Lemming Tracks: Global Warming Solution: Air Conditioned Parking Lots

Now that global warming has replaced the coming ice age as a looming disaster, humanity awaits the doom and gloom of flooded cities, submerged yacht harbors, and offshore ocean front property.

But fear not! After intense study the Lemming found a solution!

Enclosed, air conditioned parking lots and airports!!

The cost will be enormous, and humans will have to give up air travel - airplanes couldn't land at the roofed-over airports - but perhaps it would be worthwhile. Or maybe not.

Here's what goaded the Lemming into this rant:

"Distorted data? Feds close 600 weather stations amid criticism they're situated to report warming"
Maxim Lott, FoxNews.com (August 13, 2013)

"Data from hundreds of weather stations located around the U.S. appear to show the planet is getting warmer, but some critics say it's the government's books that are getting cooked -- thanks to temperature readings from sweltering parking lots, airports and other locations that distort the true state of the climate.

"Indeed, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has closed some 600 out of nearly 9,000 weather stations over the past two years that it has deemed problematic or unnecessary, after a long campaign by one critic highlighting the problem of using unreliable data. The agency says the closures will help improve gathering of weather data, but critics like meterologist [!] and blogger Anthony Watts say it is too little, too late.

" 'The question remains as to why they continue to use a polluted mix of well-sited and poorly-sited stations,' Watts told FoxNews.com...."

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) probably set up weather recording stations on or near parking lots and airports for practical reasons. It'd be easier to get at a weather station that's near a parking lot, than one that's not conveniently close to paved roads. Besides, it's a good idea for pilots to know what the weather's like at airports.

Making assumptions about world climate based on data from notoriously sun-baked spots? That might not be the best idea.

'Trust Us'

"...Watts has for years searched for weather stations that have flaws. And he points to a still-open station at Yosemite park as an example of one with 'heat sinks' - objects that store heat, and then release it at night. Heat sinks can cause stations located in or near them to give off useless data -- generally in the form of inflated temperatures not representative of the broader area.

" 'The heat sinks are a road, a building, and stacked metal pipe and beams surrounding the station,' he said.
"After the heat sinks were added at Yosemite, temperature readings show a curious trend: minimum nighttime temperatures increased more than daytime temperatures. Watts says that's because the concrete structures store heat that is released at night, and that such a trend backs up the idea that the 'heat sinks' are having an effect.

"But the government agency that compiles the temperature data says that such concerns are unfounded because of statistical methods used to adjust the data...."

Maybe those "statistical methods used to adjust the data" really are valid. On the other hand, the Lemming has joked about the expert who knows he's right: because it says so in the book he wrote.

Getting a Grip About Climate Change

Some humans know this, but the Lemming will rant anyway: CHANGE HAPPENS!

Water flows. Plants grow: and climate changes. Humans started finding out just how much stuff changes a few hundred years back, and some still don't want to believe it. The Lemming prefers living in the real world, and that's another topic. Topics:

• "Taking Life a Thousand Years at a Time"
  A Catholic Citizen in America (June 10, 2012)
• " 'In a State of Journeying' "
  A Catholic Citizen in America (January 18, 2012)
• "Climate Changes: So What Else is New?"
  A Catholic Citizen in America (May 16, 2011)

Some changes are progressive, some run in cycles: like the sun's 22-year sunspot cycle. The sun's magnetic field is decreasing just now, and will go out completely in a few months. Interestingly, the Lemming hasn't read about anybody blaming Big Beach or the other political party.

"Big Beach" is the Lemming's invention, by the way: it's an imaginary cabal or resort owners who force folks into taking vacations.

Back to climate change, the Lemming would be concerned if scientists discovered that for several years the world's weather hadn't been changing at all. That would be weird.

Earth's climate has been changing for billions of years. The Lemming thinks it will continue to do so, no matter where humans put weather stations.

Related posts:

• "Lemming Tracks: 'My Mind's Made Up, Don't Confuse Me With the Facts;' and Climate Change"
  (April 5, 2011)
• "Lemming Tracks: Blasphemy! Or, 'We're All Gonna Die' Predictions That Fizzled "
  (December 30, 2010)
• "Lemming Tracks: Climate Change is the New Global Warming?"
  (December 6, 2010)
• "Lemming Tracks: Ice Age, Global Warming, Climate Change, and Living Scared"
  (November 19, 2010)
• "Global Warming and Lost Documentation: 'Please Pay No Attention' "
  (December 8, 2009)