Giving thanks

As this year draws to a close, I think back about what I’ve accomplished on this blog in the last year, and it occurs to me that I have a lot of people to thank. It truly has been a team effort in a lot of ways, with many people contributing from many different angles to help make the work I’m doing a possibility.

First and foremost, I’d like to thank Steve Thompson of Assemblyman Rick Keene’s office. It was his mention in an email to me “that Russ Steele and I ought to get together” that started me on the path to study climate change from the data gathering aspect. Of course Russ and I had similar ideas, but we just didn’t know about each other, and knowing that there’s somebody else nearby that thought like I did whom I could converse with, was really a boost. Of course on the political front, I should also thank the local activist group “Esplande League”, because if they hadn’t worked so hard to keep me from being re-elected to the local school board, I never would have had the time to pursue this research.

I owe Russ Steele a lot, not only for the many stations he’s surveyed, and for the encouragement and support, but also for introducing my work to many people, including Steve McIntyre of Climate Audit. It wasn’t until Steve took notice that things really began to take off. Steve has been most gracious in helping to promote my work and for offering me the ability to co-author on his blog.

And there are many others, I can think of the many volunteers on surfacestations.org that have contributed many ideas, data sorting and spreadsheet macros that saved me time and effort, and made the project’s data analysis better. Gary Boden, Chris Dunn, Joel McDade, John Goetz, Barry Wise, and Eric Gamberg have all made significant contributions to the project via surveyed stations and or improvements to the survey process and analysis.

Super surveyor Don Kostuch, has been traveling the country and surveys new stations every week. He is leader of the station surveyors not only in terms of quantity, but of quality too. His surveys are always carefully done. 15 year old Kristen Byrnes and her dad have surveyed almost all of New England single handedly.

One volunteer, Arthur Edelstein, I owe a great deal to because he did some significant data capture and collation that I wouldn’t have been able to do myself in the fraction of time that he did it in.

I owe Dr. Roger Pielke Sr. a debt of gratitude for his faith in my work and his encouragement, along with his assistant, Dallas Staley, who has pulled many an obscure request for data or publications out of nowhere, even after hours.

Then there’s all the other blogs and newspaper authors out there that have promoted what I’m doing.  Joe D’Aleo of ICECAP comes to mind, and does Barry Hearn and Steve Milloy of JS for publishing my “How not to measure temperature” series, and Kate from Small Dead Animals for being a regular traffic driver.  There’s Evan Jones, who is my most prolific and enthusiast commenter, along with regulars George M., Papertiger, Larry Sheldon, and Stan Needham. Let’s not forget Steven Mosher and Jeez, for putting up with my silly rants at dinner with Mac at AGU. Jeez also footed the dinner bill, and so deserves double thanks.

Local blogger Lon Glazner deserves a nod for blogging some early support and for some mental stimulus on thermometers that got me fired up last spring.

In the newspaper realm, Ryan Olson of the local Chico Enterprise Record, not only for the stories he’s done, but for putting up with my complaints about Moveable Type and helping me migrate to WordPress where I’ve been able to make a better product.  I thank Bill Steigerwald of the Pittsburgh Tribune whose article launched me into national attention. And finally, Evan, who did a really balanced and fair article even though I feared the worst.

Then there’s the 300 plus volunteers for www.surfacestations.org Thank you each and every one.

I owe you all a debt of gratitude. Thank you. If I’ve missed anyone, don’t be shy about speaking up.

There’s a few that deserved coal this year, but I’ll leave them nameless.