Two days in a row, this blog has been quoted in the Daily Telegraph.
Congratulations to Clarissa Bye for shining a torch on the BoM
Craig Kelly found the wandering solar panel leaning on a bush near Sydney’s official thermometer, and I wrote about what a strange spot that was to leave a solar panel. Then Clarissa Bye of the Daily Telegraph picked up the story and on Jan 25th asked the BoM why the panel was there. After a whole week of missed deadlines, with pleas for extra time, The Daily Telegraph gave up waiting and published the story Wednesday:
Questions raised over mystery solar panel at Sydney Observatory
Science blogger Jo Nova has also queried the solar panel’s location, describing the BOM as “lackadaisical” at best in maintaining weather sites. “The solar panel is exactly due south of the Stevenson screen where the thermometer is kept,” she said. “If, hypothetically, someone wanted to leave a reflective object pointed at the box at midday, that’d be the place to do it.”
““There’s only been one day above 30 degrees since February 21st last year in Sydney, and that was a day when the wandering solar panel was visiting the thermometer, seemingly connected to nothing and leaning on a bush.”
Meanwhile the BoM, which didn’t have time to answer questions, somehow found time to take the embarrassing panel away.
Then finally, the BoM responded to Ms Bye and my thoughts are “wow… it took them a whole week to come up with that?” Apparently the strange panel has been there for almost a whole year now, and was being used as backup power for the weather station, just in case there were blackouts due to renovations at the school next door, and if you believe that…
BOM responds to vanishing solar panel mystery
Clarissa Bye, The Daily Telegraph, Feb 2, 2023
The solar panel mysteriously vanished after media questions were asked, but the Bureau of Meteorology has now issued a statement saying the panel was erected because of potential power interruptions due to a nearby construction of a school.
It stated the panel was installed in February 2022 and removed in January 2023 “as it was no longer required to supply power to the weather station once the mains power was restored in December 2022”.
“The solar panel could not be placed on a roof due to heritage restrictions, so was placed at an appropriate distance on the grass nearby,” the BOM stated.
As Jo Nova said — there is nothing “appropriate” about this distance, and the BOM knows it.
That’s a strange spot to leave a panel… | Craig Kelly
Clarissa Bye sent me the BoM reply and most of my responses were put into the online Daily Telegraph update yesterday:
Asked if the BOM was confident that the reflected heat would not affect recordings on the temperature gauge, the BOM spokeswoman stated:
“Any potential impact from the installation and removal of the solar panel will be assessed as part of routine quality assurance processes used by the Bureau for all weather station data.
Climate and science blogger Joanne Nova said that the solar panel should have been located elsewhere on the site and placed so that the reflection was never on the Stevenson screen. “The BOM is not confident it has no effect or they would have said so,” she said.
And as I added:
“An even better answer would have been ‘we bought a 30m extension cord and put the panel far away’.
Which obviously the BoM didn’t do.
And that raises other questions:
“If this panel was a back up for the Stevenson equipment then where was the battery? A solar panel on its own is no use as a mains replacement if the power fails at night.”
Mowing the grass around that panel for a whole year must have been a pain too, right?
I really have a problem with the lack of any care for site conditions and raw data. Does climate science matter?
“They evidently did not make even the slightest effort to put the panel in there in such a way to minimize the impact. “Indeed, it‘s hard to think how they could have put it in a more suspicious place than they did.
As usual, the BOM don’t care less about recording accurate temperatures. They’d rather play statistical games after the fact to try to fix the errors. Does their “routine quality assurance”, mentioned above, involve homogenization with “neighboring sites” a thousand kilometers away? Perhaps the site in Cobar will detect the effects of the solar panel in the backyard of the observatory? Does that sound like expert science?
The most important thing here is that there are many better locations within the small enclosure for that solar panel, even if a first world country needed a makeshift panel in the centre of their largest city “for reliable supply” — which is another crisis all of its own. The panel could have been placed to get the morning sun at the Western edge of the patio (at least). It could have been placed to make sure the reflection was never on the Stevenson screen.
UPDATE: The solar panel was left where the red line is, directly south of Stevenson screen (the white box) — the ideal place to reflect the midday sun (if that was the aim). There are many other places they could have picked especially with an extension cord.
Due South of the Stephenson screen…
A better answer from the BoM would have been: ” We needed the panel for back up supply from day x until day z. This temporary addition was recorded in the metadata. The angle was calibrated at xx% to make sure it collected sun but at no time reflected directly onto the Stevenson screen.”
None of that happened.
Craig Kelly has put in an FOI to get more answers. And Jennifer Marohasy wants answers in court:
Institute of Public Affairs senior fellow Dr Jennifer Marohasy – who is in a court battle with the BOM to access historical weather records – said the solar panel fracas “undermined” the bureau in the absence of other explanations.
The BOM has accidentally admitted the solar panel was definitely there when the site recorded 30.2°C on January 18th. Indeed it may have been warming temperatures the entire time since the last time Sydney reached more than 30°C on Feb 21 last year. The whole time Sydney has been “below 30°C” there was a strange solar panel pointed at the official thermometer.
What’s next: Time for Tanya Plibersek to explain BoM science
Tanya Plibersek is the Minister for Environment and Water and is responsible for the BoM. If scientific standards there are so low, and if climate science matters, what is she doing to fix it? Billions of dollars of policy rest on solving an alleged problem with the Australian climate, yet the BoM can’t even be bothered to set up quality weather stations or maintain them properly?
The BoM at $1m a day can’t even come up with decent excuses. They need to ‘weather the Storm’ and be upfront for once. Oh yes, and how about an Audit. Doesn’t the Federal Guv’ment have an ‘Independent’ Audit Dept. somewhere or other and when was the last time (first time) that the BoM was audited.
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No Canberra Public Servant is in the Office – they all continue to “Work” from Home
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They are ’employed’ at home, work doesn’t come into it.
