NOAA/NCDC – USHCN is broken please send 100 million dollars

But city lots are expensive!
Sarc/0

My thoughts exactly. $100K a site? Not for the equipment and operating costs, particularly when there’s a volume discount to set up 1,000 of them. I would imagine the $100MM gets soaked up in “systems design” (consultants) and “standards development” (consultants) and “database infrastructure” (consultants) and “training” (consultants) and “management and reporting processes” (consultants).
Add about 25% markup for standard governmental waste, confusion and graft, and you’re at the desired total without much trouble.
Seriously, if a Net Community were to attack this problem, what would it look like and how much would it cost (both hard dollars for equipment and third-party vendor costs; and imputed dollars for volunteer time to design and build it, and to tend the system and crunch the numbers)? Somebody should do a Shoestring Challenge Model and shame these guys into a less crazy figure.

By the time you do a soil study and spread some black asphalt pavement, the costs go up.

What’s missing from these analyses are the (high) costs of special high-tech heat absorbing materials that must surround each station.

Whilst I applaud the need to address poor siting issues and bias caused by adjustments, if one simply creates 141 or 1000 new sites, whilst you start of with a clean bill of health, you start at year one. No worthwhile trend data will be available for at least 15 may be 30 years. Gurther, will this add anything of substance to the satellite data. Are we not better ditching the idea of new sites and just use sat data and sea buoy data?
Since we want to find out what has happened during the past 150 or so years, there is no alternative but to simply collate those records, examine the sites, and throw out data from sites which would require adjustment/harmonisation and just use the raw data from the pure sites available.

It really is an astonishing letter and admission that the historical record is of little use in estimating temperature trends in the US, supposedly the best in the world. No doubt the experts who supported its “value” are from GISS and CRU/Hadley.
I’d trust Anthony et al to do it better and cheaper and at a fraction of the cost.

The real costs are associated with the special coding trick © needed to hide the decline… not to mention to state of the art computer centre and management suites located near the beach in Bali so the managers can be close to their programmers… then there are the first class return flights to the states – one week off / one week on the beach… its a tough life… but someone has to do it.
Of course there is always plan B – Forget about the network of technical stuff in the field which always goes wrong… just concentrate on programming the trick ©… Pardon?.. What did you say? Really? We are doing that already? Gosh! And its outsourced! WOW! Lets all go home then… Anyone fancy a BBQ on the beach? We’ve got a real party budget now… so leave your wallets at home… just bring a shopping bags with you so you can take home some of these greenbacks.

Virtual stations: The solution!

@ richard verney says:

If they use good sites they will almost immediately (year two) be able to compare current trends with the sites they have. Of course, that might make them look bad, so all that extra money is to find sites where the temperature can be expected to go up or special thermometers which trend up all by themselves or some other scheme. I would be happy to be proven paranoid, but consider their history.
Standard bureaucratic fare: “If we screwed up, it was because we didn’t have enough money and power. You need to give us more so we can do a better job.”
[Of screwing up, we all know they mean.]
A modernized USHCN would be nice, but it’s not what we’ll get with the NOAA in charge.

$100M over 10 years doesn’t sound that bad to me all on its own for such an important function. . . but yeah when the context changes to $100k/per, that does seem very high. I’d need more drill-down on the detail to support those kind of numbers.

What we need is a redistribution of equipment wealth.
The Alabama Confederate grave stone is missing I see.
Let’s move it to a Confederate Grave Yard and make it a monument under a Different budget and have it play Dixie.

So how much for the rest of the globe?

1. The NOAA IG said $100,000,000 is needed to modernize and enhance NOAA’s network for collecting “regional climate data”? How does one collect climate data? When did climate and weather become synonymous?
2. Tom Rude: The Thomson Reuters Group is controlled by the Rothschild family. The combination of Maurice Strong, Rothschild family, and George Soros spells international statist cabal that is determined to control the global economy apparently with support from Chinese oligarchs. Their tentacles are long and the powerful. Climate alarmism is designed to put them in control of global energy policies using surrogates, including the UN and numerous NGOs.
.

Maybe their forecast assumes cap-and-trade, and the cost of CO2 emissions. D’Oh!

Well,
They did do an internal review.. from the attachments:
“We requested the hardcopy files from the internal review, but NCDC could not find them. The
files should have contained, among other things, three sets of review notes: one from each
reviewer and one from the deputy director. However, we were able to see one set of notes since
one reviewer had saved his separately. Although the deputy director did not have her notes, she
had saved an e-mail to the author indicating her review was complete and the article was
approved for publication, thus verifying that she had performed a review. ”
So much for record keeping. and I like the way they think a email saying a review is complete, if VERIFICATION that she had performed a review.
So, here is my blog comment: I performed a review and it failed the review. Thus verifying that I have completed the review, and that their paper failed an external review.
I’m sure there is more fun stuff in the file… searching

Tenuc says:
September 21, 2010 at 2:12 pm
Temperature alone is a very poor metric to diagnose what’s happening to climate.
What instrument do you think it would be better?

