How not to measure temperature, part 36

Surfacestations.org volunteer surveyor Russ Steele brings us this gem of a climate monitoring station from Panguitch, UT. I’ve seen stations over asphalt, such as the University of Arizona station in Tucson, but this one has a special feature; they made a concrete traffic island especially for the station so that it wouldn’t get collided with by nearby parked vehicles. How’s that for diligence? The station mount was set right into the concrete. So much for the 100 foot rule away from asphalt, concrete and buildings issued by NOAA

Click image for larger version

The station was recently closed, and the instruments and wooden portion of the shelter put into storage, which is why you don’t see any Stevenson Screen shelter in the picture above, only the mount. Since it’s permanently set into the concrete, they couldn’t easily remove it. Not well thought out, I’d say.

The GISS temperature plot has an offset just before the year 2000, care to bet when the concrete for the traffic island was poured?

Sustainable Bathrooms and Closets

One of the things that (used to) happens around my household is that lights and bathroom fans get left on, a lot. There have been days I’ve come home and found the bathroom light and fan on, and it had been running all day. Once after a weekend trip, I discovered our walk in closet light AND the bathroom fan had been left on since Friday night. Lots of wasted electricity there.

With small children, that can easily (and does) happen. Adults often make the same mistake because they don’t want to leave the bathroom, ahem, odoriferous for the next person, so they leave the fan on then forget to turn it off.

I’ve solved the problem with a simple light/fan timer switch, available at Lowe’s for under $25.

Just push the button once, and you get 10 minutes of fan time, plenty of time to do the job. Push again for extra time if you’ve spent all that time reading the newspaper or magazine.

All the bathrooms have this now. So does our walk in closet. I’ve also installed this same switch on my front porch lights (the one that does 1-12 hours) and on my living room indirect soft lighting so as not to forget it when we retire for the night.

I had looked at the units that sense body heat (IR) but found they can’t handle motor loads (fans) or fluorescent lights with ballasts, so this was the next best thing.

Wasted electricity is no longer a worry with me. Sure it will take awhile to recoup the costs, but the minimized annoyance at discovering fans and lights left on is well worth it now.

Local newspaper editor replaced with impostor!

 

Real                        Impostor

This must be some evil plot by media giant “Media News Group” out of Denver. I opened up the print edition of the ER this morning and found that my local amiable moustached editor David Little had been replaced with some straight laced corporate weasel type.

Don’t let the toothy Polident smile fool you.

The ER will never be the same. Who IS this guy anyway?