The temperatures gathered from airports are not necessarily an accurate temperature reading for an area, according to meteorologist Chris Martz.In response to a post from the National Weather Service Phoenix, which stated, "Phoenix Sky Harbor hit 118°F (47°C) at 3:37 PM this afternoon, which sets a new record hottest temperature for August. Phoenix records date back to 1895," Martz argued that, "maybe we shouldn't be taking official temperature measurements at airports."Phoenix Sky Harbor is an international airport, where surface air temperatures are measured. .Surface air temperature measurements from airports were never meant to be used as a city's official weather measurements.As Chris Martz puts it in an interview with the Western Standard, "in the 1940s and 1950s, we started to see a lot of that because pilots and air traffic controllers needed real-time weather information so they could have proper takeoff and landing. And these thermometer networks were never intended to serve as a basis for climate monitoring for at a national, regional, or even global level."Martz also showed a comparison of the Sky Harbor airport between 1959 and 2024 using satellite images. One noticeable difference is the amount of concentrated infrastructure surrounding the airport — sparse in the 1959 image and dense now. Infrastructure influences the temperature in a given location, and the main type of foundation found in infrastructure — concrete — has an influence on the heat absorbed..WATCH: The EU's climate narrative — As scary as it sounds?.This is because "asphalt and concrete readily absorb the sun's radiation," Martz says. Martz adds when global surface air temperature is calculated airport data is included. To do this they use a "homogenization algorithm" which "tries to correct for the data and adjusts it so it's more flat."It collects the data into the Global Historical Climatology Network which Martz says the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and NASA use for their climate records. "This algorithm is supposed to remove urbanization from the record so that any artificial increase you see due to the fact that we've built so much infrastructure in cities where a lot of these measurements are taken," he explains..He goes further, stating why this is not quite an accurate measurement of temperature, "It tries to correct for that but I'm not convinced that they have done that adequately especially because there's a strong correlation between temperature and population density, and it's non-linear, so it actually levels off eventually."To learn more from Martz himself check out his interview below.
