UPDATE: the question has arisen about “occupied” aka “manned” weather stations in Antarctica (Stevenson Screens etc) versus the Automated Weather Stations. This picture on a postage stamp from Australia, celebrating the Australian Antarctic Territory in 1997, may help settle the issue. Note the Stevenson Screen near the “living pod” on the right.
Here is the larger photo of the first day of issue card, the Stevenson Screen is also just visible above the snowbank in the lower right. Rather close to human habitation I’d say. Looks like its in the middle of an AHI (Antarctic Heat Island).
Here’s another picture of a Stevenson Screen close to a building in Antarctica, from the British Antarctic Survey:
![[10004058]](http://www.photo.antarctica.ac.uk/external/guest/image/water/70/10004058)
Location: Fossil Bluff, Alexander Island
Season: 1994/1995
Photographer: Pete Bucktrout
It seems that folks are all “wild about Harry” over at Climate Audit, with the revelations occurring there, and no good kerfluffle would be complete without some pictures of the weather stations in question. It seems a weather station used in the Steig Antarctic study , aka “Harry”, got buried under snow and also got confused with another station, Gill, in the dataset. As Steve McIntyre writes:
Gill is located on the Ross Ice Shelf at 79.92S 178.59W 25M and is completely unrelated to Harry. The 2005 inspection report observes:
2 February 2005 – Site visited. Site was difficult to locate by air; was finally found by scanning the horizon with binoculars. Station moved 3.8 nautical miles from the previous GPS position. The lower delta temperature sensor was buried .63 meters in the snow. The boom sensor was raised to 3.84 m above the surface from 1.57 m above the surface. Station was found in good working condition.
I didn’t see any discussion in Steig et al on allowing for the effect of burying sensors in the snow on data homogeneity.
The difference between “old” Harry and “new” Harry can now be explained. “Old” Harry was actually “Gill”, but, at least, even if mis-identified, it was only one series. “New” Harry is a splice of Harry into Gill – when Harry met Gill, the two became one, as it were.
Considered by itself, Gill has a slightly negative trend from 1987 to 2002. The big trend in “New Harry” arises entirely from the impact of splicing the two data sets together. It’s a mess.
So not only is there a splice error, but the data itself may have been biased by snow burial.
Why is the snow burying important? Well, as anyone skilled in cold weather survival can tell you, snow makes an excellent insulator and an excellent reflector. Snow’s trapped air insulative properties is why building a snow cave to survive in is a good idea. So is it any wonder then that a snowdrift buried temperature sensor, or a temperature sensor being lowered to near the surface by rising snow, would not read the temperature of the free near surface atmosphere accurately?
As I’ve always said, getting accurate weather station data is all about siting and how the sensors are affected by microclimate issues. Pictures help tell the story.
Here’s “Harry” prior to being dug out in 2006 and after:
Harry AWS, 2006 – Upon Arrival – Click to enlarge.
Harry AWS, 2006 – After digging out – Click to enlarge.
You can see “Harry’s Facebook Page” here at the University of Wisconsin
It seems digging out weather stations is a regular pastime in Antarctica, so data issues with snow burial of AWS sensors may be more than just about “Harry”. It seems Theresa (Harry’s nearby sister) and Halley VI also have been dug out and the process documented. With this being such a regular occurrence, and easily found within a few minutes of Googling by me, you’d think somebody with Steig et al or the Nature peer reviewers would have looked into this and the effect on the data that Steve McIntyre has so eloquently pointed out.
Here’s more on the snow burial issue from Antarctic bloggers:
The map showing Automated Weather Stations in
Antarctica:
Click map for a larger image
The Gill AWS in question.
From Polartrec
Theresa was placed at this location partly to
study the air flow in the region. Looking out the window of the plane we can
definitely see the air flowing!!! Jim estimates the wind at about 25 miles per
hour.
Wind blown snow at Theresa
With the temperature around 0F the wind chill
was about 20 below, it is obvious this is going to be quite a chore.
Starting to dig out Theresa
The weather station has not been working, so
George needs to figure out what is wrong with it and then fix it. The station is
almost buried in the snow so we will also need to remove all of the electronics,
add a tower section and then raise and bolt all of the electronics and sensors
back in place.
George unhooking the cables.
