[Babase] Need a min/max weather call
kfenn
kfenn at princeton.edu
Tue Jan 20 14:54:22 EST 2009
Jeanne and Susan,
I just got off the phone with Karl and although we resolved a few issues
together, he has questions that I can't answer about the weather (min/
max) data. I think a conference call with both of you would be the
fastest way to get the issues resolved and the ball rolling on the
documentation.
Specifically we need:
1) clarity on the different weather stations and whether the
abbreviations make sense or need revision
2) OK from Jeanne on Susan's suggestion for using average times in
place of missing times
3) The name for a column that indicates we have supplied an estimated
time rather than a true time
4) OK for Tabby to spend an undetermined amount of time culling through
the weather binder to figure out when we had readings in Celsius versus
Fareneheit (Right now,the readings are already converted to C. See
email exchange below for more info on why the F readings should be
reinstated),
5) A discussion of how accurate and how precise the weather reading are
or should be in the context of Babase. This depends mainly on the
thermometers and observers, I would guess, but I don't really know that
those are the most important or the only factors.
6) We also need direction on the current documentation, and what else
should be included (answers to the questions above will certainly be
part of that). There are 4 short pages for Jeanne and Susan to read
over in the documentation. I've read them, but I don't know enough to
add or change anything.
Please let me know if there are times that might work for you in the
next two days. Karl and I have largely open schedules.
Tabby
Karl O. Pinc wrote:
>
> On 01/20/2009 09:38:43 AM, kfenn wrote:
>>
>>
>> Karl O. Pinc wrote:
>>>
>>> On 01/14/2009 07:56:46 AM, kfenn wrote:
>>>> Hi Karl,
>>>>
>>>> FWIW, this is the text file I uploaded to a table I made in
>>>> babase_pending so you can also grab the same info from there. It's
>>>> all our min/max data from the dinosaurs through the 08a update.
>>>> I've just been appending the table with each 6 month update.
>>>
>>>
>>> Tabby,
>>>
>>>
>>> The tables are designed to hold temperature measurements
>>> as read off the instrument, in either Fahrenheit or
>>> Centigrade. I'd prefer to record the actual readings.
>>> Looking over the data you sent I don't see any Fahrenheit
>>> readings, and I know that readings were in Fahrenheit
>>> for some years. Is there any way to recover the actual
>>> data? (It's easy enough to have a query (or view)
>>> convert everything to Centigrade when you want to
>>> actually use the data.)
>>>
>> I have one data file that Catherine passed on to me as the "official"
>> min/max file. It has some extra calculation in it that I stripped
>> away for the upload process, but no, nothing was a F to C conversion
>> so I do not have the F values in a table. I have found some F
>> readings in the hard copies from the early 80's so they exist, but I
>> would have to enter them again.
>
> Could we work backwards from the C values to get the actual F values?
>
> I don't want to allow more decimal places in the data than are valid,
> and I've a feeling that the extra decimal places come from the F data
> conversion to C.
> There could be all sorts of crazy rules that describe when extra
> decimal places are allowed and when not depending on when the
> temp was read in F and when in C, but that seems silly
> when we could just record the original data.
>
> Karl <kop at meme.com>
> Free Software: "You don't pay back, you pay forward."
> -- Robert A. Heinlein
>
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--
Tabby Fenn
Research Assistant
Dept of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
401 Guyot Hall
Princeton University
Princeton, NJ 08544
609 258-6898 (Ph)
609 258-2712 (Fx)
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