some say that.
-- Uncle Ed
I've ( William M. Connolley 13:34 Feb 14, 2003 (UTC)) added some stuff, derived from IPCC, about why the UHI impact is small. If googling turns up lots of articles saying the reverse, put links to them here, and we can either add them to the UHI page (if they make sense) or add rebutals (if they don't).
BTW, I now think the very last para looks unconfortable.
Well, the section relating UHI to GW is more than half of the article. I hope that's not too much.
Also, I guess I better check all those half-remembered sources again. If I recall correctly, the heat increase in urban areas is about 0.9C per century (as today's article states) -- but the trend in rural areas is much, much less; and the trend in uninhabited areas is basically flat, i.e., no increase.
Last week I visited a site which draws trend lines and calculates the R-squared values for a linear regression analysis of temperature readings. You pick a grid square by latitute and longitude, and you get a graph of the trend. Guess what? Wyoming isn't getting warmer. Georgia is hardly warming at all (negligible). But New York is warming rapidly! Hmm, these three statistics support my point, i.e., that most "global warming" is really just urban warming, and Kyoto advocates are confusing the urban heat island effect with real global warming. -- Uncle Ed 17:20 Feb 14, 2003 (UTC)
I've ( William M. Connolley 22:50 Feb 14, 2003 (UTC)) changed "first found in the mid-1800's in the US" to "first found in the 1800's". There was no source for that,and googling says early 1800's in the UK: www.suite101.com/article.cfm/weather/53429 or http://216.239.57.100/search?q=cache:FRuyjhwGfo4C:geog.tamu.edu/~soma/UHI.ppt+urban+heat+island+1800&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
I've tried to begin balancing the biased IPCC sources with some objective scientific observations. If we listened only to the IPCC and other United Nations organizations, we might get a false impression.
The UN is biased on Israel: it does not condemn anti-Semitism. The US is biased on human rights. It lets Cuba (the world's biggest prison) onto the commission while voting the USA (where most refugees want to go) off!
Why would a UN-created body like the IPCC be any different? I mean, let's be objective here... okay, at least let's be neutral. -- Uncle Ed 16:38, 14 Aug 2003 (UTC)
( William M. Connolley 20:38, 13 Oct 2003 (UTC)) To start, it would be nice if you stopped changing all instances of IPCC into " IPCC, a united nations organisation". Its silly. And can we leave Israel out of GW please? And no, of course, you shouldn't listen to IPCC only: you should read what they say, and if you disagree, you should follow up their references to see if they have misquoted the papers (most unlikely; I know of no examples at all, nor even any accusations) or if you agree with the original papers.
But more substantively: someone (I think Ed) inserted a quote from that well-known totally-objective source co2science, and misattributed it to a scientific paper. This was a fairly crass mistake: scientific papers don't say things like "It is ludicrous to believe that..."
More: the "first found in the 1800's" has now become an (unnamed) midwestern city. Please can whoever added that attribute it? Or I will re-correct, as above.
There is some deeply unconvincing text about "some sci anal" showing the T record depends on closeness to UHI. All unsourced. It should go, unless it can be sourced. Are these unsourced comments the "objective science" Ed mentions above?
-- Uncle Ed 20:41, 13 Oct 2003 (UTC)
( William M. Connolley 19:56, 25 Oct 2003 (UTC)) Looking over the first few paras I find stuff that looks dodgy. So, to quote:
I've never seen one such, but perhaps they exist. Anyone got an example?
Some while ago I removed this US bit, since google suggested British city and the US bit is unsourced. Anyone know where this little bit of info came from?
"several degrees", 68 vs 64... are thse just random numbers, or do they have any source at all?
Oh, come on, William! You never heard of " HotLanta"?
And what about your comment pointing out the scientific work using logarithms and trendlines to relate city population to annual temperature increase? -- Uncle Ed 15:52, 31 Oct 2003 (UTC)
It has been known for some time that cities are generally warmer than the surrounding, more rural areas. Because of this relative warmth, a city may be referred to as an urban heat island. [1]
The urban heat island phenomenon was first discovered in the early 1800s in London. [2]
According to satellite readings from NASA, average temperatures in cities and urban areas can range 5 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit hotter than surrounding areas. [3]
The following paragraph presents a POV, in the guise of being "really true":
I think it would be better to attribute the claims about heat absorption to the scientists (or others) making those claims.
Also, the claim that "observations show otherwise" should also be attributed to its advocates.
In fact, before today's round of edits, it seems that someone was trying to "dispute" the idea that cities are consistently hotter. I guess that's what that 180-year-old observation about 1/3 a degree Fahrenheit of daytime cooling was all about.
Well, everything should be footnoted and attributed. If there are people who insist on believing in GW who want to discount the UHI effect, they have just as much right to their beliefs as the real scientists :-) -- Uncle Ed 16:19, 3 Nov 2003 (UTC)
If my changes or comments seem bizarre to a practicing scientist, then perhaps we should just revert all my changes until I regain the power of coherent writing :-)
I am determined not to have an edit war on this page, so I'd rather just go back to the previously-acceptable version rather than kick up a fuss. -- Uncle Ed 17:49, 3 Nov 2003 (UTC)
( William M. Connolley 20:58, 3 Nov 2003 (UTC)) OK but it really winds me up having you talk about attribution here like some poor wronged innocent and then adding unattributed stuff yourself.
I've done a re-write, rather than reversion, which emphasises the largest-at-night. If anyone can find reliable sources for otherwise, why, please put them in.
The claim about the "mistake" in co2science article is quite strained and seems out of place. From earlier comment, the only "mistake" is Connelly's opinion that the Idsos' "reviews" must not provide any info that the article being reviewed does not (overtly?) disclose. [suggestion: prove it's a factual mistake or say that you can't verify the sizes of the towns they identify or drop the point.]
The IPCC estimate of 20th century effect of urbanization effect on the global surface temperature record was updated in the 2001 WG1 TAR.
The upper end of the range cited is more than double the figure presented here. [suggestion: replace current treatment with one which reflects most recent assessment, such as: "IPCC cites urbanization effect of up to 0.12°C in the land surface temperature data for 2000.
The urbanization effect on temperature, they conclude, can be trended linearly back to zero in 1900. A co-ordinating lead author for that chapter of the TAR was lead author on a paper that explains the basis for that 0.12°C figure [see Folland et al., Global Temperature Change and its uncertainties since 1861, Geophysical Research Letters 28(13):2621-2624, July 1, 2001]."
Your Wikipedia efforts are sincerely appreciated, and my comments reflect nothing but admiration for what you are doing.
Steve Schulin
( William M. Connolley 17:25, 12 Jul 2004 (UTC)) Welcome back to climate change, Ed. I've made a poor start though... anyway, too much of what you wrote was (IMHO) bad that I've reverted it rather than changing it line by line. Let me try to justify that:
This is a bad start. UHI is the idea that cities are hotter than their surroundings. This isn't terribly controversial so its a good place to start. But you start off instead defining UHI as the theory that cities get progressively hotter. This *is* controversial, and isn't the usual definition.
Note that you have removed my "whether" from this sentence. Yours implies that they *are* affecting the record, and all we need to do is work out by how much.
I strongly suspect this is actually base climate dependent. For reasons best known to yourself you decided that there was only one report for winter.
it isn't necessary to write the article in this deliberately provocative way. For you, Peterson must be a raving GW-er. You don't seem to understand the possibility that he may just be a humble scientist doing his research.
Etc etc. But thats enough for now: lets see whether you want to take this seriously or not.
This whole section needs a rewrite. It looks like it was cobbled together poorly or hastily. It fails to explain why the various advocates believe that UHI has or has not skewed the temperature record.
I'd like to see some assertions by scientists on both sides of this dispute. Like, Joe Blow says it's all hot air because his analysis of rural and remote land-based thermometer records shows very little warming: significantly less than even the most conservative of the IPCC "models". Or, B. Leaver compared rural with urban stations and found that there was no significant difference: cities are NOT warming up faster than the countryside. -- Uncle Ed 15:29, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)
I recall reading an assertion by a climate researcher that the IPCC, et al., have undercompensated for the UHI effect. If I locate a quote and a source for this assertion, will you allow me to put it into the article?
Another assertion I remember reading is a study of all land-based thermometer records in California. The 20th century temperature increase these records showed was directly proportional to the size of the community in which the thermometer was placed: remote areas showed no significant warming, rural areas showed slight warming, small towns showed moderate warming, and cities showed just about the same amount of warming predicted by IPCC models for the average of the entire atmosphere. The writer implied that the only way to "account" for the UHI effect is to ignore all but the remote stations' readings.
Also, a Wikipedia link I followed to from a pro-IPCC site concedes that satellite and weather balloon readings (a) agree well with each other and (b) show hardly any warming compared to land-based thermometers. If I locate this quote, would you mind letting me place it into the article? -- Uncle Ed 12:46, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Ed Poor: SEPP examined some of Peterson's earlier work, but balanced it against Goodridge.
