See also the related story on the new Google Earth historical imagery tool here.
I’m pleased to announce that due to the help of many volunteer surveyors, the surfacestations.org project has now reached the 70% mark for stations that have been surveyed. 854 out of 1221 USHCN stations have been surveyed. In addition, Thanks to the splendid work of volunteers Gary Boden and Barry Wise, a new Google Earth KML file has been released that not only shows what stations have been surveyed and their ratings, but now includes numbered icons, and embedded links to the surfacestations.org online gallery for that USHCN station.
This is what the USHCN looks like as of this writing:
Click for a larger image-
Stations marked with a (?) remain to be surveyed. The site ratings system is borrowed from NOAA’s Climate Reference network which you can read about here in section 2.2.1
Climate Reference Network Site Handbook
Alternately, the simplest measure of quality is NOAA’s older 100 foot rule, which is essentially equal to a CRN rating of 2 above
You can download the updated Google Earth (used to make the map above) KML file here.
[UPDATE: I’m having a number of problems with the gallery server this week, and the KML file downloads are no exception. WordPress.com free hosting service for WUWT won’t allow me to upload the KML or even zip files, I can’t put it here. So to reduce loading on the surfacestations gallery server I’ve taken the file off that server tonight. I can make it available on request via email.]
A freeware download of Google Earth 5.0 is available from http://earth.google.com/
The new Google Earth KML file now makes it easier to:
- Determine USHCN station locations
- Decide if they have been surveyed or not
- See what USHCN stations that have been surveyed look like with the embedded image link
- Read a brief description of the station location
- Get the Lights=X value used by NASA GISS to determine the “urbanization” level of the station
There a a couple of caveats. First the lat/lon coordinates used are mostly from NOAA, so some may not be exact. Some that are not precise could be as much as a kilometer off. Also bear in mind that while we do have the stations in hand, and they are used to create the map above, there are a few (about a dozen) that are not yet uploaded to the surfacestations gallery server yet, so you may encounter those few that have a rating but no pictures. This is due to me falling behind because of problems with the server maintenance in the last two weeks, mostly due to rotating IP bot attacks from Beijing, China for some odd reason that cause the server to slowdown and throw a lot of errors during upload attempts. I’m working on it, and these stations will be added in the next few days.
Here is what the survey coverage looks like so far:
Note that stations that have been surveyed but are closed often don’t get a rating if we cannot determine exactly where the thermometer was placed, which is why the pie chart reflects “841 stations rated as of 02/05/09”.
For those of you that wish to help, there are still several hundred stations that remain to be surveyed. Especially in South Texas, Missouri, and Illinois. All you have to do to help is to visit www.surfacestations.org and go through the simple signup and follow the instructions.
I hope to have this project wrapped up by the end of summer, so if your vacation or travel plans include driving, why not help get a station or two?
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zeke.
Since you followed JohnVs work on Crn123, you should have followed my work on CRN45? So what did I show about CRN45? and why did JohnV agree with it? It strikes me as Odd that the early work done my JohnV and me has receieved such uneven coverage. Basically I found and JohnV confirmed that CRN45 stations had warming trends higher than CRN123.
The CCP hate this site because it is considered a gathering place for bourgeois, reactionary forces. No joke.
This is a great accomplishment. Any macro environmental studies, and their accompanying conclusions, have to start with good data otherwise their conclusions are flawed. Garbage in, garbage out. Everyone involved in these surveys deserve a pat on the back.
mosh,
I agree that CRN45 had a higher warming rate than 123 (as I posted over at Lucia’s place the other day). Its yet another interesting result that may come out of the data.
Anthony,
JohnV’s analysis (posted above) used 62 CRN123 rural stations with a reasonably comprehensive geographic distribution (http://www.opentemp.org/_results/20071011_CRN123R/map_crn123r.png). That said, there is certainly the possibility that the analysis may change now that more data is available. My hunch is that it will not, but part of the fun of science is being proven wrong.
I do (and have) apologized in hindsight for not emailing you when writing up that story in October ’07. My only concern with the project early on was statements by you and others involved that seemed to imply that siting problems in individual stations implied that the overall GISS reconstruction for the U.S. was seriously flawed, with no analysis at the time to back it up. JohnV presented the first thorough analysis of the data collected, and his preliminary conclusions were interesting (though, admittedly, they only relied on 34 percent of all stations).
OpenTemp itself seemed to be created out of a legitimate interest in creating a transparent easy to use analysis tool for the Climate Audit community, and a number of other folks (mosh among them) used it for various things. It is a shame that it was discontinued, though real life does have a habit of getting in the way of our hobbies. It might be interesting to revive it or create something similar for your analysis, so that others can use the tool to perform various tests. For example, if will be interesting to look into why CRN45 stations trend higher than CRN123, and if that is confined to urban areas or extends to rural as well (which will hopefully tell us a bit about UHI!). An open source independent reconstruction of surface temperature will be a great resource (given the mess that is GISS code) for use by everyone, and now that the data is finally to the point at which you feel that it is ready to analyze, it would be a shame for a useful tool to go to waste.
Keep something in mind here (Anthony correct if needed) — the CRN1/2 station analysis is a “good” thing, but only a start. It still doesn’t take into account station moves which effects are buried in the records. A CRN1/2 may have been CRN5 in its previous location.
Until station move effects are quantified on each station record, it’s still not the true, unbiased temp history — unless the station had no moves.
I have been round and round trying to locate “RAW” data.
I don’t have it either. The NOAA raw data (with or without TOBS) is what we want. GISS “raw” data is just NOAA adjusted data. (And I wouldn’t trust their reverse-adjusted stuff even if I could find it–which I can’t.)
OTOH, I am sure the NOAA raw data exists because St. Mac made a set of color maps of it to compare USHCN1 adjustments over the 20th century. So I’m guessing it’s available–somewhere–over on CA.
I suspect that adjusted CRN1&2 stations match adjusted CRN4&5 stations quite well. But not for the reason one might think! What I bet has happened is that INSTEAD of CRN 4s & 5s being adjusted down to the rates of CRN 1s & 2s, CRN 1s & 2s have been adjusted UPWARDS to match the rates of CRN 4s & 5s.
We’ll find out when Anthony et al. do the hammer-and-tongs analysis.