Honolulu
Temperature Record in the 1940s – Wrong?
By: oceanclimate, July 09, 2009
Few
weeks ago in June http://wattsupwiththat.com run a story about the
temperature recording at Obs Oahu/Honolulu. (HERE) The story covers a number of
complaints, but with regard the 1940s it
says: “It also looks like the station was moved about 1949, or
something happened around the station environment.” In deed the GISS/NASA
image (see: first/left) indicate a drop in annual mean temperatures
between 1945 and 1949 from app. 24.8° to 22.8°C. The change is
grossly out of tune with the mean before 1939 (app. 23.8°) and the
mean between 1960 and 1980 (app. 24.0°C). The
matter could quickly be assumed as a runaway value, but it
shouldn’t, if been put in the appropriate context.
In
the 1940s the location of Obs Oahu is special as it harbors Pearl
Harbor the naval center during WWII in the Pacific, and at least
until the end of the Korean War in 1953. On the 7th December 1941 Japan
ambushed Pearl Harbor and thereby forced the United States to become a
war party (INFO: PDF-10MB;)
. Since fall 1939 the fortification of Pearly Harbour under a National
Defense construction program was underway (INFO). The temperature climbed significantly
from 1939 to 1945. 
Until the surrender
of Japan in August 1945 the USA the Pacific in the west of Hawaii had
been subject to naval war activities never
experienced before and thereafter. When the US Navy operated with many
thousand ships and airplanes in the Western Pacific, Japan experienced
the coldest winter on record in 1944 (lef) . In the city of Kyoto
it was the coldest
since app. 1895 (see
image below). Had that been caused by the naval war activities in
complex sea areas? As it may be, it seems
evident that throughout the Northern Hemisphere the sea surface
temperatures trend changed towards cooling since the early
1940 , see Fig.3 .
The trend was certainly also observable at Obs Oahu, but presumably was
not the reason for the substantial temperature decrease at this station
between 1945 and 1949. The most like reason was the present of the huge naval armada at Pearl Harbor and their
numerous activities concerning trails, training and exercises. It is in
a sea area which is very deep and with abundantly cold water under a
thin warm sea surface layer. While this explanation is not more than an
option, it could be a mistake for not considering it seriously.
The previous comment was about:
The Arctic and the talking about the “Apocalypse Now”
Extract from Chapter 1 at: http://www.arctic-heats-up.com
HERE