Let me get this straight, they want $100 million to replace the inaccurate weather stations that provide the information that is the basis for massive carbon taxes.

Paddy says:
September 21, 2010 at 2:07 pm
….apparently with support from Chinese oligarchs.
Ho,Ho!, you just made me laugh, that is precisely where, thanks God, they have made their last error. China is a too old culture to be predictable by occidental standards. Just wait and see.

If things were working just fine, they wouldn’t need the money, right? Says it all.

As I recall George Brown, the only congressman with a degree in meteorology. He sponsored the National Climate Program Act signed by President Carter in 1978. He intended it to improve the climate network as I recall from the inquiries from the office of the Committee of Science and Technology. Unemployed bomb builders usurped the money to built dry computer models. No new thermometers resulted from 5 billion dollars spent.
The climate network continues to degrade, but then the sites have been denatured so much that even a better instruments could do little more than describe the climate where people live.
The idea of gaining climate inferences from the NWS Climatological Data network is not realistic without a careful examination of each stations exposure history
Thank the fire weather people for the RAWS network with little pavement, heated buildings or night-lights in their view shed.

Rattus Norvegicus says:
September 21, 2010 at 2:05 pm
Rattus the costs are all broken down in the pie chart on page 11.
Many people who have never worked building things for the government or under the government do not understand how costing works and everything that goes into the 100M. Having built my share of 600 dollar hammers and billion dollar aircraft ( a totally misunderstood figure that has more to do with COST ACCOUNTING practices ) I would say that people should look at the numbers, ( I’ve broken down some of them above) before they try to quote a “unit cost” by dividing the program cost by the units. The program cost is a cost over time that includes, cost to survey, cost to aquire the land, equipment, labor, maintence, research, management reserve (10M) lots of things. Further, whoever makes up the budget is going to be forced to use standard cost estimating procedures and methods. It’s tedious effin business. So, for example if you look at the equipment used, the cost for that will come off a GSA schedule. the equipment is all COTS. The labor, from a description of the work required and standard labor codes, the managment reserve? dictated.

Check out the Oklahoma Mesonet. It is a net of 120 automated sites with at least one site in each county. The link is for the North Oklahoma City site. http://www.mesonet.org/index.php/weather/local/okcn
If you click on the “site information” (scroll down, there is a slight formating glitch), you’ll see pictures of the site, including a panorama option. It also lists what data is transmitted every 5, 15 and 30 minutes.
I have requested information on the current costs of the system. The history page indicates that the cost of the intial setup was $2.7 million for 108 stations. The set up was done between late 1991 to 1993. But, the “about” page is interesting reading – they even show you the instruments that are used for measurements.
They do have another website that is tailored for “agweather” http://agweather.mesonet.org/

Anthony the land survey expense alone is 3000 per site.
so even before you buy anything, you are down to 7K.
And, you had better have all the MTBF data on the systems.
But if you think you can deploy and maintain 1000 sites for 10K a piece and pay all the salarys, pay for the spares, the maintence, the whole program, then you probably need to read the spec again.

Man says:
September 21, 2010 at 12:37 pm
“Seriously, if a Net Community were to attack this problem, what would it look like and how much would it cost”
If a net based community were to attack this problem then … it would look like the shambles they call wikipedia … full of in fighting, petty politics data that cannot be trusted by anyone least of all those involved. All it all a total waste of time for all concerned!

I’ve recently read that smart phones are gaining sensors faster than any other device in the world. In line with the other thread on pollution. why not enable the phones to send time, date, GPS, stamped temp data to a central server, or share resources like Seti at home, and have real time trends from everywhere? Sounds a little crazy, but the possibility is real.

Ughhh…I hate it when I forget to proofread!!!
call=all
JimB

ya go figure. 10K per system is 10 Million dollars. you can’t even maintain the system on that figure.
the Maintanance labor cost for 1000 sites for 10 years.
thats 10,000 years of maintenance cost. we already know what bad maintenance gets you. Ever check the triple redundant CRN data files to see how well the stuff operates in the field under all sorts of conditions?
Anyway, the estimated site operation and maintenance figure is 1700 dollars per site per year. Go figure at 100 bucks an hour, thats 17 hours per site per year or less than 90 minutes per month of operation and maint.
Figure that includes travel time of 15 minutes to and from any site and a 1 hour minimum for service labor. pretty soon when you look at the costs over a 10 year period it adds up.
So if you plan for 90 minutes per site per month for all maintainence actions (PM as well) that means, 18000 hours per year and 180,000 hours over the length of the program.. and so, 18Million bucks at 100 bucks per hour.

