I 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.
With additional aerial surveys done plus a few new hands-on surveys that have now come in, we are now at about 79% of the USHCN network surveyed. The sample is large and representative, with good spatial distribution and broad coverage.
The figures below from my Spring 2009 report represent coverage @ 70% of the network surveyed.
See the PDF report below for references on how the surveys were done and how the site rating system was arrived at, based on original work at the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) new Climate Reference Network.
For those WUWT readers that want to survey stations, there is still time to do so before my final report is issued in late summer/fall 2009.
My advice is to visit the Surfacestations Gallery and see what stations remain in your state, or states you may be traveling through.
I realize that we’ll never get 100% of the network surveyed, as over 30 stations have been closed, and some are inaccessible, but with a sample size exceeding 80% and broad spatial distribution as shown above I am confident that we’ll have the character of the network quantified and representative. Sure, there will be critics, but with an 80% or more sample size it will be an uphill battle to criticize the sample. Thousands of peer reviewed papers have been written with much smaller sample sizes. I prefer a “brute force” approach to getting the maximum sample possible compared to statistical extrapolation of a small sample.
The push has been on to get as many surveys done as possible, so I haven’t had a lot of time to update web pages and the like. WUWT itself has been becoming a black hole of time, sucking up more time than I care to admit. My email load has become huge also. Just a note to everyone who has emailed me. I read everything, but I can’t always respond, especially when I’m asked to do additional research to answer questions.
I’m also a bit under the gun as like many of you, my business has taken a financial hit due to the economy, and I’m short a person who is out for extended medical leave. So I’ve been doing 4 jobs instead of my usual 2 or three 😉 Even so, progress is being made.
Finally, I want to take a moment to thank Evan Jones, a frequent WUWT commenter and sometimes contributor. Evan has been working tirelessly to help me with this project, and now like many of you, is unemployed thanks to our current economic situation. Even through this, he has worked very hard to help me on all levels, doing everything from hands-on surveys himself, to QC checks, to aerial surveys, to data analysis.
Without Evan, this project would be a lot further behind. Please give him your thanks. He is truly a “screeching mercury monkey, first grade“. Evan, download your patch and wear it proudly.
Sadly, the alternate weekly that coined the phrase is now out of business.
Since Evan suffered the same fate as the alternate weekly editor (unemployed) and still doing a yeoman’s work for this effort, I have an offer for interested readers to help him out.
I have 25 professionally glossy color printed and bound copies of the report which I’ll provide signed, postpaid via US mail, to anyone who wants a copy that donates $30 or more. Just use the PayPal button at right, and I’ll make sure he gets it. (NOTE: SOLD OUT BACK IN STOCK Thanks to everyone who helped!)
For those that just want to read the report, please feel free to download and read the free copy here (PDF, 4 MB).
I also offer my sincere thanks to everyone who has helped make this project go from an idea to now near completion. The data analysis report will determine once and for all if station siting matters or not.
– Anthony
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Congratulations Anthony on a job well done. No wonder you are at 13,000,000 and counting.
REPLY: Congratulations are not in order yet, data analysis still has to be done to determine the magnitude of the siting effects on the temperature record. When that is complete, and that published, then will be the time for congratulations or denigrations. This is not a done deal by any means. In the meantime we still have a lot of work to do. – Anthony
Do you think Scott Pelley at 60-Minutes would ever pick up this story?
This is fine, verifiable work. It needs to get out into the public and especially to the politicians.
I’m in for $30, but didn’t see any “Special Instructions” comment box.
After emailing the observer at Boerne, TX I received a phone call from the local NWS office. The observer had forwarded my email and they thought I was looking for data (I had included two topics in one email – site survey and local regional study I’m working on ).
Bottom line: No problem to getting a survey done when I get the time for a cruise.
