Philadelphia’s Climate in the Early Days

25 01 2009

Guest Post by Steven Goddard

January, 1790 was a remarkable year in the northeastern US for several reasons.  It was less than one year into George Washington’s first term, and it was one of the warmest winter months on record.  Fortunately for science, a diligent Philadelphia resident named Charles Pierce kept a detailed record of the monthly weather from 1790 through 1847, and his record is archived by Google Books.  Below is his monthly report from that book.

JANUARY 1790 The average or medium temperature of this month was 44 degrees This is the mildest month of January on record. Fogs prevailed very much in the morning but a hot sun soon dispersed them and the mercury often ran up to 70 in the shade at mid day. Boys were often seen swimming in the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. There were frequent showers as in April some of which were accompanied by thunder and lightning The uncommon mildness of the weather continued until the 7th of February.

Compare that to January, 2009 with an average temperature of 27F, 17 degrees cooler than 1790.  One month of course is not indicative of the climate, so let us look at the 30 year period from 1790-1819 and compare that to the last 10 “hot” years.

From Charles Pierce’s records, the average January temperature in Philadelphia from 1790-1819 was 31.2F.  According to USHCN records from 2000-2006 (the last year available from USHCN) and Weather Underground records from 2007-2009, the average January temperature in Philadelphia for the last ten years has been 29.8 degrees, or 1.4 degrees cooler than the period 1790-1819.  January, 2009 has been colder than any January during the presidencies of Washington, Adams, Jefferson, or Monroe.  January 2003 and 2004 were both considerably colder than any January during the terms of the first five presidents of the US.  Data can be seen here.

According to several of the most widely quoted climate scientists in the world, winters were much colder 200 years ago than now – yet the boys swimming in the Delaware in January, 1790 apparently were unaware. Read the rest of this entry »


Comments : 142 Comments »

Categories : climate data, climate_change, weather

Surfacestations update – we are within sight of the goal

25 01 2009

I’m pleased to announce that the www.surfacestations.org project has reached a major milestone, with 67% of the 1221 USHCN network now surveyed.

819 of 1221 stations have been examined in the USHCN network. Of the 819, 807 have been assigned a site quality rating. In some of those cases we’ve found the stations closed, or we are waiting for supplemental information to enable assigning a rating.

The Google Earth map below shows current coverage. We are in sight of the goal. However there are still some holes, especially in south Texas, Alabama, Idaho, Arkansas, Missouri and Illinois.

See this Google Earth generated image. The circles with question marks are stations left to be surveyed.

surfacestations_usa_googlemap_012509
Click for a larger image

A Google Earth USHCN Station Rating Map (KML file used to generate the above image) is available – download here

You can download the Google Earth application for free from this link

Sincere thanks to Gary Boden for this contribution! This is a very useful tool to help locate stations as hi resolution lat/lon values and descriptions are available from each map icon. Of course, Google Earth will also plot driving directions too.

I’m hoping to reach a minimum of 75% before I start doing data analysis. I want to find more rural stations, with the hope of finding more of the better sited stations since the lions share is comprised of CRN3-5 stations. I’m hoping those of you that live near some of these “holes” can help. if you can, please leave a comment below and I’ll help you locate stations. You’ll also need to visit the website www.surfacestations.org and register as a volunteer. It’s free and easy.

Here is what the current rating breakdown looks like: Read the rest of this entry »


Comments : 90 Comments »

Categories : Announcements, weather_stations

“The hardest part is trying to influence the nature of the measurements obtained…”

25 01 2009

Many readers here marvel at the scope of adjustments that NASA GISS performs on weather station data.

Along those lines, Michelle at Read N Say points out something interesting in Jim Hansen’s NASA page.

Dr. James Hansen

Below is an excerpt from her post:

This is his background copied from the official NASA GISS web page:

Research Interests:
As a college student in Iowa, I was attracted to science and research by James Van Allen’s space science program in the physics and astronomy department. Since then, it only took me a decade or so to realize that the most exciting planetary research involves trying to understand the climate change on earth that will result from anthropogenic changes of the atmospheric composition.

One of my research interests is radiative transfer in planetary atmospheres, especially interpreting remote sounding of the earth’s atmosphere and surface from satellites. Such data, appropriately analyzed, may provide one of our most effective ways to monitor and study global change on the earth. The hardest part is trying to influence the nature of the measurements obtained, so that the key information can be obtained. Read the rest of this entry »


Comments : 182 Comments »

Categories : climate data