Which causes more summer heatwaves: carbon dioxide or Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) adjustments?
Ken Stewart has analyzed the adjustments used to create the all-new ACORN wonder dataset and compared them with another BOM dataset called AWAP, and finds, extraordinarily, that the trend in average summer maximums has been tripled by adjustments that the BOM imply are neutral.
Since summer maxima are the ones used to generate the most headlines in Australia, I ask again if the Bureau of Meteorology is a scientific agency or a PR group? Increasing the trend in summer maxima would produce more headlines of hottest ever month, season, heatwave, and weekend.
In this graph Stewart splits the data into months, and compares the trends in maxima in the AWAP and ACORN datasets, across the entire nation. We see that most of the adjustments happen to data from the hottest months of the year, October to March. Even though the measured maxima in February and March are possibly cooler now than they were in the early 1900s, they have been adjusted to show warming trends.
When was the last time you heard the BOM tell you that their “hottest ever” February record depended on adjusting down the past hotter records?
…
Ken Stewart points out that adjustments grossly exaggerate monthly and seasonal warming, and that anyone analyzing national data trends quickly gets into 2 degrees of quicksand. He asks: What was the national summer maximum in 1926? AWAP says 35.9C. Acorn says 33.5C. Which dataset is to be believed?
We might be worried about “two degrees of warming” but people living in 1926 got two degrees of cooling some 88 years after the fact.
Three ways to not graph the adjustments that matter
The BOM created a new “adjustments” page which appeared a few weeks ago, after questions from skeptics Jennifer Marohasy, David Stockwell, Bill Johnston, and Ken Stewart were raised in The Australian newspaper.
The BOM show the next graph to convince us that their adjustments are neutral. But there are several problems. The graph does not show the effect that adjustments have on seasons, or on maxima and minima. The BOM claim the AWAP data is “unadjusted”, but their CAWCR Technical Report No. 050 calls it “partially homogenized”, which in most scientist’s books is a rather un-raw and adjusted state.
The graph as usual starts in 1910, so ignores the hot historic records from 1880-1900. This older data is more difficult to combine with new data, but some of it was recorded on modern equipment. Yet the BOM shows no curiosity or interest in these historical records, as we’ve seen at Bourke, Rutherglen, Hay, Omeo, Bendigo, Alice Springs, Melbourne, Carnarvon and Newcastle. BOM adjustments change cooling trends to warming trends because stations “might” have moved!
How honest are the BOM being about the impact of their adjustments with a graph like this?
The BOM use “mean temperatures” from two different adjusted data sets to claim that their adjustments don’t matter.
BOM ACORN Adjustments
Comparison between adjusted and unadjusted temperatures
Both adjusted and unadjusted temperatures show that Australia’s climate has warmed since 1910. Since 1955 adjusted and unadjusted data are virtually identical. It is also during this time that most of the warming has occurred in Australia.
The graph below shows temperature trends since 1910 from the unadjusted temperatures from more than 700 locations (AWAP), together with those that have been carefully curated, quality controlled and corrected for artificially induced biases at 112 locations (ACORN-SAT).
Note that “mean” temperatures lose a lot of the data that matters about our climate. The maxima and minima can both be more extreme, yet the mean can remain the same. What matters to the man in the street are the daily maxes and min’s — not the “average” which is a mere half way point between the peaks of the day. It doesn’t represent the true average temperature of the day because it doesn’t take into account the hours of hot or cold temperatures under the daily curve. “Mean trends” however could be useful if you’ve made adjustments to the maxes and mins, but want to make it look as though they don’t matter. Just sayin’…
Table of percentage changes to Trends in AWAP versus ACORN
(Click to expand)
On Stewart’s site there is discussion about the value of quadratic trends versus linear trends, but the main point is that the BOM use quadratic trends, so Stewart copied their approach. As far as I’m concerned, all trends from either AWAP or ACORN are hopelessly compromised. Both are area-weighted, gridded data, neither are “unadjusted”, and there are far too many anomalies, and adjustments that can’t be justified with documentation. These are statistical creations.
If we want to reduce temperatures across Australia in the next 100 years, the cheapest and most effective way to do it is with adjustments not windmills. Solving our temperature problems might be a simple as setting up a new BOM.
With Ken Stewart on one flank and Steve Goddard on the other, the truth has got the alarmists surrounded!
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No it hasn’t. They just run off an make up some new theories or models and they can be assured of coverage in the media with their alarmist propositions. No warming? The facts not matching the theory and models? Hmmmmm, let’s look around for something. Ah, the warming is hiding in the ocean. This is INFERRED from new data.
Hollywood makes a fortune out of disaster movies, and so has a certain carbon billionaire, not to mention the scammers who are getting government grants for renewable energy schemes and the many others who are assuring themselves of a nice, comfortable, grant-padded future.
But why are we so vulnerable to these things. Simple: it is a primitive survival instinct. At night our ancestors huddled in their caves trembling at the images in their minds of all the monsters waiting outside the cave. Their minds dwelled on it and this served to amplify their fears, and it ensured they huddled together in their caves and never had to face the boogie man. They survived.
Fast forward to today and we have warmists ruthlessly exploiting our embedded instinct to fear imagined monsters. Think back through the last few decades and you will recall that someone has always been running a disaster scam – pollution, nuclear winter, nuclear war, lungs of the earth, garbage in the ocean, Y2K, bird flu, ozone, global cooling, GM foods (others if you can remember them).
