The power of plenty
Perhaps packing more punch than Courtenay's "Power of One" ...
After my ‘Dearth of Data’ post, a colleague, Zim Sherman, who founded ‘Scienterra’ UV Sensors wrote.
(Your post) triggered a memory from a NOAA CMDL annual meeting, from perhaps 20 years ago. A guest speaker got up to the lectern and told us about an observation network that had been operating largely unchanged since the time of George Washington. A volunteer group of ordinary folk would thrice daily stop whatever they were doing, and write down the current weather in a journal. Examples of handwritten entries included, "air temperature 48 degrees F, wet-bulb temperature 45 degrees F, cloud cover 30%, light wind from the east-southeast." Those of us in the audience listened politely, but there was a feeling of impatience as we waited for this "amateur" to get off the stage so we could get back to hearing about real science using modern, sexy, expensive instruments. However, our attitudes changed when the presenter showed a slide of his network's observation sites. It was a map of the continental US, and it was so thick with dots that it was difficult to see a gap. In that pregnant moment, everyone in the hushed room realized what was possible with such a data set. Each observation was perhaps meaningless, but the aggregate became immensely impressive. What it lacked in precision, it recovered with its incredible spatial and temporal density. Individual volunteers tended to stay in the program between 10-30 years, which imbued these qualitative observations with a degree of confidence. And the acquired data spanned more than 230 years!
It’s a nice story. When I asked would it be OK if I quoted him, he said that would be fine, adding that he thinks this is the relevant web site. Apparently they’re having difficulty filling the ranks as older observers retire and drop off the map, but it still looks impressive.
He mentioned that there may be relevance his recently developed personal UV dosimeters, which, he reminded me, are relatively inexpensive but still performed very well in a recent inter-comparison with a research grade instrument. He wondered if a dense network of small, low-cost UV loggers like theirs could augment the current observation network.
Of course, I couldn’t resist reminding him that the only thing worse than no data is bad data. But with that good agreement, it’s certainly worth thinking about. Especially if his instruments are stable, but cheap enough to put more than one at each site, perhaps setting some aside for outdoor use only over shorter test periods, and switching new ones in sequentially. That’s the sort of thing currently done with UV calibration lamps, which deteriorate over operation time and are also subject to change if disturbed. Laboratories like ours at Lauder usually keep at least three lamps (a triad) and make regular checks between them to make sure the output of the ‘working standard’ hasn’t shifted. My colleague, Mike Kotkamp, has been doing this for years.
It would be quite a daunting logistical exercise keeping tabs on all the UV instruments, but not impossible, especially now that logging to the cloud would be automated. Scienterra’s new UV dosimeters could well fit the bill.
The global version of that network (called GSOD) is mid boggling in extent. Imagine if we could fill the world with UV measurements at even a fraction of the 28,000 of the Climate Stations shown below! I wonder if that’s a development of the same network that Zim quoted? All those dots over Australia look to be a big improvement on a single dot at Alice Springs!! Or no dots at all, unless those rumours turn out to be true.
I’m sure Zim would be more than happy to sell hundreds or even tens of thousands of his instruments for that sort of purpose. If you want to buy some, please visit the Scienterra web site.
Perhaps I should be touching him up for a commission? 😊 Unfortunately, although they’re inexpensive as far as reliable UV sensors go, they still cost quite a bit more than the thermometers used in the GSOD network. There’d also be an ongoing need to clean the sensors regularly, and (possibly?) to replace batteries.
In any case, please put in your two bob’s worth on this idea. Zim would no-doubt appreciate it too.