and a subsequent posting in regards to comments in a thread discussing was a catalyst for the creation of this website.
Why are you doing this? Isn't this the responsibility of our government agency NOAA?
Yes NOAA is responsible for the operation,
documentation and upkeep of the USHCN set of weather
stations. In fact in 1997 there were
concerns expressed by a National Research
Council panel about the state of the climate
measuring network.
In 1999, a U.S. National Research Council panel was
commissioned to study the state of the U.S. climate
observing systems and issued a report entitled:
“Adequacy of Climate Observing Systems. National
Academy Press”,
online here The panel was chaired by Dr.
Tom Karl, director of the National Climatic Center,
and Dr. James Hansen, lead climate researcher at
NASA GISS. That panel concluded:
"The 1997 Conference on the World Climate Research Programme to the Third Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change concluded that the ability to monitor the global climate was inadequate and deteriorating."
Yet, ten years later, even the most basic beginning of a recovery program has not been started. No online photographic database existed of the USHCN stations, and despite repeated requests from Dr. Robert A. Peilke Senior at CIRES the project has not been undertaken. Given the lack of movement on the part of NOAA and NCDC, Dr. Peilke also made requests of state climatologists to perform photographic site surveys. A couple responded, such as Roger Taylor in Oregon, and Dev Nyogi in Indiana, but many cited "costs" of such work to thier meager budgets as a reason not to perform surveys.
Given such a massive failure of bureaucracy to perform something so simple as taking some photographs and making some measurements and notes of a few to a few dozen weather stations in each state, it seemed that a grass roots network of volunteers could easily accomplish this task.
What are the goals?
