Crucial data on the American climate, part of the basis for proposed trillion-dollar global warming legislation, is churned out by a 120-year-old weather system that has remained mostly unchanged since Benjamin Harrison was in the White House.
The network measures surface temperature by tallying paper reports sent in by snail mail from volunteers whose data, according to critics, often resembles a hodgepodge of guesswork, mathematical interpolation and simple human error.
"It's rather archaic," said Anthony Watts, a meteorologist who since 2007 has been cataloging problems in the 1,218 weather stations that make up the Historical Climatology Network.
"When the network was put together in 1892, it was mercury thermometers and paper forms. Today it's still much the same," he said.
The network relies on volunteers in the 48 contiguous states to take daily readings of high and low temperatures and precipitation measured by sensors they keep by their homes and offices. They deliver that information to the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC), which uses it to track changes in the climate.
Requirements aren't very strict for volunteers:
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
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