Comments on: 1933

By: David Smith

David Smith — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 01:20:49 +0000

Another thought on the odd wind distribution – many stronger storms crash into land and weaken quickly. There’s no smooth decline from intense levels, instead the decline is rather fast, perhaps 12 hours.

So, the intense storms ramp up quickly (mentioned before) and many ramp down quickly, due to hitting land, distorting the appearance of the histogram.

By: Steve Sadlov

Steve Sadlov — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 20:28:14 +0000

RE: #21 – Another place well known for winter warm / hot outbreaks is coastal and near coastal Southern California. It can literally get into the 80s any given day of the year there, when the conditions are just right. That’s what we can blame certain stereotypes about California weather on – LOL!

By: beng

beng — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 19:10:04 +0000

RE 14:

The 1930′s are interesting in that there is plenty of evidence that they might have been warmer than today.

Some winters in the 30s in the US mid-atlantic were remarkably warm (interspaced w/some snowy ones). Virginia’s all-time January high occurred ~1930 in Roanoke — an astonishing 87F (31C).

Imagine the media weeping & knashing if that happened today.

By: Steve Sadlov

Steve Sadlov — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 18:56:11 +0000

RE: #19 – According to Dr. Jones, “rural” locations like gramps’ farm constitute some sort of stable baseline, against which “urban” locations can be corrected. Oooops! (or should that be “DOH!”?)

By: trevor

trevor — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 18:03:04 +0000

Re #14,15: What’s up with you guys? Don’t you know that Phil Jones has addressed all of these issues for us, and come up with the answer at a high degree of confidence?

Only problem is that Uncle Phil refuses to explain his analysis, adjustments, release his data etc. “I am a climate scientist. You can trust my work”. Yeah right, Phil.

By: Chris H

Chris H — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 17:15:41 +0000

About 15 years ago I was doing some work for the gas company in a medium sized city. One of the projects I did for them was a software package to predict gas consumption. While I was looking at their historical data, I noticed that the mean value of one of their three temperature sensors had jumped by about half a degree a couple of years previously. When I asked about it, I was told that a three story building had been put up on the opposite side of the street from the sensor. It really doesn’t take much to change average readings by a half a degree.

By: Steve Sadlov

Steve Sadlov — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 16:42:33 +0000

RE: #14 and 15 – During this period, my grandparents were on a farm in the midwest. We know its current owners and can make a direct comparison. Back in the 30s, there was no electrical grid there yet, and the house was heated using a lone wood stove. Neither was there indoor plumbing. During late 1940s, the grid finally arrived. During the 50s, central forced air heat and indoor plumbing were installed. The outbuildings never had any heat while my grand dad had it and since he sold out, the land has been rented to nearby farmers and there have been no farmers living on the actual property. But newer owners have added lighting to the barn, and possibly heat. The current owners are truckers and have upgraded the old farm house into a typical suburban dwelling, complete with whiz bang lighting, a big screen TV, etc. They also converted all the old gravel drives and pads into concrete ones. Some of the nearby major highways have become suburban strip development zones. The road the farm is on was unpaved until the 1980s. Imagine biases and local energy flux affecting temperature readings in the area, then and now.

By: Nordic

Nordic — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 16:32:30 +0000

Having grown up in Vermont, when I think of hurricaines and the 1930′s I immediately think of the great hurricaine of 1938. A Wikipedia article is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_England_Hurricane_of_1938

By: Michael J

Michael J — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 16:16:59 +0000

Francois you point out the real problem with comparing measurements between time periods. There are so many variables that would have to be factored in to get a “true” figure and even then there would be a rather large +/- necessary. The accuracy of the measuring device, heat island effect, location changes, more locations coverage, etc… make it virtually impossible to come up with answers with any confidence. Unless, and until, the measurements are using the identical standards, then the amnount of increase/decrease is subject to wide variations and/or interpretation.

By: Francois Ouellette

Francois Ouellette — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 13:40:33 +0000

The 1930′s are interesting in that there is plenty of evidence that they might have been warmer than today. Yet that’s not what the current surface temperature data are telling us. If one were to investigate the reliability of today’s data w/r to, for example, urban heat island effects etc., a revisitation of the 1930′s would be a good place to start. How good was the coverage in the 1930′s (e.g. in the Arctic and Antarctic), and what assumptions were made to estimate the global temperatures that might have under- or overestimated it? The fact that the coverage and the data were not then as good as today, but that we nevertheless have good enough records to know by how much, would make it a good exercise. For example, if you were to undersample today’s data to emulate the 1930′s, and give them the same kind of error bars (add noise to them), what would you get for today’s temperatures? Always remember that we’re talking fractions of a degree here. My own feeling is that it wouldn’t take much of a correction to make the 1930′s warmer than today.