Your Weather Data can make a difference!

[6719jason]

Good Afternoon

I am around, though I have been very quiet over the last two months or so...but anyway, I want to tell you about something which I feel every member in the UK could easily participate in.

We've all got our own thoughts and opinions on Climate Change but we all I expect have the feeling that we cant really participate into research projects.

Well, I bring you good news - Everyone in the UK can participate

How you might be asking? No Climate Project is going to be interested in my weather data?

May I introduce 'Interactive Independant Climate Change Project'
Extract from the website:
'What is the Interactive Independent Climate Change Project?

Welcome to the Interactive Independent Climate Change Project, providing an insight into the changing climate of the United Kingdom.

Here you can find a wide range of data, both in tabular and graphic form, collected from a network of automatic weather stations (AWS) located around the country. The stations provide monthly data to this project, including temperature, rainfall and pressure, to allow us to analyse how the country's climate is changing.

We strive to ensure the data contained on the site is both reliable and accurate. If you have an AWS, and you wish to participate in the project, simply click here to find all the relevant details and information on how to join.'

IICCP can retrieve all the data required from one file upload daily, thats right just one file.

I myself am a proud participant to the project and you can too - please do give the project site a visit and participate in a project you can trust and look back on

Take a look at my climate graph below - thats generated by my data and IICCP

[6719jason]

UPDATED LINK TO PARTICIPATE http://www.iiccp.co.uk/participate/

My apologies to anyone who tried to participate earlier and couldn't, the updated link to Participate is above.

[hungerdunger]

Jason,

I'm no expert, but I can't really see how this project can work. For a start, the trouble with amateur stations is just that - they ARE Amateur, and you can see from many of the posts on this forum that without modification, many cheaper stations don't give reliable information. For myself, I don't trust my temperature readings when in bright sunlight, but once the station gets in the shade of a large oak tree in the afternoon, it suddenly appears more accurate. I'm also suspicious that the rainfall is reading on the high side.

Looking at one of the stations which has signed up, I see he has recorded a high temperature of 33c in February 2009, and also seems to have switched between absolute and relative pressure during the course of last year. If this was typical, then the data becomes untrustworthy.

And of course, climate is not weather, as I'm sure you are aware, and this will need to be a long-term study to be of any use. During that time people will drop in and drop out; they may change or modify their equipment; they may even allow it to fall into disrepair; they may get false readings (as reported here quite frequently) and fail to correct them. So I really cannot see how it will provide "an insight into the changing climate of the United Kingdom". If I have failed to see the value of your endeavours, please put me right.

[6719jason]

Hi,

I have thought about what you said and have been in discussion with the Project Admin and we have come to the following conclusions on the range of points you have made.

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Official Statement from IICCP

While there are a small number of Stations that have questionable data - the graphs produced show even this early into the project, that despite data errors, the critical item to watch is the yellow average. You can indeed see that for every station currently participating, the average over the winter is well below previous years, which is at the very least promising in terms of quality of data, we would be much more worried if people had averages that were near or above normal levels during the winter months.
As with any data plotting method the more data points you have, the less important the less serious errors are in the data as they get smoothed out.

The project has only just launched and we are still working on the collecting data phase before we start looking at trying to automatically correct data as it arrives. At the moment we take the data as it is received, but we intend to start archiving the data in a database and using the averages of stations in the same grid to plot the general averages.

Every station will always have its own graph plotted directly from its data. The climate graph each station is issued with, is a "Thank You" gift for taking part in the project. It also encourages participants to correct their data spikes when they see them on the graph, obviouslly not everyone will correct their data either because they dont want to, or don't know how to - but as with any community project that's entirely their choice.

We cannot however start correcting data for stations, until we have enough neighbouring stations to compare data against. That is why we want to have every personal weather station participating to this project.

IICCP Admin

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I personally have to ask this question...

Having spent between £100 - 800 on a Personal Weather Station, Surely you would do your best to ensure that it produces reasonable accurate results, otherwise - why bother getting one?

I myself along with so many members on this forum, have spent countless hours trying to get the setup right.

[Gina]

Interesting points I was thinking much the same thing but the project leaders' reply gives rise to further thought and I can see their reasoning. I think another point would be that those who only want the kit to "play with" rather than striving for most accurate results would probably not bother to take part in this project. And if they simply wanted to "see their name in lights", there are plenty of other weather data publishing sites.

