Talk:Surface air temperature

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(William M. Connolley 19:29, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)) Does this article really have a purpose not better served by the Historical temperature record? It appears to contain tendendious stuff we've been arguing about in the UHI article. The cities-seem-to-warm-up-more is either ambiguous or wrong (see UHI article) and what is the point re-arguing it here? Why restrict it to land T's only?

If this was a serious article, it could be about the distinction between *surface* temperature (which is very hard to measure) and near-surface air temperature (which is what is usually measured).

The article is not about how warm the ground is, but about how warm the air is that you're in contact with when you're walking around, or when you open a window and a breeze comes in the room.

It's a serious article. I'm kind of starting over, and hoping to include references or links to other strata: near-surface, stratosphere, etc.

It's relevant, because the scientific problem being addressed is models that predict changes in air temperature at various altitudes. For example, I've heard variously that IPCC models predict MORE warming the higher you go (which has NOT been seen), or less warming the higher you go.

(William M. Connolley 18:39, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)) Yes, OK. Note that they are not IPCC models (models owned/run by IPCC) but models created by various climate centres and used in IPCC reports. As to the warming: I think it is a prediction from the GCMs that warming gets more the higher you go. Note that it was never a major prediction (again, I think) - ie never listed amongst the "we are pretty sure that..."'s in the front. As to the obs, only Vinnikov and Grody shows that. You can't really say "which has NOT been seen" because there are multiple versions of what has been seen, and they disagree (there are multiple versions of the sfc record but they do agree in all (?) important respects).

Anyway, the whole model vs. observation thing need straightening out across the board. Let's work on this together, shall we? --Uncle Ed 14:30, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

OK

[edit] Merged

Merged with temperature measurement on the grounds that if this goes beyond a dicdef (it hasn't in a year) and has something to say about the record, it should be at surface air temperature record (or even temperature record). Rd232 22:00, 30 July 2005 (UTC)