“Let me put it another way, there are only three primary colors”

Red, green, and blue are the primary additive colors. The true primaries.
Yellow, magenta, and cyan are the subtractive primaries.

“If you put blue at 0 and red at 100, then yellow is in the middle at 50. Between 50 and 100 will all be shades of yellow -> orange -> red. Get it?”

No – you just switched to talking about talking about the spectrum instead of primary colors. Roy G Biv and all that.

“I can’t believe that such an ignorant post exists or that I am actually taking the time to reply to it.”

Me either. Primary colors and spectra are so grade school science.

How does this have any relation to global warming? Honestly? Do you think that the colors used on the weather man’s charts are causing glaciers to melt?

That NOAA one looks pretty nice, but how does it handle temperatures lower than 30 degrees? In fact, the blue scale is quite small on the NOAA at a 10-15 degrees spread, whereas with the other models, the blue scale is closer to a 30-35 degrees spread.

Let me put it another way, there are only three primary colors. If you put blue at 0 and red at 100, then yellow is in the middle at 50. Between 50 and 100 will all be shades of yellow -> orange -> red. Get it?

I can’t believe that such an ignorant post exists or that I am actually taking the time to reply to it.

Summertime, and the living is generally on the warm side. That’s pretty much a given, particularly in my neck of the woods. I’d be suspicious, though, were someone to try to make me think it was hotter than it really……

There is something seriously wrong with the color temperature scale which Intellicast is using in the graphic which you referenced.

http://www.intellicast.com/National/Temperature/Current.aspx

It is really comprised to two graphics.

A color temperature scale:
http://images.intellicast.com/images/legends/CurrentTemps.gif

And the actual color temperature map:
http://images.intellicast.com/WeatherImg/CurrentTemps/usa.jpg

There is one very big problem; the color temperature scale is a low resolution GIF file, while the color temperature map is a high resolution JPG file. The color pallets in each graphic file are totally unrelated. I use ACD Photo Editor and the difference is unbelievable. The colors don’t match at all.

The Intelliweather is more consistent.

http://www.intelliweather.com/popup/us_citymap_popup.htm

The color temperature scale and map are in one high resolution JPG file but there is no numeric calibration scale for temperatures, which is a serious short coming.

The NOAA graphic looks very good until you start analyzing it in detail and then some of the short comings become obvious. For example the color pallet is inconsistent. It is very easy to extract colors with a virtual eyedropper and plot the Red/Green/Blue components for the NOAA color temperature scale or any other color temperature map for that matter. Here is the NOAA color extraction vs. temperature.

http://i283.photobucket.com/albums/kk316/MichaelRonayne/NOAA_Color_Scale.gif

Try it your self, it is very easy to do with any decent photo editor.

We need to establish some guidelines for color temperature maps.

1. The color temperature scale and map must be in the same graphic.
2. The color temperature scale must be calibrated for temperature.
3. The color temperature scale must use reasonable minimum and maximum values for the time of year.
4. The color transition must be uniform and consistent over the temperature range.

The color temperature map may be a deliberate distraction and should be ignored, other than to determine what is esthetically pleasing; we should focus of the color temperature scale itself. That needs to be done is collect a number color temperature maps for various times of the year, rank them and then plot the Red/Green/Blue components of the color temperature scale to determine what does and doesn’t work. This could become a guideline for meteorologists.

This would be a good project for a meteorology undergraduate program.

Mike

There’s no bias. They need to center yellow/green at the middle of the yearly temperature range so that there are different colors for the hottest and for the coldest temperatures throughout the year. Not everything is political to everyone else, even if it is to you.

we dont need 100% coverage to do the statistical analysis. Effectively what you have is a sample of the population of stations. A healthy sample. Kenneths regression corrects for possible sampling bias by looking at lat and lon and alt.
When you add the 40 stations one would hope there would be more 1&2 sites
but that isnt necessary. Anyway, invite him to do a guest post. Its a straightforward statistical analysis that demonstrates that CRN rating matters.
looking at the trend lines in his work you can clearly make a case that class5 sites should be taken out of any dataset.

REPLY: The stations I’m adding fill in some significant hole sin the midwest. So I think it is important. I could have claimed a healthy sample at 33% but true or not it would meet with a lot of criticism. I see the value of the analysis, but at the same time I am keenly aware of the issues with coverage and the criticisms that will bring. Thus, I see continuing the survey equally important.

Here is the animation.

http://www.john-daly.com/USGCRP/USGCRP_Animate.gif

Here is the full report.

Coloring the Models: Climate Change through Color Change
http://www.john-daly.com/USGCRP/index.htm

Mike

REPLY: I put this on the main page, thanks. – Anthony

REPLY: Thanks but save it for when it really matters. We only have about 50% of the network surveyed. Everything is preliminary. There are no conclusions yet, only preliminary analysis.