FreeLists / az-observing / [AZ-Observing] Re: Weather in AZ

["Richard Harshaw" <rharshaw2@xxxxxxx>]

Thanks for the data, Tom.  Excellent points   Maybe as we get older our =
minds fabricate the "good old days" into something better than they =
were?

Dick


-----Original Message-----
From: az-observing-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx =
[mailto:az-observing-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Tom Polakis
Sent: Tuesday, January 29, 2008 9:07 AM
To: az-observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [AZ-Observing] Re: Weather in AZ

--- Richard Harshaw <rharshaw2@xxxxxxx> wrote:=20
> I'm not a big fan of the "man is causing global warming" scare-- I =
think it
> is more likely due to solar activity and natural planetary cycles.  =
But one
> does wonder if this may not be due to a global climate change?


I am a big fan of analyzing data, and drawing conclusions from it, as =
everybody on this list should be.  If I am not intimately involved in a =
particular discipline such as climatology, I trust the conclusions of =
the science community more than anybody.

The recent cloudiness in Arizona hasn't been any more than slightly =
below average.  Brian Skiff has been gathering cloudiness data for =
Flagstaff since 1980 =
(http://www.lowell.edu/Research/cloudiness_data/clouds.html), and i have =
the yearly data plotted through 2006 here.

http://members.cox.net/tpolakis/astro/clouds1.jpg

You can see that there really was no "golden age" when it was always =
clear in Arizona.


Now look at this monthly plot of average with 1-sigma standard =
deviation.

http://members.cox.net/tpolakis/astro/clouds3.jpg


Typical number of "clear" nights for for Winter are:

December: 11 +/- 4
January: 10.5 +/- 4

What we have so far for 2007-08 (assuming cloudy nights through the rest =
of January) are:

December: 8
January: 7

So you could say that this Winter storm season has been worse than =
average for observing, but only slightly so.

Tom
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