In some parts of the world, corruption is corruption: politicians and hangers-on fill their pockets with state cash in pretty direct ways, and every million dollars they embezzle costs their taxpayers a million dollars. Here in the West, we congratulate ourselves on stamping out corruption – only problem is that the politicians and friends are still filling their boots, but they have to do it through convoluted channels, by buying the right stocks, getting the right directorships, and then awarding contracts like these. Net result, every million dollars they embezzle costs the taxpayer a hundred million.
Remind me again who has the better system?

evanmjones says:
September 21, 2010 at 4:02 pm
Anthony the land survey expense alone is 3000 per site.
I use a tape measure.
“The smoke alone is worth a thousand pounds a puff.”
#########################
Evan. does your tape measure:
research potential sites.
fly itself on an airplane
rent a car
eat.
sleep in a hotel
take photos
record GPS coordinates.
write a report.
real basic. if you figure you’ve go to fly from evan jones place to any 1000 different
places all over the US, you better figure 2 days of travel. land the night before. sleep. travel to the site, do you work, return the car and hit the plane.
That’s 16 hours of time on the clock for your time, figure 4 hours to complete your
trip report, 20 hours per site, assuming every site is picked for you and passess muster. 20 hours, 100 bucks per hour. thats 2K. figure 700 bucks for the average
plane ticket to anywhere, figure 2 days per diem @50 bucks a day GSA rates, 100 bucks for the room, 100 bucks for the car.
3K per survey is not outrageous. so basically the value of surfacestations project is 3million or so.

I can do the com to where it reports back to a DB! I won’t charge that much, but I’m not a programmer, but I do know a few!
Anthony, yes, we can bring it in under $10,000/per and do it in a way that is open to scrutiny, sortable, and programmable. Did I mention more accurate and reliable?

Mike Haseler says:
September 21, 2010 at 3:46 pm
The 100Million is the PROGRAM cost over 10 years.
The equipment deployment expense is roughly 20K per system.
Depending how they define things the deployment expense can include the following:
1. the cost of the actual equipment.
2. the cost of a lay in of spares and replacements for 10 years of operation.
3. the cost of storing the spares
4. the cost of transporting the equipment.
but you really cant tell ANYTHING without a specification. Based on their prior experience with equipment, and based on the requirement of a 99% availability requirement ( system must be reporting 99% of the time) they may require redundancy (CRN is triple redundant) they may require a scheduled replacement after 5 years ( which would mean 2000 sets of equipment) So, its really unwise to claim that you can do “it” for less. “it” means deliver a system that satisfies the spec. including all the life cycle aspects of the program. so 100M over 10 years to design
deploy operate maintain 1000 stations. Seems low to me.

“If a net based community were to attack this problem then … it would look like the shambles they call wikipedia … full of in fighting, petty politics data that cannot be trusted by anyone least of all those involved. All it all a total waste of time for all concerned!”
the problems with a net based community approach would be a nightmare for anyone analyzing/auditing the data either now or 25 years from now.

Nick says:
September 21, 2010 at 5:30 pm
Hey,what Steve Mosher says. Stress again,this is over a ten year period….and yes,if you want to improve the infrastructure,you need money.
========================================================
Yes, but, not that much. Ideally, these people have actually identified what was wrong and where. (Else, where did they come up with that figure?)
If you know what is wrong, what does it take to fix it? It isn’t that every station needs relocated. Some only need upgraded materials. As Steve Mosher says, there are considerable expenses involved in lodging and transport, but done properly, one could hit 3-4/day, depending upon the task. The logistics, if done properly, would cut considerably the estimated costs. Sadly, this is a governmental agency, so it won’t happen, in fact, the incentive is to spend more, because they’ll have more of a budget to spend if they can find a justification. Sigh, I can see where we’ll take it from here.

Have they no shame?
No, I guess not – after all these same “scientists” have been lying to us for years about the catastrophic dangers of man-made global warming. Is it any wonder that they would not be seeking outrageously inflated funding that has absolutely not one jot of justification.
Bernie Madoff would be proud of NOAA/NCDC.

Yeah but for government work that’s pretty cheap.
Sure, they could almost certainly do it cheaper. But unfortunately Government tends to find the most expensive way to not accomplish what it intends to do.
The private sector tends to seek the cheapest way to accomplish something, and accidentally ends up accomplishing more than it even intended to, in a positive way that is. Unfortunately I don’t think there is a market for climate monitoring, so this remains in the government responsibility area. Which means it will be expensive and not work right.
Is that really the best we can do?

