Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Surface-based Temperature Records

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THE warmaholics are fond of using the phrase “official records going back to 1850”, but the simple facts are that prior to the 1970s, surface-based temperatures from a few indiscriminate, mostly backyard locations in Europe and the US are fatally corrupted and not in any sense a real record.  Read more here.

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  1. jack mosevich says

    Hi Jennifer: Happy New Year.

    The other day I purchased three low-cost thermometers to measure temperature changes due to fireing up a wood stove in the basement of a cabin I built. Purely curiosity regarding heat flow, if any. I noticed that each thermometer showed a slightly different temperature when placed at the same location which is due to their low quality and not serious for my experiment. But this got me to wondering about surface station measurments. Are thermometers ever calibrated? (I don’t know how to do that either). Anthony Watts has performed a spectacular feat on placement issues. But there seems to me to be another potential source of error which I have never seen mentioned: quality and calibration of thermometers. Maybe it is trivial..I don’t know.

    I would like to send this to Anthony but could not find his e-mail.

    Regards

    Jack Mosevich

  2. Gordon Robertson says

    jack mosevich…re email addy for Anthony Watts, try: info@surfacestations.org . His other site is http://www.surfacestations.org and that email addy links there.

    While searching for Anthony’s email addy, I came across these ditties:

    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/01/06/ncdc-updates-database-for-dec08-ncdcs-own-graphic-shows-10-year-cooling-trend/

    The NCDC (US National Centre for Climate Data) and this article claims via crosspatch, a contributor, that:

    “NCDC now has December 2008 in the database. Annual North American temperature since 1998 (11 years of data) is falling over the period at a rate of 0.78(F)/decade or 7.8(F) per century. At this rate we will be in an ice age within 5 decades. If you can get the graphic, the heavy black like is the average over the century 1901 to 2000”.

    http://www.norcalblogs.com/watts/2007/06/noaa_throws_a_roadblock_my_way.html

    Watts complains about interference from NOAA/NSDC. The website from which he extracts information about surface stations has been closed, right after a radio interview with Dr. Thomas Peterson of NCDC.