Nearly restored to full service



3,408,960 individual temperature measurements since the beginning of 2011 to create that graph

I found the root cause of my "cough"

Every now and again (on about 5 occasions since the beginning of the year) I don't pick up all 2680 ish temperature measurements in that hour due to bandwidth availability, server malfunctions at either end of the data gathering from the NOAA website

What happens to the average temp when the whole Globe is not covered...the data looks a little wappy as I might be getting just the warm or the cold end of the globe

So I tried to be too clever

I'd detect the fact that the data wasn't complete (so many percentage points off the total number of stations) and null out the data for that hour

and then interpolate the value between the previous and next hours to keep the graphs nice and tidy

As I say about 5 occasions in the 2158 hours since the start of the year so no big deal

..until I missed 2 consecutive hours due to a prolonged lack of data from NOAA

Doh!

I hadn't planned for that


So I have learned a great deal about managing huge quantities of data and how to write good code in the process

I will be nulling out bad data collection as before but doing the interpolation quite a bit later

The almost realtimeness of the data got the better of me

I might need to bite the chunks off in daily rather than hourly portions to give the server a real chance of collecting all the necessary data accurately

As you can see I haven't missed out on any of the data collection in the meantime - that's the important bit

I should have the remainder of the data (filtered out from the raw for countries and latitudes) by the end of Feb ready for the Monthly updates on the 1st March

Can anyone spot any effects of the Class X flare which erupted from the Sun on the 15th Feb?

Or is it too difficult to infer from the data..........much like the alleged Man Made Global Warming?

--

littlepeaks I had a CFL fall out of it's fitting into my kitchen sink last night. Edison's Bulbs are rapidly disappearing from our shelves over here. Phosphorus coated glass everywhere. Once I had disposed of it I made sure that I rewashed the plates that were standing there draining (yep I am a lazy so-and-so)

LED's will replace them it will just take a while. I am amazed at how far they have come since those Red varieties of the Mid 70's

50W down to 3W using LED's instead of Halogens has to be a good thing. The price will reduce eventually with bulk manufacturing.


The downside of all that efficiency is your heating needs to make up the difference from that toasty incandescent bulb.

Ah



Dave

← Edinburgh Polar Bear Population Faces Extinction
New York Times 1881 : Global Warming To Cause Arctic Meltdown, Drought, Hurricanes, Disease, Earthquakes, Volcanoes …. http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2011/02/23...er-earthquakes-volcanoes/

way to funny..

I thought I'd go see my local Nuclear Power Station. It's just 28 miles away...downwind

Here are the pic's I took today







This thing is one year younger than me and I'm old and decrepit but I'm self healing. This has been producing power since 1967 but it's construction began in 1961

from wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oldbury_nuclear_power_station

Oldbury has two Magnox reactors producing 424 megawatts. Oldbury was the first nuclear power station in the UK to use prestressed concrete pressure vessels, earlier Magnox reactors having used steel pressure vessels more suited to smaller reactors.

The design net power output of the station was 600 MWe, but due to steel corrosion problems from the hot carbon dioxide coolant within the reactor, operating temperature had to be reduced soon after operation started causing a large drop in power output. Initially power output was set at 424 MWe, dropping to 400MWe by 1973. Then as remedial measures were adopted power was progressively increased to 434 MWe by 1983 with a gas outlet temperature of 365°C, compared to the 412°C design temperature, which was maintained as the normal operational output.

The power station was due to cease operation in 2008, with decommissioning due to begin in 2009. An announcement on 18 December 2008 by the UK Nuclear Decommissioning Authority stated that the station will continue to operate for another two years.

The Nuclear Directorate has allowed one reactor at the station to operate until June 2011. The operators are applying for the same extension for the other reactor, if this is successful, a further extension until mid 2012 may be sought.

here's it's life story and it's future

http://www.magnoxnorthsites.com/about-us/our-sites/oldbury/lifetime-strategy

140 years (including decommissioning) to produce power for 44 years leaving behind tonnes of high level radioactive waste taken to Sellafield to be stockpiled

It's this design

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnox

"The Magnox reactors were considered at the time to have a considerable degree of inherent safety because of their simple design, low power density, and gas coolant. Because of this they were not provided with secondary containment features. A safety design principle at the time was that of the "maximum credible accident", and the assumption was made that if the plant were designed to withstand that, then all other lesser but similar events would be encompassed. Loss of coolant accidents (at least those considered in the design) would not cause large-scale fuel failure as the Magnox cladding would retain the bulk of the radioactive material, assuming the reactor was rapidly shutdown (a SCRAM), because the decay heat could be removed by natural circulation of air. As the coolant is already a gas, explosive pressure buildup from boiling is not a risk, as happened in the catastrophic steam explosion at the Chernobyl accident. Failure of the reactor shutdown system to rapidly shut down the reactor, or failure of natural circulation, was not considered in the design. In 1967 Chapelcross experienced a fuel melt due to restricted gas flow in an individual channel and, although this was dealt with by the station crew without major incident, this event had not been designed or planned for, and the radioactivity released was greater than anticipated during the station design.
In the older steel pressure vessel design, boilers and gas ducting are outside the concrete biological shield. Consequently this design emits a significant amount of direct gamma and neutron radiation, termed direct "shine", from the reactors. For example the most exposed members of the public living near Dungeness Magnox reactor in 2002 received 0.56 mSv, over half the International Commission on Radiological Protection recommended maximum radiation dose limit for the public, from direct "shine" alone. The doses from the Oldbury and Wylfa reactors, which have concrete pressure vessels which encapsulate the complete gas circuit, are much lower."

Excellent !!!



...and building new ones is a good idea ?

Horizon Nuclear Power, an E.ON and RWE joint venture, announced in 2009 intentions to install up to 3,300 MWe of new nuclear plant at Oldbury. Horizon is considering building up to either two 1,650 MWe Areva EPR reactors, or three 1,100 MWe Westinghouse AP1000 reactors. As the Severn estuary water supply would be inadequate to cool these larger reactors, cooling towers would be built.

On 18 October 2010 the British government announced that Oldbury was one of the eight sites it considered suitable for future nuclear power stations.

http://www.hse.gov.uk/newreactors/news.htm <--- If they are so safe why are these guys involved?

Clean, safe and carbon neutral ???

Clearly absolutely essential to protect us all from the enormous amount of Man Made Global Warming we are not seeing.

If MMGW is such an imminent disaster why was this option cancelled?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severn_Barrage

Same tidal estuary - no deadly legacy and no potential fallout. It's a no-brainer


Dave

Too true littlepeaks Anthony Watts dedication truly deserves that reward