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” They need to ‘weather the Storm’ ”
They’re feeling for a suitable name for it first
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THis will be quite entertaining! Breaking out the popcorn. We all know in Woke World BOM, feelings trump facts. I feel the solar panel is cooling the Stevenson screen and causing below 30 Degree temps so I will need to massage the dataset UP to get some global warming.
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Questioning how BOM identify adjustments is a hate crime. It’s bigotry against fiddlers.
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These are ‘specialists’: neither fiddler nor expert.
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Did they provide a picture of the dog that ate the homework?
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Is there a reason for not putting the panel on the verandah roof and running a lead?
😉
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They said the “heritage listing” made that impossible.
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Not sure if you’ve some peculiar noises this last week, very odd, all I can liken it to is the sound of worms, squirming when they’re discovered!, 😱😱
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Would the heritage listing explain the apparent green camouflage colouring of the screen’s top cover?
I just checked the Apple Maps and Google Earth views of the Observatory Hill site. The Stevenson screen enclosure at first appeared to be missing. But its afternoon shadow across the lawn was clear to be seen on the Google Earth view.
Is there another explanation?
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That google view makes it look like the stevenson screen is too close to a road or car park etc.
Not a class 1 site then?
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But is that true after all it could be easy to look it up but it is true as it happened in year 2000 but I see no evidence so far that a temporary solar panel can be excluded on the roof or in this case the nearby overhang of the walk area of the place since that isn’t an original part of the place.
New South Wales State Heritage Register
LINK
Solar Panel being in direct contact with the ground is a big NO NO as that degrades the performance and never shown as a standard installation set up.
LINK
Their explanations are weak and misleading.
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I would think “heritage listing” would only prohibit permanent alterations, not something which was supposedly temporary.
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Is the screen powered by a battery mounted at the base and if that solar panel was charging the battery then where is the cable from the panel to the battery?
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Has anyone tried to work out the geometry to see if sunlight would actually have been reflected onto the screen?
You’d need the azimuth and elevation of the panel, heights and separation, sun path and better maths than I have, but should be do-able…
(might even be possible to estimate temperature rise given a few assumptions such as screen emissivity)
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It would have been easy for the BoM to do that while it was installed, but now it’s gone…
And if it had to be picked up every month for lawn mowing then it’s a random dog’s breakfast guess of what effect it had each month. That the BoM didn’t want to do that in their answer to the Daily Telegraph virtually confirms that the BoM knew the reflections would affect the thermometer.
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I would say that the photo suggests that the panel has not been there for a year, it has been there for a very short time. Specifically, it was put there after the grass was last mown. See that the bottom left corner is off the grass but the bottom right corner is on the grass, and the grass has clearly not been mown around the panel, it was mown when the panel was not there. The panel was surely not moved to do the mowing, and then moved back after, because the panel could very easily have been left just off the grass so that it didn’t have to be moved at all.
I suggest that the bottom corners of the panel have been placed very recently precisely to maximise the effect on the weather station. OK, so other explanations are possible, but a TV lawyer could have a lot of fun with it.
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From under my best tinfoil hat –
If that panel was there for that long and moved for mowing I’d reckon it would have been put back in about the same place. So the area behind it would have been continuously shaded.
Doesn’t look like such an area showing on the “after” photo
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I looked at that but it’s pretty inconclusive. The panel wasn’t really on the grass and the scrubby lavender(?) plants behind have bare wood stems in places anyway. So there’s no obvious longer term shading effect on grass or shrub, but it doesn’t prove anything either way.
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The shrubs are bent backwards where the panel was:
https://joannenova.com.au/wp-content/sydney-observatory-solar-panels-jan-27-l.jpg
It needn’t have been on the grass but on the edge of the garden next to the grass. However, the grass line seems to be a little bit forward in that area.
Just checked, lavender wants six hours of direct sunlight a day. I’m seeing that the lavender on the left is comparatively stunted and bent backwards. The same seems to have happened on the right, but to a lesser degree. Also note, in the photo, that the stunted lavender on the right, is getting watered. There is also, what appears to be, a bag of gardening stuff on the table awaiting application. Special TLC following the removal of the panel?
I am wondering if, sometime in the mornings, the solar panel got placed on the right. Was it, in the afternoons, then placed on the left, perhaps staying there all night? That way the lavender on both sides would be receiving minimum sunlight.
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Hi Jo. You would be pleased to know that Chris Kenny on his Sky News show also highlighted the dodgy solar panel on two nights and referring to your report and using your photos. Probably from the Telegraph article. Chris has a popular show so many more people all round Australia were introduced to the malfeasance of the BoM. Perhaps Ms Bye would be interested in the many articles on your blog that have questioned the accuracy of the BoM’s records. I have noticed a small but significant move toward questioning some of the so called science and more references to climate sceptics in the Consolidated Press papers. Small, but from small things big things grow especially when we have a government hell bent on wrecking our power grid. Maybe a politicians with a backbone might start dropping a few home truths and putting Bowen under pressure.
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Thanks Lawrie, I didn’t know that. Chris Kenny is still involved with editing The Australian I presume…? He’s written some good stuff.
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Solar panels ABSORB, not reflect solar radiation.
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Dear professor P, solar panels convert only 22% of incident solar energy at best. What happens to the rest of that radiation?
See the video of the backyard experiment with a solar panel reflecting light on a shed wall in this post: https://joannenova.com.au/2023/01/jolly-odd-what-sydney-observatory-record-cold-spell-broken-with-help-from-awol-solar-panel/
Don’t believe your lying eyes…
Which reflects light better, grass or a solar panel?
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I remain unmoved by your concerns.
The solar panel may convert 22% but how much do they absorb? i.e.how much does the panel heat up?
For the sake of argument, lets assume 28% – meaning 50% gets reflected.
And, we cannot be certain that the sun’s reflection actually hits the screen. If it did, it could only be for a short period during the day – unless somebody continually moves it – which I doubt.
