As you may have noted, the rate at which I have posted new stories in the last couple of days has tapered off, and likely will remain at a lowered rate in the immediate future.
The reason is twofold:
1) Like many people in this country, I’m getting hit economically. My weather business needs my attention more than ever to keep it running and my family supported. The volume of email alone I get daily asking for advice, files, help with research etc. since starting the blog is overwhelming as it is. Often I find WUWT creeping into my business hours, and this can’t continue under the current economic situation. Thus I’m limiting my interaction to late nights and weekends.
2) I’ve realized that WUWT, while important in it’s own right, being now the number one climate related blog (in terms of traffic) on the web has also become a hungry monster for my time. So, what time I have had in the last few days has been focused on the surfacestations project. I’m making a push to get a majority of stations (my goal is at least 75%) surveyed so that a dataset with a better spatial distribution of stations exists. Right now we still have some big holes in it, particularly in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Kentucky, Alabama, and Mississippi.
Getting stations surveyed and this project database more complete is a much better use of my available spare time than moderating some of the daily philosophical arguments and news items of this blog. I hope my team of crack moderators will be able to fill in the gap and continue to offer postings of relevant stories while I focus on this.
John Goetz and Denise Norris have made some really valuable story contributions to this readership, as has Evan Jones. I hope they’ll be able to continue.
Some folks have commented that becuase I’ve posted my “How not to measure temperature…” series, that I’m only focused on finding the badly sited stations. While they are a dime a dozen and often visually entertaining, actually what we want to find are the BEST stations. Those are the CRN1 and 2 rated stations. Having a large and well distributed sample size of the best stations will help definitively answer the question about how much bias may exist as a result of the contribution of badly sited stations. Since the majorty of sttaions surveyed so far seem to be CRN 3,4,5 with CRN1,2 making up only 12% of the total surveyed stations thus far, it is important to increase the sample size.
So while WUWT will continue to have news and science items of interest, my focus will be getting surveys done, so we’ll see more items on the surfacestations project.
On a related note, I wish to sincerely thank all those that have generously donated to the surfacestations.org project to offset travel expenses. Thanks to that, recently I was able to complete all of the state of Nevada USHCN stations.
If you want to help, signup to help survey some stations. at www.surfacestations.org
Also look for some updated survey instructions soon. Thank you all for your help and consideration
– Anthony
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Your news will make my boss happy.
My morning ritual is coffee, Dilbert, WUWT and then perhaps some work. I guess I’ll have to start work earlier some mornings.
Are you absolutely sure you have to feed your family?
Anthony,
Thanks for everything. Take care of you and yours first….we’ll see if we can get you some survey help here in Texas!
Anthony,
We all have the empty pockets situation to some extent so yours is understood.
I was going to post some desert island black body climate cosmology that the visiting non scientists might find interesting if only to see that it isn’t really rocket science. If that is ok; I’ll do that. I could post a series of related info that might be helpful to the same group.
If you are going into temproary hibernation, it would keep some blood flowing here till you pop back in; I promise to be good and courteous.
George
REPLY: Go for it. – Anthony
Keeping priorities in order is important. Where would WUWT be were it not for your business or the surfacestations project?
You could probably get some good stories just from the surfacestations project. Just look at the interesting finding on part 75 — was there a change in temperatures in Nebraska, was it bad siting, or was it a result of instrumentation changes through the installation of a number of MMTS packages in an area in one year?
And then there is that project involving Anthony’s Army. Bet we could see some interesting posts on that over time as results start to come from that deal.
So keep the priorities in order; would rather see a slimmed down WUWT than none at all!
by the way, where can i buy to support the cause!
we are with you anthony. thanks for putting your family first….it is worth it!
Anthony you and your family are number one in our minds and hearts. We all understand the pressures that our current economy brings and will continue to bring upon all of us. Thank you for all your work and thank you to your family for supporting you in your efforts.
Desert Island Black Body Climate Cosmology
Some of the the non-scientist frequenters might find this informative. Can you figure out anything useful on a desert island without Google/iPhone/Hpcalculator.
Actually you can learn a lot of stuff with just what you may have learned in School.
Well everybody knows that the surface temperatureof the sun is about 6000 K, and somewhere you may have learned that it approximates a black body radiator (of electromagnetic wave energy), which means it radiates according to the Stefan-Boltzmann law Wtot = s T^4 where s is the Stefan Boltzman constant, which we don’t know and sans Microsoft word, so no Greek sigma (σ), giving the total radiation in Watts per square meter in all directions. You should have learned that the sun is 864,000 miles in diameter with a surface area 4pi x r^2
So the total solar emission is sT^4 x 4pi x (432,000)^2. Sorry about those rod/stone/fortnight units old chap, but that’s the answer. Now all that energy passes through a sphere of radius 93,000,000 miles out where we are, so at earth orbit about the sun, the energy density must be sT^4 x 4pi x (432,000)^2 / 4pi x (93,000,000)^2 which is sT^4 x (432,000/93,000,000)^2 = sT^4 /46,345 Watts/m^2
Bloody clever mate!, fixing that odd units problem.
