scholarly journals Meteorological effects of the solar eclipse of 20 March 2015: analysis of UK Met Office automatic weather station data and comparison with automatic weather station data from the Faroes and Iceland

Author(s):  
Edward Hanna ◽  
John Penman ◽  
Trausti Jónsson ◽  
Grant R. Bigg ◽  
Halldór Björnsson ◽  
...  

Here, we analyse high-frequency (1 min) surface air temperature, mean sea-level pressure (MSLP), wind speed and direction and cloud-cover data acquired during the solar eclipse of 20 March 2015 from 76 UK Met Office weather stations, and compare the results with those from 30 weather stations in the Faroe Islands and 148 stations in Iceland. There was a statistically significant mean UK temperature drop of 0.83±0.63°C, which occurred over 39 min on average, and the minimum temperature lagged the peak of the eclipse by about 10 min. For a subset of 14 (16) relatively clear (cloudy) stations, the mean temperature drop was 0.91±0.78 (0.31±0.40)°C but the mean temperature drops for relatively calm and windy stations were almost identical. Mean wind speed dropped significantly by 9% on average during the first half of the eclipse. There was no discernible effect of the eclipse on the wind-direction or MSLP time series, and therefore we can discount any localized eclipse cyclone effect over Britain during this event. Similar changes in air temperature and wind speed are observed for Iceland, where conditions were generally clearer, but here too there was no evidence of an eclipse cyclone; in the Faroes, there was a much more muted meteorological signature. This article is part of the themed issue ‘Atmospheric effects of solar eclipses stimulated by the 2015 UK eclipse’.

Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (5) ◽  
pp. 1853
Author(s):  
Pei-Fen Kuo ◽  
Tzu-En Huang ◽  
I Gede Brawiswa Putra

In order to minimize the impacts of climate change on various crops, farmers must learn to monitor environmental conditions accurately and effectively, especially for plants that are particularly sensitive to the weather. On-site sensors and weather stations are two common methods for collecting data and observing weather conditions. Although sensors are capable of collecting accurate weather information on-site, they can be costly and time-consuming to install and maintain. An alternative is to use the online weather stations, which are usually government-owned and free to the public; however, their accuracy is questionable because they are frequently located far from the farmers’ greenhouses. Therefore, we compared the accuracy of kriging estimators using the weather station data (collected by the Central Weather Bureau) to local sensors located in the greenhouse. The spatio-temporal kriging method was used to interpolate temperature data. The real value at the central point of the greenhouse was used for comparison. According to our results, the accuracy of the weather station estimator was slightly lower than that of the local sensor estimator. Farmers can obtain accurate estimators of environmental data by using on-site sensors; however, if they are unavailable, using a nearby weather station estimator is also acceptable.


2016 ◽  
Vol 62 (232) ◽  
pp. 256-269 ◽  
Author(s):  
MICHAEL CONLAN ◽  
BRUCE JAMIESON

ABSTRACTFor 175 difficult-to-forecast persistent deep slab avalanches, weather data were obtained from Global Environmental Multiscale (GEM) models produced by Environment Canada. The focus was to determine critical parameters and thresholds for avalanche forecasting from GEM and compare them with weather station data analyzed in Part I (Conlan and Jamieson, this issue). The high-resolution GEM-limited-area model (2.5 km resolution) forecasted higher median precipitation amounts than both the lower-resolution GEM15 (15 km resolution) and weather stations within a small dataset. Air temperatures were lower for both weather models compared with the weather station data, likely because of elevation differences. A multivariate classification tree created with GEM15 data correctly classified 29 of 36 avalanches by their primary cause-of-release, using a primary split of modelled solar warming of 5.9°C, 10 cm into the snowpack. For all 175 avalanches, GEM15 forecasted significantly less precipitation than observed at the weather stations, particularly with multi-day cumulative amounts. The majority of GEM15 surface wind speeds were between 0 and 10 km h−1, producing negligible wind loading amounts. The parameter values may be helpful for predicting future persistent deep slab avalanches. However, GEM output is not always representative of field conditions and should be used in conjunction with other sources.


2020 ◽  
Vol 98 (Supplement_4) ◽  
pp. 229-230
Author(s):  
Paige L Rockett ◽  
Flavio Schenkel ◽  
Christine F Baes ◽  
Filippo Miglior ◽  
Dan Tulpan

Abstract Heat stress in dairy cattle is an existing issue in temperate regions that can cause reduced milk production, impaired fertility, and mortality. Genetic selection for heat tolerance using test-day production records and weather station data is a potential mitigation strategy. However, weather stations can have temporal data gaps and a low spatial resolution, which reduces the number of herds that can be incorporated into an analysis. The objectives for this study include: (1) compare satellite-based meteorological data from the NASA POWER database to weather station records in Ontario and Quebec, (2) evaluate the effects of heat stress on Canadian Holsteins, and (3) assess breeding value estimates for heat tolerance in the same population. Daily estimates of ambient temperature, dewpoint temperature, relative humidity, and wind speed from 481 weather stations in Ontario and Quebec were compared to the parameters estimated by the NASA POWER project using an ordinary least squares regression. The coordinates of herds in Ontario and Quebec were estimated using their addresses and Google Maps Geocoding. The best weather data for each herd location will be incorporated into two random regression animal models to analyze three test-day production traits: milk, fat, and protein yield. The first model will be used to estimate general and specific additive genetic merits over the thermal gradient. The second model will estimate the traditional additive genetic merit. In conclusion, this study explores the use of satellite estimated meteorological parameters in addition to or alternatively to weather station data in heat tolerance studies, quantifies the sensitivity of Canadian dairy cattle to heat stress, and evaluates if genetic selection for increased heat tolerance in Canadian dairy herds is possible.


1987 ◽  
Vol 65 (4) ◽  
pp. 779-786
Author(s):  
Shirley R. Denton ◽  
Burton V. Barnes

The sucrose inversion method is an inexpensive tool for estimating mean temperature. Heretofore, the method has been limited to use in ecological studies where field placement of samples and duration of exposure of all samples of sucrose solution could be identical. A procedure was developed to relax the restriction of simultaneous field placement and exposure. Michigan, where conventional weather station data are available, was used to test the suitability of the sucrose inversion method for wide-area ecological use. The procedure presented uses daily maximum and minimum temperature data from a reference weather station, as well as the amount of sucrose inverted, to estimate the mean temperature in the study environment. When applied to 596 sites throughout Michigan, uncorrected sucrose inversion estimates gave nonsensical estimates of mean temperatures for the growing season of 1983. Estimates using as few as four reference weather stations plus the amount of sucrose inverted at each sample site gave results on the same order of accuracy as weather station data.


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