Next, ask yourself what is the purpose of a Stevenson screen? It is designed to reflect solar radiation so that none actually reaches the thermometer inside. The screen is subject to direct solar radiation all day long, yet the thermometer still faithfully records the air temperature. So, if for a few minutes during the day the screen is subject to a dim reflection of the sun from a panel 10 meters away, how could this affect the air temperature? The thermometer is shielded.
It should be so simple to do the experiment and check for yourself.
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And another thing. In order to affect the maximum temperature for the day the sun needs to be out (no clouds) and the reflection has to hit the screen at the exact time that the maximum temperature is being recorded. Given that the time of maximum temperature could be plus or minus an hour or two, and the reflection only lasts for minutes, makes for a very unlikely scenario.
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Dear Jo – always good to see you doing BoM due diligence for them – but dare I say one might be “sceptical”. The attached YouTube had the thermometer on the garage door but alas no time to record the temperature difference from panel glare? So disappointing. Also the aside about solar panel not useful for running the weather station at night is weak as. Most automatic systems use a traditional battery recharged by a solar panel.
Point taken about dodgy station siting (tin sheds, air-cons, metal sugar terminal loaders, Giles bitumen roads, Rutherglen location bugs, Bourke and Amberley biffo). One finds it curious with the great sceptic knowledge bank why the fraternity has not done its own analysis of Australian max and min temperature trends. Sniping is just so tedious. Finish them off. Just do a climate audit quality job and archive your data and scripts. You pick quality stations or the least worst. Tell us what you find? Serious comment.
Assume a heat island like Sydney Observatory would not make the cut.
Look forward to the straight up non-homogenised non-woke analysis.
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Luke, thanks for providing the BOM experiment of the effect of solar panels… Oh wait… the youtube of a backyard shed still has more scientific data on solar panel reflection than the BoM does. But the BoM get a million dollars a day, how can that be?
I’m glad you’ve taken the time to read my 133 posts on BoM deficiencies. Hurts, doesn’t it?
Odd how you demand the unpaid volunteers “do a climate audit quality job and archive your data and scripts” when the BoM won’t even do that. Send us the email where you demanded the BOM archived the data and scripts and we’ll believe you are sincere …
PS: On AWS solar panels, most of them also use a tiny solar panel, raised well above the Stevenson screen. Perhaps you could google a photo and send it to the BoM to help them, they seem to be struggling with basic met concepts?
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The BoM is accused of fudging the temperature data. If so, why go to all the bother of a solar panel when they could simply alter the record manually?
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Oh professor surely you are not applying Ockhams razor to this? As for your other comments, of course the skeptics here, being as thorough as they are, have thought of your concerns and found excellent reasons to dismiss them already. The fact that they were not mentioned is evidence hat they are not a concern..
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Occam’s razor?
is a philosophical tool for ‘shaving off’ unlikely explanations. Essentially, when faced with competing explanations for the same phenomenon, the simplest is likely the correct one.
Maybe it is related to Occam’s razor. i.e. when faced with a complicated explanation for a proposed phenomenon, maybe the phenomenon does not exist?
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Yes Occam. sheesh.
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The building is aligned with the cardinal points of the compass; the elevation about 45 degrees. The arrangement in the image above suggests the reflected sunlight would be directed in the direction of the screen in the early afternoon.
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At the height of summer, 21 December, the midday sun is over Rockhampton so in Sydney in January the panel would have to be to the south of the box with the panel facing north .
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Looks like that might be just so
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Indeed Ronin and another ian. Hypothetically if someone placed that panel there at midday they could angle it exactly to shine in a sweep across the Stephenson screen from lunchtime onwards.
Or of course, it might be an accident, left there by a tradie, and the BOM could’ve made a video showing us the panel reflected the light above the screen…
Notice too, how many places that panel could have been mounted or placed with a long extension cord.
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The Sun elevation at the location of the solar panel on the 18Jan at 1:05pm was 76.8degrees.
Knowing that it’s a simple calculation using the height of the screen and the distance from it to the solar panel.
By eyeball it looks like the positioning is perfect. A screen height if 1.8m at at distance of 8 meters gives a panel angle of approx 45degrees. The calculation is based on the mirror like specular reflection.
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I doubt though, that the arrangement would significantly affect the temperature reading, unless the the screen’s access door was dropped down. The intent in that case might be to significantly bias the daily maximum reading.
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It will definitely increase the temperature inside the screen if the reflection hits it. It is heating the southern side which should be in full shade and it is possibly also aiming up through the slats in the screen with the heat directly hitting the internal temperature measurement instruments.
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Each Stevenson Screen side panel has two parallel sets of slats- a feature designed to intercept reflected insolation.
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That just means it is heating the internal slats which will radiate long wave infra red inside the enclosure which raise the internal temperature.
You may also want to define what you mean by “significantly” since 0.1 deg matters.
If reflections from sola panels or any other objects do not make a “significant” difference then why are there standards for site location and what is around them. Answer of course is because it can make a significant difference to the readings.
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Stevenson screens have been extensively tested in a wide range of situations and the design has been very effective in reducing reading errors caused by direct and reflected solar radiation.
The screens are not perfect.
The expected maximum error in temperature measured in a standard Stevenson screen relative to a mechanically aspirated screen on a dry, sunny day with light, constant winds normalised for maximum daily irradiance of 1000 W/sq.m is 0.7 degree Celsius.
The maximum error occurs in the afternoon when the angle of the sun has dropped 45 to 60 degrees from zenith.
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But how well tested are they in relation to significant specular radiation on the south normally shaded side? Another thing about specular radiation is that the distance from the target (Stevenson screen) doesn’t make much difference to the energy that it receives.
If the solar panel was at an angle to direct specular radiation onto the screen it will make a difference to the temperature inside no ifs no buts. As you said the screens are not perfect in fact I would say they are far from it. 0.7 error at very specific, but not the worst case, condition you stated compared to an aspirated screen is a very significant error.
In my view Stevenson screens are not fit for purpose when it comes to the accuracy needed to base spending trillions on.
