cc: Matthew Lazzara , Thomas C Peterson , Linda Keller date: Fri, 8 May 2009 13:52:37 -0500 from: Matthew Lazzara subject: Re: CD with the South Pole Data to: Phil Jones Phil, I have two corrections: 1. I wish to state more strongly that we did indeed compute the averages using all of available observations (as best as we could) and did NOT use Tx and Tn to get the averages. 2. I mis-stated the answer to question #2 from you - NSF is NOT supportive of the CLIMAT activity. Sorry for any confusion. Best Regards, Matthew On May 8, 2009, at 12:27 PM, Matthew Lazzara wrote: > > > Hello Phil, > > Thank you for your reply. We glad you got the CD. > > Please see our replies embedded below: > > > On May 8, 2009, at 9:17 AM, Phil Jones wrote: > >> Matthew, >> The CD has duly arrived. I've had someone get some of the data >> out of the >> format and compared with what we had for 89009. Here are a few >> observations: >> >> 1. Differences between what we had for 89009 and what you sent were >> generally >> small. There were about 15 monthly mean T values that differed by >> more than 2 deg C. >> There were fewer station level pressure values that differed by >> more than 2hPa. >> > > Thanks for this. Linda notes that the mean temperature will mask > daily outliers, if there are only a few and hopefully we got rid of > them. > > >> 2. For station level pressure you appear to have all months missing >> from >> Feb 1979 to Dec 1983. The monthly series we have for the two >> variables (T and STP) >> are complete (from Jan 1957 to April 2009). I'm still getting the >> email directly from >> the station. >> > > > We specifically have South Pole Meteorology Office look for pressure > for those years and we could not find the original data, hence the > reason they are missing for that time frame in our "re-analysis". > > >> 3. You have Nov 1996 with the exact same values as Nov 1995. Nov >> 1995 is correct, it >> is Nov 1996 that is incorrect. >> > > > Thank you for reporting this - we didn't know this. We will > investigate. > > >> 4. On several instances the coding has missing parts. This could be >> that I don't have >> a proper CLIMAT message reader. I just made up some Fortran to read >> the files. There >> are a couple of months with the Tx and Tn codes, but no T mean. > > > > Yes, this is correct. We used the CLIREP software to create the > CLIMAT messages. CLIREP will throw out means if more than 9 obs are > missing. Tx and Tn are calculated separately for each day outside > the CLIREP program, and hence they get put into the CLIMAT message > as we used the CLIREP program in an "non-interactive" mode - by > feeding it a formatted input file with Tx and Tn already computed in > this input. > > > >> >> >> 5. I didn't find any issues in the trends of the differences (CRU >> minus WISC). I recall you saying >> that you were going to calculate mean T as the mean of all obs. To >> me it looks >> as it is essentially (Tx+Tn)/2. This is why it agrees so well. >> > > When the CLIMAT messages were created, they used the observations > that were available to calculate mean temperature. This could be 4, > 8 or 24 observations per day. We are pretty sure we didn't compute > the means using (Tx+Tn)/2. > > >> And a couple of questions: >> >> 1. Do you plan to do McMurdo at some point? and Palmer? >> > > McMurdo just started making CLIMAT messages. Palmer CLIMAT messages > are being made by the BAS (starting in 2007). We are hoping to get/ > keep getting these as they are available. There is no funding > available to historically back-build CLIMAT messages for McMurdo and > Palmer Stations. We here at the AMRC are slowly working on getting > some ancillary data to re-check McMurdo's "climatology". > > >> 2. Will you be moving on to the WISC AWSs? With these only >> worth doing the GSN ones (especially Byrd). >> > > > We are currently doing Marble Point, Ferrell, Gill, Byrd, Posession > Island, Siple Dome, Dome C II, and Marilyn AWS sites. We currently > do not have support to back-build CLIMAT messages and I am not clear > yet if I'll expand this list or not, as NSF is supportive of this > activity. > > >> Cheers >> Phil >> > > > Best Regards, > > Matthew > > > > >> >> 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 >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > Dr. Matthew A. Lazzara > Meteorologist > Antarctic Meteorological Research Center > 901 Atmospheric, Oceanic and Space Sciences > Space Science and Engineering Center > University of Wisconsin-Madison > 1225 West Dayton Street > Madison, WI 53706 > E-mail: mattl@ssec.wisc.edu > Phone: (608) 262-0436 > Fax: (608) 263-6738 > Web: http://amrc.ssec.wisc.edu > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Matthew Lazzara -Meteorologist- Antarctic Meteorological Research Center 901 Atmospheric, Oceanic and Space Sciences http://amrc.ssec.wisc.edu Space Science and Engineering Center E-mail: mattl@ssec.wisc.edu University of Wisconsin-Madison Phone: (608) 262-0436 1225 West Dayton Street, Madison, WI 53706 Fax: (608) 263-6738 ------------------------------------------------------------------------