And of course it is not just natural disasters that are being exploited. I remember once seeing video of some twerp from overseas who came out here on a speaking tour to flog his book about impending financial disaster (an oldie but a goodie). He spoke in grave terms of the trillions of dollars that were being shuffled around the world in microseconds, not producing anything and not contributing anything. I remember seeing all the naive and gullible sitting there with their mouths open and eyes glazed over as images formed in their minds of some big, terrifying, evil financial boogie man – maybe a BIG BANK – roaming the world ruthlessly exploiting markets and people, with no-one to stop it. All of the leftists in the audience (yes, it is mostly leftists who are vulnerable to these sorts of simple messages – as with global warming) were not able to understand that those trillions of dollars are OUR superannuation money and investment money being maximised in value by the people we entrust it to.
As the saying goes: leftists, some are evil, some are very evil, but most are just plain stupid.
Let me hasten to add that I am very concerned about the environmental impact of humans and I am an advocate for, well, for want of a better word, let’s call it animal rights. I think live exports are unspeakably cruel, I think wast plastic in the ocean is a very serious problem, wherever possible I ban Japanese goods because of the dolphin and whale kills, and the same applies to Denmark and Norway, and I ban Spanish products because of bullfighting (to name just a few of my boycotts), I am a vegetarian, I donate to the RSPCA and I rescue stray animals. But I am not a dumb commie who wants to de-industrialise the world. Humans have to manage their impact on animals and on the environment generally, and if we had decent government most of the problems I have mentioned would not be a problem at all.
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State of Fear
00
Divide and conquer.
The fact is that “BOM” is not doing a thing. It can’t. It is not a person. Certain specific individual people are doing this. Identify them and ask THEM to justify their actions without the opportunity to hide behind an institution.
600
Good point, after all the skeptics have put up names and reputations for all to see so WHO are the actual people from the BOM presenting these graphs and supporting information?
Is this known or has the BOM finally morphed into a BORG type entity void of individualism?
310
Fortunately for us I don’t think the BOM has the same ability as the Borg to “adapt” to anything used against them yet,although I bet they wish they could do so.
70
It is the duty of BOM’s top management to present accurate and unbiased data. If the top management do not see that data has been incorrectly and poorly manipulated then they are incompetent. If they do know what is going on then they are dishonest and in breach of their statutory requirements. Either way there needs to be a clean out. Maybe, a good way is the Roman way – sack the top two without giving them any resignation benefits (the Romans had them killed [we’re NOT suggesting that]) and then make every tenth staff and employee randomly redundant (the original decimate).
[Please be careful with anything that might be misinterpreted as supporting violence.] ED
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It’s no secret. Their names are on all published papers. For example, CTR-050 was written by
R.J.B. Fawcett, B.C. Trewin, K. Braganza, R.J Smalley, B. Jovanovic and D.A. Jones. The editor in chief of the Bureau’s journal, The Australasian Meteorological and Oceanographic Journal, is David Karoly. But the Bureau is a government agency, and the buck stops with the relevant Minister, Greg Hunt. He is the one who answers questions in Parliament, even though the answers are provided by Bureau officers. We will only see progress when he is asked the right Questions on Notice. If Bureau officers provide misleading answers, they must be disciplined (usually the Director). If the Minister misleads Parliament, he must resign. Usually the questions have enough wriggle room to allow platitudes, half truths, motherhood statements, to form the answers. A dud question will get a dud answer. You have to get the question exactly right to have any success. I’m no expert in political or parliamentary matters though so I’m not much help in that field. I’m sure there are readers who can help, but then you have to get a co-operative Member who can get past the party Whip.
That was a long winded answer to your question wasn’t it!
561
Well we did ask Ken 🙂
Thanks for the reply and all your good work.
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Unfortunately Greg Hunt is a CAGW believer, so is likely to be more sceptical of a sceptic’s claim than he is of the BOM.
210
It is quite likely, based on his pronouncements that Greg Hunt is an ACGW believer. Hard to say why he would be but objectivity is not a requirement to be a parliamentarian.
The questions therefore must come from others. Dennis Jensen is a good candidate but he is part of the Government, so he is unlikely to ask very embarrassing questions in the open parliament.
I pin most of my hopes at present on David Leyonhjelm of the Liberal Democratic Party.
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Thank you, Ken. That’s very interesting.
Now, bureaucratic procedures aside, do we know who in that list is cooking the numbers?
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Another serial offender is Wenju Cai from the CSIRO in Melbourne.
It’s Groundhog Doomsday everyday with Wenju Cai:
05 Oct. 2014: The world is warming faster than we thought
The study covers the period from 1970 to 2003. Cai says that, during that time, while the northern hemisphere has been well sampled by cargo ships and projects led by wealthy countries north of the equator, very few direct measurements have been taken in the south.
It’s worse than we thought.
Scientists may have hugely underestimated the extent of global warming because temperature readings from southern hemisphere seas were inaccurate.
Since around 2000, a network of buoys called the Argo floats have been collecting more accurate global ocean data, so more recent measurements of the southern hemisphere are more reliable.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn26317-the-world-is-warming-faster-than-we-thought.html#.VDJ0rr6BDFt
~ ~ ~
23 January 2014: El Niño monitoring system in failure mode
“The array really revolutionized our science, and to let it deteriorate is such a waste of the investment the Americans have made over the past 30 years,” says Wenju Cai, a climate modeller at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization in Aspendale, Australia.
Buoys are not the only instruments monitoring the equatorial Pacific.
