Noaa's historical observations were thrown out by unaccounted-for differences between the measurements taken by ships using buckets and ships using thermometers in their engine in-takes, the increased use of ocean buoys and a large increase in the number of land-based monitoring stations.
Whether they are tiny thermometers, miniature microphones, electronic noses, location detectors or motion sensors, all of them provide ever more information about the physical world, meaning that firms can add ever more cells to their corporate spreadsheets.
Most plants outside the tropics rely on the predictability of seasonal weather to achieve this.The honey-bush employs the cold-blooded lizards as its thermometers instead.
But at the very least it seems sensible to invest in better thermometers.
These days many thermometers are fixed to buoys.Climatologists across the world have been working hard to estimate and account for all these potential errors.
Thermometers and rain gauges have been used in Europe since 1500, and many of the records are now easily available on the internet.
"Does anyone expect tax administrators and business owners to have thermometers on hand when they do their tax calculations?" they ask, only half in jest.In Luxembourg tax collectors work with no fewer than 17 different tax brackets, to ensure rich Luxemburghers pay a greater proportion of their income than their slightly less rich countrymen.
The sensors wirelessly transmit the data every 15 minutes, and send an alert if irrigation is needed.Catena Zapata, an Argentine winery, is putting thermometers on roots to study the effect of their temperature on grape development.
Thermometers showed record lows in many eastern cities in February.
The Mishras discover that the dark underside of the American dream is a care home that costs $160,000 a year and hospital nurses who leave thermometers, gloves, even scissors in their patients' beds.
Rainfall over the planet as a whole was down by between 3.6% and 4% in 1816.If such numbers seem suspiciously accurate, considering that most of the world of 1816 was devoid of thermometers and rain gauges, it is because they come from recent computer modelling of the climate that seeks to mimic the conditions Tambora created.
