A new study verifies that concrete and asphalt (aka impervious surfaces) have increased near US weather stations used to monitor climate change.
Almost one-third of stations have a 20% or more increase of impervious surface area (IPA) close to the stations in just the past ten years.
IPA acts as a heat sink, storing energy from the sun absorbed during the day as infrared.
At night, IPAs increases the temperature near them when they release heat in the air = man made global warming related to economic growth, that has nothing to do with carbon dioxide.
The general nighttime heating effect from all the roads and buildings in a town or city (versus surrounding rural areas) is called the "urban heat island"effect.
The University of Arizona Tucson USHCN station, surrounded by a square fence, is shown in the photo below, surrounded by pavement and parked cars.
Fortunately it was closed a few months after this embarrassing photo was released.
Over 32% of the US-HCN stations exhibited an increase in impervious surface area of 20% or more in just ten years (between 2001 and 2011) within a 100 meter radius of the thermometers.
For a 1000 meter radius around each station, over 52% of the stations had a ISA increase of 20% or more.
The USA is over-sampled with thousands of weather stations, so those improperly sites (surrounded by asphalt and concrete) should be discarded from the national data.
NOAA should remove stations encroached on by concrete and asphalt, but they do not.
They use the obviously flawed data, insisting they can wild guess an appropriate “adjustment”.
If one does the right thing, and ignores data from stations surrounded by concrete and asphalt, the result is a statistically significant lower 30 year average US (48 states) temperature = less global warming.
Here is the new paper: Changes in satellite-derived impervious surface area at US historical climatology network stations.
by Kevin Gallo & George Xian
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.isprsjprs.2016.08.006
Another study of US temperature stations
(and this one is free):
https://www.wattsupwiththat.com/2015/12/17/press-release-agu15-the-quality-of-temperature-station-siting-matters-for-temperature-trends/