Claude Culross says:
September 21, 2010 at 12:49 pm
What’s missing from these analyses are the (high) costs of special high-tech heat absorbing materials that must surround each station.

Nah. Just stick it right next to a house. Much cheaper. Then you can spend the money on bogus polar bear reports.

According to the AGW promotion community, the stations are producing highly reliable data.
There for it would be a waste, in these times of budget pressure, to spend any money on this perfect system.

Yeah, my thoughts exactly. At $100/hr, are they getting Peterson and Karl to do some manual labor? (That IS an amusing thought…).
100 bucks an hour. ever had your car fixed? or washing machine.
do you know what a wrap rate is?
http://fedbiztips.net/blog/entry/55691/do-you-know-your-cost-structure
basically, its the true cost of the employees labor.
you may pay the employee 30 dollars an hour or 60K per year.
To that hourly rate you “wrap” in all the other costs.
Does that employee have a boss? a manager who does not charge the government
on this contract? say he earns 200K per year. thats 100 per hour. Say he has 3
employees. each of them has to charge 60 per hour to pay the overhead on their labor. do you give them a 401K, that gets added. do you give them health, life insurance, pension. These are all allowed costs that are “wrapped” into the base labor rate. So, when you sell the government (Noaa) labor you bid a wrapped rate.
so 100 bucks per hour is NOT what the employee GETS, its what the business has to charge to make money on the labor. It is all regulated by a giant ass book called the FAR. And if you want to sell to the government you have to comply with the FAR which means you get to wrap your overhead charges ( secretaries, managers, buildings, vacations, IR&D, pensions, medical etc, bid and proposal work, etc) into your labor cost.
AND when you sell equipment to the government that too comes with its wrap rate.
and your profit margin is fixed. and fully disclosed.
I’ve worked at places with wrap rates of 3X
here is the average for the IT sector from TRW
http://www.ardak.com/competitor_rates.html
about 2.2X
software engineers
http://www.linux.com/learn/whitepapers/doc/4/raw
2.4X
so, If I were a scientist like Karl making say 75 per hour, that would be burdended up to at least 150 per hour if not 200 per hour.
Most consultants I know charge 400 per hour, wrapped. they dont put 400 per hour in their pocket. Its what they have to charge to put 100 per hour in their pocket.
and now you understand a little bit more about cost accounting and the FAR.
yikes that was years ago

Who needs stations? All that is needed are bigger MegaComputer Clusters. As far as the GCM is concerned, the heat is rising at the processor level.

Andrew says:
E.M.Smith says:
September 21, 2010 at 6:18 pm
I will happily install 2 stations per year for $200,000. Just send my first $100,000 and I’ll get right on it. With luck, I’ll raise the rate to 4 per year just after the first 2 are installed ….
##############
the installation cost as I noted is 20Million Over 10 years. that is 2Million per year
for 100 stations per year. that is 20000 per station. Now, I imagine that includes whatever labor and tools are necessary to prepare the site, and bring the system on line and test it. And are you prepared to change your accounting system so that you comply with the FAR?

Steven mosher says:
September 21, 2010 at 5:41 pm
“the problems with a net based community approach would be a nightmare for anyone analyzing/auditing the data either now or 25 years from now.”
Maybe, but there could be an agreed upon set of standards that could be imposed and enforced. It would take a lot of the contention out. Perhaps the IEEE could help?

A million dollars for 10 thousand worth of site improvements sounds about right. The Department of Commerce has overhead to cover. ( a large part of the CIA funds come from the departments of agriculture and commerce) Have you done work for the government. I have, you have to charge 3 times the normal price to cover the extra overhead of the paperwork and special demands in all government contracts that have nothing to do with the needs of the job. pg

And the other thing to consider is that whoever did the budget request had data, real cost data, on building up the CRN. Typically, that data would be controlling and anybody in the budget office reviewing the budget request would go over it with a fine toothed comb. There would a full schedule, head counts, average labor rates, review meetings programmed, blah blah blah, AND if you want to sell your services to the government you have to abide by their aquisition rules or you cannot bid. So, you might think you can do the work your way, but that is not what they are buying. They are buying the work done THEIR way. And you have to prove that you can do it their way. do it their way. and then document that you did it their way and be subject to audit that you did it their way. Oh, and if, for example, you have employees in some cases they have to fill out a time card in 1/4 hour increments, and keep the time card visible for inspection at all times. At least that is what I had to do.
So you cant do “it” cheaper, because doing “it” means doing “it” their way. of course we can all think of ways to do “it” cheaper, but the government is not buying your innovative ways. they are buying it the way they bought it yesterday, and the day before that.
If you want to build a better mousetrap, your way and try to sell them something better, cheaper, etc. then I would suggest an unsolicited proposal.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_F-20_Tigershark
1.2 Billion was alot of money then. but we knew better than customer. ha.

