118 replies to this topic

[AtlanticFlamethrower]

Quote

Perhaps a good way of looking at it is "innocent until proven guilty"? It's something that I think of as generally holding as a good principle and which gets lost all too easily in today's world.

Why do you seek to apportion guilt on someone as the first assumption? That offends me and I think it will offend people reading.

[johnholmes]

osmposm, on 03 August 2009 - 14:47 , said:

Os can you clear your pm thingy cannot contact you-please?
tks

John

[osmposm]

AtlanticFlamethrower, on 03 August 2009 - 20:02 , said:

Why do you seek to apportion guilt on someone as the first assumption? That offends me and I think it will offend people reading.

I'm utterly mystified, why should you or anyone else be offended? I can only think that you've completely misunderstood TWS's comment. He is not apportioning guilt to anyone, in fact completely the reverse: he is suggesting, like me, that professional meteorologists (and everyone else) should be considered innocent until proven guilty - i.e. that guilt should not be apportioned to them without good evidence.

Unfortunately your doubts about the siting of many of the stations you have highlighted will be read by some as an implication that those responsible for their positioning are guilty of incompetence or worse. As John suggested earlier in the thread, perhaps it would be a good idea to read up on how these things work (the extensive document he linked you to would be a good start), and then correspond with the Met Office for their comments and explanations.

johnholmes, on 03 August 2009 - 20:31 , said:

Os can you clear your pm thingy cannot contact you-please?
tks

John

Sorry, John, I think the box was full. I get few PMs, so I've never bothered to clear it, but I see it had finally filled up. Should be OK now.....actually, come to think of it, maybe that's why I get few PMs!?

Edited by osmposm, 04 August 2009 - 00:28 .

[LadyPakal]

osmposm, on 04 August 2009 - 00:12 , said:

Unfortunately your doubts about the siting of many of the stations you have highlighted will be read by some as an implication that those responsible for their positioning are guilty of incompetence or worse. As John suggested earlier in the thread, perhaps it would be a good idea to read up on how these things work (the extensive document he linked you to would be a good start), and then correspond with the Met Office for their comments and explanations.

A slight hijack - I'm sure the person you actually addressed this to, will reply when he is allowed.

An originally well positioned site may, over time, beome less well sited. How often are they inspected by the Meto? As an example, look at the Aberdeen airport site, where engine exhausts may blow over the weather station (which is BAA run & maintained) on occasion. The thing is perfectly sited for the airports requirements and I'm sure that is all they are concerned with, however I'm not convinced it is ideal for the more sensitive work the Meto and other groups use it for. An awful lot of the weather stations used in the various global temp calculations are located in airports now - how many are similarly affected, I wonder.

There is nothing wrong with questioning things - it is why we as a species have got to where we are.

[osmposm]

LadyPakal, on 04 August 2009 - 14:58 , said:

......There is nothing wrong with questioning things - it is why we as a species have got to where we are.

Of course, LadyP, I quite agree.

I am less keen, though, on carefully-worded, and (IMHO) borderline-offensive remarks like this one (to John, who had told us he is involved with the location of sites for the Met Office, and who had linked AFT to a manual he thought he should read before, perhaps, discussing his concerns with the MO): "....I've not saved it but thanks for making me aware of the manual which UK stations are supposed to follow."

[Shiny_Bottom_1]

AtlanticFlamethrower, on 27 July 2009 - 16:24 , said:

Edit: the purpose of this thread is to locate UK weather stations. We refer to these stations in statistics everyday, so let's have a look at them. I'm already amazed at some of the variety... these days much more than a stevenson screen, that is, if these are in fact weather stations.

Dont ask me why, but somehow I didnt think the purpose of this thread would last.

[Chris Knight]

osmposm, on 03 August 2009 - 18:03 , said:

Unfortunately you need to look at wider geographical influences as well as the immediate surroundings .

The Met Office Redhill station was, indeed, 'based on the aerodrome' - see here http://www.redhillae...ges/weather.asp (the MetOffice data link they give of course no longer works). But your qualified approval for its situation is inappropriate, because it was not its immediate location that was the problem.