Scientists also supplement data from the TAO array with measurements of both sea surface temperature collected via satellite and ocean temperature collected by the global network of free-floating buoys known as Argo, which dive and report data every ten days.
But satellites cannot see beneath the ocean surface, and Argo floats cannot provide the kind of real-time measurements at specific locations that come from the array of moored buoys.
http://www.nature.com/news/el-niño-monitoring-system-in-failure-mode-1.14582
. . .
Go figure.
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Red Thumb?
Wenju Cai admits “The study covers the period from 1970 to 2003, (when) Scientists may have hugely underestimated the extent of global warming because temperature readings from southern hemisphere seas were inaccurate.”
He also admits the TAO array is in failure mode, and Argo can not do the job.
So much for ‘reliable’ after 2000.
And then Wenju Cai claims,”Trust me. CSIRO got it wrong, and using the same failed data, this time we got it right,” confidently predicting warmaggedon in the immediate future.
Are you stupid, red thumb?
81
“And then Wenju Cai claims,”Trust me. CSIRO got it wrong, and using the same failed data, this time we got it right,” confidently predicting warmaggedon in the immediate future.”
So they can be wrong, but only when it suits them and when the so called right answer is even more alarmist than the initial screw up.
Nice to have such unchallenged flexibility in your versions of truth.
As per usual I keep thinking about the responses I would get in my workplace giving answers like this…
Boss “Hows that work going Peter”
Peter “well I know you think I wasn’t doing a great job of it, which may have been true, even though at the time I told you it was going great”
Boss “So let me ask you again, hows that work going”
Peter “well now its going great!!, Trust me!!”
Boss “come in to my office we need to talk”
How do I get a job at the BOM or CSIRO? I just realised Im making my life hard by working in places where they have expectations of performance.
80
Management rolls, they higher up you are, the less is expected from you. And the workers all wish you’d stay out of their business.
Some call it failing upwards, some call it the Peter Principle. But for those who have failed upwards it can be very lucrative; especially if you’re not averse to making private deals.
10
Always the best policy. Identify the person responsible, the number, name and precise location of their office door, and advise them that they will be experiencing the unadulterated personal pleasure of hearing from your lawyer. It works a treat.
32
You can be certain that BOM’s attraction to global warming and the revenue it generates is set by BOM’s management. The political culture that today leads BOM needs to be replaced by a scientific one.
72
Hmmm, let’s see; a body who’s captain is appointed by a politician, check. Funding that comes from the government, check. It sure looks like a political entity.
And other than a popular uprising; I don’t know any other way to influence such a beast. A single complainant has no effect on such entities; it has to be a prolonged community movement to influence them at all. And they are far more sensitive around election time too.
00
Yes, and even more disturbing is the thought that some individuals may have the discretion and the opportunity to destroy data. We have already read of historical records that were ‘rescued from the bin’. Who did this and what was their justification for it?
We know how the leftist mind works. Like the religious zealots who murder doctors who perform abortions, some global warming zealots believe that their cause is so noble and beyond question that anything is justified in the name of the cause. Isn’t it possible that this same mindset could apply to some of the people who work at the BOM?
If we ever get a government with the kahunas to chase this up, they need to treat it as a criminal matter so that records and hard drives can be seized without forewarning in case there are individuals involved who may wish to conceal things. Emails probably won’t be an issue: I’m sure such individuals will have learnt their lesson after climategate.
43
Thank you Jo, it appears to me that with the huge spread of computers, and watching 3 TV weather presenters daily, that we have “records” of some dodgy kind, almost every day. The worst offender, to my way of thinking, is the waxhead leprechaun on 10 Sydney, who seems to think that the population of Sydney are interested in only surf conditions, in addition to his over enthusiastic “records”.
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Sunray
‘in addition to his over enthusiastic “records”.’
Also sounds like a certain Mr Brown on Channel 7 in Melbourne. BUT 9, 10 and 2 are just as bad.
R-COO- K+
00
I wonder if it could ever be possible, after the wash, when it became patently evident that due diligence was not observed when cobbling together all of this ‘evidence’, that some justice would prevail? I somehow suspect that no one will ever have to answer to any ‘mistakes’ made in promoting climate alarmism.
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Good point bumused!
There should be accountability for all the wasted billions of dollars that could have been put to better use. Also the loss of industries and Australian jobs.
It is part of our job to keep the names up there.
1. Dr Tim Flannery
2. Dr David Karoly.
and plenty of others.
191
we need to start a list, and list both sides, that way both sides risk the concequences of being wrong (or found out)I for one am happy to be noted as a person who doubts AGW (or any other such wording that passes legal muster)having names on a list may make some people have a change of heart as more info comes to light, they can of course recant and convert, the more that do the better. Perhaps start a thread on this site, we can all contribute suggestions (and our own details to keep things fair)The Likes of Mann and Gore and Flannery are given but the more names of the “unknown” researchers and department heads that are highlighted the better, also any university that has a stated view (and we know who they are) perhaps all graduates can be added to the list as well unless they make a statement to the contrary.
21
It would be funny if it wasn’t.
320
There should be rule introduced to require the hole temperature record to be used and for the display of unadjusted and adjusted data to be places side by side and for all adjustment to be disclosed all at the same time on these graphs and other press releases by the Bom. Just like the rules for financial produces and super. Transparent discloser. I think it would look a little strange if the Bom come out with a press release that says hottest month ever adjusted and right next to it on the very same graph the raw unadjusted data says something very different. It might start waking people up to their BS adjustments if they had to be that transparent all of the time don’t you think?
