Officially, since June 27, high temperature records for the Garden Island have been broken (six times) or tied (eight times), but the blame might lie with malfunctioning equipment rather than climate change.

A National Weather Service technician on Kauai who was alerted to weeks of “suspicious data” coming out of Lihue Airport determined this week that the heat sensor located just off the runway was “reading a little bit high,” said lead forecaster Tom Birchard, who made the call to Kauai after being contacted by the Honolulu Star-Advertiser.

“So many records in such a short period of time,” Birchard said. “With one after another from the same station, I’m a little suspicious. It’s at the point now where we’re noticing it.”

The technician determined that the temperature sensor was “within tolerance” of 2 degrees, but the technician is going to replace it anyway, Birchard said. He was unsure when replacement parts would arrive and the new sensor would be working.

“It begs the question,” Birchard said, “What do we do with the records that occurred? I don’t know the answer to that question.”

In 2009, Birchard said, similar record-­setting temperatures were recorded on Oahu at what is now Daniel K. Inouye International Airport.

“Several years ago we were noticing the same trend at Honolulu Airport,” Birchard said. “It turned out the sensor was (off) by a degree or a degree and a half. It only takes a degree or two to set records in Hawaii.”

On June 27 the Garden Island sensor at Lihue Airport recorded a temperature of 87 degrees, which tied the previous record for the day set in 1982.

High-temperature records for the day soon fell in consecutive days at the airport — by a degree or two — from July 15 to 20; other records for the day were tied at Lihue on July 1, 21, 22, 23, 30, 31 and again Thursday.

Danny Morioka, owner of Dani’s Restaurant near the airport, said the official recorded temperatures seem too hot.

“It feels the same,” Morioka said.

But Morioka offered some perspective:

“I work in the kitchen, where it’s hotter,” Morioka said. “Anything outside is a lot cooler to me.”

Jan TenBruggencate writes a Kauai-based science and environmental blog at raisingislands.com and said the dangers of misreporting high temperatures on Kauai pale to concerns that the island is actually getting hotter.

“I think it’s a glitch,” TenBruggencate said. “It has been warm but we’ve certainly had warmer summers.”

If Kauai actually tied or beat record high temperatures 13 times in just over a month, he said, other measurements on other islands likely would have seen similar trends.

A sudden spike in record-setting temperatures would have profound implications for everyone from island farmers to residential energy customers, TenBruggencate said. So it’s important to get accurate data.

“How important is that?” TenBruggencate said. “It’s critically important to track that sort of data because of all of the things associated with higher temperatures.”

The temperature sensor at Lihue Airport is just one of several instruments in a cluster of sensors near the runway that are designed to help pilots, said Birchard of the National Weather Service.

The cluster includes sensors that record wind speed, air pressure, humidity, rainfall and other factors, Birchard said.