I would still imagine that a regular calibration should be required, especially since most standard electronic components are not really designed to for temperature fluctuations and extremes (thermistors excepted). Those that are, tend to be very expensive.

Are you on the Front Range?

Apparently they have a crapy summer down below. But talking of cyclones… isn’t the difference of water and air temperature relative? If they air is actually cooling but of course the water stays warm (since it has a much greater heat capacity) wouln’t this dT be much more important than the Gore expected dT in his global warming movie senario?

Which raises the question as to whether these esteemed meterorologic departments are aware of Anthony’s project itself, as they very well should be, etc.. Watts up with that?

Bern Bray: Some thermistors are better than the semiconductor sensors. Not by a lot. I’d love to see a schematic of the MMTS system, or have a chance to examine a dead one. I suspect your ‘vintage 1920′s’ thermometer would give better results.

I’ve done some work with low cost National Semiconductor electronic temperature sensors and was not impressed with the linearity and repeatability. When you toss in the variability of the supporting electronics, and lack of regular calibration, you are just guessing. /sarcasm on/ However, I’m absolutely sure that the sensors in the MMTS units are a far better unit that never needs maintenance or calibration /sarcasm off/

Do you want to know what I used as a temperature reference as I worked with the temperature electronics? A sealed 1920′s vintage mercury thermometer.

http://ux1.eiu.edu/~cdcraig/WC/essm.pdf

This could become an interesting challenge to meteorologic departments throughout the US. Set up their own, properly sited and maintained Stevenson screen weather stations and maintain an independent temperature database. Could provide an interesting comparison to “official” data.

If so, please give us some details about the resighting and your instructions related to siting and collecting/ processing data.

Since there will presumably be a number of observers, how will you handle data consistency?

What sort of training have the potential observers been given?

This is very pleasing to see the students will be getting to see the parameters for a high quality station. It will still be pretty easy to screw it up.

Bravo!

These folks surely have the best intentions, but let’s not get too worked up just yet. I know it’s not Siberia, but…………

After checking for quality, the preliminary data are sent to the National Climate Data Center (under NOAA) to check the data for accuracy. After about a two month period, the data are officiated and placed in the NCDC online archive.

For brevity, this disclaimer should be condensed in all original station output as “The preliminary data will be Hansenified (or Hansenefiled)”.