After refueling the plane, with the fuel in
the 55 gallon drums, Jim and Louie helped dig down to the electronics boxes that
were completely buried plus they built us a wind break that made huge difference
in helping us not be so cold. After about 4 hours we are almost through. As I am
hanging onto the top of the raised tower in the wind, one bunny boot wedged onto
the tower bracing, the other boot wrapped around the tower, one elbow gripping
the tower, my chin trying to hold the wind sensor in place and both bare numb
hands trying to thread a nut onto the spinning wind sensor I really appreciate
the difficulty of what is normally Jonathan’s job. After checking to make sure
Theresa is transmitting weather data we board the plane and head to Briana our
second station.
Notice the difference between this
picture and the first one of Theresa.
From Antarctic Diary
More movement
It’s been another flat-out week. The vehicle team have dug
up and moved the Drewery building, which was getting do buried snow was
almost up the windows. Team Met have been on the move too – all the
remaining instruments are now bolted securely to the Laws roof, so we headed
up the the Halley VI building site to relocate the weather station.
Jules starts digging out the weather station
Only 15km away, the Halley VI site looks a lot like Halley V. It’s flat,
white and snowy. Very snowy. The weather station had about 1.5m built up
around it!
Jules and Simon recovering the solar panel
In the hole!
The weather station was a survey reference point for the build project so we
had to find a suitable replacement. Could this be Antarctica’s first
pole-dancing venue?
Penguin Party memories…
After an hour or so sweating it our with shovels, the weather station popped
out and was loaded onto the sledge. Like the reference point, the station’s
new location had to be precise as vehicles are banned from the upwind
section of the site to keep that area ultra-clean for future snow-chemistry
experiments.
Weather station on the move
Driving on a compass bearing and GPS track, we found the new site just under
a kilometre away.
The final setup
UPDATE: here’s another buried station story from Bob’s Adventures in cold climes. Apparently this station is used as a reference for some sort of borehole project.
I dig weather stations
My main task for today was to get a start on raising my weather station. I’d installed it 2 years ago, and with the high accumulation at Summit, it’s getting buried. The electronics are all in a box under the snow, and the only things visible at the surface were the anemometer for measuring wind speed and direction, the thermistor for measuring air temperature, and the solar panel to keep the batteries charged.
The buried weather station. The flat green bit is the solar panel, which was about 1.5 meters off the surface when I installed the station. Can you guess why I would mount it facing down?
In the morning I downloaded all the data from the station, and checked to see that it was all in order. Then it was time for digging. I’d carefully made a diagram when I inastalled the station, so I knew exactly where to dig. A couple of hours later I’d found my box!
At the bottom of the pit with the datalogger electronics.
I brought everything up to the surface, and then was about to fill in the pit, when I realized at least one more scientist at Summit might want to make measurements in it; the pit’s already dug! So tomorrow I’ll help Lora with some conductivity measurements, then fill in the pit, re-bury the box just beneath the surface, and it’ll be ready to go for another 2 years!
And there’s more….
The Australians seem to have AWS problems as well. From the Australian Antarctic Division:
On Monday two groups headed out, with Largy and Denis going up to the skiway to check on the condition of the equipment stored there for the winter and beginning preparations for the coming summer flying season.
Bill, Brian and Ian went up to the Lanyon Junction Automatic Weather Station (AWS) to check its condition and retrieve some of the sensors in preparation for the annual servicing of the various remote units.
|
|
And the University of Maine, participating in USITASE, has the same troubles, they write:
We reached our first major destination at the end of today’s travel, the site of the Nico weather station. There are several automatic weather stations spread out over the surface of Antarctica. These stations measure things like temperature, wind speed and wind direction and then relay this data back to scientists via satellite. Anything left on the surface of the snow will eventually be drifted in and buried by blowing snow. This particular weather station (NICO) has not been seen in several years. They tried to locate it via airplane a few years ago and were unsuccessful. Our task was to find the weather station, record its position with GPS, and mark the location with flags so that in the near future, the weather station can be raised and serviced.
