Examination of potential biases in air temperature caused by poor station locations

Questions have been raised about whether poor siting practices that have existed in recent years at some in situ weather-observing stations are causing a bias in U.S. temperature change analysis. This potential bias was examined using homogeneity-adjusted maximum, minimum, and mean temperature data from five stations in eastern Colorado-two with good current siting and three with poor current siting. No siting-induced bias was found in the homogeneity-adjusted data. Furthermore, the results indicate that homogeneity-adjusted time series from the stations with poor current siting represent the temperature variability and change in the region as a whole quite well because they are very similar to the time series from stations with excellent siting.