REPLY: Hmm there used to be a PayPal section for that. Oh well, noted and look for it in the mail. Thanks, Anthony
Anthony,
it is one hell of an acheivement. The non-compliance is horrific. Now I’m a rather statistics-shy scientist (little call for it in my field) but I am familiar with error bars on graphs. I’m interested in the errors you cite for the sites. If you take the data for a station that shows a lot of warming – say a CRN4 and add +/- 2 deg C error bars on the mean annual temperature, that would be a very powerful image incounteracting the warming propaganda.
Even folks with only high school science would show some recongnition of what error bars mean, and lets face it, schools are teaching this stuff.
Congratulations Mr. Watts. I look forward to reading this. Well done.
I’m a bit rusty on stats and low on sleep atm so please bare with me.
If I’ve read this correctly you have ~855 of 1221 stations “polled” and that means that this survey (currently a poll, and not quite a census…yet) of the stations should have a MOE of around 0.86%.
I think I’m looking at it the wrong way though. I keep getting the same answer from what I remember of the MOE formula MOE_INF=SQRT(0.7*0.3/855) and FPC=SQRT((1221-855)/1220) with MOE=MOE_INF*FPC. How am I approaching this wrong?
I keep thinking that maybe I’m calculating the maximum MOE for the “poll” and that I need to do it per station category to come up with relevant MOEs for each specific statistic. Someone set me straight please…
See I’m far too tired..I said “bare” instead of “bear” …/sigh
Please nobody get naked with me…. Or if you do you will be all alone I can promise that much.
Anthony, I can go get Canon City, CO one of these weekends if you need it.
Let me know.
Congrats on the outstanding work!
Jerry
REPLY: Yes that would be helpful. While we have a Google Street level view and aerials, we have to actual photos of that station, which is an MMTS behind the radio building.
see http://gallery.surfacestations.org/main.php?g2_itemId=1701
Any time we can get ground photos and distance measurements to supplement aerials we’ll jump at the chance. – Anthony
Even folks with only high school science would show some recongnition of what error bars mean, and lets face it, schools are teaching this stuff
My thoughts exactly, and something that children can also use confidently to challenge warmist propaganda in schools.
“Sir, did you know that the temperature records are all wrong?” should get a few heads scratching…
Anthony,
I would like to offer my help in analysis if it’s needed. I’m not sure where you might want help, but I have some hours to donate.
J
Most impressive work. I am in Northeast US, will try to log in and do some stations. Can you direct me to an explanation of the error categories for the stations? Almost all of them have errors over 1% –what does that mean, and how has it been ascertained? Did somebody take a “true reading” at the site and compare it to what the station was reporting? Or is it calculated from the station’s heat “contamination” (nearby exhausts or pavement, etc)?
Anthony,
I signed up with the intent of surveying the GAINESVILLE 5ENE station (Gainesville, Texas). What is your current deadline?
I have sent ther report to Drudge-lets see if it shows up-with 22 Million hits a day, now THAT is exposure.
Anthony, your efforts are amazing and will provide one of the greatest benefits to 21st Century science upon completion. (Actually, your work and that of your team already has scored big for truth-in-science.)
I have wondered at the global temperature chart for the twentieth century until today. If we take Leif’s revision of the sun’s energy in relationship to length of cycle and TSI, etc. and add in the revision to average global temperature that accurate U.S./world data demand, perhaps there is not so much variance from the 19th C. We continue to cycle through warm and cool, hot and cold. Sometime in the future we will hit the Big Cold again, it seems.
As to Black Holes — aren’t they the center of galaxies? Sorry about the sucking up of so much energy, but you deserve to be at the center for all you have accomplished. I keep my subscription of $10.00 per month going. I know I am getting a bargain; only wish I could do more. Perhaps more regulars could contribute like this. I also want a signed copy of the report to date, with the contribution to the ever excellent Evan Jones.
With admiration and appreciation.