190
Contact Senator Birmingham and nominate some independent observers for his BOM review panel. And copy Greg Hunt.
220
For how much longer is the government going to carry on hiding their heads in the sand over this matter. This corruption by government employees demands an mediate, independent, and transparent investigation. Nothing less will do!
I expect that the Minister is afraid of ‘international repercussions’ as revealing the corruption will undoubtedly fuel sceptic demands in the USA and UK and smash open the climate cartel. The Minister should rather be afraid of facing his Australian constituents should he not represent the interests of the people who elected his government.
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“immediate”
30
We very nearly got it with the New Zealand record adjustments being in court.
If ever a bureau of meteorology anywhere in the world gets held to account (and reprimanded by a court) for unaccountable adjustments of official records. It would cause a cascade of doubt the world over.
They fear exactly that, but they are running on thin ice. One day, when they are long retired, the truth will out.
00
IPCC 2007
Climate Change 2007: Synthesis Report
Some extreme weather events have changed in frequency and/or intensity over the last 50 years:
• It is very likely that cold days, cold nights and frosts have become less frequent over most land areas, while hot days and hot nights have become more frequent. {WGI 3.8, SPM}
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/syr/en/mains1.html
*
Australia, 2014:
Severe frosts like the ones which have damaged crops across Australia could become more common in the future.
Cold night time temperatures but very warm daytime temperatures,” said Melissa Rebbeck from Climate and Agricultural Support and the University of Adelaide.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-10-03/frost-inducing-high-pressure-systems-could-become-more-common/5788634
*
Australian Parliament Govt Library 2009
CSIRO:
“The most likely changes are an increase in the number of hot days and nights (with some minor regional exceptions), or in days exceeding various threshold temperatures, and decreases in the number of cold days, particularly including frosts.”
http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/Browse_by_Topic/ClimateChange/theClimate/temperatures
. . .
Settled science anyone?
190
From my favourite historical reference from the days when the Australian Bureau of Meteorology published information on weather to help our Australian Farmers cope with the variability of the Australian Climate. “Australian Agriculture, the complete reference on rural industry” Published in 1987-88 and reading the chapter on Climate of Australia written by the Bureau of Meteorology pages 67 to 83 with nice graphs and charts – at page 72.
[Quote] Extreme minima. the lowest temperatures in Australia have been recorded in the Snowy Mountains, where Charlotte Pass (elevation 1,760 metres) has recorded -22.2 C at 14th of July 1945 and 22nd of August 1947. Temperatures have fallen minus five degrees C at most inland places south of the tropics and at some places within a few kilometres of southern coasts. At Eyre, on the south coast of Western Australia, a minimum of minus 3.9 C has been recorded, and at Swansea on the east coast of Tasmania, the temperature has fallen as low as minus 4.4 C. In the tropics, extreme minima below 0 degree C have been recorded at many places away from the coasts as far north as Herberton, Queensland (minus 3.3 C) even very close to the tropical coastline temperatures have fallen to zero C a low recording being minus zero point 8 C for Mackay.
FROST
Frost can cause serious losses in agricultural crops, and numerous climatic studies have been made in Australia relating to specific crops cultivated in local areas.
Under calm conditions, overnight temperatures at ground level are often as much as 5 degrees C lower than those measured in the instrument screen (base height 1.1 metre) and differences of 10 degree C have been recorded. Only a small number of stations measure minima at ground level, the lowest recordings being 15.1 C at Canberra and 14.6 C at Stanthorpe (Queensland). Lower readings may be recorded in alpine areas.
Frost frequency depends on location and orography, and even on minor variations in the contour of the land. The parts of Australia which are most subject to frost are the eastern uplands from north-eastern Victoria to the western Darling Downs in southern Queensland. Most stations in this region experience more than ten nights a month with readings of zero C (or under) for three to five months of the year. On Tasmania’s Central Plateau similar conditions occur for three to six months of the year. Frosts may occur within a few kilometres of the coasts except in the Northern Territory and most of the north Queensland coasts.
Regions in which frosts may occur at any time of the year comprise most of Tasmania, large areas of the tablelands of New South Wales, and much of inland Victoria, particularly the north-east, and a small part of the extreme south-west of Western Australia. Over most of the continent and on the highlands of Queensland as far north as the Atherton Plateau, frosts commence in April and end in September. Minimum temperatures below zero C are experienced in most of the sub tropical interior in June and July
The length of the frost period for the year is taken as the number of days between the first and last recording of an air temperature of 2 degree C or less. The median duration of the frost period in days per year is shown in Figure 9. The median frost period varies from over 200 days per year in the south -eastern uplands areas south of the Hunter Valley to zero in northern Australia. In the Southern regions of the continent the annual frost period generally decreases from about 1q00 days inland to below 50 days towards the coast. However , there are appreciable spatial variations depending mainly on local orography. In Tasmania the frost period exceeds 300 days on the uplands and decreases to 100 days near the coast. By convention, a heavy frost is taken as corresponding to a minimum screen temperature 0 zero degree C or less. The regions of mainland Australia most prone to heavy frosts are the eastern uplands and adjacent areas extending from Victoria through New South Wales to south -eastern Queensland. Stations above 1,000 metres in altitude in the southern parts of these uplands have more than 100 heavy frosts annually, and in the uplands below 1,000 metres the annual frequency ranges 100 to about 20. Over the remainder of southern Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria, although there are great spatial variations, the average annual frequency of heavy frosts typically ranges from about 20 inland to 10 towards the coast. Some places on the coast experience heavy frosts (for example Portland Victoria, with 3 annually).
In Tasmania , uplands above 1,000 metres have more than 100 heavy frosts annually, and in neighbouring areas the frequency is about 100 decreasing towards the coasts. Even some coastal stations have a relatively high frequency (Swansea, for example has 13).
The southern half of Western Australia, the whole of South Australia, and the Alice Springs district of the Northern Territory experience heavy frosts. Differences in annual frequencies is about 10 inland decreasing towards the coasts. Some places average more than 20 heavy frosts annually notably Wandering , Western Australia (21) and Yongala , South Australia (29) At Alice Springs the average annual frequency is 11.[unquote]
Of course this agricultural aid to farmers was all written up BK (Before Karoly) and the band of merry adjusters took control – it is interesting to read because its emphasis is upon the weather and climate that farmers need to survive our rather harsh and variable climate – lots of other similar detailed explanations including average daily Maximum temperatures January figure 5 page 72 and figure 7 average Daily Minimum Temperature – January as issued by the Director of Meteorology with isotherms in Degrees Celsius. Worth getting hold of a copy. IMHO!
120
Nice links HJ, a classic set of comments. When debating in person this I find myself constantly going back to the recent “lets have 2 bob each way and take insurance on it” attitude of Milne and Flannery.
Milne “A warmer, wetter world will lead to more intense extreme weather events.” https://twitter.com/senatormilne/status/432811290893893632
Flannery “So even the rain that falls isn’t actually going to fill our dams and our river systems, and that’s a real worry for the people in the bush. If that trend continues then I think we’re going to have serious problems, particularly for irrigation.” http://www.abc.net.au/landline/content/2006/s1844398.htm
Whatever the hymn sheet is, none of them seem to have the same one to sing from.
50
You know, in most of these threads about the BOM adjustments, the number of CAGW proponents spouting opposing views is significantly diminished. Backs to the wall much? No, they just retreat to TheConversation to absorb more groupthink manna 🙁
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And if you call them out on “groupthink” as I’ve tried to do a few times,either the post is deleted or modified out of context or straight out deleted. I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s a waste of my time to do so.
130
Yes, of course
That’s their point
40
Michael,
while deletion can be frustrating, it does indicate one thing, the warmulonians cannot see 5 minutes into the future. Guardian, Fauxfacts, their ALPBC and The Conversation all now have a record of censorship and deletion. Real Climate and SKS not only have a reputation for censorship, but the shame of editing comments as well. There are now permanent records of their bias on GoreBull Warbling from one side of the web to the other.
Those currently championing the warmulonian cause have lost many political battles in the past. But these have largely been pre-internet. The Internet is a game changer. The warmulonians are slow on the uptake. They clearly haven’t thought through what the consequences of leaving a permanent record of censorship and vilification means to the losers of the first big information war of the Internet age. They are about to find out the hard way 😉
51
You’d think these extremes would somehow be reflected in the climate measurement they can’t adjust (yet), namely rainfall.
Where I live on the midnorth coast of NSW the driest years in the record (starting 1882) were, in order, 1902, 1915, 1994, 1909, 1993, 1901, 1940. Driest September was 1882, and driest Spring was 1897. Same all-over-the-place records for high rainfall, except that the years we copped more than two metres of rain were either before 1891 and (mostly) after 1949. Worst spring fire conditions (the fires happened!) had to be 1895, with tremendous summer falls for growth then withering drought till August came with its westerlies. Scary.
Wouldn’t the klimatariat love to find a way to fiddle with the wet stuff! The fun they could have with us!
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They are actively fixing that little hitch here in the US. I live in East Central Florida. We are significantly above normal in rainfall for the year. Ditches are full, pastures are flooded and up until Saturday, it had rained 1/2″ to 1″ a day at our place for 6 weeks straight. The weather station data would say “trace” rainfall and the front part of my property has watercress growing in the grass… I kid you not. Our wonderful government has placed us in the middle of the drought index range. I’m assuming that the biblical flood that Noah rode out would probably rate a “moderately moist” from these clowns.
https://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2014/09/26/were-from-the-government-were-here-to-make-up-fake-numbers/
51
“You’d think these extremes would somehow be reflected in the climate measurement they can’t adjust (yet), namely rainfall.”
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Don’t bet on it!
My farm (N.C. -USA) is within walking distance of the state of the art weather station put in 16 years ago. On Feb 12, I had 2 inches of ice on my stock tanks and snow falling. Accumulation was up to my ankle bone ~ 3 to 4 inches.
The report a week later was above freezing weather with 0.37 inches of rain. I called Dr Jeff Masters a liar on his blog and it got changed to below freezing and light snow – (0.37 inches) a third of an inch of snow does NOT cover my boots or make me shovel the porch and sidewalk!
In May 25th 2014 we had hail big enough to damage my roof. There is nothing in the records showing this. It is reported as mist – 0.12 inches. Luckily some one one across town has a video recording showing the hail so I could have insurance fix my roof.
110
Perhaps I should have added that, in the temperature record for my area (starting 1907) every single month but one achieved its record max between 1910 and 1919. The exception was August, hottest in 1946. Our five hottest years were between 1913 and 1919.
So we do have a cluster of extremes, but not one to be discussed in polite green company.