It is the situation of much of the whole area of Reigate/Redhill/Nutfield that is problematic for representative temperature measurement. A high part (200m+) of the North Downs lies nearby to the north. The cold air flows down these high hills, and tends to pool in the vicinity because of further, lower folds of the Downs to the south. At least that's how I read the geography, and how I explain a widely-believed phenomenon. For many years I had cousins in Reigate who often spoke of how much colder it was than areas not very far away, as did my niece who lived and worked in Redhill more recently. It is quite commonly spoken of in this way, and the frequency with which it used to record the date's lowest minimum would tend to support this.

Ossie

PS This is not intended to have anything to do with any discussion about trends, and possible inconsistencies in the long-term data: it is merely an observation, possibly interesting, on the nature of the site, in the spirit of AFT's purpose in starting the thread.

And indeed, this shows the futility of attempting to produce a time-series measure such as "Global temperature anomalies" based on land based weather station temperature measurements, however individually accurate or unbiassed.

[Devonian]

Chris Knight, on 05 August 2009 - 11:27 , said:

And indeed, this shows the futility of attempting to produce a time-series measure such as "Global temperature anomalies" based on land based weather station temperature measurements, however individually accurate or unbiassed.

Then why are the surface records and the lower troposphere satellite records in lock step trend wise? Chance?

Still, if you have evidence that can stand test publish it in a journal

[Iceberg]

Indeed Peter, allowing for their different baselines they are mostly in step with each other (HADCRU and MSU particularly.)

A slightly lag in the sat records some months but enough sensitive correlation and trends to suggest that they are pretty accurate.

[Chris Knight]

Devonian, on 05 August 2009 - 12:23 , said:

Then why are the surface records and the lower troposphere satellite records in lock step trend wise? Chance?

Still, if you have evidence that can stand test publish it in a journal

It is politely called adjustment, Dev.

If they were wildly out of whack, people would disbelieve them.

Edited by Chris Knight, 05 August 2009 - 14:52 .

[Devonian]

Chris Knight, on 05 August 2009 - 14:51 , said:

It is politely called adjustment, Dev.

If they were wildly out of whack, people would disbelieve them.

What, you mean to suggest the people concerned get together to make sure the trends are credibly the same? Are you being serious?

[Iceberg]

UAH have obviously been thrown out of the club then for being naughty.

[Chris Knight]

Devonian, on 05 August 2009 - 15:27 , said:

What, you mean to suggest the people concerned get together to make sure the trends are credibly the same? Are you being serious?

Apparently not:

Iceberg, on 05 August 2009 - 15:33 , said:

UAH have obviously been thrown out of the club then for being naughty.

[Devonian]

Chris Knight, on 05 August 2009 - 14:51 , said:

It is politely called adjustment, Dev.

If they were wildly out of whack, people would disbelieve them.

What, you mean to suggest the people concerned get together to make sure the trends are credibly the same? Are you being serious?

[Chris Knight]

Devonian, on 05 August 2009 - 15:46 , said:

What, you mean to suggest the people concerned get together to make sure the trends are credibly the same? Are you being serious?

deja vu

[osmposm]

It's a miracle, really, that any science of any sort ever gets done anywhere....all scientific data being, as we know, fudged or lied about, or incompetently gathered, or whatever....

All people currently working in science everywhere must be sacked, as they are all clearly corrupt and/or incompetent. We need a clean sweep, we'll start afresh. Bit like Pol Pot, as far as I remember - I think he called it "Year Zero".

[Chris Knight]

osmposm, on 06 August 2009 - 03:19 , said:

It's a miracle, really, that any science of any sort ever gets done anywhere....all scientific data being, as we know, fudged or lied about, or incompetently gathered, or whatever....

All people currently working in science everywhere must be sacked, as they are all clearly corrupt and/or incompetent. We need a clean sweep, we'll start afresh. Bit like Pol Pot, as far as I remember - I think he called it "Year Zero".

Have you ever worked in "science" Osm? On two memorable occasions, I have had 2 different Professors visibly upset when the actual experimental results I reported to them did not confirm what they had already sent off for publication. On another occasion I was asked to get some results for a patent application they had sent off - on the basis of no prior experiment.

[Thundery wintry showers]

There are indeed some poor scientists out there, but you shouldn't lump everyone else together with the worst ones.

[AtlanticFlamethrower]

Northolt

Inside M25 belt, West London, by the A40.
N51.55 W0.41667




18m to road in base
13m to A40

London is not the best place for a temperature station unless you want to know the temperature of the urban area. Perhaps that's why this temperature station was not situated in the middle of the airfield, way to the bottom of the picture out of shot.