Craig writes:
“That painting could use more concrete, a building, and an air conditioner next to the SS, and it would be perfect.” – your wish is my command…
Original painting by Caitlin Schwerin (Weather station & accessories added)
In a couple of days, I’m heading off to a week long road trip. This road trip is something that you, my faithful readers have made possible through generous donations when I asked for some help a few weeks ago. I thank you, each and every one, who donated to make this trip possible.
The trip has two purposes:
1) To meet with a top tier climate oriented organization (at the directors invitation) to have a sit down meeting about the www.surfacestations.org project.
2) To get as many USHCN stations surveyed as possible while I’m on this trip, I’m spending 5 additional days driving cross country to visit stations. I’ve spent weeks planning this route to maximize station visits.
I have not revealed who the individual is or the organization is yet, and I’ll save that for the day I’m actually there. I don’t want the person who invited me to be lobbied in advance. Let me just say that this is a significant meeting with opportunity to bridge some chasms that have developed.
While I’m on the road, updates may be spotty. I’ll do my best to keep you all informed on what transpires during Anthony’s excellent adventure.
In other news, I’m preparing my Stevenson Screen Paint Experiment for a second data logging run at a different location. I was not happy wit the location used last year due to some tree shading issues, and I’ve found another location that is better. I want to be sure that what I observed last year in the data is truly repeatable and is not in any way location dependent.
Have a good trip! I’m all inspired to go out and check out weather stations now.
Bon Voyage, and God’s speed.
Be safe.
Good luck with your trip Anthony. We’ll all be anxious to hear what results from your trip. I hope not just someone, but the right important people and organizations are taking seriously what surfacestations.org has discovered.
Lucks of luck, Anthony! We love you and will have withdrawal symptoms whenever you can’t blog! By the way, my Predator trial is up tomorrow and I’ll be buying the program from you.
Jack Koenig, Editor
The Mysterious Climate project
http://www.climateclinic.com
Gnarley Dude have a righteous trip my bro.
OT. Is that a painting (looks like it to me)?
Who did it?
Is that Sutter Buttes in the background?
REPLY: Not the Sutter Buttes, its original art by local artist Caitlin Schwerin. I added the Stevenson Screen.
You know, this could be the last time we hear from our host. He could well be being lured into the very lair of the AGW boogyman, under a white flag of truce/truth, to be ‘disappeared’ as the Argentineans used to say or brainwashed.
.
.
.
.
or not.
drive carefully.
Ooooooo, I’m all a tingle! It’s just like Lord of the Rings!
I’ll let you figure out who the main characters are, but I’m pretty I know who are Gollum and his Precious.
One more thing it’s a very nice painting, who’s the artist?
Have a safe and productive trip, Anthony. Hopefully, by the time you get back Kristen and I will have inspired a bunch of Kansas Boy Scouts to begin working on their Meteorology merit badge.
Good luck! Hopefully by the time your back artic ice will be back to normal (2003 levels) LOL
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.365.jpg
Yes, have a nice trip. This nugget was reported on Fox News: In light of low solar activity, volcanoes, ice ages, etc., did anyone else have a little deja vu?
BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) ā Colombia’s Nevado del Huila volcano erupted in a shower of hot ash, prompting thousands of people to leave their homes on Tuesday. …
Link:
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hZOj3V2T6oR8_g6tr4tnKyEtQ7IAD902EM7O0
Watch out for stober.
REPLY: Stober?
Anthony,
Have a great trip! Please keep us informed on the stations surveyed, we will be trying to visit some those lonely station in mid west on our trip across the county. Maybe between the two of us, we can close some of the gaps in the mid west, are coming across the top of the country. Keep the data base undated on which sites have been surveyed, no need to double up.
The lord willing the creek don’t rise we will collect some surface station surveys!
Russ
Please don’t try too hard at keeping this up to date. I could really use the break….
Have great times Anthony. also great fun.
Bill
Have a good trip,
and please no deals with the devil!
I hope you left a secured DNA sample so that we know we are getting the real Anthony Watts back when you return. Have a nice trip.
Could this be the first chapter of Zen and the Art of Weather Station Maintenance?
Anthony, I mis-remembered the spelling; it’s “stobor” but you have to be a fan of Robert Heinlein’s juvenile fiction to get the reference.
In his 1955 book, Tunnel in the Sky, RH tells a tale of students teleported to a distant planet as a two-day “field test” for their survival course. They get marooned for two years instead. Just before stepping through the teleporter, the protagonist, Rod is warned, “watch out for stobor”. During the adventure Rod suspects that stobor is some kind of monster and that every unknown creature could be stobor, When eventually rescued, Rod asks his teacher about it:
“These are stobor, aren’t they? Little carnivores heavy in front, about the size of a tom cat and eight times as nasty?”
“Why ask me?”
“Well, you warned us all about stobor. All the classes were warned.”
“I suppose these must be stobor,” Matson admitted, “but I did not know what they looked like.” “Huh?”
“Rod, ever planet has its ‘stobor’… all are different. Sometimes more than one sort.” He stopped to tap his pipe. “You remember me telling the class that every planet has unique dangers, different from every other planet in the Galaxy?”
“Yes…”
“Sure, and it meant nothing, a mere intellectual concept. But you have to be afraid of the thing behind the concept, if you are to stay alive. So we personify it… but we don’t tell you what it is. We do it differently each year. It is to warn you that the unknown and deadly can lurk anywhere … and to plant it deep in your guts instead of in your head.”
This lesson is typical Heinlein and not to be forgotten. There are stobor in every neighborhood, all different. Heinlein was making his readers alert to the fact that the world is not looking out for your welfare: it will kill you given the slightest chance. It’s a good lesson, one that lots of people you meet these days have never learned.
Google Heinlein and stobor, if this isn’t enough. Have a good trip and WOFS.
Totaly off topic, but in my very not expert observations, it looks like a new cycle 23 sun spot comming around from the back of the sun
http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/realtime-update.html
REPLY: It’s ole number 987
Best of luck, Rev. Set ’em straight.
Someone ought to do an “Andy Warhol” version of a Stevenson Station. (Or a Sal Dali.)
Gary,
Thanks for the flashback. I read that book in high school but wouldn’t for the life of me have remembered that quote.
I remembered the quote well.
Have a safe trip, Anthony.
Looks like where I live (Tennessee) is virtually blank for a 100+ mile radius on the surface stations site, so if you’re not hitting that area during your travels, I’ll try to free up some time in the next 2 months to knock out one or two of them.
REPLY: What part of Tennessee?
Memphis. Both Covington and Hernando, MS are within an hour’s drive.
REPLY: This is an area where we have virtually no coverage, so yes I’d welcome the help. We have a lack of stations in Arkansas as well.
That painting could use more concrete, a building, and an air conditioner next to the SS, and it would be perfect.
REPLY: Your wish is my command…
Great. I’ll register & download the materials tonight.
Where’s the screeching mercury monkey? š
That’s just us.
The volunteers are the “Thermometer Team”.