In 1999, Singer wrote:
why the hell am i writing this??? i could just be doing just about anything else right now....
I just wanted to quickly note that this article and other GW articles repeatedly mention the "concensus" view, which amounts to nothing more than the IPCC view, which in turn amounts to nothing more than the view of about one half of the thousands of scientists who were consulted for the IPCC assessment.
Any time someone mentions a "dissenting" viewpoint, it is dismissed with no intellectual justification. A nice example is in this very article. It is mentioned that skeptics claim that UHI may be responsible for a large portion of the warming, BUT THERE IS NO EVIDENCE (?!?) or something to that effect.
There is evidence... tons of evidence, produced by radio sonde balloons and satellites, both of which show UHI to be an enormous and obvious factor in the surface record. Why certain contributors here are so determined to keep readers from hearing about them is beyond me.
It is something for other contributors to watch for. There is an institutional bias in this particular scientific field and everyone should watch for the types of omission and censorship that is almost to be expected. I find it very humorous that there is even mention of "no peer-reviewed papers to support" the skeptics claim. Does anyone wonder why?
Maybe I will contribute some nice quotes from respected climatologists (MIT, etc.) who are explaining the near certainty with which you will be denied grants and publication if you do not "toe the IPCC line".
Readers deserve the full truth, not the IPCC approved truth. That should include mentioning to them that the IPCCs own report omitted the opinions of about half of the contributing scientists.
( William M. Connolley 18:31, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)) I'll dump this in here to remind me to read it some time:
First, this article [Parker] talks about how the UHI is a generally accepted theory.
Then, it talks about how the UHI effect has had no overall effect on temperature measurements (re: global warming).
I can see 4 possibilities:
(1) temperature measurements happen during the time of the day when the UHI effect isn't apperent.
(2) The proportion of temperature measurements within urban areas vs rural areas is so tiny that it doesn't have any effect.
(3) UHI effect does effect temperature measurements, and the conventional wisdom is wrong.
(4) UHI doesn't exist -- sure, some cities are warmer than before, but others are cooler -- random variation.
We seem to have an incipient disagreement... I've reverted:
That text was inconsistent with the text there The explanation for the night-time maximum is that the principal cause of UHI is blocking of "sky view" during cooling: surfaces lose heat at night principally by radiation to the (comparitavely cold) sky, and this is blocked by the building in an urban area.
I don't think the new text works: if convection moves away the daytime heat, then it wouldn't affect the nighttime. If the main forcing is during the day, the main effect would be seen during the day. At the least, that text needs some source.
William M. Connolley 21:33:05, 2005-08-25 (UTC).
Wow, that was quick. I'm new at this (the wiki bit, not the science), so please bear with me.
The basic argument is this - during the day, the sun heats the surface/ground/buildings/etc. The surface tries to heat the air, but the convection/mixing with rural air prevents significant warming. After the sun sets, the air stablizes and can be heated by the ground, which hasn't yet cooled. (While the warm air is more noticeable, the bulk of the heat energy is stored in the ground, due to much higher heat capacities.) Does that make sense?
I will work on finding some sources.
However, I disagree with the statement that the blocking of "sky view" is the principle cause of the UHI. It is certainly one of the causes, but nowhere have I seen it described as the primary reason, including in the sources listed.
-- David Streutker 22:39, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
I've changed a bit of it and added some sources. I plan to add more soon (in a different section) to help clarify the difference between surface and air temperature UHIs.-- David Streutker 03:44, 29 August 2005 (UTC)
In my opinion, Omaha Shields should not be merged here. It appears to be both a neologism and original research and should just be deleted rather than being merged here. -- Pak21 14:57, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
footnote number 2 is a broken link and i was just wondering if this claim was disputed because as of now it's not really cited.-- Dmcheatw 02:14, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
Article says:
Yes, and this view needs amplification. The two sides on this issue are:
I've tried to add info about this dispute before, but I can't find it this year. Has anyone seen where it's gotten to? -- Uncle Ed 13:46, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
Ed removed Not to be confused with global warming, scientists call this phenomenon the "urban heat island effect, errm, for reasons that are unclear. Many people do confuse the two: making it clear that they are separate seems a good idea.
Ed removed: ...for example, urban and rural trends are very similar. with the comment the POV that urban and rural trends are very similar needs facts and figures which is clear proof that he hasn't bothered to read the article, which lower down says: the trends in urban stations for 1951 to 1989 (0.10°C/decade) are not greatly more than those for all land stations (0.09°C/decade). and simlarly the rural trend is 0.70°C/century from 1880 to 1998, which is actually larger than the full station trend (0.65°C/century)
So I've put them back. Naturally enough, I took out the unpublished tripe from WH, because the published results in the page are better.
William M. Connolley 16:04, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
I already had that, mate. I'm interested in adding the opposing POV that rural trends are significantly higher than urban trends. In California, for example.
Also, Atlanta is 5C hotter than the surrounding area. If that happened in 5 centuries, that would be a 1 degree/century greater urban increase than rural.
And please, spare me the personal remarks like "pathetic" and "good faith". I'm interested in the article. -- Uncle Ed 15:24, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
It's not "bias" to add an opposing POV. "Wikipedia's NPOV policy contemplates inclusion of all significant points of view," you know.
As for "actual numbers in the article", they represent one POV (the one you, my notable friend, espouse :-) with which other sources disagree. "Wikipedia's neutral point-of-view (NPOV) policy contemplates inclusion of all significant points of view regarding any subject on which there is division of opinion." -- Uncle Ed 20:08, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
I added a paragraph on the health effects of rural vs. urban populations from Johns Hopkins University. 18:57, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
After visiting site, it does not appear to be spam and offers useful content which appears to be relevant. If there are no objections, I will repost.
I'm going to put a big load of text in here - when this is answered please go ahead and delete it, but I've got a bunch of questions first!
there is a risk that the effects of urban sprawl might be misinterpreted as an increase in global temperature. However, the fact that heat islands have such a large effect is, paradoxically, evidence that it is largely absent from the record, otherwise warming would be shown as much larger in the record. The 'heat island' warming does unquestionably affect cities and the people who live in them, but it is not at all clear that it biases trends in historical temperature record: for example, urban and rural trends are very similar.
I'm really sorry - but can someone explain what this means? I get that the trends are the same in city and rural - great. But this 'large effect means it must be absent since we see a small effect' argument seems paradoxical - perhaps we see a small part of the 'large effect'. To give an analogy - maybe we are not seeing a skyscraper being built next to the thermometer - maybe they just paved the road to it. Can someone explain? -- Dilaudid 22:48, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
IPCC release your data on how you "compensated" for the UHI.
We have a disagreement [6] over the inclusion of some text from Lindzen. My argument is that reporting his earlier comments, without including the latter ones that clearly show he accepts the current record, is misleading. One solution would be to delete the misleading text Some have argued for an ill-defined "influence" of the UHI on the temperature records without attempting to quantify it - for example Richard Lindzen in 1990 William M. Connolley 09:42, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
I would like a second opinion as to whether you agree with the statement attached to the image in the 'Causes' section of this article. It explains the image shows cooler areas marked by denser vegetation but in my view it actually shows the complete opposite! Surely this is demonstrating the reverse effect discussed in this article and therefore makes for a very odd example? Domentolen 00:55, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
This article needs to address two very important issues: 1. the controversy around unwarranted government adjustments to the temperature record (to adjust for "rural cooling" rather than "urban warming") [7] and 2. ongoing research into the controversy regarding poor siting of temperature stations leading to a warming bias (especially in rural sites). Government adjustments to the temperature record are continuing. But check this out [8] and this. [9] I came across this on Comment 15 here. [10] I have done enough reading now to be convinced that the 1990s were NOT warmer than the dust bowl years of the 1930s. I believe alarmists like Jim Hansen are playing with the temperature record. In effect, these "adjustments" to the temperature record are done in order to create evidence of global warming. I also believe there are a number of warming biases in our land surface temperature network as pointed out by the Davey and Pielke paper in 2005. [11] I am aware of the Peterson paper in 2006 which tried to say the problems Davey and Pielke found in eastern Colorado are not wide spread and there is no UHI warming bias. However, there are a number of problems with the Peterson paper. [12] Pielke has called for a thorough documentation of the sites, including photographs and that effort is underway now led by Anthony Watts [13] and encouraged by Pielke [14] [15] and Steve McIntyre. [16] I need some help locating additional reliable sources on temperature adjustments. If anyone would like to participate in this effort, you can go to my User Page and click the "Email this user" button and we can discuss where this information may be found. RonCram 00:37, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
I believe the bolded portion is unsupported:
"Another view, often held by skeptics of global warming, is that the heat island effect accounts for much or nearly all warming recorded by land-based thermometers. However, these views are mainly presented in "popular literature" and there are no known scientific peer-reviewed papers holding this view [dubious — see talk page]."
