[ben_w]

Guess which bit of the planet the aforementioned satellite temperature data I used was? Not many airports in the oceans. Satellites covered everything, of course, but I was working with marine biologists at the time.

Now, do you want to try again, this time with an argument that isn't so trivial to dismiss with the stuff I did 20 years ago in the middle of my degree?

[revelio]

But we're not talking about what you, random HN poster, did twenty years ago. You asked, "Why are weather stations even still a meme in these discussions?" and the answer is "because governments keep announcing records based on them". Why would they not be a "meme" in this discussion, given that fact? If governments didn't use data from weather stations anymore for climatological purposes, indeed, discussion of them would eventually disappear. They will never do that because satellite data only goes back to the early 1970s and they want to talk about trends longer than that, therefore, weather stations will remain a meme.

So there's nothing to try again here. Your question was answered correctly the first time.

[ben_w]

> Why would they not be a "meme" in this discussion, given that fact?

"Given" assumes a falsehood to be true.

> Because governments announce new "records" based on single thermometers that are located on the tarmac of airports, at the moment that jet fighters are landing.

Give a link to one occasion where all of those things happened together.

Not each bit separate, all at the same time.

One government that's genuinely so incompetent that they literally announce something from one number literally during a landing.

And not just an intern on Twitter, an official announcement.

You don't get to mix different events. Nothing pre-satellite is:

> new "records"

Given the meaning of the word "new". Also:

> located on the tarmac of airports, at the moment that jet fighters are landing.

is fundamentally incompatible with

> They will never do that because satellite data only goes back to the early 1970s and they want to talk about trends longer than that

Given the actual trends people are interested in go back well before jet fighters, and indeed aircraft.

What we actually do is the exact opposite causation: observe what else correlates with satellite data so we can model the past. More satellite data makes such models stronger — and of course they also do publish the error bars, even if you didn't bother to look for them.

(The governments of the world also hate that scientists keep giving them these models, because it gives the politicians yet another problem to take the blame for no matter what; people keep demanding solutions that cost nothing and involve no changes to lifestyles, employment, products or services, which somehow also actually make a difference).