We arrived at the coordinates of the station around 10 pm. Our initial scans of the horizon were not productive, so Matthew and John took the lead tractor (with our crevasse-detecting radar) out to survey a grid near our stopping point. The radar should detect a large metal object like a weather station, but the survey was also unsuccessful. After a fine pasta and tomato sauce dinner, John went outside for an evening constitutional. He saw a shiny object out in the distance – further inspection with a pair of binoculars determined that it was the top of the NICO weather station! Several of us marched out to the station, which was actually about a half mile distant, marked the location with bright orange flags and recorded the position via GPS for future reference. Only the top foot or two of the station was still visible. John was in exactly the right place at the right time to see a reflection from this object while we were near the kitchen module, and so allowed us to complete our first task successfully.
Tomorrow, we drive on.
This regular burial and digging out of stations brings the whole network of AWS stations to be used as sensitive climate measurement stations into question.
George E. Smith (19:21:32) :
“” Sylvia (17:51:32) :
“Who is Sylvia?
What is she? ”
That all our swains commend her
Holy, fair, and wise is she;
The heaven such grace did lend her,
That she might admirèd be.
By Will Shakespeare, I don’t remember the rest, we had to sing it in my primary school choir about 50 years ago! The music might well have been Schubert
Sorry I can’t remember any more of the words; but I believe that is from Franz Schubert; one of his delightful German Lieder creations. Hey it’s probably 50 years since I last listened to, that; I can only remember so much stuff.
You’re so kind fair Sylvia; now as to those mittens. Would you believe that before I left Auckland (UofA), in 1961. my mother knitted up a storm, out of New Zealand wools. Seems that we had this vision of Oregon, as being a land of perpetual snow, and Mink Farms; hence the knitting frenzy. I still have all of those sweaters and they still work.
So now we know that Sylvia is a very clever lady; because I think knitting is a lost art; so anybody who can do that is AOK in my book, since I have even forgotten how to knit myself.
But back at the CO2 snow factory.
Thanks to Ric Werme Phil, EMSmith and Steve Keohane for the comments; Phil; green flag; sail on, no foul on the idiot thing which was self inflicted.
I’m still in a state of confusion, on several grounds; but I am taking all of your criticisms under advisement.
No problem, I’ve been this route before even teaching graduate students there’s a lot of misunderstanding about this. Particularly regarding critical pressure.
#1 A pressure of one atmosphere has absolutely has no earthly significance, as regards a partial pressure of CO2 gas over CO2 solid; so why on earth would your phase diagram (once again thanx for that) cite the sublimation point of -78.5 deg C at one atmosphere (of CO2 partial pressure), which is hardly a condition that a block of dry ice out in the open would ever see ?
It’s the vapor pressure of the CO2 gas in equilibrium with the surface of the block at -78.5ºC. If you put the block in an insulated box the air in it would be displaced by one atm of CO2.
#2 if the phase boundary reaches 385 ppm at some temperature somewhat below -135 C; then dry ice at say -87.5 deg C would be somewhat similar to a superheated water situation; if the ice wants to sea one atmosphere of CO2 partial pressure (at -78.5) and has only 385 ppm; why isn’t there an explosive sublimation of dry ice out in the air?
If it was a liquid (like liq N2) then it does boil up rather quickly, however in the solid state it’s limited by heat conduction.
#3 By what mechanism does the CO2 ice surface molecule identify the species of a colliding molecule. If I’m a MAxwell’s demon in my CO2 suit, hiding in that surface layer on the ice block, I see nearby molecules occasionally heading off into the wild blue yonder, and other molecules coming in from the air at a distribution of velocities, and momenta, colliding with my mates ( and me too) interchanging momentum and energy at the surface; but I see NO mechanism by which I can identify any incoming missile as being a CO2 molecule, rather than a molecule of N2 or O2, CH4, or anything else (assuming we limit ourselves to molecular species which are not going to undergo some chemical reaction with the CO2. So that is my dilemma; I can’t identify CO2 molecules, so how the hell do I know twhat the partial pressure of CO2 even is.
#4 Now I guess I do see a gremlin in there, thinking in terms of a water under glass situation. Presumably, at -78.5 deg C, the CO2 block is emitting molecules from the surface at some rate, and if the CO2 were under glass, the rate of evaporation (sublimation) is equal to the sum total of collisions of all molecular species. (rate in =rate out) !!! BUT !!!, the dry ice block is emitting ONLY CO2 molecules; but most of the incoming are NOT CO2; ergo the block must be losing CO2 molecules, since only 385 ppm of the arriving molecules are CO2 to replace one that is lost.