00
The main reason summer trends have been increased more than winter or other season trends, is that this is when rainfall would most affect average temperatures, as well as daily maxima.
In other words, the same thing that reduces temperatures markedly in the tropics -thunderstorms and high rainfall-also acts to cool summer temperatures in Australia. This is where anyone not taking into account rainfall changes and figures in making ‘adjustments’, will tend to make the summer adjustments stronger than other seasons, which is exactly what seems to have happened.
The summer temperatures have been increased the most, because the BOM has no interest (or understanding) whatsoever in accounting for changes in rainfall when analysing and adjusting the figures, which affect summer temperatures the most.
A check on thunderstorm and rainfall activity would likely show a correlation with the temperature ‘adjustments’.
30
Global warming is man made only in the sense that the numbers supporting the claims of the climate obsessed are manufactured by climate obsessed people. Keep banging away on this. The cynicism, noble cause corruption, rent seeking and moral hazard demonstrated by the climate fear industry is breath taking once it is able to be seen.
81
Gore Bull Warbling is Mann Made.
90
Get [snip] at BOM!
Its indviduals with a name that manipulates the temp records. Its time to make them responsible for their actions. There are no longer any doubts whether BOM is a criminal organsation or not its just a question to what magnitude! The violation of statistics is obvious. Its no longer a parlamentary question BOM has to be put under a criminal investigation.
[Please be careful about things that sound violent.] ED
83
I think this demonstrates why you are considered the lunatic fringe.
29
These people – Jones and Trewin – are fundamentally dishonest. I don’t know how they lie straight in their beds.
Lazlo
60
For a minute there I thought you had written “…cretins.” I did a double-take and reread it correctly but perhaps the word cretin does apply — brainless, stupid, child-like, and full of pointless information that makes no sense and appeals only to other cretins.
Pretty harsh I suppose. But it fits the doctored data, doesn’t it?
50
These sorts of unjustified adjustments are not the sole province of Australia’s BOM. My new book contains many other examples innthe essay When Data Isn’t.
But you all down under have a better chance of cracking the thing open at the BOM. The evidence is overwhelming, you have Graham lloyd at the Australian reporting, and you have Tony Abbott rather than Obummer. Onward.
70
Here we are now well into October and we’re having 90 – 102 F (32 – 39 C) days. This is by no means our usual October weather but it’s not anything unprecedented either. Mostly the TV meteorologists have avoided any mention of climate change (every channel has one, complete with satellite images and slick graphics). But then I saw one talking about climate change and how it’s affecting our current weather. I wanted to throw something at him.
Here in Southern California fall can come late in October and very suddenly. Hot days go to cold in a few days, sometimes with overnight frost by Halloween. Not every year is that way but this year is, at least so far. The whole summer has been warmer than usual. But hardly a record setter.
There’s nothing about climate change to do with it. It’s just weather in spite of Al Gore and the meteorologist on the weather channel, who of all people should know better.
50
I wouldn’t trust any temperature data record produced by BOM unless it had been audited by a truly independent body. I certainly wouldn’t trust the Auditor-General to audit the data.
My fear is that BOM is doing what a certain scientist in New Zealand was doing (he was sacked for doing it) at NIWA, i.e. adjusting the temperature data without explanation and without foundation, homogenising data to create a warming trend used by the IPCC, a trend not evident in the NZ Met Service temperature data.
People should Google “Kiwigate” to refreshen the minds!
101
Now I can understand how the common person living in an UHI environment can be taken in by these upward adjustments. Then we have the rural population, what do they have to say about these so called record high temperatures? Especially those working the land for decades.
30
Unfortunately today the BOM seems to be ramping up the propaganda – aided by the editors at the Sydney Morning Herald. The following is currently the top online story at SMH:
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/bureau-warned-greg-hunt-about-climate-change-before-he-cited-wikipedia-20141006-10qyg0.html
The story says the Australian government was warned that the 2013 bush fires were likely the result of human induced climate change.
In view of what we now know thanks to the good work of Ken Stewart this is disgraceful. Do these people have no conscience? I’ll be keeping an eye on this site to see if online comments are enabled.
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I take it Jo, when you use the term ‘PR group’ you are referring to “Political Relations?”
90
Cookster –
was about to post the SMH article, too. what a beat-up!
photo caption: Firefighters battle a blaze in the Blue Mountains in September, 2013, a month of “unprecedented” high temperatures.
the caption doesn’t link the blaze to CAGW and nowhere in the article does BOM link anything to CAGW, or quote any study that proves any link, but rather makes all the usual, subjective, unsupported, vague suggestions.
“extreme heat was consistent with”
“has increased the odds”
“The bureau also strengthened its judgment”
“almost certainly caused”
“A number of more recent studies are drawing probabilistic links”
even the Fairfax headline – “Bureau warned Greg Hunt about climate change” – is ridiculous…in the EXTREME.
how the CAGW crowd is still able to use “climate change” for what they claimed was AGW is beyond me.
Coles can’t advertise bread was cooked today, even tho it was…because it was partially cooked on an earlier date, we are told! (like CAGW data?)
100
We’ll all be rooned.
“Said Hanrahan” is a poem written by the Australian bush poet John O’Brien, the pen name of Roman Catholic priest, Patrick Joseph Hartigan. The poem was first published in 1921 according to Wikipedia. It seems to capture the message the alarmists keep repeating today.
Some excerpts:
“If we don’t get three inches, man,
Or four to break this drought,
We’ll all be rooned,” said Hanrahan,
“Before the year is out.”