Personally, I still have some work to do on my data before I can consider it worthy to publish on any other site than my own. It shouldn't be long now but, unfortunately, I only have limited time to spend on this.

[RayProudfoot]

I've joined. My data is decent quality and the more people who see it the better as far as I'm concerned. The graphs are pretty good too.

It's best suited for Cumulus data and we're a pretty intelligent lot so the more of us who upload the better the data gets!

Thanks to the OP for the info.

[RayProudfoot]

Having applied to join this service nearly 24 hours ago I'm still waiting to hear back from them. I can't believe they're so inundated with requests they're struggling to cope. All very strange.

[EvilV]

In my opinion, unaudited data is worthless for anything serious, especially purporting to create an archive for the study of climate change. Serious climatologists go to considerable lengths to calibrate and monitor the quality of their data. Most fans of automatic weather stations take scant measures to do that. They therefore collect spurious data. This is fine for a hobby, but worse than useless for a serious study, especially one that will by its very nature require a long term commitment. I upload some data to weather underground which produces an area map of my locality showing the current temperatures measured in places within a mile or two of my location. At times these show a range of variance of three degrees. Some are mounted on top of buildings and gain heat from them, both solar heating and escaping heat from within, others are mounted with scant screening in full sunlight and heat up and cool down as the clouds pass by. Most have compromised wind vanes and anemometers, because they are mounted among buildings and are almost universally too low. Rain gauges are affected by wobbly mounts, and some like the Fine Offset tribe, generate spurious rain at random. What earthly purpose does it serve to accept and collect a body of data from stations with no quality control? It appears that any applicant will be accepted and will have their data added to this archive.

I saw this group advertised elsewhere on the Midland's Weather Forum and thought it completely misconceived. This is the first time I have said so, but it is worse than useless.

These are hobby stations, and serve that purpose well. I use mine to guide my allotment gardening, it gives warning of likely frosts, blight conditions and provides interest. It is nothing like adequate for a serious study, but far worse than any failings in the equipment is the thoroughly compromised way many of these stations are set up and sited.

[Gina]

I think you have a good point. I am still not sufficiently satisfied that my data is good enough for the purpose of this project and I believe I have taken more precautions and made more improvements than the majority of home weather station hobbyists.

Any scientific research is only as good as it's input data and whilst lots of data readings are good, the statistics of greater data quantities giving more accurate results only applies if the errors are random. In this instance the errors are far from random - temperatures will be higher, likewise rainfall, and wind speed lower if the measurement is not taken at the standard 10m above ground. I can't see many home users having 10m masts.

[RayProudfoot]

If I didn't think my data was accurate enough I wouldn't bother providing it. But I do now believe my temperatures are as accurately as it's possible to get, my pressure readings are identical to those at Manchester Airport and my anemometer is 8ft above my roofline (30ft+ above ground) with no major obstacles nearby. I consistently have higher wind readings than nearby stations.

Comparing my maximum temperatures with those at the airport for every day in June shows just 2 days when they were 2C higher than those at the airport and the remainder were either +1C, identical or one occasion when the airport was 2C warmer. Given my garden is far less exposed than the airport I would expect higher maxima. I don't see that as incorrect, just different.

My Davis VP2 has no obvious weaknesses such as rain spikes or poorly shielded sensors and I mhave gone to great lengths to ensure everything is as well positioned as possible. Davis kit is amongst the best the keen amateur can afford and providing official siting guidlines are followed then I believe the data can provide useful to the wider community.

Only each of us can decide if our data is accurate enough. Providing this data involves very little extra work for me and I can cancel any time I wish. Each to their own.

[EvilV]

Actually Ray, it isn't true that, 'Only each of us can decide if our data is accurate enough.' There is such a thing as objective truth. It is not a matter of opinion, and whether or not your data is beyond reproach, isn't the issue anyway; the group accepts anybody who applies. Proper weather data is collected in standardised ways. None of this data is standardised, and further more, re your wind data, putting an anemometer eight feet above a large obstacle like a house causes inflated wind speed measurements, because the wind speed rises as it is forced over the obstacle (the house). The thirty foot measuring point is supposed to be thirty feet above open ground for that reason. Put your anemometer on a thirty foot pole mounted on your chimney and you might be about right, as long as you have no trees or other obstacles nearby. The urban heat island effect is another problem that most UK dwellers can't get away from, let alone the fact that most UK residents can't get their apparatus far away enough from homes and hard standing to get an accurate temperature measurement.