The objective of course is to measure the AIR temperature accurately in all conditions. Not to measure the temperature of an item inside a box. The electronic sensors also self heat and as with any self heating sensor the amount of cooling(airflow) has a direct affect on it reading. The thermal impedance between the sensor element and the media (air) you are trying to measure matters and in a Stevenson screen it is a larger and more variable than in an aspirated screen.
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The screens have been in use since the late 1860s and little changed since 1880. Of course the enclosed instruments have changed a great deal as would the installation site. They are nonetheless retained to maintain the appearance of a historical measurement series which allows a direct comparison across the period.
The siting of the solar panel at the observatory site does suggest that those managing the station are more interested in meteorological politics than instrumental accuracy.
What I find surprising is how poorly the instrument is sited. In particular, it is completely surrounded by wind breaks.
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If so, then we can make a rough estimate of the temperature error introduced by the “best” placing of the solar panel. Assuming the panel reflectivity at 25% and compare that to the solar irradiance reduction at the time of day when insulation most affects the instrument (as we discussed).
Accordingly, the solar panel should produce an additional 0.35 degree C error (at the same TOD and conditions)
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Fantastic blog Jo – great to hear of the collaboration with a main stream media journalist as well.
This is nothing but total incompetence or malfeasance by the BOM.
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If that panel was in that exact position for that long wouldn’t the shrubs it was leaning on be dead from the heat of the panel ?
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Exactly my thought, or if not from heat they would have been growing differently from lack of sunlight. The grass as well would have been dead or very thin where the panel overlapped it.
We need to find out who the grounds keeper is (perhaps a non-BOM employee, someone on contract specifically to maintain the grounds?), and get them to sign an affidavit of when they observed the panel there or not.
BOM should produce the work order for when the panel was installed. While they might have some tech folks on staff it’s still possible they hired out the job – it is government after all, surely there’s paper work, even if only internal work.
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From my experience using solar panels while camping/caravanning they don’t produce any adjacent heat, now reflectance is a different issue
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Oh I meant to add were is the cable, usually black, connecting to the Stephenson screen?
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Of course they needed electricity. Why all those temperature records before 1910 were made without electricity which is why they can’t be used. Indeed all those records up until the advent of electronic readings are suspect too, which is why the Bureau has to ‘adjust’ them.
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Here in America, whenever something goes wanky, we a set of easy, socially rehabilitating, universal excuses.
1. All the hallmarks of Russian Disinformation
2. Blanco Supremacy
3. Long COVID
If one of these is not working …
4. “I can’t comment because this matter has been referred to Special Council”.
We have highly paid consultants that have focus group tested these excuses.
We’d be happy to send down a couple in one your new submarines.
🙂
And just a reminder …
‘science’ has now become something that must be practiced in secrecy to avoid the Inquisition.
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A week to come up with’ the dog ate my homework’ type excuse, we know, they know we know, we know they know we know, yet they still try it on.
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Because they know they can get away with it.
The media are agents for the Government and Elites and don’t ask questions plus, by and large, they are too stupid to know what questions to ask.
They are also protected by social(ist) media, Elon Musk’s Twitter now excepted and the minor free speech platforms.
Stupidity is also celebrated, and the “schools” have been utterly Marxified and dumbed-down.
A very few politicians plus people like Craig Kelly and Jo and a small number of notable others expose them but apart from the well-informed people here, few listen.
At least the guilty parties will never be able to claim “we didn’t know” if these matters are put to trial.
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Vranyo 🙂
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Looking at the picture, it’s hard to believe this was anything other than a deliberate attempt to create some additional warming. The reflection of the sun from the panel is from below the screen, meaning there will be some direct penetration of reflected sunlight through the slats, going onto the sensor.
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Thanks Jo.
Thanks. Craig Kelly.
Thanks especially to Clarissa Bye.
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And let us not forget the tenacity of Jennifer Marohasy.
‘The AAT hearing on Friday is about the need to make the parallel data public, so we can know how much of recent warming can be directly attributed to the change in how temperatures are measured.’
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I work for government. The local joke for how to reply to outside complaints:
Step 1: Act surprised
Step 2: Show concern
Step 3: Deny, deny, deny
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As Ronald Reagan said:
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Well at least they practice what they preach : We are all supposed to use solar panels .
They could have used an oil lamp under it to keep it nice and cozy but they went to the extra expense of using a solar panel .
How about digging some mulch that decomposes in an exothermic way into the ground around the screen .
Possibilities are endless ….
More seriously :
February , normally the hottest time of the year here in Southern NSW ( would expect min 20 – max 37 ) but been cold all week here . Min 8 C last night heading the same way again , gave in and lit the fire tonight .
Wish we had some global warming !
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Here’s what burns me about this type of response:
IF they had a “routine quality assurance process” AND they used it, this solar panel would NEVER have been placed there in the first place.
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” routine quality assurance”
Obviously a left over from that official bout we had of “Quality assurance that doesn’t assure quality”
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Mark Kaiser said […routine quality assurance processes used by the Bureau for all weather station data.]
I have to control hysterics here!!
I’ll just get up n have a stroll around – say hello to the cat, calm down.
Thanks to superwoman JoNova!!
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Wazz, I did keep mentioning the BoM mystery homogenized “adjustments” to Clarissa. But it’s probably a lot more detail about the BoM than most incidental observers want to know… and the whole deal of using stations 800km away is probably too stupid to believe. “Like really?”
The solar panel though is obviously not supposed to be there. People get that.
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When I drive around the Adelaide Hills I notice a change in temperature of 1℃ between towns about 4 -7 km apart.
(That’s on the on-board thermometer on the car. If only I had a BOM standard sensor I’m sure I could get figures “accurate” to 0.01℃).
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Power interruptions must be an ongoing problem at some of the more remote locations. Presumably these have a suitably sized UPS in-line with the power supply to the equipment in the enclosure.