Now we read somewhere that the solar constant out here is 1368Watts/m^2 so in fact we can now calculae that:
s = 1368 x 46,345 / 6000^4 = 4.892 E-8 W/m^2K^4
Well the actual value is 5.6697E-8 which isn’t too bad for scratching with a stick on a desert island beach. The problem is in the solar temperature which is not exactly 6000. but more like 5783 or thereabouts.
We can also calculate the “insulated black body temperature” in earth orbit. What I mean by that term is an insulated cavity where sunlight enters an aperture and energy can only exit that aperture, and its radiation will be sT^4 where T is now being sought.
Well we know that s x 6000^4 x 4pi x (432,000)^2 = s x T^4 x 4pi x (93,000,000)^2 so we have T^4 = 6000^4 x (432,000/93,000,000)^2 = 6000^4 /46345
Now don’t you wish you paid attention when they showed you in 8th grade how to calculate square roots (with a stick in the sand). So do that twice and you get that :
T =6000 / 14.672 = 408.9 K. Well it would be 394.1 if we used the slightly lower sun temperature. So an ideal insulated black body could get up to 121 deg C if you remember that absolute zero is -273.15 C..
Now that number is only of academic interest but the conductive BB temperature is of real interest because that is what a black earth could reach receiving the sun over an area of pi x r^2 and radiating over an area 4pi x r^2, so we have to divide that 394.1 by the 4th root of 4 which is square root of 2 (1.4142) and we can do that in our head and come up with 278.7 K , which is close to 5.5 deg C. That’s not bad, but for the earth we have to consider the reflective loss due to albedo, which is 0.367 or thereabouts, so only 63.3% of that sunlight sticks and we need to multiply by 4th root of 0.633 or 0.892, to get
278.7 x 0.892 = 248.6 which is about -24.5 C.
And that is pretty close to the earth temperature sans GHG (water vapor) warming.
Not bad for a stick in the sand, and some 50 year old memories.
Next time I’ll tell you a bit more about the nature of black body radiation; which is very germane to earth’s climate and the earth/sun link; besides it is one of the truly remarkable physics theories and really was the birth of the whole “Quantum theory” of modern Physics; yes you can understand it; even if you’re a lawyer.
George
this is my favorite web site but please take care of ur family and self!! I hav learned so much thank you.
TerryS (16:14:00): Are you absolutely sure you have to feed your family?
That is the special kind of line which expresses more genuine concern and appreciation than a dozen “sorry”s or “get well soon”s.
We owe you, Anthony; and as TerryS says… Are you absolutely…
PearlandAggie:
The little rotating anemometer/weather vane link along the right side of the page has some neat gadgets.
For under 60 bucks you can buy a datalogger that records temperature/humidity right to your computer. You can compare reality with what the TV weather news says. There are lots of other interesting weather gadgets, too.
Some folks also donate a little cash once in a while. For the cost of a fast food meal or a tank of gas, we can help this great site thrive — and do something worthwhile to get the truth out over the constant roar of the media.
Al Gore will probably have to spend $10,000 of his $300 million ad budget to counter every dollar donated here. That’s getting some bang for your buck!
OK Everyone, time to pull together. A trip to the donate button on the right.
Any thoughts as to bringing a little advertising to WUWT? Perhaps, that would be counter productive to your cause, but there are advertising solutions out there that don’t outright suck such as the deck… http://decknetwork.net/
TerryS (16:14:00) :
Hmm. WUWT interferes with my work too. Interest in this blog really took off this summer, right before the economy tanked. Now, I know correlation doesn’t imply causation, but if Anthony cuts back a bit and the economy improves, that’ll be good enough for me. 🙂
Let some of these peps put out for some topics,
and give Mr Watts some time off for good behavior
Thank You
Tim
Good luck. I’ll miss your regular posts.
REPLY: I should emphasize that I’m not stopping, just scaling back a bit. -Anthony
Thanks
Please, take care of your family. Like you, If I don’t take care of business, I’ll soon find myself semi-retired.
And I hit the Button.