Congratulations, you’ve got it!
I think you just convinced me; the total Dalton’s Law pressure from all species is in fact stopping the block from exploding; but it is losing CO2 at some rate depending on temperature; and the 385 ppm of CO2 can’t possibly keep up with that so it the dry ice block must completely evaporate; at least down to such a small piece that the molecular rate of loss is in equilibrium with the arrival rate of CO2 at 385 ppm in the atmosphere; now I can die happy, because even with just a stick to scratch in the sand of my desert island, I can see how that must be so.
Well my Supervisor ; who is an HP Fellow by the way (titular) is a laser physics guy. if my chemistry hadn’t stopped in my high school graduating year; I might have understood how this works.
Well the guy who was trying to measure radiation at the south pole, couldn’t understand why he couldn’t just turn his radiometer sensor upsidedown, and read the surface emittance from the snow; which presumably really wasn’t CO2 at all. (well he wasn’t an optics guy; just a climatologist or meteorologist).
Thanx again Phil and Ric et al; I learn something new every day.
You’re welcome.
http://planetark.org/enviro-news/item/51497
Related to this post, but way out in there in terms of reality. Where do these people come up with these kind of statistics?
Here’s my contribution to the Global warming debate. I’m not a statistician so this is my first effort in analyzing this type of data. I have not worked with statistics in over 30 years and my every day job is not science related.
I plotted all the monthly data for the McMurdo Antartica manned station used in the Steig Study. I found the links at RC. This station has near continuous temperature readings for 53 years. I used all the monthly available data which covers the time period of April 1956 through Jan 2009. Temperatures ranged from about 0 to -37 degrees Centigrade. Steig omits data for 2007+2008.
Using the simple least squares regression function in Excel I plotted a linear trend line chart from this data. Low and behold there is a warming trend over this 53 year period. With an R squared value of .0023 Excel calculates that y=.0023x-17.682.
The R squared value of .0023 indicates that the plotted line does a very good job of plotting the data. The first value of the formula indicates that there is a positive slope of .0023 for the data over this 53 year period. I’m not sure how to interpret the results much beyond this. Does a slope of .0023 imply that it would take 400 years for the average monthly temperature to increase by one degree Centigrade?
Thanks
realitycheck,
Where does your avalanche death data come from?
This is an interesting topic for me because I was
caught in an avalanche in 1987 and was buried.
There are several ways to die in an avalanche, but
my understanding and experience is freezing to
death is not very likely. Blunt trauma, impalement,
crushing and hypoxia kill more quickly.
All that kinetic energy expressed in an avalanche gets
released as heat. Keep the Stephenson Screens out
of avalanche zones due to warming bias.
Retired BChE;
Greetings, from a fellow comical engineer. Welcome to WUWT!
I can relate to having to develop accurate data from which to build plants that actually work! (chemicals for 3 years, then refineries, petrochemical plants, and power plants for 27 years.)
EM Smith: “A sudden and unexpected report of ’something changed’.”
Any major change will attract comment. However, sceptics’ reservations over Antarctic temperature measurement seem a trifle ad hoc, given the previous acceptance of the temperature record, and slightly off target, given that the new assessment also depends on satellite measurements.
Whatever, the report is sure to generate further study, especially since some other climate scientists have expressed reservations over the findings. And that’s what science is all about: studies, debates, more studies, all very productive.
The other interesting aspect of this event is that we’re possibly seeing in real time the process of convergence as a scientific theory evolves.
@Retired BChE (19:38:53) :
Not only are they wrong, a lot, but some of them are just not very nice (or honest) people.
http://motls.blogspot.com/2009/02/gavin-schmidt-is-his-own-mystery-woman.html
Frank Perdicaro (21:38:05) :
Firstly, sorry to hear you were caught up in an Avalanche – glad to see you here having this discussion…
To your question,
“realitycheck, Where does your avalanche death data come from?”
Table 9.2 in The avalanche handbook
http://www.mountaineersbooks.org/productdetails.cfm?PC=697
Don’t get me wrong here – there is no question the primary cause of death is lack of oxygen (65% of cases), followed by 25% of cases due to trauma through collision with objects etc. – however, the remaining 10% of cases is due to hypothermia and shock.
