G'day,
Actually, climate temperatures do not get more accurate and precise with time. I cannot attribute this comment because it was in a private message but it does relate to data sets and by an expert in the field. I also happen to agree with the comments from my own research but from that point on we differ greatly. The person making the comment does not believe they are all that significant overall. I disagree.
"All this is trying to get the best absolute measure of monthly mean temperature ... Sadly, all these efforts have been a complete waste of time for climate purposes. They often stem from a new director of a Met Service, who reads a paper and sees a better method, so gets the service to switch to this, generally without overlap measurements. Many of the inhomogeneities in long temperature series result from changes in methods used by Met Services. Many are difficult to spot as often the method was changed overnight at all places within a country.
The climate network is collected for weather purposes. Changes get made for more accurate averages, automation, whatever. Hopefully in future, the continuity of the long-term record will be considered before any more changes are made."
Current weather station data is still not being collected in any better way overall. There are still vast differences, so the data is not getting better or more accurate, unless you switch to satellites or balloon data.
Further, the data that has been recorded previously often is not available in any form other than monthly averages, so it does not matter how much technology advances, the data remains just as defective as when it might have been taken 40 or 60 years ago.
Regards
Richard