In the greater scheme of things, a 2kVA UPS doesn’t cost much. The equipment should be drawing in the milliwatt range
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Remember, the BoM is primarily a political organisation with a mission to “prove” catastrophic anthropogenic global warming, not a scientific one.
Their “evidence” of warming is used by the Elites and their politician-servants to implement their civilisation-destroying wind, solar and Big Battery subsidy-harvesting schemes.
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Recall the responses on this blog from the following two warmists?
1) Simon says something to the effect that the defective data would be detected by the homogenisation Al-Gore-rithms
2) GA said something to the effect that a workman must have temporarily left the panel there.
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>”1) Simon says something to the effect that the defective data would be detected by the homogenisation Al-Gore-rithms”
There’s a big problem with this. The homogenization he refers to is for the ACORN-SAT series which to my knowledge is not compiled in real time i.e. it will be a while before the ACORN-SAT series can be accessed covering January 2023. BOM says this:
Meanwhile, and for posterity, the observed raw data remains as-is in BOMs Weather Station Directory:
Weather Station Directory
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/data/stations/
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-01-11/sydney-in-longest-spell-below-30-degrees-in-140-years/101841982
Observatory Hill Sydney is SITE 66214.
Step
1. Weather Station Number: 66214, 0 km
2. Data type: Temperature maximum, Daily
3. Download data
It is this data – not ACORN-SAT – that the media is referencing in respect to the longest spell of days below 30C that Jo highlighted originally:
Sydney has longest spell of days below 30C in 140 years
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-01-11/sydney-in-longest-spell-below-30-degrees-in-140-years/101841982
Homogenization methods and issues are all in respect to ACORN-SAT (in Australia). But homogenization has no bearing whatsoever on the station data above for Observatory Hill Sydney SITE 66214.
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I’m inclined to think homogenized time series such as BOM’s ACORN-SAT and NIWA’s 7SS should just be dispensed with in favour of actual station data.
NIWA actually has a propriety product that does much like that but it only begins in 1972 for data quality reasons:
Virtual Climate Station data and products
https://niwa.co.nz/climate/our-services/virtual-climate-stations
150 automatic climate stations and 11491 virtual climate station locations across New Zealand. For comparison, ACORN-SAT data is pulled in from 112 locations across Australia.
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>”1) Simon says something to the effect that the defective data would be detected by the homogenisation Al-Gore-rithms”
The original comment was this:
Both true (to a degree) and false. As above, in this case, homogenization is in respect to the ACORN-SAT time series – not normal quality control of station data (raw data).
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>”normal quality control of station data (raw data)”
BOM’s response was:
Ok, what are those “routine quality assurance processes” ?
Quality control of climate data
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/data-services/content/quality-control.html
And,
This does not seem to include a long series of recordings for weeks or months such as would be taken in the presence of the solar panel which could hardly be regarded as a “possible error”. They cannot just “homogenize” this raw data as they would for ACORN-SAT.
BOM actually provides a case study of a single “Maximum temperature inconsistent with neighbouring sites” (#[3] above) but that’s not weeks or months of reading – see next comment.
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>BOM actually provides a case study of a single “Maximum temperature inconsistent with neighbouring sites”
This is one single solitary observer error – the Observatory Hill situation is multiple recordings probably by an automatic weather system (AWS) over maybe weeks or months.
My inner cynic says BOM is bluffing with its response in the hope this solar panel appearance and disappearance will fade from public consciousness – it wont though.
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I don’t accept the BoM explanation.
1) All weather stations are subject to power outages, so surely they all have back up batteries to power them for a reasonable amount of time? E.g a few days at least. How much power do they draw anyway? The remote head of my own weather station has a 4cmx4cm solar panel and two AAA batts for backup.
2) As Jo said the panel was there for about a year due to building works next door. It’s not likely that power was threatened for that long, if at all. If power was accidentally cut, it would quickly be restored. It is very unlikely it would be cut for so long that it exceeded the weather station internal battery capacity.
The truth is, that the BoM is desperate to increase the temperature records in an obviously cooling world.
Where else are they doing similar tricks?
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When major building works are undertaken, the site itself requires constant power for operating/charging tools, running fridges and computers in the site sheds, etc. Power is only cut off during major works on adjacent powerlines and connection/re-connection, or rarely, by accident. All neighbouring properties are advised in writing in advance if this is to occur. The ‘bureau’ would have had more than adequate notice to enable other arrangements to be made.
160
And why was a panel needed at all. It would be easy to supply the weather station via mains-charged battery in the house.
There is way too much that doesn’t make sense.
And where is the lead?
220
IT was imperative from the Bureau’s position that the temperature exceded 30C for the sake of the record. If the panel was placed there the day before…..nothing certain but I reckon some sly work was going on.
130
They’re like a pack of school kids, pathetic.
80
But school kids are, or at least used to be, punished for misbehaviour.
70
And what else is the BoM doing wrong and/or fraudulently?
What about failure to calibrate their thermometers properly?
And remember, it was World Economic Forum graduate, Greg Hunt, that stopped PM Abbott having an inquiry/audit into the BoM.
References for calibration, lack thereof:
https://jennifermarohasy.com/2017/09/bureau-management-rewrites-rules/
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/09/11/ooops-australian-bom-climate-readings-may-be-invalid-due-to-lack-of-calibration/
140
On the follow up pic with the panel removed the ground/garden underneath looked pristine. Not like something had been sitting there for a year.
150
Thanks again to Jo Nova and Craig Kelly for trying to extract intelligent answers from the BOM.
What laughable lunacy and silly Tania Plibersek is far too busy trying to engineer the most volatile and crippling $ Aussie response to their latest sixth extinction AGENDA.
If their so called Climate change BS and fraud does eventually fall over they need another big delusional disaster to waste endless billions of $ on until at least 2050.
And just to add my 2 bobs worth about the solar panel….. “where is the extension cord in the photo?”
150
Pilbersek is a classic example of why you should employ people only on merit, not their gender, race, sexual preference or star sign etc. as she was.
But nearly half the Albanese regime’s cabinet are employed for their gender alone, very few of them, male or female for their competence.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/may/31/anthony-albanese-boasts-of-appointing-largest-number-of-women-ever-in-an-australian-cabinet
130
“Any potential impact from the installation and removal of the solar panel will NOT be assessed as part of routine quality assurance processes used by the Bureau for all weather station data. … In conformity with their policy to raise temperatures by any means.
120
I note that David Madison is the only one to mention the size of the panel. Why is it so big? Is it a 240 A/hr tractor battery that they’re trying to charge, supplying a 1kW transmitter so that the data can be sent to Phil Jones at UAE?
My weather station transmits up to 100 metres, its battery charged by a 100mm x 100mm solar panel.
This whole thing smells like an overflowing septic tank.
300
‘We will have learnings from this mishap and make sure it won’t happen again’
Signed:
BoM boss
Rio Tinto head
Auckland mayor
and 1,001 gobull bureaucraps.
Excellent detective work Jo & Jennifer etc.
Another BoMbastic conundrum: It’s February, there’s no cyclones, yet it’s snowing – ‘change’ you can believe in!
120
FijiDave, that’s a very good point. Thanks for drawing my attention to it.
Indeed, here’s a photo of an AWS with a tiny solar panel in India.
40
I’d imagine Sydney could easily be classified as an outer Eastern suburb of Cobar. The BOM don’t need to let facts get in the way of a good algorithm.
150
I haven’t read all the comments and this might have been asked already. If that solar panel was there for a year, shouldn’t the grass below the panel be dead?
40
It’s not on the grass, it’s right on the edging, discussed above.
40
Jo’s alternate response >”This temporary addition was recorded in the metadata”
This is a must. Any change at the site in the vicinity of the screen is the definition of “changepoint” as per BOM’s Menne & Williams methodology (also “breakpoint”) if the method results in an “adjustment”.
This is a known change. It should not be left to a statistical remedy using comparators which although claimed “neighbouring” can actually be very remote in many ACORN SAT cases.
The site notes should document 1) the date/time of solar panel installation, and 2) the date/time of removal (i.e. there are actually 2 possible breakpoints).
What were those 2 dates and times?
With those changes known statistical breaks in the data (or not) can be ascertained from the primary site data. Recourse to remote comparators is a secondary consideration – not primary. This primary determination is the methodology (Rhoades & Salinger) of NIWA’s NZ 7SS when actually followed in respect to known potential breaks like site moves e.g. De Freitas, Dedekind and Brill (NZCSC). NIWA however only apply that method arbitrarily and cannot produce a similar peer-reviewed paper.
The data from dates 18 Jan and 19 Jan at Observatory Hill Sydney (SITE 66214) could be telling. The maximum temperature dropped 9.9C from 18 to 19 Jan:
Site, Date, Max
066214,2023,01,18,30.2
066214,2023,01,19,20.3
In the context of the data 10 days either side of Jan 18 (see previous link), that was a very large anomalous drop.
Was the solar panel removed between the 18 Jan Max and 19 Jan Max? If not – when?
80
>”Any change at the site in the vicinity of the screen is the definition of “changepoint” as per BOM’s Menne & Williams methodology (also “breakpoint”) if the method results in an “adjustment”.”
This is in respect to a homogenized time series, in this case ACORN-SAT. It has nothing at all to do with normal quality control of station/site data (raw data).
If the solar panel has produced an elevated period in T-Max at Observatory Hill Sydney (SITE 66214) then so be it. The raw data remains as-is for 66214.
BOMs statistical methods might iron out that period for ACORN-SAT but the raw data remains as-is except for normal station quality control.
This is an important distinction, more on that upthread here.
31
Craig Kelly photographed the solar panel on Jan 20th and then photographed the empty garden on Jan 27th.
You are correct though, site metadata is pathetic across all of Australia. The BoM are not interested in historic moves and changes. They’re not even interested in modern shifts!
50
Jo >”Craig Kelly photographed the solar panel on Jan 20th and then photographed the empty garden on Jan 27th”
Ok, thanks. The data over that period was this:
Site, Date, Max
066214,2023,01,20,22.0 Solar panel in place
066214,2023,01,21,25.5
066214,2023,01,22,21.7
066214,2023,01,23,27.0
066214,2023,01,24,27.9
066214,2023,01,25,28.4
066214,2023,01,26,29.5
066214,2023,01,27,28.3 Solar panel gone
T-Max increased over the period that the solar panel was removed and there doesn’t seem to be change/break in the data i.e. noticeable drop from one day to the next.
Unless there was a counterintuitive effect e.g. +5.3C Jan 22 to 23. We don’t know what effect a change in power supply to the AWS might have for example.
There was probably no effect going by the data but absent site documentation there’s no way of knowing for sure.
00
As the world cools, we will see more and more desperate measures to maintain the narrative.
In the more dumbed-down and socialist-governed countries such as Australia, I would not be surprised if they made it an offence to question BoM data or “catastrophic anthropogenic global warming”.
Leftoids are already proposing this. See:
100
This was the dumbest one.
10
There are many questions that Environment Minister The Hon Tanya Plibersek MP could ask of the Bureau of Meteorology. In addition to those raised here, there are many more in a 3-part series that WUWT published late last year. In particular, Part 3 has several mentions of problems with data from Sydney Observatory, which we chose as an example of a well-rum BOM station with a long history of observations. Geoff S
24 August 2022
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/08/24/uncertainty-estimates-for-routine-temperature-data-sets/
6 September 2022
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/09/06/uncertainty-estimates-for-routine-temperature-data-sets-part-two/
14 October 2022
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/10/14/uncertainty-of-measurement-of-routine-temperatures-part-iii/
90
We did detailed historic records and photos on Sydney Observatory and all the site changes here in 2017 and 2018:
https://joannenova.com.au/2017/01/sydney-observatory-where-warming-is-created-by-site-moves-buildings-freeways/
https://joannenova.com.au/2018/02/scandal-bom-ignores-major-site-changes-at-iconic-historic-sydney-observatory-sloppy-or-deliberate/
50
It’s cold here today; still only 11C and we have the heating on, just gently. It’s just as well it is Saturday as there is no sun, there is no wind. Whoopee 🙁
100
Oh, and it’s raining too.
