Here’s a fun little puzzle for you, two older station siting photographs from former California State Climatologist, Jim Goodridge, circa the 1980’s. I had Jim find these because I was recently interviewed for a national network newscast, and when I told the story of them, the reporter wanted these photos. Jim found them attached on an old paper presented at a climate conference, which I hope to share here soon after I get it scanned in.
One is a place of Science, one is place of Transportation, both in California.
Answers tomorrow
UPDATE: Answers here – http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/08/16/never-before-published-paper-on-uhi-and-siting-goodridge-1987/
a little off topic, but is there a place I can download the raw GHCN data? The GISS stie at http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/station_data/#form only seems to have the “adjusted” data, fancy that. I would like to do a comparison of the two. Does Anthony’s site (or anywhere else) have a database of the raw vs. adjusted data?
. .Update from my post at 9:58 pm last night – instead of Mammoth mountain for the ‘transportation’ location, how about rest area (either 79 or 80 depending on eastbound or westbound) on i-80 at Donner summit . . ?
This is a trick question.
These could be ‘weather stations’ anywhere in the world and Anthony is giving some misdirection that they are in California.
Also, why are so many surprised at the state of these examples. MOST of them are in similar states of disrepair, inappropriate siting, etc, as detailed in Anthony’s original survey.
@John Trigge (in Oz) No, all is California, and the answer is revealed in 1 hour on the main page. But there’s more than just pictures, there’s a whole paper behind it
From Doug Huffman on August 16, 2012 at 7:51 am:
Heh. My college learning experience was Ingest, Regurgitate, Pass. Digest and Absorb, not so much. As I noticed with myself and others, after about six months or so of not dealing with a specific topic, sometimes a lot less, what you do remember is where to find the info you need in your old textbook.
So 5-10 years or more down the road, will these ex-students pull out their old e-book readers from a storage box and expect to find their old textbooks waiting for them? Or as they get newer models, will they always dutifully transfer their books to the new devices (when possible)… until they find their formats are obsoleted and unreadable?
strikerga said on August 16, 2012 at 2:26 pm:
Try here:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/ghcn-daily/
Then comes the old question, “How raw is raw?”
Also look at the ftp directory:
ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/ghcn/daily/
The “all” file is very big, about 2.3 gigabytes. Hope your system can work with files that large.
The answers have been posted:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/08/16/never-before-published-paper-on-uhi-and-siting-goodridge-1987/
@strikerga says: “a little off topic, but is there a place I can download the raw GHCN data?”
For an analysis of GHCNv2 adjustment patterns see Would you like yours well adjusted?. You might also find What’s up with adjusted mean temperatures in the GHCN? and Where on earth do GHCNv2 data come from? useful.
Note that “raw” data is a rare beast. By the time the data come in to the GHCN, they may have been adjusted by reporting agencies etc. You can get the GHCNv3 monthly files from
In addition, I once plotted adjusted versus unadjusted GHCNv2 for each station. You can find those graphs at . Scroll down to contents, and drill down into regions, countries and individual stations. Individual station pages have links to GISS graphs and Google maps. For example, here is Eureka, CA.
HTH,
— Sinan
Ooops. I keep forgetting not to use bare < characters in WordPress posts. Two URLs are missing from my comment above. GHCNv3 monthly data are at ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/ghcn/v3/ and the starting point for my station plots is at GHCNv2 station plots. Scroll down to Contents and drill down using region and country.
@unar and Ladakh
Thanks for the info. Has anyone tried posting this in a more readable form with some graphing capabilities to compare raw vs. adjusted on a site and regional level. I know GISS should do this but they seem to have an interest in restricting access. Whenever this topic comes up warmists always only refer to adjusted data and dismiss any flaws in adjustment methodology and they have been trained to dismiss sources like this that point out inconsistencies. Would be nice to see raw data, adjusted data and the quality of the station as determined by Anthony’s surface stations project in one easy to use interface. Would make a convincing argument to those still with an open mind. As I’ve said they have been trained to dismiss info presented here out of hand. Doing this would highlight the open nature of contributors here and serve as a nice contrast to the select few who seem determined to make access as difficult as possible, but still drive the discussions in the mainstream press.
@Strikerga
I humbly believe that places with sparse data (another one) and declining numbers of temperature stations in the data sets are much more important than adjustments. Of course, I am open to suggestions.
I once tried very hard to see if zombie stations mattered: