Where did all the Environment Canada Weather Stations Go?

[twobits]

Yes, because Doppler radar and satellite imaging are crude approximations. Also, if you want to make a comparison between past records and current ones, you have to use the same measurement parameters in order for it to have any sort of validity.

While I understand the need for historical data collection to identify trends, I question the need for such a large sample group to extrapolate the needed information. I would much prefer that dollars spent be devoted to these "crude" satellite and radar approximations that enable forcasts rather than historical data collection. What the weather will be like tomorrow is far more important to the economy than what it was like yesterday, last month or last year.
Having said that, I also understand the weather is a bit of a hobby for you and appreciate your defense of these stations.

[Glacier]

You raise an important point. Clearly some ground monitoring is needed, but how much is too much and how much is too little? It has been supposed that the U.S. has way too much, and Canada has way too little, and the happy medium lies in the middle. Weather monitoring is needed to verify forecasts, to map climatic zones, to measure climate change, etc.

If all those stations BC has lost were added back in as volunteers, the total cost would be 750 thousand per year. This is a drop in the bucket compared to the billions Environment Canada spends on other things...

The Auditor General reported that between 1998 and 2005, Environment Canada (EC) spent $6.4 billion on climate change. The money came from reducing data collection and other services. Weather stations were closed, some replaced with Automatic Weather Observing Stations (AWOS), to the detriment of the record and safety concerns.

Rainfall and temperature can vary significantly from one place to another (as you highlighted). Imagine if you only had one weather station in Salmon Arm representing the entire Okanagan. This is what it is like today in many parts of Canada today. largely because EC cannot come up with the $2,500/ year it costs to run a volunteer station.

"So what," you might say, but measuring and monitoring climate is very important when you consider how much money goes into climate change initiatives. The only way climate change can be measured or verified is by on the ground measurements. The more stations you have, the more accurate your dataset.

Last year the federal government allocated more money to improving EC weather monitoring including the radar sites that have recently been updated so that almost all of southern BC has radar coverage.

Going forward, I think EC's role will continue to diminish while the private sector will slowly take over weather monitoring. Environment Canada is slow, bulky, and expensive. A typical weather station (non-volunteer one) costs $100,000 to put and and $10,000/year to operate. They update their data online every hour.

By contrast, you or I can buy a weather station for $1,000, and have it updating to the internet every 5 seconds. Actually, there are more of these second weather stations in the Okanagan, than there are EC weather stations. Check out wunderground.com and notice how much more smoothly it operates. 138 schools around Victoria also have their own weather station network. I wonder if this is the way of the future. albeit lacking in quality control.

[GenesisGT]

Here is the next generation of weather obs, apps that run off your cellphone that with a sensor can record temperature, humidity, air pressure, along with a host of other items such as air quality, etc. Everyone with a cellphone can provide data.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/453951341/sensordrone-the-6th-sense-of-your-smartphoneand-be

Here are some of the things you can monitor;

Precision Electrochemical Gas Sensor - Calibrated for Carbon Monoxide (Also can be used for precision measurements of Alcohol, Hydrogen, and others)
Gas Sensor for Oxidizing Gases - MOS type for Chlorine, Ozone, Nitrogen Dioxide, etc.
Gas Sensor for Reducing Gases - (MOS type for methane, Propane, alcohols, other hydrocarbons, etc.)
Temperature - Simple resistance temperature sensor type
Humidity
Pressure - can be used for Barometer, Altimeter, Blood Pressure, etc.
Non-Contact Thermometer - Infrared sensor for scanning object temperature
Proximity Capacitance - fluid level, intrusion detection, stud finder & more applications
Red Color Intensity
Green Color Intensity
Blue Color Intensity
Illumination - combine RGB & illumination for color matching
Digital & Analog Interface - Expansion connector for connecting anything you want to your mobile device through the Sensordrone

[Glacier]

I used to have a watch with a built-in thermometer. Worked great unless I was wearing the watch. At that point its main function was to tell me if I was still alive. Yup, reads 25 degrees on a cold winter day... must still be kicking.

