A look at Sydney Australia and its climate
Goes to show just how small a change can make such a bit effect on an historical record.
From the
Sydney Morning Herald:
150 years of Sydney's weather observations
Ninety years ago Sydney's temperature took a leap. However, it had more to do with rising political, rather than global, heat.
The instant climate change was remembered yesterday as Bureau of Meteorology staff, and astronomers, gathered on Observatory Hill to mark 150 years of Sydney's weather observations.
On July 1, 1858, NSW's government astronomer, Reverend William Scott, noted 12.7 millimetres of rain had fallen in the previous 24 hours. "He was the astronomer, the timekeeper and the meteorologist," the current astronomer, Nick Lomb, recalled yesterday.
In 1908 the role of recording rainfall and temperatures was taken over by the Commonwealth's new Bureau of Meteorology, which was allowed to share accommodation in the observatory's grounds.
However, Dr Lomb said, it was a tense relationship. William Cooke, appointed in 1912 as the new astronomer, wanted the bureau out so he could move his family into the observatory's occupied residence. "A battle between the two sides" ensued.
The astronomer triumphed and in 1917 the bureau was moved 150 metres south, to an old cottage across the hill.
The seemingly insignificant shift triggered a sudden spike in Sydney's temperature records.
A fun story. This problem also shows up in the USA with remote weather stations getting encroached by civilization and asphalt and HVAC equipment.
An excellent resource for this is
SurfaceStations.org.
Another is
WattsUpWithThat.
Posted by DaveH at July 10, 2008 9:42 PM