Techniques Involved in Developing the Australian Climate Observations Reference Network – Surface Air Temperature (ACORN-SAT) Dataset
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The Centre for Australian Weather and Climate Research A partnership between CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology Techniques involved in developing the Australian Climate Observations Reference Network – Surface Air Temperature (ACORN-SAT) dataset CAWCR Technical Report No. 049 Blair Trewin March 2012 Techniques involved in developing the Australian Climate Observations Reference Network – Surface Air Temperature (ACORN-SAT) dataset Blair Trewin The Centre for Australian Weather and Climate Research - a partnership between the CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology CAWCR Technical Report No. 049 March 2012 ISSN: 1836-019X National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry Authors: Blair Trewin Title: Techniques involved in developing the Australian Climate Observations Reference Network – Surface Air Temperature (ACORN-SAT) dataset. ISBN: 978 0 643 10815 8 Series: CAWCR Technical Report; 049 Other Authors/Contributors: Day, K.A. (Editor) Notes: Includes index and bibliography references Enquiries should be addressed to: Blair Trewin Centre for Australian Weather and Climate Research: A partnership between the Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO GPO Box 1289, Melbourne Victoria 3001, Australia [email protected] Copyright and Disclaimer © 2012 CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology. To the extent permitted by law, all rights are reserved and no part of this publication covered by copyright may be reproduced or copied in any form or by any means except with the written permission of CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology. CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology advise that the information contained in this publication comprises general statements based on scientific research. The reader is advised and needs to be aware that such information may be incomplete or unable to be used in any specific situation. No reliance or actions must therefore be made on that information without seeking prior expert professional, scientific and technical advice. To the extent permitted by law, CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology (including each of its employees and consultants) excludes all liability to any person for any consequences, including but not limited to all losses, damages, costs, expenses and any other compensation, arising directly or indirectly from using this publication (in part or in whole) and any information or material contained in it. Contents Abstract..........................................................................................................................1 1. Introduction..........................................................................................................1 2. The Australian temperature observing network and its data availability.......2 2.1 The Australian temperature observing network........................................................ 5 2.2 Types of sites............................................................................................................ 6 2.3 Changes to instruments and instrument exposure over time................................... 6 2.4 Site numbering.......................................................................................................... 8 2.5 Digitisation of temperature data................................................................................ 8 3. Selection of the ACORN-SAT network...............................................................9 3.1 What is meant by homogenisation and composite sites? ...................................... 10 3.2 Previous networks used for climate change analyses in Australia ........................ 11 3.3 The ACORN-SAT data set ..................................................................................... 12 3.4 The role of site composites and comparisons........................................................ 17 3.5 Potential future additions to the ACORN-SAT data set.......................................... 21 4. Instrument siting and observation standards.................................................21 4.1 What standards exist for the siting of temperature measurements in Australia, and how well are they followed?.................................................................................... 22 4.2 Some issues with the distribution of sites and changes over time......................... 23 4.3 Observation time standards and changes over time.............................................. 24 4.4 Units and data precision ......................................................................................... 25 4.5 Other relevant observation practices...................................................................... 26 5. Metadata and their use in ACORN-SAT ...........................................................26 5.1 Types of metadata available for the ACORN-SAT sites ........................................ 26 5.1.1 Site-specific metadata......................................................................................... 26 5.1.2 Other metadata................................................................................................... 27 5.2 Specific metadata used in the ACORN-SAT project .............................................. 28 5.3 Limitations of available metadata ........................................................................... 28 5.4 Accessibility of metadata ........................................................................................ 29 6. Data quality control within the ACORN-SAT data set ....................................30 6.1 Quality control checks used for the ACORN-SAT data set .................................... 31 6.2 Follow-up investigations of flagged data ................................................................ 39 6.3 Common errors and data quality problems ............................................................ 41 6.4 Treatment of accumulated data.............................................................................. 42 7. Development of homogenised data sets.........................................................42 7.1 What particular issues exist for climate data homogenisation in Australia? .......... 43 i 7.2 The detection of inhomogeneities...........................................................................44 7.3 Adjustment of data to remove inhomogeneities – an overview ..............................47 7.4 The percentile-matching (PM) algorithm ................................................................49 7.4.1 The overlap case................................................................................................. 49 7.4.2 The non-overlap case.......................................................................................... 50 7.5 Monthly adjustment method....................................................................................53 7.6 Evaluation of different adjustment methods............................................................53 7.7 Implementation of data adjustment in the ACORN-SAT data set ..........................60 7.8 Identification of locations whose extremes were not homogenisable ....................64 8. Potential impact of network-wide changes on the ACORN-SAT data set ... 66 8.1 Effect of observation time changes.........................................................................66 8.2 Effect of metrication ................................................................................................70 8.3 Introduction of automatic weather stations .............................................................70 9. Urbanisation and other local land-use change .............................................. 71 10. Case studies of some specific inhomogeneities ........................................... 77 10.1 Move from enclosed to open site within a town – Inverell, 1967 ............................77 10.2 Move from near-coastal to inland site – Port Macquarie, 2000 ..............................79 10.3 Change of land surface – Burketown, 2002 ...........................................................81 10.4 Small town to rural move and land surface change – Snowtown, 1998.................83 10.5 New development nearby – Canberra, 2006..........................................................85 10.6 Changes in surrounding vegetation – Alice Springs...............................................86 11. Concluding remarks ......................................................................................... 87 12. Acknowledgments ............................................................................................ 87 13. References......................................................................................................... 88 List of Figures Fig. 1. Australian temperature observing network in 1930 (top) and 2010 (bottom). Sites with 40 or more years of data are shown in red..........................................4 Fig. 2. Number of Australian temperature sites with at least N years of digitised daily temperature data (as of May 2011). The number of sites that are currently open is shown in red. ............................................................................5 Fig. 3. Illustration of instrument comparison at Adelaide, showing a Stevenson screen (left), an octagonal ‘thermometer house’ (centre) and a Glaisher stand (right). .........................................................................................................7 Fig. 4. Previously existing long-term high-quality site networks: (left) annual (Della-Marta et al, 2004), (right) daily (Trewin, 2001a). .....................................11