There was a summer when I, a schoolboy, was put in charge of the town weather station for a couple of weeks. (Presumably it was normally run by a teacher and presumably he was on holiday.)
So there, in the records, is a slug of temperature and rainfall data as honest, complete, and competent as you could ever hope for.
You can imagine my jaw dropping twenty-thirty years ago when I read up on the horribly flawed, indeed concocted, data that the professionals use. Lying scumbags.
dearieme - I came across quite a few cases where environmental monitoring was done best by keen amateurs. Similarly, experienced river inspectors would first ask anglers what they thought of their stretch of river and what they had seen or hadn't seen.
DAD - my lab looked after a Met Office weather station in the seventies and early eighties. The max/min thermometer was never calibrated against a reference thermometer as far as I remember, but for weather forecasting it was probably good enough.
If you look at the Met Office CET temperature records now, they are on their third version. What they are playing at I'm not sure, but they shouldn't be doing it.
When I asked for calibration certificates for the thermometers that the Met Office sent to us, there was a long silence on the phone. Some arrived a week or so later, and were the manufacturer's certificates - no independent tests. The only one that had a proper certificate was done in 1936 - the year of my birth - 37 years previously.
dearieme - Harvard in particular must already see that long term damage can't be wished away now. I don't know about others, do any of them foresee damage to their reputation?
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There was a summer when I, a schoolboy, was put in charge of the town weather station for a couple of weeks. (Presumably it was normally run by a teacher and presumably he was on holiday.)
ReplyDeleteSo there, in the records, is a slug of temperature and rainfall data as honest, complete, and competent as you could ever hope for.
You can imagine my jaw dropping twenty-thirty years ago when I read up on the horribly flawed, indeed concocted, data that the professionals use. Lying scumbags.
dearieme - I came across quite a few cases where environmental monitoring was done best by keen amateurs. Similarly, experienced river inspectors would first ask anglers what they thought of their stretch of river and what they had seen or hadn't seen.
ReplyDeleteFor seven years in the 1970s I set-up and ran the Met Office approved weather station at Dunstaffnage (Argyle).
ReplyDeleteI can assure you that the results there are correct, unless they have been, later, "Homogenized.
DAD - my lab looked after a Met Office weather station in the seventies and early eighties. The max/min thermometer was never calibrated against a reference thermometer as far as I remember, but for weather forecasting it was probably good enough.
ReplyDeleteIf you look at the Met Office CET temperature records now, they are on their third version. What they are playing at I'm not sure, but they shouldn't be doing it.
DAD, sadly I am quite sure your carefully recorded data will indeed have been “Homogenised”, or simply “adjusted” by now. It’s what they do.
ReplyDeleteWhen I asked for calibration certificates for the thermometers that the Met Office sent to us, there was a long silence on the phone. Some arrived a week or so later, and were the manufacturer's certificates - no independent tests. The only one that had a proper certificate was done in 1936 - the year of my birth - 37 years previously.
ReplyDeleteMet office = brainless *****.
Peter and DAD - it's a pity, but once the Met Office reputation declines they won't get it back.
ReplyDelete"once the Met Office reputation declines they won't get it back."
ReplyDeleteWill "Nature"? Will The Royal Society? Will Harvard?
dearieme - Harvard in particular must already see that long term damage can't be wished away now. I don't know about others, do any of them foresee damage to their reputation?
ReplyDelete