And then the rains came:
And every creek a banker ran,
And dams filled overtop;
“We’ll all be rooned,” said Hanrahan,
“If this rain doesn’t stop.”
And then in spring:
“And, oh, the smiles on every face,
As happy lad and lass
Through grass knee-deep on Casey’s place
Went riding down to Mass.”
And then:
“There’ll be bush-fires for sure, me man,
There will, without a doubt;
We’ll all be rooned,” said Hanrahan,
“Before the year is out.”
60
Meanwhile, over at that cul-de-sac of intelligent academic debate, theconversation …
Over 2012 and 2013, parts of New Zealand experienced their worst drought in nearly 70 years.
https://theconversation.com/new-zealand-is-drying-out-and-heres-why-32330
But, But …
in 2012 Australia was declared drought free.
http://www.theage.com.au/environment/weather/its-official-australia-no-longer-in-drought-20120427-1xpsp.html
in 2013 ABC announces … New Zealand’s worst drought in 30 years is over
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-05-06/nz-drought-over/4671688
The antipodes is drought free despite the worst predictions.
Was the ABC wrong?
50
I think a better question would be along the lines of when is the ABC ever right,as it displays a bias towards one side of the story and only one. Apparently giving both sides of the story a equal hearing as is required by their charter is too much for us to expect.
51
Slightly OT but this story in my local Fauxfax rag makes me sad for the young people that put so much effort into a useless pursuit such as the Rode Rage Reef Ride when you go to the Rode Rage website the usual suspects are there on the home page.
It’s bad enough to have young people brainwashed by a cult repeating a meaningless mantra for possibly the rest of their lives but to donate $20,000 to the Climate Council is disgraceful considering the poor local economy resulting in high youth unemployment in these kids very own town.
Case in point is the Rode Rage blog entry on the home page where they make the amazing discovery of how a Bus is much faster than a bicycle for travelling and the Port of Townsville should not be closed down because it generates jobs and improves the lives of people while adhering to strict environmental regulations.
WTF are we going to have for future adults in society?
20
“mystery” “does not throw suspicion on global warming”, “deep parts of the ocean are harder to measure” – madness:
7 Oct: UK Daily Mail: Mark Prigg: Climate change has NOT affected the abyss: Nasa reveals cold waters of Earth’s deep ocean have not warmed since 2005
The temperature of the top half of the world’s ocean above the 1.24-mile mark is still climbing
Ocean abyss below 1.24 miles (1,995 meters) has not warmed measurably
The cold waters of Earth’s deep ocean have not warmed measurably since 2005, according to a new Nasa study.
Researchers say that while the find does not throw suspicion on global warming, it is a mystery.
They say it cold be related to the fact global warming appears to have slowed in recent years…
‘The deep parts of the ocean are harder to measure,’ said JPL’s William Llovel, lead author of the study, published Sunday, Oct. 5 in the journal Nature Climate Change…
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2782800/Climate-change-NOT-affected-abyss-Nasa-reveals-cold-waters-Earth-s-deep-ocean-not-warmed-2005.html
10
As BOM claim that the ‘adjustments’ are to internationally accepted standards and presumably discussed and agreed prior to their implementation the figures above point to knowingly adjusting temperatures away from the records. As it appears that all of the global temperature sets are manipulated in the same way this, to me, suggests this could be an international conspiracy.
I don’t know about the laws in Australia but in the UK this could amount to criminal activity which is what it is. This may proves to be a fruitful line of inquiry and investigation.
50
nothing could have been more easily predicted than that AAP would take up the absurd BOM/Greg Hunt non-story, tho at least AAP included this part of a Vertessy quote, which was not in Fairfax!
7 Oct: Herald Sun: AAP: Hunt briefed on climate change effects
While Dr Vertessy said “it is not possible to attribute any single weather event to global warming”…blah blah…
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/breaking-news/hunt-briefed-on-climate-change-effects/story-fni0xqi4-1227082114835
20
Matthew Nisbet at The Conversation, pretending the CAGW alarmists – which, apart from those names in the excerpts, also includes Hamilton, Jeffrey Sachs, Mike Hulme – disagree with each other.
love his ending about “identifying what is of value among the ideas offered by those on the left, right, and in the center”, which he has singularly failed to do in the article!
6 Oct: The Conversation: Matthew Nisbet: Naomi Klein or Al Gore? Making sense of contrasting views on climate change
Ultimately, for Klein, climate change is our best chance to right the “festering wrongs” of colonialism and slavery, “the unfinished business of liberation.”…
In a paper just published at Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews Climate Change, I analyze how public intellectuals such as Klein and McKibben shape debate over climate change. I compare their arguments to other prominent public intellectuals such as UK economist Nicholas Stern, former US Vice President Al Gore, The New York Times’ writer Andrew Revkin, and Oxford University anthropologist Steve Rayner…
The goal is not to choose among competing perspectives, but to grapple with their tensions and uncertainties. Through this process, as we call on our political leaders to act and work with others on solutions, we can hold our own convictions and opinions more lightly; identifying what is of value among the ideas offered by those on the left, right, and in the center.
http://theconversation.com/naomi-klein-or-al-gore-making-sense-of-contrasting-views-on-climate-change-32072
Matthew Nisbet, Associate Professor of Communication at Northeastern University.
