NOAA Employing New Tools to Accurately Measure Climate Change
April 24, 2008

High Resolution (Credit: NOAA)
NOAA today announced it will install the last nine of the 114 stations as part of its new,
high-tech climate monitoring network. The stations track national average changes in
temperature and precipitation trends. The U.S. Climate Reference Network (CRN) is on
schedule to activate these final stations by the end of the summer.

NOAA also is modernizing 1,000 stations in the Historical Climatology Network (HCN), a
regional system of ground-based observing sites that collect climate, weather and water
measurements. NOAA’s goal is to have both networks work in tandem to feed consistently
accurate, high-quality data to scientists studying climate trends.



Historical Climatology Network - Modernization Underway
The modernization of the HCN’s aging equipment will enhance the extent of America’s
premiere data source for tracking regional climate variations and trends. The
modernization, which began November 2006, will follow a “climate-region” approach,
starting with a pilot project in the Southwest, where 140 sites will be revamped. HCN
sites will be equipped with a new temperature and precipitation sensor that will
complement the CRN, with precise regional climate data.

Data gathered by those existing HCN stations that were located in less-than-ideal areas
have been statistically corrected in the analysis of climate trends routinely reported by
NOAA. Though some individual stations were placed in less-than-ideal areas, these data
anomalies did not significantly alter overall climate measurements. The modernization will
relocate these stations in areas that are closer to ideal.