James
Maybe, but there could be an agreed upon set of standards that could be imposed and enforced. It would take a lot of the contention out. Perhaps the IEEE could help?
########
the issue isnt the standards. The issue would be compliance and audit. just for starters. And the system (like CRN) has to supply reliable data for decades.
just think about the problem of incorporation new data into the old system. after 10 years of the new system supplying data you can start to correlate it to the old and adjust as needed. So any net based approach would have to have people committed to 10 years of supplying data.
James: I have a great idea boss, we can get people to supply data over the net.
BOSS: will the promise 10 years of data?
James: err you mean a contractual obligation?
Boss: yes, thats the goal of the program, to build a new system that can be
matched to the old system and carry on as old stations go out of service.
James: err, like a real contract?
Boss: yes, I have to be able to represent that this is low risk and we can be held
accountable. we need guranteed success. Im a federal worker. I want this
gig till I get my fat pension.
James: oh, so be very safe and conservative..
Boss: ya, unless you like the weather in alaska, I suggest you be boring and safe.
not like the commercial world at all.

Jim Barker says:
September 21, 2010 at 3:56 pm
I’ve recently read that smart phones are gaining sensors faster than any other device in the world. In line with the other thread on pollution. why not enable the phones to send time, date, GPS
##################
well Phone GPS. last I looked ( in 2008 when I worked on cell phones) roughly 15% of cell phones had GPS, so 85 percent would have to rely on cell tower triangulation. In the case of a a single tower your measurement error is roughly say 6km,
One of the biggest issues with the existing database is the quality of the metadata since data like nightlights comes in at 1km resolution but the positions recorded in the inventory databases can be off by 10s of km. So basically, you would be going in the wrong direction to when it comes to providing metadata.
Now it somebody wants to propose this:
http://alumni.media.mit.edu/~emunguia/miteswebsite/index.html
that would be hella cool. just sayin.