I am reading that everyone on this blog is a tremendous well wisher. Please do what you need to do to bring in the family support and to develop your weather business. At the same time, you must know that the scientific truth of properly positioned surface stations that accurately measure temperature day after day, year after year, is one of the most important contributions to the future of this country as well as our earth. This blog has the value it does because it expresses your personality and integrity.
I hope your readers, including myself, contribute on a subscription basis — so much per month — to keep all of this going. We will be contributing to a better future, one that includes the love of truths and science — what I consider to be a “classically liberal” stance that also has been labeled “conservative”. I suggest that you make the contribution/subscription aspect more straight forward and up-front on the blog; can you include credit cards in addition to PayPal to which I have an adversion?
WhatsUpWithThat is one of the “must reads” every single morning for me. It seems that quite a number of others recognize the value and the community that you have created, Anthony. I feel that “we” are part of an adventure to correct temperature data from which we can decide — politically — where to put our tax dollars regarding the adjustments needed for REAL climate change. It is well worth the expense and the effort. Many. many thanks.
Nonscientist here…I banged the flipper on the donate button. Hell…this site has given me so much in terms of enlightenment, entertainment, and just plain common sense, it’s a damned small thank you for all of that.
Thanks, Anthony…take care of business.
This will sort itself out.
Standing by for instructions for helping on stations in Ky.
I need to say something here. I think.
This site gets 800,000+ hits every month. Somehow I doubt I’m the only one in the TN/MS/AR region.
A few months ago, I took a vacation day to do a few surveys in eastern Arkansas. It required a few late nights to get everything prepared, print out everything, borrow a GPS device, make my contacts, track down the curator & schedule the appointment, etc.
But here’s the thing: I was halfway through the CPA exam at the time. I had a two-year-old plus a two-MONTH-old who was still waking up every 2-3 hours for a bottle. My wife & I both work full-time. And yet, I still found the time to do it.
Yeah, the term “late night” didn’t mean anything at the time. There was no “night.” 🙂
I live by a philosophy that was printed on a sign in a barber shop. There are 3 types of people in this world: those who make things happen, those who watch things happen, and those who wonder what happened.
I’m no scientist. A lot of discussions here are completely over my head. And yet I can read the comments on this blog and easily discern which category the far majority of you fall into, and it’s the same as I.
So here’s a challenge for the readers in my region: Fill in the map. Even if you can only do two surveys like I did. Or even one. No one here can convince me that your daily obligations are so overwhelming that you don’t have the time to volunteer, because I bet I’ve had more on my plate than you have.
And I’m going to issue this challenge to some other people I know as well.
A few weeks ago, I was copied on an e-mail exchange between about 20 family members & friends who were dissatisfied with the outcome of the election. The whole, “Whoa is us” attitude really ticked me off.
Maybe some of you know some people like this. I’m about to fire off an e-mail to them and challenge them to either get involved or quit copying me on these stupid e-mails. I’m sick of hearing the whining.
If you want to make a difference in this world, get off the couch and do something about it. Make things happen. If you want to watch a football game this weekend, I bet you’ll find the time.
Take the time to survey one of these stations and make a difference. Where are you folks in my region?
Sorry if that came off as lecturing. I’m just sick of the daily bombardment of e-mails from “victims” who spend all of their time whining and none of their time “doing.”
I’ve had your site linked for the longest time to mine, but I had almost forgotten about you. Sorry!
Anyway, at first I spent my time blogging about Ecofascists, but as we got closer to the election I spent most of my time on politics (go figure). Now that the election is over I’m going to start doing more debunking of Ecofascism. However, I have spent soooooo much time doing research on Obama I thought I would share at least one of my entries before I switch back over to my original intent. For those of you that are interested in this sort of thing, please take some time to work your way through “Obama The Next Great Communist Leader?”. This is NO joke. Here’s the url…
http://giovanniworld.wordpress.com/2008/11/23/obama-the-next-great-communist-leader/
Thanks Gio-
Anthony: I went shopping for weather gadgets a few days ago, but haven’t had time to complete the task yet. It’s time consuming. Every item has to be viewed to get an idea of the capabilities (which provide an external temperature or humidity reading?). The USB recorders look interesting, but I don’t know if I can leave it plugged in for use as a probe.
So, shoppers: When surveying gadgets, be prepared. Notepad. The main map is only a rough guide. Expect to look around to locate the sensor which you want. But with a little effort, we can complete the survey and keep better track of what’s going on outside.
Sell ads, ads and more ads.
I’m in Spokane, WA…. In looking at the surfacestation.org list it doesn’t seem that sites around here have been surveyed. I’d be willing to survey some. If you give me the site identifiers I’ll look them up and survey them.
Thanks.