If there is no supporting evidence to this claim it should not be included. -- Theblog 21:40, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
(Comment moved from wrong section)
I don't see why the para needs to be cut. Its talking about something we all know is out there. Were there any papers saying this, the septics would have found them, so its no good pretending they might exist William M. Connolley 08:22, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
(Encyclopedic content must be verifiable.) The statement is unverified, the onus is on YOU to prove it when you put it back, not the other way around, you are just pretending it is not there. You can not verify it therefore it should be removed. -- Theblog 23:33, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
Read the first part of the section, it is STILL unverified despite you two constantly removing the citation needed tag. Do you believe that the bolded portion above is verified? -- Theblog 19:37, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
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help) it may be that Sandalow's source is Wikipedia (which isn't stated - but a distinct possibility) - but i'll assume for now that he did his research and fact-checking. -- Kim D. Petersen 23:35, 5 July 2007 (UTC)In contrast, as one source reports, “there are no known scientific peer-reviewed papers” to support the view that "the heat island effect accounts for much or nearly all warming recorded by land-based thermometers.”
Stop deleting stuff you find inconvenient. There are no known papers saying this William M. Connolley 13:57, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
I believe the bolded portion of the following is POV pushing:
"Some have argued for an ill-defined "influence" of the UHI on the temperature records without attempting to quantify it - for example Richard Lindzen in 1990.[19]"
Since Lindzen himself does not describe his paper as "ill-defined" it can not be described as much by editors, if there is a quote from a source that believe so, that would be fine to use. -- Theblog 21:40, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
Would it help at all to replace "ill-defined" with "un-defined". Lindzen certainly provides no clarity on the issue. Perhaps you can find some other septic who does? And perhaps some papers that do assert an influence? William M. Connolley 22:11, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
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link)Pielke et al(2005) cannot refute Parker(2006) - that is not possible. Its rather more likely that the good Dr. Pielke really meant Parker(2004) and included Parker(2006) by error. And that is not WP:OR - its editorial oversight. -- Kim D. Petersen 18:12, 6 July 2007 (UTC) Secondly the Pielke et al(2005) paper does not reference Parker(2006) [or any preprint thereof] - but only the Parker(2004) paper. -- Kim D. Petersen 18:33, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
not clear to me why you feel . -- Theblog 19:41, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
This is OR: "Assuming you mean the Walters thing, it is of no clear relevance. Pielke thinnks it is, but thats only his opinion. It too has zero cites (of course, being new). The 2007 paper rebuts nothing: Pielkes assertion that it does is simply wrong." The weight issue is another subject, apparently you two believe the nine extra words crosses some mythical weight line you've established. -- Theblog 22:16, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
It all comes down to assessing the relative weight of different ideas. It is *not* true that because an "expert" has said something, it should be in the article. Nor is it true that because X has 8 sentences then Y deserves at least 2. Your understanding or OR is wrong: if I'd put that on the article it would be; on the talk page its fine. We are allowed to use our judgement in assessing what goe sin - how could it be otherwise? There is no clear way of assessing the significance of Pielkes views: the fact that they were published in a less prestigious journal that Parkers, and that they have not been cited whereas Parkers have been, is a clue, though William M. Connolley 10:39, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
I believe the bolded portion is unsupported:
"Another view, often held by skeptics of global warming, is that the heat island effect accounts for much or nearly all warming recorded by land-based thermometers. However, these views are mainly presented in "popular literature" and there are no known scientific peer-reviewed papers holding this view [dubious — see talk page]."
If there is no supporting evidence to this claim it should not be included. -- Theblog 00:57, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
I removed [24] because I don't believe the T errors stuff. Its not possible to know William M. Connolley 08:19, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
Let me cover the basics here on the Watts project. It is not funded by energy interests. Watts is a meteorologist and the expenses (mostly bandwidth for the website) are funded out of his own pocket. He is not accepting donations. The rules for submitting sites requires site maintainers be informed of what is going on (including where the results are going to go) and for them to be given an opportunity to fix any errors. There has been no prior effort to check the physical condition of USHCN sites, nothing to compare Watts' efforts to. The universe of people who know what's going on is Watts' volunteers and the site maintainers themselves. There is no meaningful independent review of Watts' efforts available outside the collective opinions of the site maintainers and those independent reviewers are consulted as part of the survey structure. The only analysis done by the Watts project outside of measuring physical distances is toting up the totals of the CRN ratings and making a pie chart.
My assertion is that conventional peer review is largely meaningless in this class of studies. The data gathered is pretty straightforward and nobody who has not been consulted yet is going to be able to meaningfully contribute to accuracy. This is an extremely rare case because usually you don't have large scale critical scientific systems (like ground temperature systems) going for decades without meaningful physical review. But you do in this case.
I further assert that ground station temperature readings are so foundational that an effort that succeeded in finding large unaccounted for error would throw an unknown but very large number of studies into doubt. It is useful and proper to give some sort of mention to such efforts as a heads up so that changes can be noted incrementally and we don't have a 'Pravda moment' where certain conclusions that are rock solid on Monday are completely false on Tuesday. (If you don't like the tag 'Pravda moment', and at least one editor doesn't, come up with a better one and I'll use it). TMLutas 01:23, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
I ended up not getting a good reference so I wrote the surfacestations.org contact site. I received an email reply fairly quickly. He paid his own way and Dr. Pielke invited him to submit a paper on the project. His stuff passed the normal process for inclusion. TMLutas 22:23, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
Its become clear that the equivalent peer review TMP is claiming is spurious. The claims of temperature errors are also clearly wrong, for reasons I've explained, but TML has failed to grasp William M. Connolley 09:43, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
I reverted this [25]:
I have some sympathy for the substance, but the edit can't stand as is. The first ref is simply a confused rehash of the second, so shouldn't be there. The second is from E&E, a dodgy source. The edit fails to make clear that its only the China data that is in question. The edit confuses data with metadata William M. Connolley 13:54, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
A problem exists regarding the citation number 15 for this: "Another view, often held by skeptics of global warming, is that much of the temperature increase seen in land based thermometers could be due to an increase in urbanisation and the siting of measurement stations in urban areas [4][5]. However, these views are mainly presented in "popular literature" and there are no known scientific peer-reviewed papers holding this view.[15]"
But upon following citation labeled [15] it leads to an article by David B. Sandalow, and the relevant text is: "The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, using only peer-reviewed data, concluded that urban heat islands caused “at most” 0.05°C of the increase in global average temperatures during the period 1900-1990 — roughly one-tenth of the increase during this period. In contrast, as one source reports, “there are no known scientific peer-reviewed papers” to support the view that “the heat island effect accounts for much or nearly all warming recorded by land-based thermometers.”"
The problem here is that there is no reference for this "one source". What we have is a reference to an article by David B. Sandalow, but he is quoting an anonymous source. The statement itself is not Mr. Sandalow's, but rather anonymous. So in effect we have a wikipedia citation that is citing an anonymous source -- because it is not Mr. Sandalow that said this, but rather an anonymous quotation.
I recommend therefore that the sentence: "However, these views are mainly presented in "popular literature" and there are no known scientific peer-reviewed papers holding this view.[15]" be struck unless a better citation is found. SunSw0rd ( talk) 14:59, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
I brought this up about 7 times before, it is obviously impossible to prove a negative, despite what this "RS" claims. The line should be removed- the burden of proof is not on those wishing to take the line out, but those wishing to keep it in- they need to show the lines validity, which they of course can not do without the reference that even WC and KD both admit was probably based on the original unsupported wikipedia article. There is no good reason to leave a line in that everyone admits is not cleanly supported. -- Theblog ( talk) 17:16, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
I object to the deletion of material by User:William M. Connolley. The quotation was:
With mounting evidence that global warming is taking place, the cause of this warming has come under vigorous scrutiny. Recent studies have lead to a debate over what contributes the most to regional temperature changes. We investigated air temperature patterns in California from 1950 to 2000. Statistical analyses were used to test the significance of temperature trends in California subregions in an attempt to clarify the spatial and temporal patterns of the occurrence and intensities of warming. Most regions showed a stronger increase in minimum temperatures than with mean and maximum temperatures. Areas of intensive urbanization showed the largest positive trends, while rural, non-agricultural regions showed the least warming.
Reason -- most of the material in the "global warming section tends toward the point of view that urbanization is not an impactor. See "Fourth Assessment Report from the IPCC" immediately proceeding. Now I have cited material that takes the contrary opinion, and it was well cited. I suggest that this material needs to be included for balance. Now Mr. Connelley stated: "california != global; read the peterson stuff. we could find any number of different regional effects" as justification for reversion -- that is an assertion that could be applied to the IPCC material as well. The fact is, I believe, that providing a more balanced perspective helps maintain NPOV. I am restoring my edit and request any discussion be held here before any reverts. SunSw0rd ( talk) 21:56, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
The purpose of the edit is to point out that urban heat islands appear to be contributing factors to the measurement of global warming. - yes thats what I thought. Since the best science is that this is wrong, your point is wrong, and shouldn't be in there. contrary to the material being quoted out of context - no-one said you were quoting out of context. Read what I said. I said that what you wrote doesn't fit *into* this context. We shouldn't include a study about a study on the Maldive Islands in an article about global sea level, ebcause its local, unless there is some reason for the Maldives to be more important than the thousands of better managed tidal stations around the world William M. Connolley ( talk) 19:02, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
From Quantifying the influence of anthropogenic surface processes and inhomogeneities on gridded global climate data in the "Journal of Geophysical Research-Atmospheres".
