Two grid boxes here touch corner to corner and the NE area has only one station, the town of Balhash, population 80,000, on the western boundary.
The SW grid box has two cities, Fergana of 176,000 population and Frunze, 500,000. Just to the west and east are the large cities of Tashkent, 1.8 million and Alma Ater circa 1 million.
Figure 14 Grid
boxes 42.5 N-72.5 E & 47.5 N-77.5 E
Balhash only has data from 1935 , see Figure 15 and for once the Jones 1994 trend is near neutral while the GHCN and GISS trends warm at about 2 degrees over the 54 years. Missing data for Jones from 1945-50 may contribute to the trend difference. Balhash is the only station in the grid box so where is the ~ 2 degrees warming coming from ?
Figure 15
Moving on to Figure 16, there are two towns, Frunze at the bottom of the chart warms by about 1.5 degrees 1925-1989 by GHCN and GISS while Jones 1994 warms by only circa 1 degree. Fergana has a neutral trend from 1901-1990 by GHCN and GISS which use the early 1900's data. Jones 1994 finds about 1.6 degrees of warming in a shorter Fergana ~1925-89 and it is obvious on the chart that Jones 1994 is not homogenous with the other two after ~1950.
Figure 16
Figure 17 looks at the two large cities outside the SW area and also Turkestan, a smaller town of 67,000 north of Tashkent all with substantial data over the 95 years . It might be noteworthy that Tashkent by Jones 1994 warms at only ~1.3 degrees over the 95 years, Alma Ater a little less and Turkestan cools by ~ 0.4 degrees.
Figure 17
Summary Lake Balhash Grid Boxes
Weighing up the evidence from the three charts it looks as though claims of 2 degree warming in these grid boxes could not be soundly based. Jones 1994 finds very little warming in Balhash and two large cities with more complete records nearby are warming at circa 1.5 degrees where an urbanisation component could be expected. The small cities of Turkestan and Fergana cool and have a neutral trend respectively. On the basis of trends in Turkestan and Fergana, if a long term rural station was present may well have very little trend.
The only evidence for strong warming here is from relatively short data
runs in urban locations.
© Warwick Hughes, 2000
www.ozemail.com.au/~hughesw7
Warwick S. Hughes, 22, July, 2000