Yeah, they're called heat islands, large masses of concrete with absorb a lot of heat. They don't affect larger climate to any appreciable extent, but if your measurement devices are all in the heat islands, i.e. cities/airports, then your data is going to skew higher.
Then, combine that with the fact that temp reading from more remote places (cooler) are gradually getting excluded from the data, further driving the average up. And, that's all before they "adjust" the data.
They do affect wind and rainfall, and they do tend to merge into long heat islands. I think over time it exerts an effect. So do big hydraulic projects like using the Aral Sea for irrigation. That had a very long term effect.
I grew up in LA. In the 50's when I was little, it would rain once or maybe twice each summer. By the 70's, that stopped. But the pollution was enough to make tears run down my cheeks. After they controlled it, the stinging eyes stopped.
I think that was about the first time I saw LA, when flying from Phoenix to Portland. This yellow smoke was spilling over the mountains, in tendrils like some horror movie, then coalescing to a solid smoke. Here we are flying in to switch planes and visibility is almost nil. And in 1969 the Cuyahoga River caught fire, not for the first time. People forget that there was a real need for pollution control.
Yeah, they're called heat islands, large masses of concrete with absorb a lot of heat. They don't affect larger climate to any appreciable extent, but if your measurement devices are all in the heat islands, i.e. cities/airports, then your data is going to skew higher.
Then, combine that with the fact that temp reading from more remote places (cooler) are gradually getting excluded from the data, further driving the average up. And, that's all before they "adjust" the data.
But but but... If they didn't "adjust" the data, government funding would dry up.
They do affect wind and rainfall, and they do tend to merge into long heat islands. I think over time it exerts an effect. So do big hydraulic projects like using the Aral Sea for irrigation. That had a very long term effect.
I grew up in LA. In the 50's when I was little, it would rain once or maybe twice each summer. By the 70's, that stopped. But the pollution was enough to make tears run down my cheeks. After they controlled it, the stinging eyes stopped.
I think that was about the first time I saw LA, when flying from Phoenix to Portland. This yellow smoke was spilling over the mountains, in tendrils like some horror movie, then coalescing to a solid smoke. Here we are flying in to switch planes and visibility is almost nil. And in 1969 the Cuyahoga River caught fire, not for the first time. People forget that there was a real need for pollution control.