Too Europe

It's not just silly little things like packets of ketchup that you have to pay for or jump through hoops to get in Europe. I've been wanting to use some UK weather data in my dissertation. Getting archived hourly weather data in the U.S. is easy. Yeah you have to pay for some of it, but a lot of it is free. California, for example, has a public network of weather stations with free data archives available to anyone. It makes a big difference. For future research, I may start focusing more on California.

The UK, on the other hand... it's a nightmare to find free archived hourly data of good quality. Normally you have to pay a lot for it. I, as a student, could possibly get some for free for use in my dissertation if I meet a long list of conditions, fill out a couple forms, and my advisor and I sign another form and mail it to the UK for approval. What a pain. I'd need it right now if I'm gonna use it at all, so I probably won't.

California, good for you. You'll likely receive the benefits of my research before anywhere else. UK, I wish you weren't so European about your weather data.

Update: I recently learned that Oklahoma now has publicly available data. So, like California, Oklahoma will be at the top of my list of places to research. In fact, the data from Oklahoma is of higher resolution and is even easier to access than that from California!

posted by Matt @ 5:04 PM