{"id":415341,"date":"2025-11-30T13:47:55","date_gmt":"2025-11-30T12:47:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=415341"},"modified":"2025-11-30T13:47:57","modified_gmt":"2025-11-30T12:47:57","slug":"corrupted-climate-stations-the-official-u-s-temperature-record-remains-fatally-flawed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=415341","title":{"rendered":"Corrupted Climate Stations: The Official U.S. Temperature Record Remains Fatally Flawed"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Comparison<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From ClimateRealism<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Heartland Institute<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Official NOAA temperature stations produce corrupted data due to purposeful placement in man-made hot spots<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Nationwide study follows up widespread corruption and heat biases found at NOAA stations in 2009, and the heat-bias distortion problem is even worse now<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

A new study,\u00a0Corrupted Climate Stations: The Official U.S. Surface Temperature Record Remains Fatally Flawed<\/em><\/a>, finds approximately 96 percent of U.S. temperature stations used to measure climate change fail to meet what the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) considers to be \u201cacceptable\u201d and uncorrupted placement by its own published standards.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Visible
2022_Surface_Station_Report.pdf<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The report, published by The Heartland Institute, was compiled via satellite and in-person survey visits to NOAA weather stations that contribute to the \u201cofficial\u201d land temperature data in the United States. The research shows that 96% of these stations are corrupted by localized effects of urbanization \u2013 producing heat-bias because of their close proximity to asphalt, machinery, and other heat-producing, heat-trapping, or heat-accentuating objects. Placing temperature stations in such locations violates NOAA\u2019s own published standards (see section 3.1\u00a0at this link<\/a>) and strongly undermines the legitimacy and the magnitude of the official consensus on long-term climate warming trends in the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWith a 96 percent warm-bias in U.S. temperature measurements, it is impossible to use any statistical methods to derive an accurate climate trend for the U.S.\u201d said Heartland Institute Senior Fellow <\/strong>Anthony Watts<\/strong><\/a>,<\/strong> the director of the study. \u201cData from the stations that have not been corrupted by faulty placement show a rate of warming in the United States reduced by almost half compared to all stations.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NOAA\u2019s \u201cRequirements and Standards for [National Weather Service] Climate Observations<\/a>\u201d instructs that temperature data instruments must be \u201cover level terrain (earth or sod) typical of the area around the station and at least 100 feet from any extensive concrete or paved surface.\u201d And that \u201call attempts will be made to avoid areas where rough terrain or air drainage are proven to result in non-representative temperature data.\u201d This new report shows that instruction is regularly violated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

READ THE REPORT (PDF).<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This new report is a follow up to a March 2009 study, titled \u201cIs the U.S. Surface Temperature Record Reliable?<\/em>\u201d<\/a> which highlighted a subset of over 1,000 surveyed stations and found 89 percent of stations had heat-bias issues. In April and May 2022, The Heartland Institute\u2019s team of researchers visited many of the same temperature stations as in 2009, plus many not visited before. The new survey sampled 128 NOAA stations, and found the problem of heat-bias has only gotten worse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe original 2009 surface stations project demonstrated conclusively that the federal government\u2019s surface temperature monitoring system was broken, with the vast majority of stations not meeting NOAA\u2019s own standards for trustworthiness and quality. Investigations by government watchdogs OIG<\/a> and GAO<\/a> confirmed the 2009 report findings,\u201d said H. Sterling Burnett<\/strong><\/a>, director of the Arthur B. Robinson Center on Climate and Environment Policy at The Heartland Institute who surveyed NOAA surface stations himself this spring. \u201cThis new study is evidence of two things. First, the government is either inept or stubbornly refuses to learn from its mistakes for political reasons. Second, the government\u2019s official temperature record can\u2019t be trusted. It reflects a clear urban heat bias effect, not national temperature trends.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An example of the bias problem<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The chart below, found on page 17 of the report<\/a>, shows 30 years of data from NOAA temperature stations in the Continental United States (CONUS). The blue lines show recorded temperatures and the trend from stations that comply with NOAA\u2019s published standards. The yellow lines are temperatures taken from stations that are not compliant with those standards (i.e. near artificial hot spots). The red lines are the \u201cofficial\u201d adjusted temperature released by NOAA.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Graph
2022_Surface_Station_Report.pdf<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

\u201cIf you look at the unperturbed stations that adhere to NOAA\u2019s published standard \u2013 ones that are correctly located and free of localized urban heat biases \u2013 they display about half the rate of warming compared to perturbed stations that have such biases,\u201d Watts said. \u201cYet, NOAA continues to use the data from their warm-biased century-old surface temperature networks to produce monthly and yearly reports to the U.S. public on the state of the climate.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe issue of localized heat-bias with these stations has been proven in a real-world experiment conducted by NOAA\u2019s laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tennessee and published in a peer reviewed science journal<\/a>.\u201d Watts added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBy contrast, NOAA operates a state-of-the-art surface temperature network called the U.S. Climate Reference Network<\/a>,\u201d Watts said. \u201cIt is free of localized heat biases by design, but the data it produces is never mentioned in monthly or yearly climate reports published by NOAA for public consumption.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Heartland Institute<\/a>, a free-market think tank founded in 1984, is one of the world\u2019s leading organizations promoting the work of scientists who are skeptical that human activity is causing a climate crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Heartland has hosted\u00a014 International Conferences on Climate Change<\/a>\u00a0attended by thousands since 2008, published the six-volume\u00a0Climate Change Reconsidered series<\/a>\u00a0by the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, and for 21 years has published\u00a0Environment and Climate News<\/em><\/a>. The Heartland Institute has also published several popular books on the climate, including\u00a0Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming<\/em><\/a>\u00a0(2015),\u00a0Seven Theories of Climate Change<\/em><\/a>\u00a0(2010), and\u00a0Is the U.S. Surface Temperature Record Reliable?<\/em><\/a>\u00a0(2009).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"A<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Heartland Institute<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Heartland Institute is one of the world\u2019s leading free-market think tanks. It is a national nonprofit research and education organization based in Arlington Heights, Illinois. Its mission is to discover, develop, and promote free-market solutions to social and economic problems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n