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Apparently the Meteorological Service of Britain does it still differently and does not use automatic measurement but takes manual readings twice a day and creates the daily average by <math>(Max+Min)/2</math> and the argument is that comparison with observations from before the computer era must be made. Note that the KNMI (the Dutch Meteorological Service) takes hourly measurements so there is no consistency between countries to start with.
As an argument in this discussion this chart was made to make the difference between the institutional method and the Cumulus Integral Method visible. What is shown is the Cumulus Method Daily Average Temperature (one minute sampling): <math>(\sum_{minute=1}^{1440} {(Temp\ measurement)) \div 1440}</math>, the <math>(Max+Min)/2</math> and the difference between the two. It is clear that the first is the more accurate estimator of the two sample
The difference has a pretty even distributed noise around the zero line so comparison of current ''integral'' with observations from the past (for climatic studies) should be possible with statistical proof and a consolidation of past and current measurements has actually been executed by the KNMI (reference?).
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