My point here is: you don’t survive a blowing blizzard at 40 below by burying yourself in snow – you survive by building a snow cave (with an air cavity).
Now if there is a radiation shield around the sensor (per D. Patterson (18:58:45) : ) and that air gap remains when buried (didn’t consider that), then yes, I could accept a warming bias.
Unlike some, I am prepared to adjust my view based on data… 🙂
Smokey (15:48:35) :
Brendan H,
Are you questioning this?: click
Or this?: click
They’re from GISS records.
Your links show a negative trend for the South Pole. That is exactly what the Steig paper reported! One station does not tell us the temperature trend for an entire continent – have a look at Vostok data, for example, which has a positive trend for the same period.
Hugo M (14:16:06) :
“Is there a database of all antarctic stations? ”
Here is another list of statons I ran across while looking for something else. Unfortunately, it notes the list may be incomplete with respect to stations without WMO identifiers.
“(05/01/2009) WMO station list 1
Stations and AWS sites in Antarctica (89xxx) and sub Antarctic Islands (88xxx and others)
and ship call signs
List updated 2009 January 5”
“There are likely to be additional AWS without WMO station numbers”
http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/met/jds/met/WMO_stations.pdf
In case of snippage, wanted to put this here. From the CA thread “Carnage”:
A couple of points need highlighting so that they don’t get overwhelmed in the back and forth over details. First, as Thor points out in #37, is the bizarre reliance on “trust” in comments Tamino made at RC. Second, is the adjective “legitimate” used by Steig (see Jeff Id at #38) to distinguish those with whom he is willing to share his work and those he deems unworthy.
These revelations are telling. They are jaw-dropping in their implications.
The people involved in this affair can be divided roughly into two groups. One group had access, for an extensive period of time, to all the data and all the code. Members of this group actually invested significant professional attention to the preparation of this study. This group is the one Steig considers “legitimate” and Tamino says he “trusts”.
The second group consists of people who only spent a short amount of time looking over the study (without the benefit of the code and methodology) and quickly discovered that the data had some serious problems.
How can members of the first group argue that the second group isn’t advancing the cause of science? Don’t they realize that their petty obstinance and obfuscation only serves to diminish their credibility? Do they really think that that outside observers are going to accept their justifications for denying access to critical information for people who are clearly improving the state of the science?
The team is beginning to look a lot like brer rabbit after his bout with the tar baby.
Well it seems they won’t have to keep digging forever. When it all melts we will be looking for up to 21ft sea rise according to: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,488864,00.html
Needless to say, Peter Clark & Co. make many assumptions concerning our demise.
“sceptics’ reservations over Antarctic temperature measurement seem a trifle ad hoc,”
Does this seem like cognitive dissonance, anyone? The issue here is a paper using WA stations with frequent gaps, one cause here illustrated, is interpolated and then used to replace EA data regarded as relatively reliable.
What part of ‘incorrigible’ do you not understand?
Richard M:
BTW, I predict many more problems will be found with this paper IF they release the code. The fact they haven’t released it yet pretty much assures me that is the case.
That’s my thinking, too. So far Steig and Gavin are only feverishly waving their hands, claiming that we should trust them to now do correctly what they didn’t do correctly before.
Moreover, not releasing the Steig/Mann application of the RegM code makes the paper not scientific. “Peers” everywhere cannot review the application to see what might be wrong with using the application itself*, nor even see if it was applied without internal mistakes**.
Simply making the application available to only certain “Peers” does not count when it comes to following the Scientific Method.
*See Steve McIntyre and Ross McKitrick’s analysis of Mann’s Hockey Stick algorithms
**For a very simple example, see the SPM4 table concerning predicted and actual sea level rises which added up two seperate columns – of only four numbers each – incorrectly, errors which apparently escaped the allegedly massive ipcc peer review mechanism.
William re regression
I am not an expert and I “play” with stats in football and in the stock market.
Here is a reference for Excel and Regressions
http://www.cba.nau.edu/allen-d/Excel%20Regression%20Tutorial/excel_regression_tutorial.htm
There appears to be an error in your post as it is odd that the R^2 is the same as the beta coefficient.
The R^2 of .0023, if correct, means that there is no relationship.
