A report on the Surfacestations Project with 70% of the USHCN surveyed.

10 05 2009

SurfaceStationsReportCoverI know many of you have wondered when I would post an update about the www.surfacestations.org project. That wait is over.

You can now download the PDF of the publication reporting on what the project has found with 70% of the network surveyed, See the link at the end of the article.

I’ve been exceptionally busy in the past few months. Since November 08, I’ve made 4 trips in the US to get more stations surveyed in areas that were lacking, and these trips have been funded entirely by donations from individuals.

Evan Jones and I have been actively working on logging new aerial surveys. Plus there has been a lot of review and quality control taking place to make sure that surveys and ratings are correct. Google imagery has now improved in many places, and it is now fairly easy to spot some stations from the air. To make certain that we’ve actually got the right station location, telephone calls are made to the curator and descriptions and measurements compared to the aerial photos. I also have 4 digital cameras that have been sent to station curators for them to “self survey” with and mail the cameras back. Read the rest of this entry »


Comments : 158 Comments »

Categories : Announcements, weather_stations

Solar Scientist Ken Tapping: “No sign of the new cycle yet”

10 05 2009

give_me_a_sign

Ken Tapping: One year on into the minimum

From John A’s  solarscience.auditblogs.com

I’ve just been in e-mail correspondance with Dr Kenneth Tapping, asking him to comment on the progress of the solar minimum and his opinion on the likely size of SC24 when it does deign to appear.

Dear Dr Tapping

After you published your rebuke to Investor’s Business Daily, I put your entire reply onto my blog (see http://solarscience.auditblogs.com/2008/04/22/ken-tapping-the-current-solar-minimum/ ) which I notice is the second listing when anyone googles your name. I hope you didn’t mind.

Since that reply the Sun has appeared to have gone into an even deeper slumber than it was when you wrote your article, more than a year ago. You ended that article with a statement

AT THE MOMENT IT IS UNJUSTIFIED TO ASSUME THE SUN IS UNDERGOING A SIGNIFICANT CHANGE IN BEHAVIOUR. ON THE BASIS OF SUNSPOT NUMBER DATA, WE CANNOT ASSUME ANYTHING ODD IS HAPPENING UNLESS THE NEXT CYCLE DELAYS ITS START INTO 2009 OR 2010

Well it’s now nearly mid-2009 and the only spots to be seen very very occasionally are SC23 polarity.

Do you have any further comment on the Sun’s (lack of) activity? Are we close to unusual times in solar activity? Is the sun undergoing a significant change in behaviour?

Best regards

John

He replied [with my emphasis] Read the rest of this entry »


Comments : 166 Comments »

Categories : Science, solar