Local land surface modification and variations in data quality affect temperature trends in surface-measured data. Such effects are considered extraneous for the purpose of measuring climate change, and providers of climate data must develop adjustments to filter them out. If done correctly, temperature trends in climate data should be uncorrelated with socioeconomic variables that determine these extraneous factors. This hypothesis can be tested, which is the main aim of this paper. Using a new database for all available land-based grid cells around the world we test the null hypothesis that the spatial pattern of temperature trends in a widely used gridded climate data set is independent of socioeconomic determinants of surface processes and data inhomogeneities. The hypothesis is strongly rejected (P = 7.1 × 10−14), indicating that extraneous (nonclimatic) signals contaminate gridded climate data. The patterns of contamination are detectable in both rich and poor countries and are relatively stronger in countries where real income is growing. We apply a battery of model specification tests to rule out spurious correlations and endogeneity bias. We conclude that the data contamination likely leads to an overstatement of actual trends over land. Using the regression model to filter the extraneous, nonclimatic effects reduces the estimated 1980–2002 global average temperature trend over land by about half.
What does this mean? It means -- according to Patrick J. Michaels (one of the co-authors): "Scientists have known for years that temperature records can be contaminated by so-called "urban warming," which results from the fact that long-term temperature histories tend to have originated at points of commerce. The bricks, buildings, and pavement of cities retain the heat of the day and impede the flow of ventilating winds...Adjusting data for this effect, or using only rural stations, the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change states with confidence that less than 10% of the observed warming in long-term climate histories is due to urbanization.
That's a wonderful hypothesis, and Ross and I decided to test it...we built a computer model that included both regional climatic factors, such as latitude, as well as socioeconomic indicators like GDP and applied it to the IPCC's temperature history...IPCC divides the world into latitude-longitude boxes, and for each of these we supplied information on GDP, literacy, amount of missing data (a measure of quality), population change, economic growth and change in coal consumption (the more there is, the cooler the area).
Guess what. Almost all the socioeconomic variables were important. We found the data were of highest quality in North America and that they were very contaminated in Africa and South America. Overall, we found that the socioeconomic biases "likely add up to a net warming bias at the global level that may explain as much as half the observed land-based warming trend."
We then modified IPCC's temperature data for these biases and compared the statistical distribution of the warming to the original IPCC data and to satellite measures of lower atmospheric temperature that have been available since 1979. Since these are from a single source (the U.S. government), and they don't have any urban contamination, they are likely to be affected very little by economic factors.
Indeed. The adjusted IPCC data now looks a lot like the satellite data. The biggest change was that the high (very warm) end of the distribution in the IPCC data was knocked off by the unbiasing process..."
Now -- I have pointed out before -- there ARE studies that indicate that the UHI may be affecting the IPCC data. But when I tried posting before, I was told that the data was "regional" and therefore not applicable. Or that a single study is insufficient. Well, more studies are now coming out. Here is another one. And it points out clearly that socioeconomic factors ARE impacting the data. So...how many studies must be done before their information can be added to the page to provide balance and WP:NPOV??? SunSw0rd ( talk) 15:25, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
Hello i have recently proposed the Wikiproject Earth. This Wikiproject`s scope includes this article. This wikiproject will overview the continents, oceans, atsmophere and global warming Please Voice your opinion by clicking anywhere on this comment except for my name. -- Iwilleditu Talk :) Contributions —Preceding comment was added at 15:37, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
On July 8th, CBS News had a story about bias in Wikipedia articles about global warming; see here. The story specifically named User: William M. Connolley and User: KimDabelsteinPetersen as being responsible for biasing articles. I have not looked at all recent edits by those two, just the ones for this article. But some of the latest edits by them for this article are clearly biased: take a look at their reverting here and here. The change that they are reverting is directly relevant for the article, fairly worded, and well-sourced. There is a third editor, User: Stephan Schulz who incorrectly claims that making a fairly-worded well-sourced statement about someone violates WP:BLP. AlfBit ( talk) 07:58, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
Note that there was additional discussion regarding this topic in AlfBit's talk page. A permanent link to the page as of now (see time stamp at the end of my note) is here. Brusegadi ( talk) 04:22, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
The section I removed was:
"However, these views are mainly presented in "popular literature" and there are no known scientific peer-reviewed papers holding this view."
The view was that, "much of the temperature increase seen in land based thermometers could be due to an increase in urbanisation and the siting of measurement stations in urban areas."
I provided a link, which clearly states:
"Hansen and Imhoff are making a special effort to minimize any distortion of the record caused by urban heat-island effects as they research global warming. It is recognized that recorded temperatures at many weather stations are warmer than they should be because of human developments around the station. Hansen and Imhoff used satellite images of nighttime lights to identify stations where urbanization was most likely to contaminate the weather records."
"We find larger warming at urban stations on average," said Hansen, "so we use the rural stations to adjust the urban records, thus obtaining a better measure of the true climate change."
"Evidence of a slight, local human influence is found even in small towns and it is probably impossible to totally eliminate in the global analyses."
Obviously if nobody thought distortion was occurring then there wouldn't be an attempt to correct for it. Thus, I can see no reason to keep the sentence that I removed - a questionable sentence at best. TheGoodLocust ( talk) 16:49, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
<outdent> Nice bait and switch - no we aren't dealing with the previous sentence which I did not modify. We are talking about the ridiculous sentence which my source completely disproved. Apparently this sentence has come under scrutiny before, and quite rightly, and the view was that if it was disproven then it should be removed. The sentence is POV, false and has no place in this article. Oh, and you'd better check yourself, I didn't make any "personal attacks" - just observations of verifiable fact. If you feel some guilt, for some reason, and therefore think that was an attack then that is entirely upon your conscience. No, not an attack at all, in fact I admire the dedication you and Connoley have to the subject and I wonder how many people you've gotten rightfully banned from the subject since they don't believe the "truth" - after all, the ends justify the means right? TheGoodLocust ( talk) 07:20, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
Errm, I doubt this is going anywhere but I suppose I can make some effort to explain. UHI contamination - +ve and -ve -is present in various stations. Mostly, it gets taken out, so doesn't make a substatantial impact on the global T record. Various factors make this obvious - that the rural and total records; or the land and sea records; are all similar. If you're interested in the numbers, the article provides them and links to sources. No, we aren't going to change it just because you can't be bothered to read it William M. Connolley ( talk) 20:43, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
I put up the NPOV tag due to the obvious issues of the section and since you and Petersen seem content to merely revert ad nauseum without backing up your actions. TheGoodLocust ( talk) 00:30, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
It looks like this article's recent edit issues have fallen into the global warming gravity well of debate, of which there is no escape due to its content. Since this is merely a C class article (since it is lacking enough references for B class), and apparently not getting to GA status anytime soon, I suggest that the whole section be deleted for the time being in order to make peace. The other option is just to keep the deleted line deleted, which was originally done. There appear to be ownership issues with the global warming section which will make the debate continue for a long, long time, and make the article a relative orphan within the met project. Make wikilove, not wikiwar. These articles are everyone's to edit and modify. Otherwise, improve the article to GA status and leave the debatable content out so it can improved enough to pass. These debates just keep people from improving articles, and don't act to improve their content, despite best intentions. Thegreatdr ( talk) 21:54, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
True, the article itself does appear to need significant work, but as mentioned above, edit warring is more harmful than it is productive. I'll keep an eye on this page, as temporary full-protection might be justified in the case of further disruption. – Juliancolton | Talk 19:46, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
Attempting to return to the substance: Since this is merely a C class article (since it is lacking enough references for B class), and apparently not getting to GA status anytime soon, I suggest that the whole section be deleted for the time being in order to make peace. - I don't understand the logic of this suggestion. I care nothing for the C / B / FA class stuff, BTW, though you are welcome to. I assume the contentious material is represented by this revert [28]. You are suggesting deleting the entirety of the Relation to global warming section? That sounds very odd. As you'll see from the edit history, that is the most interesting part of the article William M. Connolley ( talk) 20:24, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
You can also read [29] if you want to William M. Connolley ( talk) 21:54, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
A page in sore need of attention William M. Connolley 22:03 Feb 12, 2003 (UTC)
"the retention of thermal radiation (generally from the sun's infrared rays) absorbed during the day from sunlight" is wrong: solar radiation is mostly non-IR; etc etc. The existing explanation was confused, and I've re-written it, but it needs more work.
"some scientists say" -> "some say" before link to sepp. Etc.