As a social scientist, his goal has been to develop knowledge and strategies that enable experts and their organizations to effectively communicate about environmental problems, scientific advances, and emerging technologies; to invest in media productions and journalistic initiatives that sponsor informed discussion and debate; and to build consensus in support of effective policies and practices.
He is the author of more than 70 peer-reviewed studies, book chapters, and reports. Among awards and recognition, he has served as a Visiting Shorenstein Fellow at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, a Health Policy Investigator at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, a Google Science Communication Fellow, and is currently a member of the National Academies Roundtable Committee on Public Interfaces in the Life Sciences
10
UNBELIEVABLE!!!!!
7 Oct: Guardian: Jo Confino: Rival corporate giants join forces to get millennials acting on climate change
Arch rivals such as Coca-Cola and PepsiCo set aside differences to encourage young people to become sustainability activists.
‘Inspiration, not just grim reality, needed to engage millennials on sustainability’
A coalition of otherwise rival global corporations on Tuesday will announce they have jointly created a digital platform for young people to take action against climate change.
Many of the 29 partners behind Collectively.org are fierce competitors – such as drinks giants Coca-Cola and PepsiCo, consumer goods companies Unilever and Nestle, and global advertising groups WPP and Omnicom – but they have set aside their differences in a bid to engage and activate so-called millennials between the ages of 18 and 30.
In order to have maximum impact on social media, Facebook, Google and Twitter are partners on the project, which will focus on “passion points” such as innovations in fashion, food, design and technology and avoid the depressing consequences of inaction such as animal extinction, pollution and deforestation…
Corporations are obsessive about maintaining absolute control over all aspects of their brands, but in this case they have ceded some influence by setting up Collectively as a nonprofit venture. They have also agreed to keep their branding off the website in order not to damage its integrity in the eyes of those young people who may be cynical about the motives of big business.
While the pilot phase of the project will focus on the US and the UK, there are already plans to expand it into a global organisation, with negotiations taking place with businesses in India, China and Brazil by the end of the year, another 20 multinationals around the world are expected to come on board as well as NGOs which focus on engaging with young people…
Another innovation is that rather than creating partnerships with traditional media organisations, Collectively is collaboration with Vice Media as well as Purpose, the creator of movements for social change, and sustainability NGO Forum For the Future…
Niall Dunne, chief sustainability officer at BT: “We’ve seen the Rockefeller Foundation divesting from fossil fuels, long term investors wanting to put their money towards creating a low carbon economy and 400,000 people marching in New York on the largest ever climate rally. There is a real sense that the planets are aligning and by acting together, we have a real potential to reach a tipping point.”…
http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2014/oct/06/-sp-millenials-business-coke-pepsi-nestle-climate-change-collectively
20
400,000 people at the New York climate rally, with the CAGW homogenizing of figures it’ll be 1 million by the end of the week eh pat. 🙂
Coca-Cola and PepsiCo are such great forthright companies they wouldn’t support anything dangerous to the public. /sarc.
10
Pat
Just shows that some marketing people have declared our children to be brain dead and open to manipulation. I guess this comes about because children that have been constantly fed a diet of climate propaganda that the planet is warming at an out-of-control rate haven’t yet woken up to the fact that for 18 years and one month the satellite RSS temperature data shows no statistically significant warming.
Mind you I have confidence that when they discover this fact for themselves and realise they have been conned by what is now – not so clever propaganda, the backlash against those responsible will be horrendous and companies that have bowed to warmist blackmail and gone along with running the propaganda line will be the brunt of that anger.
We are already seeing some signs of that anger as younger sceptics demand harsher punishment and tactics of condemnation from the very reasonable sceptics who frequent sites like Watts Up with That. Anthony in reporting on his recent Bristol meeting was advocating that both sides need to come together to solve issues rather than engaging in destructive name calling, and you could sense that the lied too generation wants all out war and exposure of the charlatans among the scientists and media that actively allowed them to be duped.
Wiser veterans prevailed, but you can sense the divide growing and the longer such propaganda and bald faced lies continue, you will have an entire generation very P**sed off with any sense of appeasement, truce, or gentle let down of the elitists that sought to distort and corrupt science.
It will be hard to hold the firebrands back, as they know they have been played for suckers and certainly don’t like it.
Media and government need to wake up before the backlash from these young adults, but the response must be credible as further propaganda and lies will only add to the angst that could soon boil over.
Big companies need to recognise that and reject the emotional propaganda as well.
20
It is not just one generation, it is at least two. The Gen-X’ers see all of the climate stuff as just getting in their way, and the Gen-Y’ers, who really put their trust in authority, now see that they were duped, and lied to, all along. So you have forty years of really p*ss*d off people. About as long as this scam has been running.
30
Slow learners that only respond to popular pressure from the people…they would be wise to study the French Revolution.
10
Dear Jo,
Regarding the on-going exposure of corruption of climate data in Australia, Steve Goddard has a very interesting post comparing surface data from large cities in Australia with the satellite data in the same grid box.
He shows a warming trend for the surface data (before homogenisation), ascribes it to UHI and then compares the satellite data.
It appears to me to be a very good way to demonstrate the discrepancy.
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2014/10/13/satellites-show-melbourne-cooling-for-18-years/#comment-439811
What do you, Ken Stewart and Jennifer Marohasy think of that approach?
00
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2014/10/13/rss-shows-sydney-cooling-for-18-years/
THis post does the same for Sydney (previous one was Melbourne)
It would be interesting to know if rural stations have ever been used to cool urban ones, or if homogenisation exclusivley works the other way.
00