11 July!

Wow!

And here these “3″ Arctic explorers were pulled off the ice before the end of May.

Gee.

I wonder if they wrote this BEFORE or AFTER these 3 were pulled off the ice after finishing “all” of their “470 km” trick (er, trek) across the ice. And their “ice radar” actually was used how long? For how many holes?

As I recall, MOST evening were NOT used to bore ice cores, and ALMOST ALL of their ice cores were deliberately cut through thin, flat first year ice.

Been raining almost every day down here in north GA…..

Just remove the internal IRB (Infra Red Blocking) filter of a good CCD webcam (Philips for example), and you have an instant IR webcam.

I’m looking for something like global or regional Min, Max, Avg temp graphs. I found two. One for Arghyl ireland, and one for Oxford, England. What I found in both cases is that the average was coming up, but the max temps were pretty steady to slightly rising. What was throwing the avg up was that the Min temps were increasing quite a bit more than the max temps. How common is this?

I mentioned that earlier this spring. Kind of an opaque layer. I definitely remember clear skies, especially a day or two after a rain. Now it seems to stay cloudy for a day or two, then the opaque layer. Weather. Tornadoes are more interesting here in Kansas.

There is at least one paper that discusses the cover design in terms of its heating response to solar radiation (Hubbard, Lin & Walter-Shea): http://tinyurl.com/kndk4z

What this and many other stories like it highlight is the absolute need to get the powers that be to sit down and agree the following:

1. Criteria for weather station siting.
2. Methods for monitoring any events which may compromise ongoing consistency or integrity of data gathering.
3. Cost-effective methods for carrying that monitoring out.
4. A moratorium on religious pronouncements on warming or cooling until the above three have been instigated and monitoring continued for a few decades…

Any chance of that folks?”

No chance. The political beast is on a “crusade”, and, unless we find another “Guy Fawkes” type, will not be stopped. The Mesiah *is* in The White House after all.

The other issue is *most* people are unwilling to research and question “authority”. I, personally, have been doing that since the late 60’s. My main point being is that some people focus on getting fried chicken from the local takeaway, rather than really understanding what our elected politicians are doing and where food, actually, comes from. That’s why Obama got elected, that’s why *most* people support “saving the planet” via reducing C02 emissions. It’s all politics and emotion (Smoke and mirrors).

1. Criteria for weather station siting.
2. Methods for monitoring any events which may compromise ongoing consistency or integrity of data gathering.
3. Cost-effective methods for carrying that monitoring out.
4. A moratorium on religious pronouncements on warming or cooling until the above three have been instigated and monitoring continued for a few decades…

Any chance of that folks?

Ok, so we have a way to validate that the existing air temperature sensors aren’t being influenced by local biases then. Plus a way to measure surface temperature over a wide area from the ground. Two purposes for one. Excellent.

Well then how do satellites measure temperature of the ground, lower, mid and upper atmospheres? Let’s use that technology from ground based sensors. Does that make any sense?

What about using Atmospheric Infrared Sounders from the ground?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_Infrared_Sounder

Or Advanced Microwave Sounders from the ground?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Microwave_Sounding_Unit

There must be some ground based methods for measuring air temperature accurately within a local volume of air.

I hadn’t looked it up (forgot that I could check with coordinates), but yes it is indeed an AM at 1340 (a “local” frequency.”)

1000 watts is not an enormous amount of RF, but the ground system from that tower, if still in tact, essentially puts the proximity of the instrumentation “right on” the antenna.

AM would actually be more likely to cause trouble with such equipment, but at 1000 watts it may not matter.

FWIW, back during the “Greyout Davis” years when California had persistent rolling blackouts, after putting small portable UPSs on all the electronics and a light in every room, and after getting an emergency gasoline generator, I decided to investigate a “longer term” solution ( I think it was in the 2nd or 3rd year… groan… )

IIRC, there was a very nice efficient Diesel portable generator that, when all the math was done, made electricity for the price of “Diesel oil per gallon divided by 10 per kW-hr”. So if Diesel was selling for $2.50 it cost .25 / kW-hr. A convenient metric to keep in mind. At the time Diesel was about $1.80 and electricity was .15 or so and I let the idea pass.

Now, with Diesel at $2.50 and the “peak over baseline politically incorrect yes I want AC at the hottest part of the day” rate pushing .35 it is probably worth a re-visit…

There are also relatively low cost Lister type Diesel generators that run on vegetable oil (designed to do so from the factory!) so if you have a friend with a hamburger stand … or if they tax Diesel to death but subsidize food like Soybean oil, well, there are ways…

My ‘base plan’ is to just use my Diesel car to provide about 1 kw if I need to go there due to gasoline being too expensive for my Honda generator (I already have the inverter, from the last time…)

Golly, remember the days back when the electric utility just provided steady reliable cheap electricity all the time? Before the government decided to start “fixing” things and put the fix in, I mean, gave things a fix, um, oh never mind … :-|

(Dusting off my gasogen and methane fermenter plans… and looking at natural gas prices vs gasoline / Diesel and thinking about a nat-gas generator plumbed in… Reminds me of the time I was looking at getting electricity in a 3 rd world country on a reliable basis…)

The only good news is that out here under The Big Blue Blob of cold, we’ve had exactly zero need for AC so far this summer. Did need the heater a bit, though, and I already have a fireplace insert and wood pile.

I have noticed that the sky has a peculiar thin high haze / cloud to it. Mid day it looks like feint fog or thin cirrus at, I’d guess, 5,000 to 10,000 feet. Late in the afternoon / evening it gets a bit more like normal cumulus. Very odd in that we’ve typically had stark clear blue during summer in the past 30 years. Maybe that GCR thing… ?

In the meantime, WUWT continues to beat the pants off RC in traffic and reach, so I’m going to just keep on doing what I’m doing and not worry about Gavin’s opinion of me. – Anthony

An eminently wise decision. You’re obviously the better man.

Wouldn’t the scientific community and the public also expect higher standards?

Elizabeth – you appear to be assuming that the AGW Movement is interested in finding out the truth wrt Climate.

The nature of advocacy science is too only show interest in reports that validate and reinforce the accepted theory. Contrary facts, and poor data, are simpy ignored or attacked.

I suspect that the broader scientific community and the public are simply un-aware of the poor state of the land based temperature data.

I’m sure glad I didn’t help foot the bill. (Catlin expedition)”

Don’t worry, after Copenhagen, we’ll all be footing the bill for idiotic studies, surveys, policies and taxes.

Just Want Results… (16:20:20) :

Now if we can get them to move this station :

http://www.norcalblogs.com/watts/images/Tucson1.jpg

or at least get them to paint the pavement Stevenchu white.

Hah!!! Have you seen the tiny patch of grass below the Stevenson screen?

As Tony Blair once said: “Location, location, location…”

You would think with all that taxpayer money, they would have a better monitoring and upgrade program in place. But I guess that like all bureaucracies, the least possible is the common goal.