date: Fri Sep 3 09:22:08 2004 from: Phil Jones subject: Re: temperature trend in Antarctic to: Alan Robock Alan, Thanks. I thought it might be something like you've found. They are supposed to produce CLIMAT monthly summaries. The 6 hr messages are called SYNOPs. If someone is keen down there to improve things they could contact either Tom Peterson at NCDC or Howard Diamond at NOAA HQ. Howard is the US's focal point for all GCOS activities in the US. Both report to Tom Karl. "Thomas C Peterson" Howard Diamond Any changes to US stations in the GSN or the GUAN get done by Howard. The problems you allude to - contractors taking the measurements (probably also at the South Pole) is also the case in some parts of the Middle East and also some U/A sites in Africa and South America. The ascents are all done by contractors and not the Met Service in some countries and it isn't in the spec to produce CLIMAT or CLIMAT TEMP (the monthly summary of the ascents) messages. Howard will be aware of a software package that a WMO contractor has produced for distribution to countries to produce monthly CLIMAT messages from the SYNOPs. Hope you're still enjoying the experience down there ! Cheers Phil At 23:22 02/09/2004, you wrote: Dear Phil, I went and had a talk with the weather folks here. They produce the standard 6 hr CLIMAT messages and send them over the GTS to Asheville regularly. They do not produce monthly summaries. So the data should be in the Asheville records, and you can calculate the means from them. They do not calculate daily means or monthly means here. There are no records here of past data. When the private contractors took over from the Navy in 1996, the room with all the Navy records was emptied and sent to trash. Apparetnly there were no climatolgists on the transfer team! Sorry I could not give you better news. Alan Professor Alan Robock Editor, JGR - Atmospheres Director, Center for Environmental Prediction Department of Environmental Sciences Phone: +1-732-932-9478 Rutgers University Fax: +1-732-932-8644 14 College Farm Road E-mail: robock@envsci.rutgers.edu New Brunswick, NJ 08901-8551 USA [1]http://envsci.rutgers.edu/~robock On Wed, 1 Sep 2004, Phil Jones wrote: > > Alan, > If they have it - then yes. Just the monthly though. Finding out where > all the daily/synop obs > are would be useful. I have disks with most of the South Pole data on. I > think there, someone > keen got it all together - something to do on the long winter night ! > I suspect if it is a contractor they might be less interested - as they > get rotated off every > season. Maybe tell them something about GCOS and its surface network > (GSN). GSN is > about a 1000 station network of the best sites around the world. There is > a choice in most places - > we just took all in the Antarctic, well within reason. We dropped the > shorter ones on King > George Island in the Peninsula - island has 5 sites ! > All GSN sites are supposed to report over the GTS network (their CLIMAT > message each month) > and send all their back data to NCDC Asheville. McMurdo data ought to get > there but doesn't > always. There also is a GCOS Upper Air Network (GUAN). McMurdo is on this > also and should > be producing CLIMAT TEMP messages. I am chair of the Advisory Group on > the GSN and GUAN. > McMurdo is not on the list of stations underperforming for the GUAN, but > it is for the GSN. > Performance is monitored by receipt of CLIMATs and by the archival of > data at WDC-A at NCDC. > > Cheers > Phil > > > At 11:00 01/09/2004, you wrote: > >Dear Phil, > > > >I will be happy to try to get the McMurdo data. The station is run by a > >contractor - not NOAA, but I will see what I can do. Do you need the entire > >record? > > > >Alan > > > >Professor Alan Robock > > Editor, JGR - Atmospheres > > Director, Center for Environmental Prediction > >Department of Environmental Sciences Phone: +1-732-932-9478 > >Rutgers University Fax: +1-732-932-8644 > >14 College Farm Road E-mail: robock@envsci.rutgers.edu > >New Brunswick, NJ 08901-8551 USA [2]http://envsci.rutgers.edu/~robock > > > > > >Quoting Phil Jones : > > > > > Alan, > > > Thanks for the web site details with the photos. I will send this on > > > to most in CRU to see what > > > life is like down there ! Great pictures of the PSCs. > > > > > > A few years ago I had a colleague at KNMI get all the South Pole data > > > whilst he was there > > > for a summer. He tried to get McMurdo data whilst in transit for a few > > > days, but with no success. > > > So, if you get a chance, can you see if you can get me monthly mean > > temps > > > (mean and max/min > > > if possible) and also monthly-mean MSLP. The data rarely come over on > > the > > > CLIMAT network. > > > I have a hotchpotch series put together with someone at the British > > > Antarctic Survey years > > > ago, so first hand numbers would be great. There are a lot of > > > discrepancies with the NZ Scott > > > Base data. > > > > > > I get the South Pole CLIMAT message directly from the station each > > > month. It too doesn't > > > come on the CLIMAT network - which it should. So maybe McMurdo produce > > > one they could > > > email monthly to me. All the effort in collecting the data - it should > > > get into the system somehow. > > > McMurdo is a GCOS Surface Network station, but is reported as > > missing. If > > > I get it I could put that > > > right and send on to the monitoring centre at DWD. > > > > > > One final thing. South Pole decided they should calculate their > > > monthly means based on the > > > 3-hr synoptic averages. They did this from a recent month in 2004. > > > Previously, since 1956/7, they > > > had been using the mean of max and min. Their new method is a better > > > mean, but will screw > > > the homogeneity of the series. Someone at NOAA is trying to get them to > > > change their mind - > > > station run by NSF and not NOAA. If they recalculate everything and I > > got > > > the numbers that would > > > be fine, but all the data in MCDW and WWR would be non-homogeneous with > > > the recent data. > > > Can you see what McMurdo do and have a discussion with the observers re > > > homogeneity and > > > getting the data out? > > > > > > I can see it's cold there ! There also has been little warming in that > > > sector of the Antarctic. Most > > > of the warming down there is the other side on the Peninsula. > > > > > > If you read Shackleton's book you'll see that a group were > > stationed at > > > Cape Evans (77 deg 38 mins > > > by 166 deg 45 mins) from March 1915 to Jan 1917. Shackleton had intended > > > to walk across > > > the continent and reach them, but the Endurance was crushed in the > > > Weddell Sea ice. The data > > > they kept only surfaced in a Melbourne attic in the early 1960s. The > > > meteorologist was told > > > to keep it till Shackleton came back, but he died in 1921 on a further > > > trip south. > > > > > > Cheers > > > Phil > > > > > > > > > > > > At 02:22 01/09/2004, you wrote: > > > >Dear Phil, > > > > > > > >He is joking about my website. It is cold here: > > > > > > > >[3]http://climate.envsci.rutgers.edu/Antarctica/ > > > > > > > >but I have not data on trends. > > > > > > > >Alan > > > > > > > >Professor Alan Robock > > > > Editor, JGR - Atmospheres > > > > Director, Center for Environmental Prediction > > > >Department of Environmental Sciences Phone: +1-732-932-9478 > > > >Rutgers University Fax: +1-732-932-8644 > > > >14 College Farm Road E-mail: robock@envsci.rutgers.edu > > > >New Brunswick, NJ 08901-8551 USA [4]http://envsci.rutgers.edu/~robock > > > > > > > > > > > > > > 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 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------