Measuring Temperature Using Crickets
Supposedly you can count cricket chirps to estimate temperature. I heard this a number of years ago, but never thought much about it until I heard it mentioned on television this summer. Was this true, or just an urban myth? I decided to go outside and see for myself. I started listening to crickets and recording the temperature.
It took me a week or two to figure out how to count cricket chirps. 15 seconds was too short a time. I kept ending up with numbers like 30-and-a-half chirps so I went with 30 seconds.
Then I discovered that the crickets didn't always chirp together (CHIRP CHIRP CHIRP) but sometimes got out of synch (chir-rurp chir-rurp chir-rurp). In this case, I would count the chirps when they were in unison, and try to maintain the beat until they got back in unison again. To make things more accurate, I'd count chirps for five 30-second periods and average the numbers.
I ended up with a lot of data for temperatures above 70 degrees. But getting numbers at the cooler temperatures was harder.
Since temperatures are the coolest around sunrise, I had to start getting up around 2:00-3:00 a.m. and 5:00 a.m. to get data for the cooler temperatures! What did I find? Well, why don't you see for yourself!
Cricket Chirp Data from Boulder Colorado, USA. All dates 2007
Temp (F) | Chirps/15s |
80.500 | 44.000 |
78.500 | 46.400 |
78.000 | 43.600 |
73.500 | 35.000 |
70.500 | 35.000 |
68.000 | 32.600 |
66.000 | 28.900 |
65.000 | 27.700 |
61.500 | 25.500 |
57.000 | 20.375 |
55.000 | 12.500 |
76.250 | 37.000 |
74.000 | 37.500 |
74.000 | 36.500 |
72.500 | 36.200 |
66.000 | 33.000 |
77.500 | 43.000 |
78.500 | 46.000 |
68.500 | 29.000 |
68.500 | 31.700 |
68.000 | 31.000 |
66.000 | 28.750 |
59.000 | 23.500 |
70.000 | 32.400 |
69.000 | 31.000 |
67.000 | 29.500 |
61.250 | 22.500 |
58.500 | 20.600 |
72.000 | 35.000 |
71.000 | 33.100 |
69.000 | 31.500 |
66.500 | 28.800 |
60.000 | 21.300 |
75.000 | 37.800 |
73.250 | 37.000 |
72.500 | 37.100 |
70.000 | 36.200 |
67.500 | 31.400 |
66.000 | 30.200 |
69.000 | 31.300 |
63.000 | 26.100 |
63.000 | 25.200 |
61.000 | 23.660 |
62.000 | 22.250 |
56.500 | 17.500 |
55.000 | 15.500 |
52.000 | 14.750 |
53.000 | 15.000 |
50.000 | 14.000 |
52.000 | 18.500 |
65.000 | 27.700 |
63.000 | 26.000 |
59.000 | 21.700 |
50.750 | 12.500 |
49.250 | 12.500 |
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