Met Office temperature records – what do we monitor and how far do they go back?

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xmetman

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Jun 7, 2018, 10:56:29 AM6/7/18
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Here's the latest reasoning from the Met Office about why climate records only started in 1910.

It goes without saying that I had to have my two-penneth - hopefully this time they'll make it through moderation.




xmetman

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Jun 8, 2018, 10:36:46 AM6/8/18
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Oops! As Helen Chilvers pointed out on the Met Office Press teams blog they did mention Gordon Manley in their article with regard to CET! 
So I apologise to her and to them for my faux pas.

xmetman

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Jun 8, 2018, 11:41:49 AM6/8/18
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I did a reply from Dr Mark McCarthy at the Met Office who said that they were asking for volunteers from WeatherRescue to digitise the records for them.

I couldn't resist the urge to fire another comment asking why this work hadn't been done sooner, and why the work couldn't be speeded up by farming out the work to a data digitisation company in India. 

I await his reply to that.



Jack Frost

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Jun 8, 2018, 1:58:12 PM6/8/18
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Why do you have to sound so sarcastic and bitter in your messages to them? Not the tone I'd choose if I was wanting to have a useful discussion with someone! I mean, I'm sure you're a lovely man, but there may be better ways to get them to respond!

quaesoveritas

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Jun 8, 2018, 2:20:27 PM6/8/18
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I don't really think that Bruce is being too sarcastic.
Don't forget, the UKMO is not a charity, it is a public body, funded by the taxpayers.
The deserve to be held to account by someone.
They should not be begging for volunteers to help with work they could afford to do - if they got their priorities right.

xmetman

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Jun 8, 2018, 2:27:52 PM6/8/18
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I may not be a lovely man but thanks for giving me the benefit of the doubt anyway.

Yes, I am bitter about how the Met Office manage our forecast, observational and climate data, and I continually show that bitterness by sarcastically letting the Met Office know that they are failing to use much of the climate data they've collected on our behalf since 1854, and the Press Office blog is the only means you can let them know.

I have this crazy idea that it should be the Met Office who are responsible for digitising these weather records and not some well meaning group of volunteers.

You are probably right in saying it's the wrong tone to adopt but I just can't help it - and will this change their tack - I very much doubt it!

xmetman

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Jun 8, 2018, 2:39:34 PM6/8/18
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I would encourage anyone else who either thinks that I'm sarcastic and bitter, or maybe thinks I have a point, to add their two-penneth to this debate.

I say this because I do know the Met Office are sensitive to criticism, and monitor blogs and forums like this, and so they should.

As Citizen Smith once said "power to the people!"

Smartie

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Jun 9, 2018, 4:38:14 AM6/9/18
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I think some perspective is needed-
we are in an age of transition. The era of 'Big Data', massive collection storage and analysis of data, is still in its infancy. The digitisation of paper records is an ongoing project, the MO do it in collaboration with academics eg. Ed Hawkins at Reading-
The manual analysis of naval log books has a long history  (eg Dennis Wheeler at Sunderland/Greenwich) and made an important contribution to climate reconstruction. See also-
Citizen scientists supervised and organised by academics has a proven track record 
and there are many other examples.
Would you have this done by low paid workers in India rather than well-motivated volunteers with built in redundancy?

BTW amateur astronomy is far from dying, amateurs and citizens can still make important contributions eg-
and also in the fields of solar system planet monitoring and Near Earth Object discovery. and yes using old-fashioned small aperture telescopes albeit updated with CCD imaging and digital analysis.

Weather observers will still have an important contribution to make-
but coming down the track is open-access to massive computing resources for simulation and analysis which will change the way professionals and amatuers alike do 'science',.

xmetman

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Jun 9, 2018, 5:01:15 AM6/9/18
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I agree with most of the points that you make, but not with 'digitisation of paper records is an ongoing project'. 

If the Met Office as custodians of our climate records had been doing their jobs right, there would no need for an ongoing project, because it would have all be done years ago.

What frustrates me is when the Met Office say that our climate records (gridded) start in 1910, when they know full well that they sit on records that could extend it back to at least 1878, and for rainfall even further. 

As for who digitises the records, don't think that a company in India wouldn't charge the Met Office a lot of money to do this, and that's why it's not an option for them, because they want it done for free.

Believe me if the Met Office contracted a team of salaried people to start digitising the 1909 DWR I would be one of the first to volunteer!

Smartie

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Jun 9, 2018, 6:11:54 AM6/9/18
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On Saturday, June 9, 2018 at 10:01:15 AM UTC+1, xmetman wrote:
I agree with most of the points that you make, but not with 'digitisation of paper records is an ongoing project'. 

If the Met Office as custodians of our climate records had been doing their jobs right, there would no need for an ongoing project, because it would have all be done years ago.

What frustrates me is when the Met Office say that our climate records (gridded) start in 1910, when they know full well that they sit on records that could extend it back to at least 1878, and for rainfall even further. 
I'm not familiar with the field but I suspect that digitisation and quality control is a developing  science/technology so what we are seeing is a process. I am more familiar with Reanalysis- in that field the process has been ongoing with muiltiple rounds of digitisation of new/rescued data and advances in assimilation technology and science. That process has enabled the products to be pushed well into the 19C and improvements in quality of rolling present day reanalysis.

As for who digitises the records, don't think that a company in India wouldn't charge the Met Office a lot of money to do this, and that's why it's not an option for them, because they want it done for free.
The contract would be put out to tender and you'd get a cheap product. Much better to get a high quality product from a technique with a proven track record and managed by people who will be one of the prime users and have a vested interest in producing a high quality dataset.

Believe me if the Met Office contracted a team of salaried people to start digitising the 1909 DWR I would be one of the first to volunteer!
You describe the citizen scientists as " ...some well meaning group of volunteers" implying they are being duped into doing work for free and from which they gain nothing- I think the track record with citizen science shows this is simply not the case. The days when science was done in a hierachical structure where government (taxpayers) money was simply fed in in at one end of a machine and scientific/technological 'sausages' eventually emerge at the other are going.
Witness the utilisation and expansion of NWP by private companies eg Panasonic, IBM. 
David
 

xmetman

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Jun 9, 2018, 8:07:30 AM6/9/18
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To get an idea of just how sparse Met Office data is prior to 1910, you can download daily UK temperature data from the CEDA site that the Met Office supply it from their MIDAS database. Dr Mark McCarthy reminded me about this way of freely accessing UK climate data, so here are the 12 stations that make up the 1st of January 1888.


Compare that to the 438 stations for the 1st of January 2017...



I just can't believe they don't have much more digitised temperature data they don't release to the public, but I could be wrong. 



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