A new mathematical framework is presented for producing maps and large-scale averages of temperature changes from weather station data for the purposes of climate analysis. This allows one to include short and discontinuous temperature records, so that nearly all temperature data can be used. The framework contains a weighting process that assesses the quality and consistency of a spatial network of temperature stations as an integral part of the averaging process. This permits data with varying levels of quality to be used without compromising the accuracy of the resulting reconstructions. Lastly, the process presented here is extensible to spatial networks of arbitrary density (or locally varying density) while maintaining the expected spatial relationships. In this paper, this framework is applied to the Global Historical Climatology Network land temperature dataset to present a new global land temperature reconstruction from 1800 to present with error uncertainties that include many key effects. In so doing, we find that the global land mean temperature has increased by 0.911 ± 0.042 C since the 1950s (95% confidence for statistical and spatial uncertainties). This change is consistent with global land-surface warming results previously reported, but with reduced uncertainty. 3 IntroductionWhile there are many indicators of climate change, the long-term evolution of global surface temperatures is perhaps the metric that is both the easiest to understand and most closely linked to the quantitative predictions of climate models. It is also backed by the largest collection of raw data. According to the summary provided by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the mean global surface temperature (both land and oceans) has increased 0.64 ± 0.13 C from 1956 to 2005 at 95% confidence (Trenberth et al. 2007).During the latter half of the twentieth century weather monitoring instruments of good quality were widely deployed, yet the quoted uncertainty on global temperature change during this time period is still ± 20%. Reducing this uncertainty is a major goal of this paper. Longer records may provide more precise indicators of change; however, according to the IPCC, temperature increases prior to 1950 were caused by a combination of anthropogenic factors and natural factors (e.g. changes in solar activity), and it is only since about 1950 that man-made emissions have come to dominate over natural factors. Hence constraining the post-1950 period is of particular importance in understanding the impact of greenhouse gases.The Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project was created to help refine our estimates of the rate of recent global warming. This is being approached through several parallel efforts to A) increase the size of the data set used to study global climate change, B) bring additional statistical techniques to bear on the problem that will help reduce the uncertainty in the resulting averages, and C) produce new analysis of systematic effects, including data selection bias, urban hea...

The existing literature contains strong evidence that characteristics of buildings and indoor environments significantly influence rates of respiratory disease, allergy and asthma symptoms, sick building symptoms, and worker performance. Theoretical considerations, and limited empirical data, suggest that existing technologies and procedures can improve indoor environments in a manner that significantly increases health and productivity. At present, we can develop only crude estimates of the magnitude of productivity gains that may be obtained by providing better indoor environments; however, the projected gains are very large. For the U.S., we estimate potential annual savings and productivity gains of $6 billion to $19 billion from reduced respiratory disease; $1 billion to $4 billion from reduced allergies and asthma, $10 billion to $20 billion from reduced sick building syndrome symptoms, and $12 billion to $125 billion from direct improvements in worker performance that are unrelated to health. Sample calculations indicate that the potential financial benefits of improving indoor environments exceed costs by a factor of 18 to 47. The policy implications of the findings are discussed and include a recommendation for additional research.

We present results on vector meson photoproduction via +yp -. Vp in the LBL-SLAC 82" hydrogen bubble chamber exposed to a linearly polarized photon beam at 2.8, 4.7 and 9.3 GeV. We find p" production to have the characteristics of a diffractive process, i.e., a cross section decreasing slowly with energy and a differential cross section with slope of -6.5 GeV -2 . Within errors the p" production amplitudes are entirely due to natural parity exchange. S-channel helicity is conserved to a high degree in the y --+p' transition. We find evidence for small helicity flip amplitudes for 7rr pairs in the ,o" region. Photoproduction of w mesons is separated into its natural (aN) and unnatural (vu) parity exchange contributions. The E -Y and t-dependence and the spin density matrix of the unnatural parity exchange contribution are consistent with an OPE process.The natural parity exchange part has characteristics similar to p" production.At 9.3 GeV the ratio of a@') to aN(w) is -7. The slope of the Q? differential cross section is -4.5 GeVm2, smaller than that of p" and w production. Natural parity exchange is the main contributor to + production. No evidence for higher mass vector mesons is found in 717~~ ~TTT or m final states. The s-and tdependence of Compton scattering as calculated from p, w and 9 photoproduction using VDM agree with experiment, but the predicted Compton cross section is too small by a factor of two.

Modification of urban albedos reduces summertime urban temperatures, resulting in a better urban air quality and building air-conditioning savings. Furthermore, increasing urban albedos has the added benefit of reflecting some of the incoming global solar radiation and countering to some extent the effects of global warming. In many urban areas, pavements and roofs constitute over 60% of urban surfaces (roof 20-25%, pavements about 40%). Using reflective materials, both roof and the pavement albedos can be increased by about 0.25 and 0.10, respectively, resulting in a net albedo increase for urban areas of about 0.1. Many studies have demonstrated building cooling-energy savings in excess of 20% upon raising roof reflectivity from an existing 10-20% to about 60% (a U.S. potential savings in excess of $1 billion (B) per year in net annual energy bills).On a global basis, our preliminary estimate is that increasing the world-wide albedos of urban roofs and paved surfaces will induce a negative radiative forcing on the earth equivalent to removing ~22 -40 Gt of CO 2 from the atmosphere. Since, 55% of the emitted CO 2 remains in the atmosphere, removal of 22 -40 Gt of CO 2 from the atmosphere is equivalent to reducing global CO 2 emissions by 40 -73 Gt. At ~$25/tonne of CO 2 , a 40 -73 Gt CO 2 emission reduction from changing the albedo of roofs and paved surfaces is worth about $1,000B to 1800B. These estimated savings are dependent on assumptions used in this study, but nevertheless demonstrate considerable benefits that may be obtained from cooler roofs and pavements.

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