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Ask HN: What are some good sources of climate data to analyze?

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Re: Ask HN: What are some good sources of climate data to analyze?

#41

Post by mturmon »

mindcrime wrote: post #40
mturmon wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Apache project you link is not tangential at all -- it's spot on! See the examples at: https://github.com/apache/climate/tree/master/examples The people advising the project have significant publications and research experience. I believe some of their examples are replicating peer-reviewed work with that software.

Fair enough. I just meant tangential in the sense that the OP was asking about data, not software specifically. But yeah, it is very much about working with climate models. Unfortunately I can't claim any experience working with the project myself... I'm only familiar with it in passing.

The authors inhabit the same floor of the lab where I work, so I may have a touch of bias. ;-) I think some data sources are linked with the examples, but I have not checked myself.

Re: Ask HN: What are some good sources of climate data to analyze?

#42

Post by rpeden »

pjc50 wrote: post #34

The IPCC full reports are probably the place to start. However, before embarking on your own analysis, you should consider what questions you're trying to answer and how to avoid misleading yourself. There are two very important and extremely complex areas: proxies and forcing. Proxies are the use of data other than temperature measurements to infer temperature, such as tree rings and ice cores. Forcing is the second…

Thanks so much for the tips!

This is exactly why I did an Ask HN. I'm sure I could've searched around and found some data, but as you've pointed out, there are other things to consider. This thread helped me discover some of the 'unknown unknowns'.

Re: Ask HN: What are some good sources of climate data to analyze?

#43

Post by marcus_holmes »

http://www.woodfortrees.org/ - excellent stuff here

There's an interesting wrinkle going on in Australia at the moment. The Bureau of Meteorology routinely adjusts the "raw" data (for entirely sensible statistical reasons). However, the net effect of these adjustments is apparently to amplify the warming trend. There's controversy even in the raw data - any analysis produced from it can be criticised. I don't think going to the source is going to resolve the politics.

Re: Ask HN: What are some good sources of climate data to analyze?

#44

Post by pale-hands »

pjc50 wrote: post #34

The IPCC full reports are probably the place to start. However, before embarking on your own analysis, you should consider what questions you're trying to answer and how to avoid misleading yourself. There are two very important and extremely complex areas: proxies and forcing. Proxies are the use of data other than temperature measurements to infer temperature, such as tree rings and ice cores. Forcing is the second…

I think you've identified the two most important topics. A nitpick, though: I disagree with your definition of forcing, it's the same as my definition of feedback.

A forcing is anything that moves the temperature away from the equilibrium between radiative losses and insolation, whether higher or lower. Additional CO2 is itself a forcing.

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