Climate change is a long term issue, and a global one. None of these hobby stations will be operating in the long term. Measuring the local fluctuations in weather is a fine hobby for those that fancy it, but it tells us nothing about climate change. Take the example of the fact that northern Europe had the coldest winter for thirty some years just recently. Does that mean that the Earth is now cooling? No... it doesn't. The global temperatures in January and February 2010 showed a positive trend on the long term norm, not a negative one, in spite of Europe's cold snap.

Take a look at the image below. While parts of Europe suffered a colder winter than the long term mean, other parts of the world were unseasonally hot. Given that this kind of variance is absolutely typical, what purpose does it serve to collate local data in an un-audited archive and then purport to be studying climate change? Collecting the data is fine as a hobby, it is the stated ambitions of the project that make it ridiculous.

anomaly jan 2010.gif

I heartily recommend this NASA GIS site for those who want to see what is happening to the climate rather than the local weather. The query engine I am pointing you to gives access to a massive audited archive of global temperature measurements collected in pretty irreproachable ways. They have their own wrinkles true, but in comparison to backyard set ups like ALL of us run they are in a vastly different league. You can get a mass of comparative data fromthis page here, and display it on maps which show temperature anomaly against the long term mean:

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/maps/

[RayProudfoot]

EvilV,

I'm not prepared to get into a debate over the rights and wrongs of this project. I believe it has merit but is also flawed regards data accuracy. But overall it's down to each indiviidual as to whether they wish to participate. In any case I still haven't heard back from them so may not be participating in any case.

I'd just like to challenge one comment you made...

and further more, re your wind data, putting an anemometer eight feet above a large obstacle like a house causes inflated wind speed measurements, because the wind speed rises as it is forced over the obstacle (the house). The thirty foot measuring point is supposed to be thirty feet above open ground for that reason. Put your anemometer on a thirty foot pole mounted on your chimney and you might be about right, as long as you have no trees or other obstacles nearby.

I don't agree with your analysis. Here is the guidance from John Dann's ProData site...

An anemometer placed just at roof level on a house will often misread because of wind swirling around the roof structure. The sensor should be placed as high above the roof structure as it safely and economically can be (preferably 2-3m above the highest point), to avoid potentially turbulent air below.

As my anemometer is around 6-8ft above the roofline I consider that to be optimally placed for a domestic station.

[Gina]

As my anemometer is around 6-8ft above the roofline I consider that to be optimally placed for a domestic station.

If I may butt in here... My experience is that 6-8ft above an obstruction is not sufficient and I added another couple of metres to my mast - that made a BIG difference.

[RayProudfoot]

As my anemometer is around 6-8ft above the roofline I consider that to be optimally placed for a domestic station.

If I may butt in here... My experience is that 6-8ft above an obstruction is not sufficient and I added another couple of metres to my mast - that made a BIG difference.

Gina,

My anemometer is attached to an 8ft aluminium pole lashed to my chimney stack. If I was to double the pole's length it would sway far more in gusts and would look aesthetically awful. My max wind gusts are not that much different to open Met Office sites so I consider it the best compromise.

I've just looked at your sensor photos and see that your anemometer is only 6 metres above ground level - 4 metres lower than the recommended height. Just an observation.

[Gina]

My anemometer is attached to an 8ft aluminium pole lashed to my chimney stack. If I was to double the pole's length it would sway far more in gusts and would look aesthetically awful. My max wind gusts are not that much different to open Met Office sites so I consider it the best compromise.

Compromise with the placing of home instruments is just what we're talking about.

I've just looked at your sensor photos and see that your anemometer is only 6 metres above ground level - 4 metres lower than the recommended height. Just an observation.

Yes, that's one reason I don't consider my weather data to be up to standard. Good enough for a hobby site but not really to be taken as accurate for this location. I would have extreme difficulty with stability if I were to try to gain any more height. Being situated on the property boundary I can't guy it properly.