<blockquote><i>Measuring climate is an engineering problem and should be turned over to engineers so it is done correctly. <b>Time to kick the amateurs off the field and let the pros take over.</b>
Measuring surface temperature is not a big problem. Drive stakes 20 feet deep in pristine areas and measure the temperature from 20 feet deep to the surface. This combined with sea temperatures from ARGO probes will give a valid consistent measurement of the planet.
We have thousands of ARGO probes and the system was considered online as of 1993. It is inconceivable we are even bothering with ship measurements after 1993. We don’t care. Toss them. This eliminates the ship/buoy adjustment problem No ships, No problem.
If people want surface air temperatures for historic comparison – a new official surface monitoring system can be deployed near the pristine land sensors. The sensors would conform to an engineering standard and replacement with a non-compliant sensor would be a felony. This eliminates the adjustment/UHI issues. Again – adjustment by the government agencies of the raw pristine data should be a felony. Problem solved.
Looking backward the temperature record is a mess. However we now have an opportunity to parse through the data and separate GHG from other influence – it isn’t like the data is referenced to the new official monitoring system. The legacy surface monitoring system would provide an indication of the local warming effects by comparison to the new official surface monitoring system. The current staff would be encouraged to keep adjusting up the data from the legacy surface network – since that magnifies the signal of local warming. The official historic temperature report would be detrended by the indicated local warming trend.
We need to collect some honest data before anybody can show anything.</i></blockquote>
[Emphasis added.]
All apologies to Dr. Curry, when it comes to instrumental analysis, most of the people trained and practicing as "climate scientists" are like toddlers pushing buttons on microwave ovens. They really don't understand what's making the "beep-beep-beep" noises much less how their Cream of Wheat is being heated.
<blockquote><blockquote><b><i>When you work in experimental physics, you have it drilled into you that without proper calibration, at the end of the experiment you will have, as my professor one time screamed at me, no data. ...
When I was working with Dr. Van Zytveld to measure the thermopower of liquid rare earth elements, recalibration of our instruments had to be done all the time. One reason for this was that the thermocouples we used to measure temperatures were essentially consumed after each experimental run. Even if not visibly damaged, after one use where they were called upon to measure temperatures above a thousand degrees C for many hours, they were unlikely to survive a second run, let alone remain accurate. Also, we frequently rebuilt the ovens we used to achieve those high temperatures. After each experimental run, I would have to experiment with my rebuilt rig and make sure it would track along the same curve as the previous runs had. That is, I had to calibrate it with the previous work.
When doing experimental physics, the test rig used to make measurements is a separate experiment in its own right. If you haven’t experimented with your test rig enough to know exactly how it works, you will never be satisfied that the measurements you make with it are valid, or at least you shouldn’t be.
For my junior year laboratory requirement, I measured the speed of light in gases. The methodology for this experiment was quite clever. I had to fill a small cylindrical chamber with various gases, then pass a laser beam through it, the chamber being in one arm of an interferometer. When the split laser beam was recombined, it formed an interference pattern. As the gas was slowly pumped out of the chamber, I could see fringe shifts in the interference pattern, and the number of shifts allowed me to calculate the speed of light in the gas.
The experiment was an interesting mix of high tech with low. The interferometer has been around since the 1800s, the laser since the 1960s, and to count the fringe shifts I used a very modern (for the 1980s) trace storage oscilloscope attached to a light sensor. To measure the pressure, I used a U-tube mercury manometer, which goes back to the Middle Ages.
The way you read a manometer is to measure the difference in height of the mercury column between the right and left sides. What I did was to measure the height on one side from the unpressurized position and then double it. I thought I was saving time. Unfortunately, this method would only be valid if the right and left sides were volumetrically uniform, and they were not.
I was a bit slow in accepting that all my labor might be worthless, at which point Professor Van Baak screamed at me, “You have NO data!” (Fortunately, there was a simple, albeit tedious, way to recover my data and so save my experiment.)
As embarrassing as it was at the time, now, 25 years later I’m glad I made that mistake and learned that lesson. It greatly sensitized me to the need to examine all the assumptions that go into a measurement, and helped me notice when others were less than punctilious about it. </b></i>
<blockquote>-- Jeffery D. Kooistra, <a href="http://www.analogsf.com/0911/altview_11.shtml" rel="nofollow"><b>"Lessons From the Lab"</b></a> (<i>Analog</i>, November 2009)</blockquote></blockquote></blockquote>