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To: "Phil Jones" <p.jones@uea.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: Fwd: CRU surface temperature dataset
Date: Thu, 25 Jun 2009 10:59:26 +0100
Phil
Thanks for this great detail. I am thinking that probably a raw radiosonde dataset
may be better (I tried this before using the LKS dataset but station density was an
issue and only ended up with around 20 station pairs) - it sounds as though things
have improved dramatically in that area and will look at the sources you suggest.
My hope is that at least I can find hundreds/thousands of stations near to my high
elevation surface ones for comparison. If not I could interpolate spatially maybe
between radiosondes to my surface sites since free-air climate (not meteorology)
should be relatively smooth in space. I cannot interpolate between surface
stations.
As for the surface I'll also look at the site you suggest and get back if I have
any Q/problems. I appreciate the time you have taken to answer some of my Q!
Best wishes
Nick
Nick,
I don't want to put off, but there is an awful lot of things
wrong with NCEP/NCAR.
They are probably OK for month-to-month variability, but if you look at some
of the figures in Simmons et al (2004) you'll see that for trends they are
practically useless before 1979.
There is just so much wrong with the sondes which together with the
introduction of satellite data in 1978/9 makes reanalyses awful.
The Simmons paper is about how much better ERA-40 is than NCEP/NCAR.
It is also telling you that you shouldn't be using NCEP/NCAR for
trends - and ERA-40
is only OK in Europe and North America.
http://homepage.univie.ac.at/leopold.haimberger/leoweb/index.html
http://www.dwd.de/bvbw/appmanager/bvbw/dwdwwwDesktop/?
_nfpb=true&switchLang=en&_pageLabel=_dwdwww_klima_umwelt_datenzentren_gsnmc
This site has what is available in real time - since 2001. This
site can be very annoying.
There is a link back to NCDC.
Cheers
Phil
Cheers
Phil