That's right, and temp stations near heat sources produce abnormally LOWER anomalies because the heat source creates a HIGHER average temp to measure the anomaly against. That is why when temp stations near heat sources are removed from the data set, the temp of the data set rises.
So when deniers get their way and the badly located temp stations are removed from the data set, they cry foul that the number of stations is decreasing and the temp is rising, proving that they are not interested in an accurate data set, but only in discrediting the data set.
You want to pretend it's the hot stations being removed, but it's not...the cold ones are.
Archived-Articles: Climategate: CRU Was But the Tip of the IcebergPerhaps the key point discovered by Smith was that by 1990, NOAA had deleted from its datasets all but 1,500 of the 6,000 thermometers in service around the globe.
Now, 75% represents quite a drop in sampling population, particularly considering that these stations provide the readings used to compile both the Global Historical Climatology Network (GHCN) and United States Historical Climatology Network (USHCN) datasets. These are the same datasets, incidentally, which serve as primary sources of temperature data not only for climate researchers and universities worldwide, but also for the many international agencies using the data to create analytical temperature anomaly maps and charts.
Yet as disturbing as the number of dropped stations was, it is the nature of NOAA’s “selection bias” that Smith found infinitely more troubling.
It seems that stations placed in historically cooler, rural areas of higher latitude and elevation were scrapped from the data series in favor of more urban locales at lower latitudes and elevations. Consequently, post-1990 readings have been biased to the warm side not only by selective geographic location, but also by the anthropogenic heating influence of a phenomenon known as the Urban Heat Island Effect (UHI).
For example, Canada’s reporting stations dropped from 496 in 1989 to 44 in 1991, with the percentage of stations at lower elevations tripling while the numbers of those at higher elevations dropped to one. That’s right: As Smith wrote in his blog, they left “one thermometer for everything north of LAT 65.” And that one resides in a place called Eureka, which has been described as “The Garden Spot of the Arctic” due to its unusually moderate summers.
Smith also discovered that in California, only four stations remain – one in San Francisco and three in Southern L.A. near the beach – and he rightly observed that
It is certainly impossible to compare it with the past record that had thermometers in the snowy mountains. So we can have no idea if California is warming or cooling by looking at the USHCN data set or the GHCN data set.
That’s because the baseline temperatures to which current readings are compared were a true averaging of both warmer and cooler locations. And comparing these historic true averages to contemporary false averages – which have had the lower end of their numbers intentionally stripped out – will always yield a warming trend, even when temperatures have actually dropped.
Do you really think that only 4 stations can represent the true average temp in CA? Especially ones set in heat islands?
Yeah, yeah, we all know about these "corrections". They're obviously bullshit.
Real scientists like as much data as they can get. AGW "scientists" only want data that confirms their preconceived conclusions.
Therefore, AGW "scientists" are not practicing science.