90
Visitors here from the U.K. today Annie, I jokingly said are you enjoying the English summer I provided. Their response was “could you like the fire please we are —— cold.
Rain and fog finally cleared about 2.30 pm.
10
Plibersek do something?? Haha, what a joke. Hunt never did anything, Tanya’s doing squat, other than probably calling Kelly a mast name like climate denier.
70
… nasty name
71
For clarity, the long-time Sydney Observatort station number 66062 ceased being the primary station on 18 Oct 2017, replaced by station 66214 at the same location, which is given as 33.86S, 141.20 E, not enough accuracy to confirm if there was or was not an instrument location shift.
The temperature records for 66062 are dated 30 August 2020, so there is a short overlap of data from the 2 stations.
Ken Stewart at Kenskingdom blog has a study of rainfall and temperatures at Observatory Hill, as well as nearby Sydney Botanic Gardens, article dated 29th January 2023, so quite recent and with the usual high quality of analysis for which Ken is known. “Extreme Weather Events 3: Sydney.”
Ken’s conclusion:
Conclusion:
Contrary to popular belief encouraged by politicians and the media, in Australia’s largest city it is clear that:
Rainfall and temperature variability is LOWER than in the past
Droughts are NOT increasing
Extreme rainfall is NOT increasing
Dry years are NOT increasing
Very hot days are DECREASING in frequency
Heatwaves are NOT increasing and are very much LESS COMMON than 40 years ago.
If anything, Sydney’s weather is becoming less extreme and more benign. That should be good news.
………………………………
These dates are before the solar panel removal topic arose, but there is additional information that might help those with an interest in Sydney data quality.
Geoff S
120
All suggestive of cooling.
A cooler world will require more energy to keep warm and more land devoted to crops due to lower productivity (but offset by more CO2).
At the same time the Left and other ignorati are shutting down the energy supply (the war against “carbon” (sic)) and waging a war against “nitrogen” (sic) by which they mean fertiliser.
You don’t get any more stupid and wicked than that.
90
It’s all born of ignorance but by and large they’ll point to their university degrees in refutation of the imputation they’re not educated; one can only suppose that over the years of species attrition the economic immiseration ahead produces dills will be disproportionately highly culled.
30
Alas rainfall intensity is increasing – https://climateextremes.org.au/rapid-rain-bursts-in-sydney-have-intensified-by-40-in-2-decades/
We might debate why?
00
That solar panel would have soaked up heat as well as reflect it during the day and radiated it back later as well . Double whammy .
50
Here in SEQ, my barometer says we’ve been sitting in low pressure for almost a week. However, while the pressure has been stable, the weather has been variable(ish). Yesterday we had a “God it’s hot!” day, while today it’s cool and overcast. Humidity has been consistently ick.
Weather is complicated.
40
My Aircon has never had such a flogging.
20
Do you run it in ‘Dry/Dehumidifier’ mode? I read somewhere that the ‘Dry’ mode uses less power but I can’t see how. I do feel it creates a more comfortable environment vs standard/cooling mode. Could be my imagination though.
10
I tried that the other day for the first time, when working inside up a ladder and it was humid. Seemed to work well as you say
20
I’ve had to turn mine on just to give it a run.
30
“Any potential impact from the installation and removal of the solar panel will be assessed as part of routine quality assurance processes used by the Bureau for all weather station data.”
I worked in a calibration facility for 13 years. Their response is ridiculous garbage. As if they would later factor in their supposed sloppiness. How would they even do it? The reflection factor would be different on different days (cloudy versus sunny) and would change throughout the day.
Here is a page talking about batteries for Stevenson Screens:
https://www.printables.com/model/271620-stevenson-screen-inserts-for-the-enviro-pico-w-abo
Here is one of the batteries linked in the above page:
https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/high-capacity-lithium-ion-battery-pack/6700mah?variant=32012684591187
All of the linked batteries are 3.7 volts, way lower than any rooftop solar panels. It would be possible to make a regulator, but no one at the BoM would be smart enough for that. And where would the regulator go, in the Stevenson Screen? There the regulator would warm up the inside more than the light reflected from the solar panel.
In any case, there seems to be no connection from the solar panel to the screen.
Also, note the colour of the panel. It is unusually light. They are normally black. That would have it reflecting more light. An accident? I don’t think so. And why such a big panel anyway? It’s probably over 200 Watts.
The BoM has been
courtcaught, AGAIN!!101
Just found the Observatory, it faces south, that solar panel was facing south, so it’s not going to heat the Stevenson Screen.
011
The shadows shown by the google map would indicate otherwise.
50
It’s a bit of a trap – I checked on Google Maps as well (then switched to satellite view).
The Observatory faces south, but the Stevenson screen is in the yard of the building just to the NE of the Observatory building. There’s an off-centre bullseye immediately to the north of the Observatory building, and another building just east of that. The screen is in the yard, between the building and Observatory hill Lookout.
30
Have another look. According to the shadows in this photo, the panel is very well aligned (in azimuth) to reflect the sun toward the station:
https://joannenova.com.au/wp-content/sydney-obs-new-site1.jpg
60
The solar panel was placed facing north and would have reflected the sun onto the weather station at some point during the day. remember, even if the temp were to jump up for just a second or so, departing dramatically and only briefly from an otherwise stable recording (in other words an anomaly or outlier), the BOM would log that spike as the day’s max.
50
There seems to be quite some disagreement about the “1 second spike” thing.
Apparently, the BoM has customised probes embedded in some material to emulate the response times of the earlier liquid in glass thermometers.
12
Old Cocky, the BOM won’t give us the overlapping data from side by side thermometers so we can compare the response rate of the electronic sensors and the glass thermometers.