Charles Higley says:
September 21, 2010 at 9:27 pm
How about doubling the cost and hardwiring ALL of the sites to a central point to which the data is delivered absolutely independent of human handling. The central box then spits out the data while concurrently archiving it in itself in a permanent database no one can alter, Read Only!
I’ll have to check but I think they have an uplink to GOES
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/crn/hcnm/
The data quality requirements are the same as ushcrn
you can see those requirements and the legislative requirements here
http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/uscrn/publications/annual_reports/FY09_USCRN_Annual_Report.pdf
Beginning with a pilot project in the Southwest, USHCN-M stations will be deployed at a 100 km spatial resolution to provide for the detection of regional climate change signals. Following completion of the pilot project, the long-term vision is deployment in each of the nine NOAA climate regions of the United States at a 100 km spatial resolution that will allow the detection of regional climate change signals. As with the USCRN, USHCN-M stations have triple redundancy and are placed in pristine environments. About 1000 locations in the United States will have either a USHCN-M or USCRN station at the end of deployment for this project. This project is managed by the Office of Science and Technology in NOAA’s National Weather Service and operated in partnership with NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center and NOAA’s Atmospheric Turbulence and Diffusion Division.
an example:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/crn/hcnm/hcnm-map.html
Photos here
http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/ushcn/hcnmweb/StationPhotos.pdf
looks like the job involves heavy lifting or pouring some concrete. Hope EM is up for that. Anyways, I suppose getting the thing to communicate with the satillite is a 5 minute job. its a geo stationary platform.
two of these batteries:
http://www.batteryusa.com/Deka.htm
here is the data sheet
http://www.dekabatteries.com/assets/base/c.pdf
here is the rest of the equipment more or less.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/crn/instrdoc.html
Anyways, with the experience of crn they know a bit more about how to plan and the problems you see in the field
• Aberdeen, SD: A wind generator will help this site significantly.
• Lander, WY: Additional batteries are all that is recommended for the time being,
although the potential for wind energy production is very good.
• Montrose, CO: Increasing the size of the battery bank is recommended.
Installation of a wind generator is justified based on locally measured winds and
the fact that the surface is very rough, and significantly stronger winds than were
locally measured are expected a height of 5 m.
• Northgate, ND: Some combination of a wind generator, additional batteries, and
possibly additional solar panels are needed at this site.
• Sandstone, MN: The size or efficiency of the solar array must be improved.
Doubling size of the solar array is recommended. In addition, the size of the
battery bank may need to be increased.
• Spokane, WA: More solar panels or a wind generator should be added, and the
size of the battery bank should be increased.
• Sundance, WY: A wind generator and additional batteries are recommended.
…..
With the USCRN and USHCN-M, accuracy and reliability are critical attributes which must be
maintained in order for collected climate data to be scientifically credible. To ensure the highest
degree of credibility, all climate stations in these two networks must be constantly monitored for
potential problems. As problems are identified, they must then be prioritized, diagnosed, and
scheduled for maintenance. Traditionally, the operation of each station has been closely watched
by trained engineers and scientists to look for signs of hardware or software failures. This
manual observation approach worked well when the number of climate stations was small
And of course since these 1000 sites will be installed the government way, you should be aware that they tell you exactly how to do things …
http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/uscrn/documentation/program/USCRN%20Installation%20Guide.pdf
Construction Procedure
A 1 in. diameter aluminum conduit pipe shall be placed vertically in the concrete.
The center of the pole shall be 9 in. from the northeast edge and 5 in. from the
northwest edge. The pipe shall extend vertically down into the concrete to a
minimum sub-surface depth of 2 ft with at least 3 ft of vertical length remaining
above the surface of the concrete.
A 2 in. diameter aluminum conduit pipe shall be placed vertically 6 in. from the
southeast edge and 9 in. from the northeast edge. The pipe shall extend vertically
down into the concrete to a minimum sub-surface depth of 2 ft with at least 4 ft of
vertical length remaining above the surface of the concrete.
110 volts of AC power shall be supplied via direct bury cable in a 36 in. deep
trench from the breaker box (use a 20 amp breaker for USCRN Station) located at
the metered source of AC power to a point, 1 ft from Structure A, at which point
the AC power cable shall continue, being contained in 1 in.
and….
5. Wire Datalogger box
a. Connect red 12 AWG from the LVD in battery box to fuse block in 23x box
b. Connect black 12 AWG from LVD in battery box to ground terminal strip in 23x box
c. Connect 16 AWG from transformer in battery box to 23x battery charger
d. Connect yellow wire from the temperature sensor in the east shield to 23x SE 1
e. Connect white wire from the temperature sensor in the east shield to 23x SE 2
f. Connect green wire from the temperature sensor in the east shield to 23x gnd
g. Connect yellow wire from the temperature sensor in the south shield to 23x SE 3
h. Connect white wire from the temperature sensor in the south shield to 23x SE 4
i. Connect green wire from the temperature sensor in the south shield to 23x gnd
j. Connect yellow wire from the temperature sensor in the west shield to 23x SE 5
k. Connect white wire from the temperature sensor in the west shield to 23x SE 6
l. Connect green wire from the temperature sensor in the west shield to 23x gnd
m. Connect orange wires from all three of the temperature sensors to 23x EX 1
n. Connect orange wire from the voltage divider to 23x SE 16
o. Connect black wire from the voltage divider to 23x gnd
p. Connect the white wire from the pyranometer to 23x SE 17
q. Connect the green wire from the pyranometer to 23x SE 18
r. Connect the bare wire from the pyranometer to 23x gnd
s. Connect the red wire from the anemometer to 23x P1
t. Connect the black wire from the anemometer 23x gnd
whew.

Mosher,
You forgot steps aa to zz in the datalogger installation. The checklists, parts lists and documentation requirements associated with the installation are pretty extensive too. Pretty much Anthony’s wet dream for metadata.
But of course this all drives the price up… How much do you want to pay for the data?

Well I’ll come back to an old favourite if mine. The proposal seems to be based on 1000 sites and there is now a debate about whether $100M is fair value.
Who has looked at the sampling problem? Who has analysed the dynamic characteristics of the measured variable to determine how many measurement points are required and their distribution? Could be that 100 well positioned stations would be adequate. Could be that 10,000 would still suffer from spatial aliasing.
If some money is spent at the outset, characterising the signal and determining the sampling problem, there would be a chance of an informed debate.
If nobody has bothered to do that, then this proposal has got off to the worst possible start and climatologists are showing the world that they have learned nothing.

Primary cost is for the environmental impact studies necessary to preserve the local gnat population and fending off the green protesters who’ll object to ascertaining the truth. That’s in addition to all the other costs and payoffs mentioned earlier.

Years ago when I worked at a university I was asked by one of my department’s scientists to call up a supplier of scientific equipment for a price on a 15 mm screwdriver-type box spanner with an insulated handle to service one of the department’s scientific pieces of kit. The supplier of scientific equipment sent me a quote for $40.00 dollars, plus freight and packaging. They also very kindly mentioned the brand of the quoted item. I then drove to the town’s biggest hardware store; they stocked the exact same 15 mm screwdriver-type box with insulated handle – retail price = $2.50.
It seems that when a government budget is going to pay, the world and his brother get into extortionate profit mode!

