USING THE OKLAHOMA MESONETWORK TO DEVELOP AND TEST A PRACTICAL SAMPLING ERROR STATISTIC FOR METEOROLOGICAL TIME-SERIES

The error variance based upon sampling in time which accounts for the missing values in meteorological and climatological averages in a time series is developed. This statistic can be substituted for those alre ady developed which assume a random or uniform distribution of discret e measurements in time. The statistic is unique from other error stati stics developments published in the meteorological literature in that it relates the error variance of local time averages (e.g., monthly) a round the local population averages rather than the long-term mean and allows for missing data of unevenly sampled data. A comparison of the oretical values with those derived from an autoregressive time series and a nonstationary reference data set indicate that the statistic can be appropriately used to provide researchers with a quantitative meas ure of the usefulness of their data.