Weather and Climate Inventory, Klamath Network, National Park Service, 2007
5.0. Conclusions and Recommendations
5.4. Aesthetics
This issue arises frequently enough to deserve comment. Standards for quality climate measurements require open exposures away from heat sources, buildings, pavement, close vegetation and tall trees, and human intrusion (thus away from property lines). By their nature, sites that meet these standards are usually quite visible. In many settings (such as heavily forested areas) these sites also are quite rare, making them precisely the same places that managers wish to protect from aesthetic intrusion. The most suitable and scientifically defensible sites frequently are rejected as candidate locations for weather/climate stations. Most weather/climate stations, therefore, tend to be “hidden” but many of these hidden locations have inferior exposures. Some measure of compromise is nearly always called for in siting weather and climate stations.
The public has vast interest and curiosity in weather and climate, and within the NPS I&M networks, such measurements consistently rate near or at the top of desired public information. There seem to be many possible opportunities for exploiting and embracing this widespread interest within the interpretive mission of the NPS. One way to do this would be to highlight rather than hide these stations and educate the public about the need for adequate siting. A number of weather displays we have encountered during visits have proven inadvertently to serve as counterexamples for how measurements should not be made.
Other pages in this section
- 01 Weather and Climate Cover
- Final 2001 Air Emissions Inventory, Crater Lake National Park, Oregon, PDF, October 2003
- 02 Acronyms
- Final Report: Status of Air Quality and Effects of Atmospheric Pollutants on Ecosystems in the Pacific Northwest PDF 1994
- 03 Executive Summary
- Crater Lake National Park Air Quality Information Overview
- 04 Acknowledgements
- 05 1.0. Introduction
- 06 1.1. Network Terminology
- 07 1.2. Weather versus Climate Definitions
- 08 1.3. Purpose of Measurements
- 09 1.4. Design of Climate-Monitoring Programs
- 10 2.0. Climate Background
- 11 2.1. Climate and the KLMN Environment
- 12 2.2. Spatial Variability
- 13 2.3. Temporal Variability
- 14 2.4. Parameter Regression on Independent Slopes Model (PRISM)
- 15 3.0. Methods
- 16 3.1. Metadata Retrieval
- 17 3.2. Criteria for Locating Stations
- 18 4.0. Station Inventory
- 19 4.1. Climate and Weather Networks
- 20 4.2. Station Locations
- 21 5.0. Conclusions and Recommendations
- 22 5.1. Klamath Inventory and Monitoring Network
- 23 5.2. Spatial Variations in Mean Climate
- 24 5.3. Climate Change Detection
- 26 5.5. Information Access
- 27 5.6. Summarized Conclusions and Recommendations
- 28 6.0 Literature Cited
- 29 Appendix A. Glossary
- 30 Appendix B. Climate-monitoring principles
- 31 Appendix C. Factors in operating a weather/climate network
- 32 Appendix D. General design considerations for weather/climate-monitoring programs
- 33 Appendix E. Master metadata field list
- 34 Appendix F. Electronic supplements
- 35 Appendix G. Descriptions of weather/climate monitoring networks