Steven mosher says:
September 21, 2010 at 11:08 pm
“So people see a 100M price tag and they don’t realize all of the requirements that have to be met by the system.”
OK, OK Steve. You are obviously very passionate about this, and I agree with your assessments that the costs are in line with any typical government-run project. I actually think that the final cost, like most things in government, would end up being much higher. The main question I have is if we as a country can afford this right now. I really think they should defund something else to pay for it – I can think of a few things…

Steven mosher says:
September 21, 2010 at 9:18 pm
” the issue isnt the standards. The issue would be compliance and audit. just for starters. And the system (like CRN) has to supply reliable data for decades.
just think about the problem of incorporation new data into the old system. after 10 years of the new system supplying data you can start to correlate it to the old and adjust as needed. So any net based approach would have to have people committed to 10 years of supplying data.”
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Steven, I believe you’re thinking within the proverbial box. The scenario you’re describing is what got it all messed up in the first place. But if we still have to go that way, sure contracts are a nice way to go. As far as the comm goes, one would have to use a variety of forms of communication. One size won’t fit all. Fortunately, the old and new system will have a standardized unit of measure called “temperature”. NOAA says the system is broke. This statement implies they’ve identified problems and problem areas. Yes, compliance is always a difficulty, auditing should not be, we’re still paying NOAA personnel. They should have a function or two in the process.

Don`t need weather sites dried flowers will suffice.
How dried flowers picked 150 years ago could give scientists clues about how plants respond to climate change.
Karen Robbirt of UEA, (would this be the same UEA of climategate fame) the study’s lead author, said: ‘The results of our study are exciting.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1314213/How-dried-flowers-picked-150-years-ago-scientists-new-clues-plants-respond-climate-change.html#ixzz10GWxJ700
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1314213/How-dried-flowers-picked-150-years-ago-scientists-new-clues-plants-respond-climate-change.html#ixzz10GWmxCjo

Rob Vermeulen says:
September 22, 2010 at 5:01 am
100 million in 10 years, that means 10 million per years. How expensive!
Indeed that would mean that it would cost something like 0,001% of the annual military expenses in the US.
Even though it was a disingenious remark, you might have something there. Let the military do it. We have bases worldwide, supply clerks to staff it, and personnel to install it. Reduce redundancy, cut this away from Jim, Karl and the econut gang.

Tim Clark says:
September 22, 2010 at 8:49 am
Even though it was a disingenious remark, you might have something there. Let the military do it. We have bases worldwide, supply clerks to staff it, and personnel to install it. Reduce redundancy, cut this away from Jim, Karl and the econut gang.
—
This is an excellent suggestion. Give this responsibility to a group which is well-removed from the government global warming apparatchiks…

How to take a dump for an NIH study:
http://scienceblogs.com/mikethemadbiologist/2010/09/how_to_take_a_government-appro.php?utm_source=networkbanner&utm_medium=link

Hi Anthony. The $75 K you don’t account for is for (i) good old kickbacks, (ii) a really big air conditioner unit to situate nearby, and (iii) blacktop paving of the site.

James Sexton says:
September 22, 2010 at 5:03 am
Steven, I believe you’re thinking within the proverbial box. The scenario you’re describing is what got it all messed up in the first place. But if we still have to go that way, sure contracts are a nice way to go. As far as the comm goes, one would have to use a variety of forms of communication. One size won’t fit all. Fortunately, the old and new system will have a standardized unit of measure called “temperature”. NOAA says the system is broke. This statement implies they’ve identified problems and problem areas. Yes, compliance is always a difficulty, auditing should not be, we’re still paying NOAA personnel. They should have a function or two in the process.
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Sorry, I spent years thinking out of the box. That was kinda my title. There are effective ways of innovating and ineffective ways. The most difficult innovations are those that try to innovate AGAINST infrastructure, since infrastructure has long term payback requirements. if you like I can detail all the innovations that I have succeeded in bringing to market as well as those that failed. The failures are almost always those that try to innovate infrastructure. In anycase innovating with the government is very difficult because there values and time horizens are different.