Obviously, they KNOW the response is not the same.
But in this case, the resident electronic sensor expert — Siliggy — says this is not a one-second record thing. The large flat panel would gradually add heat and shift from the heating the Western edge of the screen to the Eastern edge over the space of an hour or two as the sun moved across the sky.
A slight change in the East-West alignment of the screen would shift the time this effect starts by changing the angle of reflection. We would have hoped at an “observatory” people would understand the angle of astronomical events and could easily have measured this effect to show that it was the wrong angle or the wrong time of day, but instead they just made up excuses.
50
Yes, one would hope that at a minimum the time response comparison data from the manufacturer would be available.
10
Old Cocky if you believe that I’m selling shares in the nearby bridge !
50
How about the tunnel? It does even better business 🙂
10
The solar panel faces due north – towards Sydney Harbour. This is not in question. Please check as you have this incorrect and are spreading misinformation.
70
Craig, I suspect people in the Northern Hemisphere are used to looking at shadows and automatically mis-perceiving “south” from their direction. Ronin is not the only one to do this.
Ronin, the satellite photo I show is absolutely positioned with North at the top.
90
Oh dear, you are right, my bad, I got the wrong building at the Observatory, the solar panel was indeed facing north.
30
Don’t question Bureau of Meteorology, it is a government organisation with loyal public service employees who are employed to look after our assets and services, and our elected Members of Parliament are the watchdogs.
Everything is done for us.
sarc.
50
“[T]hat solar panel was facing south”
You are 180 out. It was facing north.
I’m curious, what map did you use or try to use? Surely not even one from the Flat Earth Society would get it that wrong.
30
Pardon, that’s for Cronin, but I doubt he’ll reply.
10
Yes, thanks Sean, I’ve acknowleged my cock up, I looked at the wrong building, had another look and can see when I got it wrong.
30
All good. I haven’t commented lately and thought you were an apologist for the BoM. And sorry about getting your name wrong.
10
I perused the pdf from here:
https://www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/development-guidelines-policies/development-application-exception-solar-panels-heritage-conservation-areas-guideline
From my reading, there is no reason the panel couldn’t be placed on the roof.
40
A heritage listing usually restricts ot prohibits alterations to things like the outside covering, roofing material, windows and the permanent fixtures and linings inside. Removable items like solar panels would be unaffected as would connecting electrical wiring, telephone etc. The Bureau lied again.
20
Looking on my NearMap aerial mapping program I can see that the screen was erected sometime between December 2021 and April 2022 when it first appeared. It was still there as of the most recent photo of 9th January 2023.
Jo, if you’re interested I can email you this series of aerials that show the panel very clearly. Cheers Neil
60
Neil and Paul (below) yes I’d be very interested.Thanks. Email coming. I’m not aware of that program.
30
I concur with Neil re nearmap timelines __Panel is large and dark
Cheers
Paul W
41
It’s interesting to view this in the context of 2015 when Tony Abbott wanted to do an audit of the BOM but was talked out of it by the then environment minister Greg Hunt. One wonders whether Greg Hunts the environment minister may have been referring back to his WEF training. This was one of the great opportunities to shine a light on the bias that is dangerously imbedded in the BOM phyche.
I find with all that’s been going on that the temperature error bars for our temperature data are probably as great if not greater than the claimed warming. How anyone can speculate trillions of dollars on a mad punt without having any confidence that the underlying data is indeed accurate.
60
“as it was no longer required to supply power to the weather station once the mains power was restored in December 2022”. This is a bit of a stretch. Is the BOM expecting us to believe the one and only panel on show will cover for the mains supply? Also, where’s the inverter? Another consideration: where does the gardener put the panel when the lawn is being mowed?
Given that the Stevenson screen, in question, is now situated in non-ideal conditions due to heat island effects and the BOM boffins seemingly parsing each degree C rise in the temperature data to favour AGW dogma, this juxtaposition of the solar panel seems a bit canny when contrasted with the feeble reasons proposed by the Bureau of Meteorology.
20
Bingo.
If BOM’s story is plausible,we have a much bigger scandal at play.
“BOM has magic super duty Solar Panels” deny the public knowledge of same.
If that panel could supply the power that the building gets from the Mains connection?
Well? All our solar problems are over.
I suspect their “Public explanation” was made by a classic bureaucrat,utterly ignorant of the issue at hand.
And as others have noticed..BOM has “Broadcast Power Technology”? For no wires are to be seen,no evidence of wiring being removed..
Battery? Inverter?
Connections?
In an era of universal deceit,words become meaningless.
By their actions and only by those actions can one know your enemies.
Treat such liars accordingly.
20
I think I smell a rat.
10
how many google earth images show the panel over the last 12 months?
are there any high rise security cams that might assist?
any drone footage?
who carried it away, as in their name, and who asked them to do it?
20
When using Google Earth check the date of the actual image, not just the date of the copyright.
When I bring up our homestead area in GE the copyright is 2023, the image is 04/14/2006
20
And to muddle that picture
The 04/14/2006 image area is
Image (C) CNES/Airbus
Image (C) Maxar Technologies
Just slightly west (about 600 m) that message becomes
Image date 09/2018 Image (C) 2023 CNES/Airbus
Partly because in 2006 someone forked out the money to generate Digital Globe imagery of all streams in the area and Google must have got hold of it
00
Sydney Friday the 3rd, 30.6 degrees.
Sydney average for Jan was 26.7, 0.7 degrees above average.
Globally https://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1979/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1979/trend/plot/gistemp/from:1979/plot/gistemp/from:1979/trend/plot/rss/from:1979/plot/rss/from:1979/trend/plot/uah/from:1979/plot/uah/from:1979/trend
Stopping looking for single day excuses in single sites – that’s cherry picking; very unscientific.
10
Superficially, it appears the BoM have gone to a great deal of trouble to affect the temperature reading yet have still been caught out.
Wouldn’t it have been much easier and less fraught to just manually alter the data?
00