I'd like to move this article from urban heat island effect to urban heat island. Then, discuss what an urban heat island is, giving 2 examples. Also, how many there are and/or how much warmer they are than the surrounding are. Plus, whether and/or how much they have been getting warmer over the decades.
Then, report what scientists say about what causes these "heat islands".
Finally, get into the controversial stuff: the relevance of urban heat islands to the global warming theory. Some say this, some say that.
-- Uncle Ed
I've ( William M. Connolley 13:34 Feb 14, 2003 (UTC)) added some stuff, derived from IPCC, about why the UHI impact is small. If googling turns up lots of articles saying the reverse, put links to them here, and we can either add them to the UHI page (if they make sense) or add rebutals (if they don't).
BTW, I now think the very last para looks unconfortable.
Well, the section relating UHI to GW is more than half of the article. I hope that's not too much.
Also, I guess I better check all those half-remembered sources again. If I recall correctly, the heat increase in urban areas is about 0.9C per century (as today's article states) -- but the trend in rural areas is much, much less; and the trend in uninhabited areas is basically flat, i.e., no increase.
Last week I visited a site which draws trend lines and calculates the R-squared values for a linear regression analysis of temperature readings. You pick a grid square by latitute and longitude, and you get a graph of the trend. Guess what? Wyoming isn't getting warmer. Georgia is hardly warming at all (negligible). But New York is warming rapidly! Hmm, these three statistics support my point, i.e., that most "global warming" is really just urban warming, and Kyoto advocates are confusing the urban heat island effect with real global warming. -- Uncle Ed 17:20 Feb 14, 2003 (UTC)
I've ( William M. Connolley 22:50 Feb 14, 2003 (UTC)) changed "first found in the mid-1800's in the US" to "first found in the 1800's". There was no source for that,and googling says early 1800's in the UK: www.suite101.com/article.cfm/weather/53429 or http://216.239.57.100/search?q=cache:FRuyjhwGfo4C:geog.tamu.edu/~soma/UHI.ppt+urban+heat+island+1800&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
I've tried to begin balancing the biased IPCC sources with some objective scientific observations. If we listened only to the IPCC and other United Nations organizations, we might get a false impression.
The UN is biased on Israel: it does not condemn anti-Semitism. The US is biased on human rights. It lets Cuba (the world's biggest prison) onto the commission while voting the USA (where most refugees want to go) off!
Why would a UN-created body like the IPCC be any different? I mean, let's be objective here... okay, at least let's be neutral. -- Uncle Ed 16:38, 14 Aug 2003 (UTC)
( William M. Connolley 20:38, 13 Oct 2003 (UTC)) To start, it would be nice if you stopped changing all instances of IPCC into " IPCC, a united nations organisation". Its silly. And can we leave Israel out of GW please? And no, of course, you shouldn't listen to IPCC only: you should read what they say, and if you disagree, you should follow up their references to see if they have misquoted the papers (most unlikely; I know of no examples at all, nor even any accusations) or if you agree with the original papers.
But more substantively: someone (I think Ed) inserted a quote from that well-known totally-objective source co2science, and misattributed it to a scientific paper. This was a fairly crass mistake: scientific papers don't say things like "It is ludicrous to believe that..."
More: the "first found in the 1800's" has now become an (unnamed) midwestern city. Please can whoever added that attribute it? Or I will re-correct, as above.
There is some deeply unconvincing text about "some sci anal" showing the T record depends on closeness to UHI. All unsourced. It should go, unless it can be sourced. Are these unsourced comments the "objective science" Ed mentions above?
-- Uncle Ed 20:41, 13 Oct 2003 (UTC)
( William M. Connolley 19:56, 25 Oct 2003 (UTC)) Looking over the first few paras I find stuff that looks dodgy. So, to quote:
I've never seen one such, but perhaps they exist. Anyone got an example?
Some while ago I removed this US bit, since google suggested British city and the US bit is unsourced. Anyone know where this little bit of info came from?
"several degrees", 68 vs 64... are thse just random numbers, or do they have any source at all?
Oh, come on, William! You never heard of " HotLanta"?
And what about your comment pointing out the scientific work using logarithms and trendlines to relate city population to annual temperature increase? -- Uncle Ed 15:52, 31 Oct 2003 (UTC)
It has been known for some time that cities are generally warmer than the surrounding, more rural areas. Because of this relative warmth, a city may be referred to as an urban heat island. [1]
The urban heat island phenomenon was first discovered in the early 1800s in London. [2]
According to satellite readings from NASA, average temperatures in cities and urban areas can range 5 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit hotter than surrounding areas. [3]
The following paragraph presents a POV, in the guise of being "really true":
I think it would be better to attribute the claims about heat absorption to the scientists (or others) making those claims.
Also, the claim that "observations show otherwise" should also be attributed to its advocates.
In fact, before today's round of edits, it seems that someone was trying to "dispute" the idea that cities are consistently hotter. I guess that's what that 180-year-old observation about 1/3 a degree Fahrenheit of daytime cooling was all about.
Well, everything should be footnoted and attributed. If there are people who insist on believing in GW who want to discount the UHI effect, they have just as much right to their beliefs as the real scientists :-) -- Uncle Ed 16:19, 3 Nov 2003 (UTC)
If my changes or comments seem bizarre to a practicing scientist, then perhaps we should just revert all my changes until I regain the power of coherent writing :-)
I am determined not to have an edit war on this page, so I'd rather just go back to the previously-acceptable version rather than kick up a fuss. -- Uncle Ed 17:49, 3 Nov 2003 (UTC)
( William M. Connolley 20:58, 3 Nov 2003 (UTC)) OK but it really winds me up having you talk about attribution here like some poor wronged innocent and then adding unattributed stuff yourself.
I've done a re-write, rather than reversion, which emphasises the largest-at-night. If anyone can find reliable sources for otherwise, why, please put them in.
The claim about the "mistake" in co2science article is quite strained and seems out of place. From earlier comment, the only "mistake" is Connelly's opinion that the Idsos' "reviews" must not provide any info that the article being reviewed does not (overtly?) disclose. [suggestion: prove it's a factual mistake or say that you can't verify the sizes of the towns they identify or drop the point.]
The IPCC estimate of 20th century effect of urbanization effect on the global surface temperature record was updated in the 2001 WG1 TAR.
The upper end of the range cited is more than double the figure presented here. [suggestion: replace current treatment with one which reflects most recent assessment, such as: "IPCC cites urbanization effect of up to 0.12°C in the land surface temperature data for 2000.
The urbanization effect on temperature, they conclude, can be trended linearly back to zero in 1900. A co-ordinating lead author for that chapter of the TAR was lead author on a paper that explains the basis for that 0.12°C figure [see Folland et al., Global Temperature Change and its uncertainties since 1861, Geophysical Research Letters 28(13):2621-2624, July 1, 2001]."
Your Wikipedia efforts are sincerely appreciated, and my comments reflect nothing but admiration for what you are doing.
Steve Schulin
( William M. Connolley 17:25, 12 Jul 2004 (UTC)) Welcome back to climate change, Ed. I've made a poor start though... anyway, too much of what you wrote was (IMHO) bad that I've reverted it rather than changing it line by line. Let me try to justify that:
This is a bad start. UHI is the idea that cities are hotter than their surroundings. This isn't terribly controversial so its a good place to start. But you start off instead defining UHI as the theory that cities get progressively hotter. This *is* controversial, and isn't the usual definition.
Note that you have removed my "whether" from this sentence. Yours implies that they *are* affecting the record, and all we need to do is work out by how much.
I strongly suspect this is actually base climate dependent. For reasons best known to yourself you decided that there was only one report for winter.
it isn't necessary to write the article in this deliberately provocative way. For you, Peterson must be a raving GW-er. You don't seem to understand the possibility that he may just be a humble scientist doing his research.
Etc etc. But thats enough for now: lets see whether you want to take this seriously or not.
This whole section needs a rewrite. It looks like it was cobbled together poorly or hastily. It fails to explain why the various advocates believe that UHI has or has not skewed the temperature record.
I'd like to see some assertions by scientists on both sides of this dispute. Like, Joe Blow says it's all hot air because his analysis of rural and remote land-based thermometer records shows very little warming: significantly less than even the most conservative of the IPCC "models". Or, B. Leaver compared rural with urban stations and found that there was no significant difference: cities are NOT warming up faster than the countryside. -- Uncle Ed 15:29, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)
I recall reading an assertion by a climate researcher that the IPCC, et al., have undercompensated for the UHI effect. If I locate a quote and a source for this assertion, will you allow me to put it into the article?
Another assertion I remember reading is a study of all land-based thermometer records in California. The 20th century temperature increase these records showed was directly proportional to the size of the community in which the thermometer was placed: remote areas showed no significant warming, rural areas showed slight warming, small towns showed moderate warming, and cities showed just about the same amount of warming predicted by IPCC models for the average of the entire atmosphere. The writer implied that the only way to "account" for the UHI effect is to ignore all but the remote stations' readings.