[GenesisGT]

There is a study to remove the AWOS reporting stations from Lytton and Clinton. Again these services are provided by NAV CANADA which is concerned about the requirement for aviation, and does not look at historical or climatological requirements.

http://www.navcanada.ca/ContentDefinitionFiles/Services/ANSPrograms/LevelOfService/ActiveStudies/TOR_Clinton_Lytton_EN.pdf

[JagXKR]

Glacier... No the Stevenson screen can not be on gravel, it must be on grass or the readings are erroneous. You should also check the following link out as it is a real eye opener on the "consensus" lies that the AGW proponents have tried to mislead the general ignorant public.

http://www.thenewamerican.com/tech/environment/item/11998-%E2%80%9Cclimate-science%E2%80%9D-in-shambles-real-scientists-battle-un-agenda

[Glacier]

There were only 12 places in BC that measured precipitation every day in 2012. We have not seen so few weather stations in the province since 1893 when the likes of Billy Barker were still alive.

[Donald G]

To those lamenting the loss of Environment Canada Weather Stations.

A number of posts seem to be confusing Federally funded Environment Canada) weather stations with the Provincially funded need for weather collection and reporting.

Did you notice that we also no longer have buffalo hunters, horse stables at our schools, stage coach lines? We have acquired things like a world wireless network, world food supply networks, plane and helicopter transportation sonar, radar and the means of using the Greenland Glacier to trace the makeup of our world weather and atmosphere back (year by year) to a time over 1,000 years ago.

I ASSUME Environment Canada weather stations became of little to no value in the evolving world of understanding and reporting weather. Why would taxpayers continue to pay for something that has become of such questionable value? The world has moved on.

[Glacier]

Well if the government is going to spend 5,000,000,000 fighting climate change, perhaps it's a good idea to actually measure how the climate is changing. You can't do this without weather stations.

[Donald G]

I think that you have to expand your vision of the capabilities of modern technology to determine the past and ongoing state of factors affecting world climate change and more regional world weather pattern changes. Start with changes to the world oceans like the Atlantic conveyor ... including more localized weather changes like el Nino and la Nina ... and movement further north and south of the trade winds ... and their effect on world food production and the availability of potable water to the people of the world. Weather technology has outdated the need to determine what the rainfall was at the northern tip of Meres Island and a hundred other similar places as a cost effective tool in determining either the conditions or short and long term effects produced by either situation.

[Snman]

Well if the government is going to spend 5,000,000,000 fighting climate change, perhaps it's a good idea to actually measure how the climate is changing. You can't do this without weather stations.

Bingo!!

[Donald G]

To J Watson ... I beg to differ with you.

Modern means of identifying and determining those things that go to accurately track Global and local Weather patterns can be equated to the ability and technology to do a successful tooth extraction compared to a heart transplant. The weather at the north end of Vargus Island is no longer needed to determine the larger picture. The money that used to go toward maintaining the 100 or so Environment Canada Weather Service points can now be put toward maintaining the much more cost effective and accurate updated technology. World weather technology has changed and we must change with it ... or be left behind with the ability to see only the much smaller, isolated local weather ... without being able to follow the larger, more meaningful picture of what we in Canada will be facing in the coming years. Determining food and water availability for countries across the world will be critical to the well being of every country, including Canada.

[Snman]

To J Watson ... I beg to differ with you.

Modern means of identifying and determining those things that go to accurately track Global and local Weather patterns can be equated to the ability and technology to do a successful tooth extraction compared to a heart transplant. The weather at the north end of Vargus Island is no longer needed to determine the larger picture. The money that used to go toward maintaining the 100 or so Environment Canada Weather Service points can now be put toward maintaining the much more cost effective and accurate updated technology. World weather technology has changed and we must change with it ... or be left behind with the ability to see only the much smaller, isolated local weather ... without being able to follow the larger, more meaningful picture of what we in Canada will be facing in the coming years. Determining food and water availability for countries across the world will be critical to the well being of every country, including Canada.

Well, I don't believe in anthropogenic global warming. Having said that, I would suggest that weather stations being eliminated are most often at higher, more remote elevations, thus providing lower average temperatures and lending false evidence to the AGW theory. How convenient. I may be wrong about that but Glacier makes a valid point nonetheless.

[Glacier]

Radar and the like are hardly accurate methods of measuring precipitation, giving very crude approximations at best. The only way to scientifically measure long term trends is to use the same standard and the same reference points year after year. Radar is doubly problematic because the technology has improved and is bound to improve in the future, and thus past, present, and future "measurements" cannot be reliably compared.

The most accurate and most cost effective method of measuring climatic changes is perform empirical measurements in the same fashion done for over 100 years.


_______________________________
If it ain't broke, why fix it?

[SurplusElect]

Is the Experimental Lakes Area that is being closed relevant to this conversation?

Instead of spending 25 million on keeping it going, they are shutting it down and have to spend 25 million returning it to a natural state (by law).