I don’t know if the regression output was read wrong or if you have a typo in the post, but something appears to be wrong.
There is a annual cycle in the monthly data which is not linear, so I think that regression on the monthly values is not the best way to go. Try running a regression just using January data, another for Feb, etc.
Another way is to use annual data instead of monthly, and if you do, it may be better to use a solar year instead of a calendar year.
Good luck.
“” Thanx again Phil and Ric et al; I learn something new every day.
You’re welcome. “”
Well Phil maybe I am an idiot after all; but I do think I should have shouted “Eureka !”
The joy that comes with realization.
Just 30-40 years ago of was CTO of what back then became on of the largest LED companies in the world. Here in silicon Valley, we grew single crystal Gallium Arsenide by the hundreds of Kilograms; using a very efficient process. The GaAs was synthesized and the crystal grown from the melt in a single step; a variation of the “Horizontal Bridgeman” method, also known as “Gradient Freeze”
At the melting point of GaAs which my memory says is somewhere around 980C, the Arsenic vapor pressure is about one atmosphere, so the raw materials can be vaccuum sealed in a quartz ampoule, and not have it blow up, so long as you don’t get the temperature too high. The Arsenic at one end sublimes, and dissolves in the liquid gallium in a boat containing an oriented seed crystal, which is not in contact with the gallium (tilted). the components are in acurately weighed stoichiometric ratio. Once the synthesis is comlete, the tilt is removed bringing the melt in contact with the seed, and then the temperature is slowly lowered (2-3 days) while maintaining a gradient; cooler at the seed end, The solid liquid boundary propagates along the boat as the melting point moves, and voilla ! you get a single crystal ingot.
In principle you can grow Gallium Phosphide the same way; BUT !! the melting point of GaP is somewhere up in the 1300C range, and the phosphorous vapor pressure at the melting point is ovewr 30 atmospheres, so no way in hell you can do the same quartz at atmospheric pressure routine; and you need a high pressure reactor vessel that typically runs at around 45 atmospheres. The GaP melt is sealed by a layer of molten Boric Oxide glass, and the crystal is pulled out of the melt through the glass by the Czochralzki method. I don’t remember how they maintain the internal pressure,but I presume it is some gas or other. There’s a bunch of these near bombs in the building attached to the one I am in. Far as I know they’ve never had one blow.
We used to do the zinc diffusion process into either GaAs or GaAs0.6P0.4 to make LEDs in a sealed quartz ampoule too; but that was well below the melting point of GaAs. One method used a Gallium Zinc alloy that was prepared ahead of time, and placed in the bottle along with the wafers; but the problem with that method was that Arsenic evaporated from the wafers, which wasn’t good for anybody. Those silicon guys don’t understand how simple they have it working with an elemental crystal, instead of a Chemical Compound, that can dissociate. The doping method we preferred to use (the Zinc was to P-type dope the exposed epi layers to make the diodes) was to use Zinc Arsenide, instead of the GalliumZinc dopant. That dissociated and evaporated all the evaporated the arsenic to maintain a high enough Arsenic overpressure to stop the wafers from outgassing Arsenic. The temperature was low enough that you didn’t have to worry about the Phosphorous vapor pressure. I remember the ternary phase diagram of the Gallium/Arsenic/Zinc, was a weird triangular grid diagram, that we used to establish the zinc doping level at the wafer surface.
Now that stuff was some really bad chemistry, compared to the nearly harmless Carbon Dioxide of Antarctica; which we now know, happily stays in the vapor phase; except when it dissolves in the water and ice.
The N-type dopant that we put in the GaAs0.6P0.4 Epitaxial layers was the worst of the whole bunch; Tellurium. Don’t ever get near that stuff.
In 12 or so years, we never had a toxic accident; not a single employee ever tested positive for Arsenic poisoning; although we did have the occasional Hydrogen fire, when a leaky reactor let some H2 loose which went up in the attic, and then went bang in some air conditioner motor.
So why it took me so long to come to grips with the CO2 status, is either Alzheimers, or true idiocy.
But thanx again Phil and Ric et al; being alone with a stick on a desert island beach is survivable; but it is nice to have some company to swap ideas with.