Also, a Wikipedia link I followed to from a pro-IPCC site concedes that satellite and weather balloon readings (a) agree well with each other and (b) show hardly any warming compared to land-based thermometers. If I locate this quote, would you mind letting me place it into the article? -- Uncle Ed 12:46, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Ed Poor: SEPP examined some of Peterson's earlier work, but balanced it against Goodridge.
In 1999, Singer wrote:
why the hell am i writing this??? i could just be doing just about anything else right now....
I just wanted to quickly note that this article and other GW articles repeatedly mention the "concensus" view, which amounts to nothing more than the IPCC view, which in turn amounts to nothing more than the view of about one half of the thousands of scientists who were consulted for the IPCC assessment.
Any time someone mentions a "dissenting" viewpoint, it is dismissed with no intellectual justification. A nice example is in this very article. It is mentioned that skeptics claim that UHI may be responsible for a large portion of the warming, BUT THERE IS NO EVIDENCE (?!?) or something to that effect.
There is evidence... tons of evidence, produced by radio sonde balloons and satellites, both of which show UHI to be an enormous and obvious factor in the surface record. Why certain contributors here are so determined to keep readers from hearing about them is beyond me.
It is something for other contributors to watch for. There is an institutional bias in this particular scientific field and everyone should watch for the types of omission and censorship that is almost to be expected. I find it very humorous that there is even mention of "no peer-reviewed papers to support" the skeptics claim. Does anyone wonder why?
Maybe I will contribute some nice quotes from respected climatologists (MIT, etc.) who are explaining the near certainty with which you will be denied grants and publication if you do not "toe the IPCC line".
Readers deserve the full truth, not the IPCC approved truth. That should include mentioning to them that the IPCCs own report omitted the opinions of about half of the contributing scientists.
( William M. Connolley 18:31, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)) I'll dump this in here to remind me to read it some time:
First, this article [Parker] talks about how the UHI is a generally accepted theory.
Then, it talks about how the UHI effect has had no overall effect on temperature measurements (re: global warming).
I can see 4 possibilities:
(1) temperature measurements happen during the time of the day when the UHI effect isn't apperent.
(2) The proportion of temperature measurements within urban areas vs rural areas is so tiny that it doesn't have any effect.
(3) UHI effect does effect temperature measurements, and the conventional wisdom is wrong.
(4) UHI doesn't exist -- sure, some cities are warmer than before, but others are cooler -- random variation.
We seem to have an incipient disagreement... I've reverted:
That text was inconsistent with the text there The explanation for the night-time maximum is that the principal cause of UHI is blocking of "sky view" during cooling: surfaces lose heat at night principally by radiation to the (comparitavely cold) sky, and this is blocked by the building in an urban area.
I don't think the new text works: if convection moves away the daytime heat, then it wouldn't affect the nighttime. If the main forcing is during the day, the main effect would be seen during the day. At the least, that text needs some source.
William M. Connolley 21:33:05, 2005-08-25 (UTC).
Wow, that was quick. I'm new at this (the wiki bit, not the science), so please bear with me.
The basic argument is this - during the day, the sun heats the surface/ground/buildings/etc. The surface tries to heat the air, but the convection/mixing with rural air prevents significant warming. After the sun sets, the air stablizes and can be heated by the ground, which hasn't yet cooled. (While the warm air is more noticeable, the bulk of the heat energy is stored in the ground, due to much higher heat capacities.) Does that make sense?
I will work on finding some sources.
However, I disagree with the statement that the blocking of "sky view" is the principle cause of the UHI. It is certainly one of the causes, but nowhere have I seen it described as the primary reason, including in the sources listed.
-- David Streutker 22:39, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
I've changed a bit of it and added some sources. I plan to add more soon (in a different section) to help clarify the difference between surface and air temperature UHIs.-- David Streutker 03:44, 29 August 2005 (UTC)
In my opinion, Omaha Shields should not be merged here. It appears to be both a neologism and original research and should just be deleted rather than being merged here. -- Pak21 14:57, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
footnote number 2 is a broken link and i was just wondering if this claim was disputed because as of now it's not really cited.-- Dmcheatw 02:14, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
Article says:
Yes, and this view needs amplification. The two sides on this issue are:
I've tried to add info about this dispute before, but I can't find it this year. Has anyone seen where it's gotten to? -- Uncle Ed 13:46, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
Ed removed Not to be confused with global warming, scientists call this phenomenon the "urban heat island effect, errm, for reasons that are unclear. Many people do confuse the two: making it clear that they are separate seems a good idea.
Ed removed: ...for example, urban and rural trends are very similar. with the comment the POV that urban and rural trends are very similar needs facts and figures which is clear proof that he hasn't bothered to read the article, which lower down says: the trends in urban stations for 1951 to 1989 (0.10°C/decade) are not greatly more than those for all land stations (0.09°C/decade). and simlarly the rural trend is 0.70°C/century from 1880 to 1998, which is actually larger than the full station trend (0.65°C/century)
So I've put them back. Naturally enough, I took out the unpublished tripe from WH, because the published results in the page are better.
William M. Connolley 16:04, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
I already had that, mate. I'm interested in adding the opposing POV that rural trends are significantly higher than urban trends. In California, for example.
Also, Atlanta is 5C hotter than the surrounding area. If that happened in 5 centuries, that would be a 1 degree/century greater urban increase than rural.
And please, spare me the personal remarks like "pathetic" and "good faith". I'm interested in the article. -- Uncle Ed 15:24, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
It's not "bias" to add an opposing POV. "Wikipedia's NPOV policy contemplates inclusion of all significant points of view," you know.
As for "actual numbers in the article", they represent one POV (the one you, my notable friend, espouse :-) with which other sources disagree. "Wikipedia's neutral point-of-view (NPOV) policy contemplates inclusion of all significant points of view regarding any subject on which there is division of opinion." -- Uncle Ed 20:08, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
I added a paragraph on the health effects of rural vs. urban populations from Johns Hopkins University. 18:57, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
After visiting site, it does not appear to be spam and offers useful content which appears to be relevant. If there are no objections, I will repost.
I'm going to put a big load of text in here - when this is answered please go ahead and delete it, but I've got a bunch of questions first!
there is a risk that the effects of urban sprawl might be misinterpreted as an increase in global temperature. However, the fact that heat islands have such a large effect is, paradoxically, evidence that it is largely absent from the record, otherwise warming would be shown as much larger in the record. The 'heat island' warming does unquestionably affect cities and the people who live in them, but it is not at all clear that it biases trends in historical temperature record: for example, urban and rural trends are very similar.
I'm really sorry - but can someone explain what this means? I get that the trends are the same in city and rural - great. But this 'large effect means it must be absent since we see a small effect' argument seems paradoxical - perhaps we see a small part of the 'large effect'. To give an analogy - maybe we are not seeing a skyscraper being built next to the thermometer - maybe they just paved the road to it. Can someone explain? -- Dilaudid 22:48, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
IPCC release your data on how you "compensated" for the UHI.
We have a disagreement [6] over the inclusion of some text from Lindzen. My argument is that reporting his earlier comments, without including the latter ones that clearly show he accepts the current record, is misleading. One solution would be to delete the misleading text Some have argued for an ill-defined "influence" of the UHI on the temperature records without attempting to quantify it - for example Richard Lindzen in 1990 William M. Connolley 09:42, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
I would like a second opinion as to whether you agree with the statement attached to the image in the 'Causes' section of this article. It explains the image shows cooler areas marked by denser vegetation but in my view it actually shows the complete opposite! Surely this is demonstrating the reverse effect discussed in this article and therefore makes for a very odd example? Domentolen 00:55, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
This article needs to address two very important issues: 1. the controversy around unwarranted government adjustments to the temperature record (to adjust for "rural cooling" rather than "urban warming") [7] and 2. ongoing research into the controversy regarding poor siting of temperature stations leading to a warming bias (especially in rural sites). Government adjustments to the temperature record are continuing. But check this out [8] and this. [9] I came across this on Comment 15 here. [10] I have done enough reading now to be convinced that the 1990s were NOT warmer than the dust bowl years of the 1930s. I believe alarmists like Jim Hansen are playing with the temperature record. In effect, these "adjustments" to the temperature record are done in order to create evidence of global warming. I also believe there are a number of warming biases in our land surface temperature network as pointed out by the Davey and Pielke paper in 2005. [11] I am aware of the Peterson paper in 2006 which tried to say the problems Davey and Pielke found in eastern Colorado are not wide spread and there is no UHI warming bias. However, there are a number of problems with the Peterson paper. [12] Pielke has called for a thorough documentation of the sites, including photographs and that effort is underway now led by Anthony Watts [13] and encouraged by Pielke [14] [15] and Steve McIntyre. [16] I need some help locating additional reliable sources on temperature adjustments. If anyone would like to participate in this effort, you can go to my User Page and click the "Email this user" button and we can discuss where this information may be found. RonCram 00:37, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
I believe the bolded portion is unsupported:
"Another view, often held by skeptics of global warming, is that the heat island effect accounts for much or nearly all warming recorded by land-based thermometers. However, these views are mainly presented in "popular literature" and there are no known scientific peer-reviewed papers holding this view [dubious — see talk page]."