david says:
September 22, 2010 at 5:11 am
I thought we already had weather sites. I thought we already had people to monitor them. I thought we already had supervisors? All existing costs of current system must be subtracted from new system. All current budget must be subtracted from new systems proposed budget. Is it not new equipment in better locations within same sites, or on gov land with no purchase price?
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these are new stations. in the current system the stations have assigned engineers and scientists. in the new system the requirement is 99% data availability. So, that’s new staff. The current system will stay in place for calibration against the old.
The land in cases will have to be leased. that is in the program cost. people who expect to argue with me should do themselves the favor of reading the document
“Production is four things, paint, paint brush, painter and picture. Do each of those four things correctly and no problems. If you have a problem it is in one of those four areas, every time. Do it again 1,000 times.” unfortunately in this case its wood, and wire and concrete and computers and batteries and solar panels and wind mills and different in every case. no learning curve unless you send the same crew to every site.
And with installation happening over years I suspect the learning curve will be flat.
Still, since they have experience putting in 100 or so, the learning curve ( if any) is known.
“All costs, taxes pension, medical and payroll for an hourly employee equall about a 55% increase on the hourly rate of say 30 per hour. ”
Unfortunately if you want to sell your services to the government you must use their accounting principles. its how they manage contractors and get cost parity from suppliers. Cost parity is important because they want to decide issues on risk.
two contractors offering the same thing (meets the spec.. NO INNOVATION) same cost ( everybody uses the same accounting system and shares labor rate information)
so all decisions come down to risk: can you deliver on time. So a low ball bid is suspect. same thing: same cost: win on risk abatement. simple.
“the supewrvisors and data people are already in place in the current system. ”
Acually not. You would need to read the program overview to understand the staff required to integrate into the existing system. Its like this:
everyone is already working 100 percent. They just signed a time card that says so.If you add a new program, you have to add staff. If you lose a program, you lose staff.
this is not operated like a business.
“Maintance should be minimal at sites, reporting data gathering mostly automated.”
You didnt read the links I posted. the current system is manually operated. but with 1000 stations they propose a level of automation. that system needs to be built and tested. that system needs to be manned. heck we man satillites. My friend had this great job flying a satillite ( dont ask, top secret, blue building in sunnyvale) anyways.
Maintenance is based on experience with systems already fielded. As I said above I suggest anyone who wants to can go look at the ACTUAL data coming from the system and see how often the system has issues. like batteries or sensors going bad, or fans stopping, or wind damage. Then you have calibration. we all whine here about calibration. it takes money. and time.

Well I don’t think $100M will be anywhere near enough to cure the problem.
After all the City of Los Angeles admits to having received $110M from the Federal Government (taxpayers) “Stimulus funds”, and by their own admission they were able to create a total of 55 public employee (union) jobs with that money or $2M fpr each public employee union job; well actually those jobs are only temporary; because when the $110M is all gone thse people will once again be unemployed.
So how is a mere $100M going to support the countless thousands of otherwise unemployed “Climate Scientists” who seek to make their living off the Global Climate Disruption gravy train ?

Steven mosher says:
September 21, 2010 at 3:45 pm
no old, I am afriad you need to go back to school.
The claim was made that it could be done for 10K per site.
WHO claimed?

Mosher,
About the charge for the data. Oh boy do they charge for the data. Take a look at the charges for the data:
http://www.mesonet.org/index.php/site/about/data_access_and_pricing
Everybody here would be screaming if NCDC charged this much for data. You all want the best quality data, but you don’t want to pay for it. Personally, I think the cost in my taxes of a fraction of a cent per year is well worth it. This is opposed to the OK charge of $1000 per CD for three years out of date data or $12000/yr for near real time data.

A lot of numbers have been tossed out – I presented the cost of a 1991-1993 project that installed automated weather recording/transmitting in all counties of a state. I did not restate the cost in current dollars. I’m sorry, but I assumed that most people here would have realized that inflation had occurred and would be able to mentally adjust the number using whatever factor they were comfortable with.
The OK Mesonet involves a state agency (OK Climatological Survey) and two state universities. In addition, another state agency (Public Safety) lets the data be transmitted over its telecommunication system. So, the cost is covered by the state and its taxpayers. There really isn’t any true donated services. We paid for it. I have asked for annual operating costs, we’ll see if I get it.
As to the fees for the data – the real time data is available to anyone with a computer. The archived data is sold to companies who would have a need for it. Think electric companies planning wind farms. State agencies, schools etc get the data for their needs, including research. And I guess you were shocked at the price, so you didn’t see the “fee waiver” section for smaller research projects.
But, my purpose of writing about this system is to show that there is an automated system in place that has practical uses (farming, public safety, emergency management, general weather info) as well as collecting data for climate research. It is an excellent website that includes pictures of all the sites. Proper siting of weather instruments is a concern of Mr. Watts as well as many others.
It would be wonderful if whatever is done with updating the current NOAA system that they would be just as transparent.

Steven mosher said: (September 21, 2010 at 5:17 pm)
“but you really cant tell ANYTHING without a specification.”
I am confident that Mr. Mosher would agree that you can’t do specification without documenting the system requirements. Only then can you create and evaluate the specification.
Note that the system requirements include not just equipment and communications, but processes, data bases, staffing, maintenance, reliability and the development processes. Validation and Verification should be stringent.
Requirements should be made public.