George
Just found some superb data, nice friendly graphs originally NASA GISS and UEA CRU. Use data from the horse’s mouth to show the truth. http://www.john-daly.com/stations/stations.htm. Simon Evans reports that Vostok data shows an up-trend in the time span of the paper, 1957-2008. But hey, look at the graph for Vostok and many other Antarctic stations here thanks to John Daly and Arctic stations too, at that web page. For goodness sake, Vostok and nearly all the Antarctics are FLAT FLAT FLAT overall, just a few have enough data to show heavy winter variations compared with small summer ones; and only the single station right up by the Falklands shows the warming that I would expect since it receives the warm ocean current from the rest of the globe that warmed in that time. John Daly collected those data up to 2001 so hey, they are a few years out of date, but so what? The predicted serious polar warming should have showed up decades earlier.
Oh, and look at the Arctic data there for “Stykkisholmur & Teigarhorn” and “Vardo”.
If you haven’t seen it yet, have more fun looking at Antarctica warming by paintwork
Jarhead
Thanks for excel regression reference. I tried using the monthly Jan Data and still only got an R squared of .0223 with variations of temp between -7.0 and 0 degrees Celsius. There was an upward trend of of .0125.
I’m going to keep working on it. It’s a great learning experience.
Thanks
Ed
Lucy Skywalker (11:46:13) :
Just found some superb data, nice friendly graphs originally NASA GISS and UEA CRU. Use data from the horse’s mouth to show the truth.
John Daly’s website is not “the horse’s mouth”.
Here is the READER data for Vostok:
http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/met/READER/surface/Vostok.All.temperature.html
I invite you to plot it and then to return to my statement above, that Vostok shows a positive trend over the period.
‘Scepticism’ should be applied to sources that seem to confirm your point of view just as much as to those which are in conflict with it, you know.
William re regression
I ran the Jan data and got 0.027 (vs your 0.023) for R^2. That means that the data is trendless, that there is no linear trend over time in the data. The “trend” 0f 0.0125 (I got 0.014) is meaningless.
But we are not looking at the same data. I show a low of -6.2 for 1960 and a high of 0.9 for 2007. I got my data from here
http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/met/READER/surface/McMurdo.All.temperature.html
This means nothing to anyone except you and me, who are both having fun playing with numbers. No purpose using Anthony’s bandwidth. If you want to continue, I am jarhead60 on yahoo.
Gary Gulrud: “The issue here is a paper using WA stations with frequent gaps, one cause here illustrated, is interpolated and then used to replace EA data regarded as relatively reliable.”
The article that heads this thread is all about problems with measuring temperatures in the Antarctic. Nothing there about the actual methodology of the study. As I understand it, the study uses a mix of satellite data for the interior of the Antarctic and ground measurements to calculate the temperature trend over the past 50 years. The station in question was apparently not used in the reconstruction.
If the authors of the study have replaced east Antarctic data with west Antarctic data, presumably they have a rationale. What do the authors say?
“What part of ‘incorrigible’ do you not understand?”
In this context, not a lot. ‘Incorrigible’ can mean ‘habitual’, ‘persistent’, ‘incurable’, ‘hopeless’. Are you saying the study is incorrigible? The data? The authors?
“” jarhead (14:08:22) :
William re regression
I ran the Jan data and got 0.027 (vs your 0.023) for R^2. That means that the data is trendless, that there is no linear trend over time in the data. The “trend” 0f 0.0125 (I got 0.014) is meaningless.
But we are not looking at the same data. I show a low of -6.2 for 1960 and a high of 0.9 for 2007. I got my data from here
http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/met/READER/surface/McMurdo.All.temperature.html
This means nothing to anyone except you and me, who are both having fun playing with numbers. No purpose using Anthony’s bandwidth. If you want to continue, I am jarhead60 on yahoo. “”
Can you hazard a guess as to what percentage of “Climatologists” or “Meteorlogists” are actually “Statisticians”
In following these threads; or trying to, I see a large fraction of the posts seem to relate to statistics, which puzzles me.
Of course one can do all manner of statistical manipulations on any arbitrary number set; even a set of numbers which have no mutual relationships of any kind; like the numbers in your local Phone book for example. Even if you don’t filter out anything, which clearly is not a telephone number, you can conduct an analysis on anything that is in the book which meets the definition of a number, and carries no alpha characters, but only numeric characters.