If there is no supporting evidence to this claim it should not be included. -- Theblog 21:40, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
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I don't see why the para needs to be cut. Its talking about something we all know is out there. Were there any papers saying this, the septics would have found them, so its no good pretending they might exist William M. Connolley 08:22, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
(Encyclopedic content must be verifiable.) The statement is unverified, the onus is on YOU to prove it when you put it back, not the other way around, you are just pretending it is not there. You can not verify it therefore it should be removed. -- Theblog 23:33, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
Read the first part of the section, it is STILL unverified despite you two constantly removing the citation needed tag. Do you believe that the bolded portion above is verified? -- Theblog 19:37, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
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help) it may be that Sandalow's source is Wikipedia (which isn't stated - but a distinct possibility) - but i'll assume for now that he did his research and fact-checking. -- Kim D. Petersen 23:35, 5 July 2007 (UTC)In contrast, as one source reports, “there are no known scientific peer-reviewed papers” to support the view that "the heat island effect accounts for much or nearly all warming recorded by land-based thermometers.”
Stop deleting stuff you find inconvenient. There are no known papers saying this William M. Connolley 13:57, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
I believe the bolded portion of the following is POV pushing:
"Some have argued for an ill-defined "influence" of the UHI on the temperature records without attempting to quantify it - for example Richard Lindzen in 1990.[19]"
Since Lindzen himself does not describe his paper as "ill-defined" it can not be described as much by editors, if there is a quote from a source that believe so, that would be fine to use. -- Theblog 21:40, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
Would it help at all to replace "ill-defined" with "un-defined". Lindzen certainly provides no clarity on the issue. Perhaps you can find some other septic who does? And perhaps some papers that do assert an influence? William M. Connolley 22:11, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
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link)Pielke et al(2005) cannot refute Parker(2006) - that is not possible. Its rather more likely that the good Dr. Pielke really meant Parker(2004) and included Parker(2006) by error. And that is not WP:OR - its editorial oversight. -- Kim D. Petersen 18:12, 6 July 2007 (UTC) Secondly the Pielke et al(2005) paper does not reference Parker(2006) [or any preprint thereof] - but only the Parker(2004) paper. -- Kim D. Petersen 18:33, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
not clear to me why you feel . -- Theblog 19:41, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
This is OR: "Assuming you mean the Walters thing, it is of no clear relevance. Pielke thinnks it is, but thats only his opinion. It too has zero cites (of course, being new). The 2007 paper rebuts nothing: Pielkes assertion that it does is simply wrong." The weight issue is another subject, apparently you two believe the nine extra words crosses some mythical weight line you've established. -- Theblog 22:16, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
It all comes down to assessing the relative weight of different ideas. It is *not* true that because an "expert" has said something, it should be in the article. Nor is it true that because X has 8 sentences then Y deserves at least 2. Your understanding or OR is wrong: if I'd put that on the article it would be; on the talk page its fine. We are allowed to use our judgement in assessing what goe sin - how could it be otherwise? There is no clear way of assessing the significance of Pielkes views: the fact that they were published in a less prestigious journal that Parkers, and that they have not been cited whereas Parkers have been, is a clue, though William M. Connolley 10:39, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
I believe the bolded portion is unsupported:
"Another view, often held by skeptics of global warming, is that the heat island effect accounts for much or nearly all warming recorded by land-based thermometers. However, these views are mainly presented in "popular literature" and there are no known scientific peer-reviewed papers holding this view [dubious — see talk page]."
If there is no supporting evidence to this claim it should not be included. -- Theblog 00:57, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
I removed [24] because I don't believe the T errors stuff. Its not possible to know William M. Connolley 08:19, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
Let me cover the basics here on the Watts project. It is not funded by energy interests. Watts is a meteorologist and the expenses (mostly bandwidth for the website) are funded out of his own pocket. He is not accepting donations. The rules for submitting sites requires site maintainers be informed of what is going on (including where the results are going to go) and for them to be given an opportunity to fix any errors. There has been no prior effort to check the physical condition of USHCN sites, nothing to compare Watts' efforts to. The universe of people who know what's going on is Watts' volunteers and the site maintainers themselves. There is no meaningful independent review of Watts' efforts available outside the collective opinions of the site maintainers and those independent reviewers are consulted as part of the survey structure. The only analysis done by the Watts project outside of measuring physical distances is toting up the totals of the CRN ratings and making a pie chart.
My assertion is that conventional peer review is largely meaningless in this class of studies. The data gathered is pretty straightforward and nobody who has not been consulted yet is going to be able to meaningfully contribute to accuracy. This is an extremely rare case because usually you don't have large scale critical scientific systems (like ground temperature systems) going for decades without meaningful physical review. But you do in this case.
I further assert that ground station temperature readings are so foundational that an effort that succeeded in finding large unaccounted for error would throw an unknown but very large number of studies into doubt. It is useful and proper to give some sort of mention to such efforts as a heads up so that changes can be noted incrementally and we don't have a 'Pravda moment' where certain conclusions that are rock solid on Monday are completely false on Tuesday. (If you don't like the tag 'Pravda moment', and at least one editor doesn't, come up with a better one and I'll use it). TMLutas 01:23, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
I ended up not getting a good reference so I wrote the surfacestations.org contact site. I received an email reply fairly quickly. He paid his own way and Dr. Pielke invited him to submit a paper on the project. His stuff passed the normal process for inclusion. TMLutas 22:23, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
Its become clear that the equivalent peer review TMP is claiming is spurious. The claims of temperature errors are also clearly wrong, for reasons I've explained, but TML has failed to grasp William M. Connolley 09:43, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
I reverted this [25]:
I have some sympathy for the substance, but the edit can't stand as is. The first ref is simply a confused rehash of the second, so shouldn't be there. The second is from E&E, a dodgy source. The edit fails to make clear that its only the China data that is in question. The edit confuses data with metadata William M. Connolley 13:54, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
A problem exists regarding the citation number 15 for this: "Another view, often held by skeptics of global warming, is that much of the temperature increase seen in land based thermometers could be due to an increase in urbanisation and the siting of measurement stations in urban areas [4][5]. However, these views are mainly presented in "popular literature" and there are no known scientific peer-reviewed papers holding this view.[15]"
But upon following citation labeled [15] it leads to an article by David B. Sandalow, and the relevant text is: "The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, using only peer-reviewed data, concluded that urban heat islands caused “at most” 0.05°C of the increase in global average temperatures during the period 1900-1990 — roughly one-tenth of the increase during this period. In contrast, as one source reports, “there are no known scientific peer-reviewed papers” to support the view that “the heat island effect accounts for much or nearly all warming recorded by land-based thermometers.”"
The problem here is that there is no reference for this "one source". What we have is a reference to an article by David B. Sandalow, but he is quoting an anonymous source. The statement itself is not Mr. Sandalow's, but rather anonymous. So in effect we have a wikipedia citation that is citing an anonymous source -- because it is not Mr. Sandalow that said this, but rather an anonymous quotation.
I recommend therefore that the sentence: "However, these views are mainly presented in "popular literature" and there are no known scientific peer-reviewed papers holding this view.[15]" be struck unless a better citation is found. SunSw0rd ( talk) 14:59, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
I brought this up about 7 times before, it is obviously impossible to prove a negative, despite what this "RS" claims. The line should be removed- the burden of proof is not on those wishing to take the line out, but those wishing to keep it in- they need to show the lines validity, which they of course can not do without the reference that even WC and KD both admit was probably based on the original unsupported wikipedia article. There is no good reason to leave a line in that everyone admits is not cleanly supported. -- Theblog ( talk) 17:16, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
I object to the deletion of material by User:William M. Connolley. The quotation was:
With mounting evidence that global warming is taking place, the cause of this warming has come under vigorous scrutiny. Recent studies have lead to a debate over what contributes the most to regional temperature changes. We investigated air temperature patterns in California from 1950 to 2000. Statistical analyses were used to test the significance of temperature trends in California subregions in an attempt to clarify the spatial and temporal patterns of the occurrence and intensities of warming. Most regions showed a stronger increase in minimum temperatures than with mean and maximum temperatures. Areas of intensive urbanization showed the largest positive trends, while rural, non-agricultural regions showed the least warming.