I’m looking forward to the analysis:
It is easy to argue that *constant* artificial warming will not affect the temperature TREND of each station, thus allowing Global Warming to still be accurately detected. However, if artificial warming has been increasing over the decades (due to more buildings + more heat sources + sensors being moved closer to buildings), then clearly that will affect the temperature trend. The only way to say for sure whether the former or the latter is the case is to analyse the trends seen by the best sited stations & compare it to the overall trend.
The mathematician in me has to say that we are basing our national temperature averages based on 11% unusable data, 58% terrible. 20% marginal, 8% good and 3% excellent. This sounds like a tremendous reason to spend trillions of taxpayer dollars.
Excellent work Anthony.
One more conclusion (that I think I’ve seen you say before, but isn’t in the report):
– One simple requirement for any site or instrumentation change that would make a world of difference in the usefulness of a given site is instrument overlap. Run the new and the old concurrently for at least a year so we have a -measured- difference between the old systemic errors and the new ones.
Another thought that I had while looking at the Oregon wastewater plant: Doing a detailed temperature map of a site like that would be interesting. Basically setting up a decent continuous temperature recorder at a reference position, then running around the rest of the whole area with a MMTS-on-a-tripod arrangement.
IOW: At least at the Oregon plant, there are open fields -in the picture- where you might be able to hit 100m from the nearest concrete or vat. It would be very interesting to just flat out measure the temperature difference between that spot and the official measuring spot.
Somewhat like the ad hoc UHI report you posted on Phoenix. Except this would be monitoring the real size of ‘micro-site issues.’ That’s something that the anti-surveying crowd has used as a defense. “Yes, that’s a heat source, but the actual effect is minimal.”
why on earth would you survey the rest of the sites? 80% is enough of a sample by any standard. no one will argue with that.
seriously dont waste your time doing any more…it would be crazy
REPLY: Actually there is a reason for doing so. The CRN 4 and 5 stations are so overwhelmingly a large part of the sample that every time we get a CRN1 or 2 that becomes more valuable. We have so few CRN1/2 stations by comparison that those are the ones I’m really hoping to get. – Anthony
Anthony,
Fantastic project, great job. I will look forward to the CRN 1/2 vs. 3/4/5 comparison. 😉
I just made a contribution but don’t need a book. Just glad I can kick a little in for all the enjoyment I get from the web site and your hard work.
Hi Anthony
Well done on all the hard work. When your schedule frees up, I’d like to interview you for Examiner.com.
I can understand the impact of a complete census, but FWIW, you can now make statistical statements at a 99% level of confidence with a 1.5% margin of error. Interestingly, you can make statements at a 99.9% level of confidence with only a 1.9% margin of error. So, essentially you can start your analysis now, and be confident that the results will not change when you get the rest of the data in.
Great job, guys!
I hope the Google ads will help you out with the money side of things. I click one every time I come in for support. If the block size is too big on the top, try a standard banner size of 468×78, or something close, if your able. With the amount of traffic your site gets, you may do very well with them.
Please support this site with an ad click everyone, if your not doing so already. Or a Paypal donation.
This looks like a canditate for a random-dot survey of the US to use to calculate estimated “actual” average surface temperature. Generate random dots over a map of US with only the blue, green and yellow coded stations; calculate a temp for each random dot on the basis of the gradient between nearest stations and the random dot location. I designed such a sampling scheme for evaluation of a broad alluvial diamond deposit over 100m deep in South Africa for a client. I recall a post concerning analysis of Antarctica temps that had only a handful of stations for study – this one based on US good stations should be fairly robust.
In any case, I’m sure there are a few hundred mathematicians who will also be offering ideas on this subject.
It would be nice if it were possible to be able to set up a scattering of new automatic stations to fill in gaps. If we’re going to have some new Department of Climate with a few bucks in their budget – I would hope they could be convinced to replace and relocate new state of the art stations to ensure accurate monitoring – what other possible mandate could they have?
Anthony,
Please send thirty to Evan… there wasn’t a place on my form to make a note to that effect.
Thanks,
Mike
Anthony,
Is Steve Mc going to help with the data analysis?