The result of such statistical analyses on such a number set, of course has no scientific significance of any kind, yet it is a valid statistical analysis of the set of numbers.
I wonder what is the expectation of doing such an analysis on a set of actual measured temperature data; even if the data sampling process is clearly in gross violation of the Nyquist theorem. That doesn’t invalidate the statistical analysis, but it most certainly invalidates any conclusions one might make about the results.
So why the heavy emphasis on statistics?
George; who just wants to know.
Simon Evans (12:51:25) wrote
“I invite you to plot it and then to return to my statement above, that Vostok shows a positive trend over the period.”
I took the data from reader for August from 1958 to 2008, and i omitted the years with no data. I then ran a simple linear regression using years as the independent variable. There is a positive trend of 0.026 BUT the trend is meaningless because the R^2 is 0.012. The beta coefficient has low t and p values. The standard error is over 100 times as large as the trend. If you think the trend is meaningful, please tell me what method you used, the trend and the R^2 you calculated. Maybe I have an error, or I misunderstand, or I did it wrong.
I agree that “John Daly’s website is not “the horse’s mouth”, and that almost all statements and data on the internet should not be blindly accepted. But as we have seen this week, the best data sources are sometimes corrupted. I also agree with you that “‘Scepticism’ should be applied to sources that seem to confirm your point of view just as much as to those which are in conflict with it…”
D. Patterson (05:26:34) :
Here is another list of statons I ran across while looking for something else. Unfortunately, it notes the list may be incomplete with respect to stations without WMO identifiers.
“(05/01/2009) WMO station list 1
Stations and AWS sites in Antarctica (89xxx) and sub Antarctic Islands (88xxx and others)
and ship call signs
List updated 2009 January 5”
“There are likely to be additional AWS without WMO station numbers”
http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/met/jds/met/WMO_stations.pdf
Thank you very much for this information. At least you get there a quick relation between current station ids and station names.
But what I’m after is a database detailing the station history and field service interventions (digging up, moving, repairing, changing transmitters and so on). The U Wisconsin AWS web site mentioned earlier is really sloppy about all this important data. Station History is probably always empty. The field service entries for each year consist mostly of one lapidar entry like: dT sensor buried (The dT sensor seems to be a third temperature sensor, visible on some, but not all stations below the electronic box.)
However, the provides much more details. There is a file “readme.updates”, which for example states
02/19/04 — Data for Harry (8900) have been added for July, 2000. The file
for July actually contained August data.
The file readme.notes states:
[…] So, a filename like 89060589.r would be data for site 8906 during May of 1989. Some files have an ‘x’ in the filename; this is done when there are data for the same ID # for two or more sites during the same month. An ‘x’ may replace the ‘0’ in the month part of the filenames during January and February, and replace the leading 8 in March through December, or alternately replace the leading ‘8’ for all months in question (prevalent with 1994-on) . It is important to watch for these files. […]
Seems likely, that the people busy in boiling down these files into the antarctic monthly means database had missed some of these hints. But one could use this history entries as hints for where to look for implausible or wrongly merged data.
This brings me to my next point. How to detect buried sensors?
1.) Reduced temperature variance.
2.) Some of the station files have eight entries per line. The last column then gives the dT between the upper two and the lower temperature sensors.
Then: If a station is buried much like Harry was in 2006, then the upper two sensors will measure mainly snow temperatures. The snow temperature itself will also be influenced by the heat plume emerging from the electronic box situated one meter below the sensors. That is certainly not much heat. Worst case: 12 Batteries * 12 Volt * 40 Ah = 5750 Wh. Assuming this being sufficient for running an AWS station for 180 days during polar winter, this gives an upper bound of 1.3 W of power consumption. One way or another, the major part of it should be dissipated as heat . Anyone able to come up with 0.01°/year, too?
George E. Smith (16:16:49) :
I am not an expert, I had to google Nyquist theorem, and I cannot comment on it.
As to your question “So why the heavy emphasis on statistics?” The best answer that I have come across (and I don’t remember where I read it) is that climate science is not a experimental science. Therefore knowledge of relationships must be teased out of the history of measurements and proxies. Often statistic models are used to understand the past and to predict the future. I wish I could remember where i read this general idea, because their explanation is better than mine.
I hope that helps.