date: Wed Oct 28 09:34:09 2009 from: Phil Jones subject: RE: Review paper on temperature inhomogenities - looking for to: Blair Trewin Blair, Thanks for the update. I was aware of the State differences across Australia from discussions a long time ago with Neville and Rob Allan. I knew Qld was better because of Wragge. Hadn't appreciated how bad NSW was. Attached is one other paper that will come out in Feb 2010 in Weather. Don't pass this. I've had some disagreements with the new Weather editor about this and when it might come out. Heard a few months ago from the Chief Exec of the RMS that many people submitting papers to Weather have had arguments with the new editor! He gets reviews commissioned and then sends them back. Later he then decides they are not good enough so does his own reviews, but after the original authors have made revisions to the first sets of reviews - thus annoying everyone, especially Wiley's. These proofs come from about 4 months ago. He's now thought of another wheeze - holding papers until something linked comes along, so ours is waiting for one on the Manchester UHI done by a load of school kids on one day in March 2009! Had to review this poor paper. Also another paper on Chinese temps. Spent some time rewriting this one as you might guess! Cheers Phil At 05:55 28/10/2009, you wrote: Phil, Thanks for this - I'm pretty sure it was cited a fair bit in a review paper by David Parker (a parallel one to mine) which I reviewed a couple of months back. The point that a stable urban environment isn't going to produce an artificial warming trend is an important one to make. (In that context the evolution of the Melbourne 'UHI' is quite interesting - after being fairly stable to about 1955, minima warm relative to rural sites by about 1 C between 1955 and 1970, then stabilise again. My theory, which I haven't tested objectively, is that this is related to the growth in car traffic after 1955 - the site is very close to two major roads - and that after 1970 the passing traffic had essentially reached saturation level). As far as the prospects for pre-1910 Australian data are concerned, it varies a bit from state to state (as you probably know, the various colonies operated as independent organisations until the Bureau was formed as a federal body in 1908). In summary: Queensland - good prospects of data back to early 1890s - Wragge was pretty diligent about getting Stevenson screens rolled out once he came in 1888. Not much prospect for good temperatures pre-1888; I've seen Wragge's review of the network as it existed in 1887, and the expression 'valueless for scientific meteorology' made a regular appearance. South Australia, Northern Territory and Victoria - reasonable prospects - Stevenson screen didn't come in widely in these areas until around 1906-08, but there does appear to have been a fair level of standardisation before then (and a lot of effort in SA went into comparisons of various exposures). Once you go further north than central SA, though, the problem is a lack of data, with Darwin and Alice Springs the only locations with much in the way of pre-1910 temperature data. New South Wales - probably intractable. No standardisation before Stevenson screen installation, with many thermometers under tin verandahs or similar, and some earlier ones in unheated rooms, with very limited documentation. It might be possible to piece together a data set of some kind with station-by-station comparisons but I think this is doubtful. Western Australia and Tasmania - OK once they started, but almost no pre-1895 data except in Perth and Hobart. Blair -----Original Message----- From: Phil Jones [[1]mailto:p.jones@uea.ac.uk] Sent: Tuesday, 27 October 2009 7:16 PM To: Blair Trewin Subject: RE: Review paper on temperature inhomogenities - looking for images [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED] Blair, Here's a paper on China that looks at urbanization issues. Each site should be looked at separately, but it is difficult to find sites in China in places away from population like in National Parks. Still the paper comes up with a number. The European sites are something of a contrast - where urban influences appear saturated and the UHIs developed before 1900 and in London's case well before that. I recall discussion with Neville where he's tried in the past to get some resources to sort out Australia's early records. NZ sites are good - but they took Stevenson screens onboard early. A little aside here - the Stevenson who designed them was Robert Louis Stevenson's father! Unless that is Wikipedia has it wrong! Cheers Phil At 07:45 27/10/2009, you wrote: >Phil, > >Thanks a lot for putting me onto this. This was a particularly nice >example because of its replication of a very early exposure, something >it would be good to see more of. (A while back I put forward a proposal >to try to replicate the beer-crate-on-south-wall exposure used in the >now-discredited Australian record high temperature at Cloncurry; >strangely I had difficulty in getting myself taken seriously, although >there were quite a few offers to assist in emptying the crate prior to >its use in the experiment :-) > >On another subject, I've recently been reading the paper on the new >homogenised Chinese data set which you were a co-author on. One thing >which surprised me a little was that there didn't seem to be any >explicit mention of urbanisation - were urbanisation corrections >implicit in the adjustment procedure? At the various regional workshops >I've been involved in with Chinese participants, they have often >expressed concern at the amount of urban data that their data sets >included. (I'm also currently reviewing a paper on trends in climate >indices in China). > >Blair > >-----Original Message----- >From: Phil Jones [[2]mailto:p.jones@uea.ac.uk] >Sent: Tuesday, 29 September 2009 5:36 PM >To: Blair Trewin; CLIVAR ETCCDI >Subject: Re: Review paper on temperature inhomogenities - looking for >images [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED] > > > Blair, > The attached is out online in Climatic Change. > > There is also a paper in submission to IJC on similar work in Spain. > You could email Manola Brunet for a copy Manola Brunet > > This paper has pictures of rebuilt Montsourri screens - based on > designs in the books from the 19th century. > > Cheers > Phil > > > >At 08:26 29/09/2009, Blair Trewin wrote: > >I'm currently working on a review paper on the topic "Exposure, > >instrumentation and observing practice effects on land temperature > >measurements". One of the things I intend to include with this is > >some images to illustrate some of the issues; I have Australian > >examples for most of them if I need them but for an international > >audience it would be nice to have a wider range of examples. If any > >of you could send me (or point me to) suitable images (that are not > >covered by copyright or for which permission can be readily > >obtained) I'd appreciate it. > > > >Some images I'm particularly keen on getting are: > > > >- non-Stevenson AWS screens that are in operational use (I already > >have good images for Stevenson screens (of course) and a couple of > >19th-century pre-Stevenson shelters). > >- photos of a station pair showing either a move from one site to a > >very different type of site (e.g. from an enclosed town site to an > >airport), or before/after images of a station where there has been a > >major change in the local site environment (e.g. a new building nearby). > > > >I suspect there's a fair chance a couple of you will end up seeing > >this paper as a reviewer. > > > >Thanks, > > > >Blair > >-- > >This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by > >MailScanner, and is believed to be clean. > >Prof. Phil Jones >Climatic Research Unit Telephone +44 (0) 1603 592090 >School of Environmental Sciences Fax +44 (0) 1603 507784 >University of East Anglia >Norwich Email p.jones@uea.ac.uk >NR4 7TJ >UK >----------------------------------------------------------------------- >----- Prof. Phil Jones Climatic Research Unit Telephone +44 (0) 1603 592090 School of Environmental Sciences Fax +44 (0) 1603 507784 University of East Anglia Norwich Email p.jones@uea.ac.uk NR4 7TJ UK ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Prof. Phil Jones Climatic Research Unit Telephone +44 (0) 1603 592090 School of Environmental Sciences Fax +44 (0) 1603 507784 University of East Anglia Norwich Email p.jones@uea.ac.uk NR4 7TJ UK ----------------------------------------------------------------------------