Reason -- most of the material in the "global warming section tends toward the point of view that urbanization is not an impactor. See "Fourth Assessment Report from the IPCC" immediately proceeding. Now I have cited material that takes the contrary opinion, and it was well cited. I suggest that this material needs to be included for balance. Now Mr. Connelley stated: "california != global; read the peterson stuff. we could find any number of different regional effects" as justification for reversion -- that is an assertion that could be applied to the IPCC material as well. The fact is, I believe, that providing a more balanced perspective helps maintain NPOV. I am restoring my edit and request any discussion be held here before any reverts. SunSw0rd ( talk) 21:56, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
The purpose of the edit is to point out that urban heat islands appear to be contributing factors to the measurement of global warming. - yes thats what I thought. Since the best science is that this is wrong, your point is wrong, and shouldn't be in there. contrary to the material being quoted out of context - no-one said you were quoting out of context. Read what I said. I said that what you wrote doesn't fit *into* this context. We shouldn't include a study about a study on the Maldive Islands in an article about global sea level, ebcause its local, unless there is some reason for the Maldives to be more important than the thousands of better managed tidal stations around the world William M. Connolley ( talk) 19:02, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
From Quantifying the influence of anthropogenic surface processes and inhomogeneities on gridded global climate data in the "Journal of Geophysical Research-Atmospheres".
Local land surface modification and variations in data quality affect temperature trends in surface-measured data. Such effects are considered extraneous for the purpose of measuring climate change, and providers of climate data must develop adjustments to filter them out. If done correctly, temperature trends in climate data should be uncorrelated with socioeconomic variables that determine these extraneous factors. This hypothesis can be tested, which is the main aim of this paper. Using a new database for all available land-based grid cells around the world we test the null hypothesis that the spatial pattern of temperature trends in a widely used gridded climate data set is independent of socioeconomic determinants of surface processes and data inhomogeneities. The hypothesis is strongly rejected (P = 7.1 × 10−14), indicating that extraneous (nonclimatic) signals contaminate gridded climate data. The patterns of contamination are detectable in both rich and poor countries and are relatively stronger in countries where real income is growing. We apply a battery of model specification tests to rule out spurious correlations and endogeneity bias. We conclude that the data contamination likely leads to an overstatement of actual trends over land. Using the regression model to filter the extraneous, nonclimatic effects reduces the estimated 1980–2002 global average temperature trend over land by about half.
What does this mean? It means -- according to Patrick J. Michaels (one of the co-authors): "Scientists have known for years that temperature records can be contaminated by so-called "urban warming," which results from the fact that long-term temperature histories tend to have originated at points of commerce. The bricks, buildings, and pavement of cities retain the heat of the day and impede the flow of ventilating winds...Adjusting data for this effect, or using only rural stations, the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change states with confidence that less than 10% of the observed warming in long-term climate histories is due to urbanization.
That's a wonderful hypothesis, and Ross and I decided to test it...we built a computer model that included both regional climatic factors, such as latitude, as well as socioeconomic indicators like GDP and applied it to the IPCC's temperature history...IPCC divides the world into latitude-longitude boxes, and for each of these we supplied information on GDP, literacy, amount of missing data (a measure of quality), population change, economic growth and change in coal consumption (the more there is, the cooler the area).
Guess what. Almost all the socioeconomic variables were important. We found the data were of highest quality in North America and that they were very contaminated in Africa and South America. Overall, we found that the socioeconomic biases "likely add up to a net warming bias at the global level that may explain as much as half the observed land-based warming trend."
We then modified IPCC's temperature data for these biases and compared the statistical distribution of the warming to the original IPCC data and to satellite measures of lower atmospheric temperature that have been available since 1979. Since these are from a single source (the U.S. government), and they don't have any urban contamination, they are likely to be affected very little by economic factors.
Indeed. The adjusted IPCC data now looks a lot like the satellite data. The biggest change was that the high (very warm) end of the distribution in the IPCC data was knocked off by the unbiasing process..."
Now -- I have pointed out before -- there ARE studies that indicate that the UHI may be affecting the IPCC data. But when I tried posting before, I was told that the data was "regional" and therefore not applicable. Or that a single study is insufficient. Well, more studies are now coming out. Here is another one. And it points out clearly that socioeconomic factors ARE impacting the data. So...how many studies must be done before their information can be added to the page to provide balance and WP:NPOV??? SunSw0rd ( talk) 15:25, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
Hello i have recently proposed the Wikiproject Earth. This Wikiproject`s scope includes this article. This wikiproject will overview the continents, oceans, atsmophere and global warming Please Voice your opinion by clicking anywhere on this comment except for my name. -- Iwilleditu Talk :) Contributions —Preceding comment was added at 15:37, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
On July 8th, CBS News had a story about bias in Wikipedia articles about global warming; see here. The story specifically named User: William M. Connolley and User: KimDabelsteinPetersen as being responsible for biasing articles. I have not looked at all recent edits by those two, just the ones for this article. But some of the latest edits by them for this article are clearly biased: take a look at their reverting here and here. The change that they are reverting is directly relevant for the article, fairly worded, and well-sourced. There is a third editor, User: Stephan Schulz who incorrectly claims that making a fairly-worded well-sourced statement about someone violates WP:BLP. AlfBit ( talk) 07:58, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
Note that there was additional discussion regarding this topic in AlfBit's talk page. A permanent link to the page as of now (see time stamp at the end of my note) is here. Brusegadi ( talk) 04:22, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
The section I removed was:
"However, these views are mainly presented in "popular literature" and there are no known scientific peer-reviewed papers holding this view."
The view was that, "much of the temperature increase seen in land based thermometers could be due to an increase in urbanisation and the siting of measurement stations in urban areas."
I provided a link, which clearly states:
"Hansen and Imhoff are making a special effort to minimize any distortion of the record caused by urban heat-island effects as they research global warming. It is recognized that recorded temperatures at many weather stations are warmer than they should be because of human developments around the station. Hansen and Imhoff used satellite images of nighttime lights to identify stations where urbanization was most likely to contaminate the weather records."
"We find larger warming at urban stations on average," said Hansen, "so we use the rural stations to adjust the urban records, thus obtaining a better measure of the true climate change."
"Evidence of a slight, local human influence is found even in small towns and it is probably impossible to totally eliminate in the global analyses."
Obviously if nobody thought distortion was occurring then there wouldn't be an attempt to correct for it. Thus, I can see no reason to keep the sentence that I removed - a questionable sentence at best. TheGoodLocust ( talk) 16:49, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
<outdent> Nice bait and switch - no we aren't dealing with the previous sentence which I did not modify. We are talking about the ridiculous sentence which my source completely disproved. Apparently this sentence has come under scrutiny before, and quite rightly, and the view was that if it was disproven then it should be removed. The sentence is POV, false and has no place in this article. Oh, and you'd better check yourself, I didn't make any "personal attacks" - just observations of verifiable fact. If you feel some guilt, for some reason, and therefore think that was an attack then that is entirely upon your conscience. No, not an attack at all, in fact I admire the dedication you and Connoley have to the subject and I wonder how many people you've gotten rightfully banned from the subject since they don't believe the "truth" - after all, the ends justify the means right? TheGoodLocust ( talk) 07:20, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
Errm, I doubt this is going anywhere but I suppose I can make some effort to explain. UHI contamination - +ve and -ve -is present in various stations. Mostly, it gets taken out, so doesn't make a substatantial impact on the global T record. Various factors make this obvious - that the rural and total records; or the land and sea records; are all similar. If you're interested in the numbers, the article provides them and links to sources. No, we aren't going to change it just because you can't be bothered to read it William M. Connolley ( talk) 20:43, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
I put up the NPOV tag due to the obvious issues of the section and since you and Petersen seem content to merely revert ad nauseum without backing up your actions. TheGoodLocust ( talk) 00:30, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
It looks like this article's recent edit issues have fallen into the global warming gravity well of debate, of which there is no escape due to its content. Since this is merely a C class article (since it is lacking enough references for B class), and apparently not getting to GA status anytime soon, I suggest that the whole section be deleted for the time being in order to make peace. The other option is just to keep the deleted line deleted, which was originally done. There appear to be ownership issues with the global warming section which will make the debate continue for a long, long time, and make the article a relative orphan within the met project. Make wikilove, not wikiwar. These articles are everyone's to edit and modify. Otherwise, improve the article to GA status and leave the debatable content out so it can improved enough to pass. These debates just keep people from improving articles, and don't act to improve their content, despite best intentions. Thegreatdr ( talk) 21:54, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
True, the article itself does appear to need significant work, but as mentioned above, edit warring is more harmful than it is productive. I'll keep an eye on this page, as temporary full-protection might be justified in the case of further disruption. – Juliancolton | Talk 19:46, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
Attempting to return to the substance: Since this is merely a C class article (since it is lacking enough references for B class), and apparently not getting to GA status anytime soon, I suggest that the whole section be deleted for the time being in order to make peace. - I don't understand the logic of this suggestion. I care nothing for the C / B / FA class stuff, BTW, though you are welcome to. I assume the contentious material is represented by this revert [28]. You are suggesting deleting the entirety of the Relation to global warming section? That sounds very odd. As you'll see from the edit history, that is the most interesting part of the article William M. Connolley ( talk) 20:24, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
You can also read [29] if you want to William M. Connolley ( talk) 21:54, 17 June 2009 (UTC)