Mystery black-box method used to make *all new* Australian “hottest” ever records

There were not many long term sites (in black dots) in the centre of Australia in 1930.

This summer the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) invented a whole new metric to measure average national heat, which might be all very well except no-one (other than the BOM) seems to know what it is.

On January 7th the BOM claimed Australia set a new “average maximum daily temperature record”. Now the headlines are about the “hottest” Australian summer.

With both records, no one outside the BOM team has access to the methods or data. This post is about the new “daily” temperature of Australia used to declare Jan 7th was a record, but the same point applies to the “hottest summer” records, even though they may be a different data set. Where is the data? Where are the methods?

Is the BOM a science agency or a PR bureau?

The January 7th heatwave supposedly broke all previous “daily” records in this category — a dubious honor since no-one can remember any records like it.

It’s a bit like winning the Side-Jump. It’s not an event anyone knew was on until the medal ceremony. Worse, no one knows how the event was measured, even after the Gold Medal was given away, because the rules are kept  secret.

Where are the methods?

It is good marketing. It isn’t science.

Chris Gillham and others asked the BOM and apparently a whole new historic analysis of daily temperatures (based on the AWAP station network) will be released soon. Hopefully it’ll be a fully digitised dataset back to 1911 that researchers can look forward to, but, once again, the bureau is scoring newspaper headlines with black-box procedures that are not complete enough yet to publish.

Is it so urgent that the public had to hear about “record” heat now, rather than after the calculations had been published and reviewed? It’s rather like the “compelling psychology research” (showing we’re all nutters) that still isn’t published six months after the headlines. No one can replicate it, check it, or point out the flaws. It is good marketing. It isn’t science.

The new “area daily average” comes from 700-800 records which sounds impressive. But as far as the independent audit team can tell, more than half of these have been operating for only 30 to 50 years. Our last major heatwave was 1939, not 1972, so many of those thermometers weren’t even recording temperatures the last time Australia got seriously hot.

How many thermometers have 100 year records? Just 16.

The brutally simple average of all the temperatures recorded at 721 weather stations on Jan 7th was 35.1C, not 40.3C. The extra 5 degrees is produced by a form of area weighting to average the thermometers over the entire nation. Most thermometers are located on the cool outside edge of Australia, not the hot middle of the country where hardly anyone lives. So there are not many thermometers with long records to average across the center.

The BOM team, quite realistically, needs to make up for the non-random way those thermometers are placed. But there are many ways to “average” the numbers and different datasets to use (like HQ, ACORN, AWAP). No-one suggests that the BOM ignored the 382 cooler stations within the 721 known to the audit team, but the average of the hottest 339 stations is 40.3C. Curious.

For most Australians on Jan 7th the heatwave averaged somewhere around 35C, not 40.3C.

To have any legitimacy with a new record, the BOM needs to publish its methods that explain how temperatures can be calculated every day over a hundred years from weather stations that in many cases didn’t exist. How else would we know it was a reasonable effort? We all know that tweaked black-box statistics could be used to achieve meaningless records that drive news headlines. Of course, the BOM wouldn’t stoop that low, would they?

Thanks to the independent team who’ve worked very hard to get as far through this as they did. – Jo

——————————————————————–

A GUEST POST by The Team

(Special thanks to Chris Gillham for collating thoughts, see below for the names of the independent non-aligned members who contributed).

What’s hot and what’s not: how did the BoM create its temperature record?

The Bureau of Meteorology claims that Monday, 7 January 2013, was the hottest day ever in Australia, based on an area-averaged calibration that took climate researchers by surprise.

As stated in the BoM’s Special Climate Statement on the extreme January heat: “Australia set a new record for the highest national area-average temperature, recording 40.33C and surpassing the previous record set on 21 December 1972 (40.17C)”.

Or as the BoM put it in its media release for public consumption: “On Monday the average maximum daily temperature record for Australia was broken at 40.33C. The previous record, 40.17C on 21 December 1972, was held for 40 years”.

From that it seems reasonable to assume that the national average maximum daily temperature was 40.33C on 7 January. Media reports quote the BoM as saying the temperature was estimated from the maxima of between 700 and 800 Australian weather stations. In its Special Climate Statement 43, the bureau corrects the national average maximum to 40.30C.

The actual maximum average

The independent research team (instigated through Jo Nova’s blog) thought they’d look at the average maximum at 721 of these stations where temperatures are publicly available.

Excluded were stations with missing 7 January temperatures in the BoM web database as well as those in locations such as Antarctica. Their results are contained in this Excel spreadsheet.

It turns out the average maximum of the 721 stations was 35.1C on 7 January 2013.

The BoM’s Special Climate Statement includes a breakdown of each state’s heatwave including 7 January, and the BoM’s area-averaged estimate can be compared with the actual average maximum of all stations:

hottest day table

There’s about a 5C difference, the same as the BoM’s estimate of how much the January 2013 heatwave pushed national temperatures above average.

To achieve the BoM’s national and state averages based purely on all station maxima, it’s interesting looking at how many of the highest maxima stations would be needed out of the total in each jurisdiction:

 Australia 339 out of 721

NSW 91 out of 172

Northern Territory 27 out of 54

Queensland 54 out of 125

South Australia 45 out of 80

Tasmania 57 out of 57

Victoria 68 out of 94

Western Australia 60 out of 139

In other words, if you chose the hottest 339 weather stations in Australia on 7 January 2013 and ignored the other 382, you’d find an average maximum of 40.3C.

It’s noteworthy that the BoM’s state area-averaged maxima can be multiplied by its area fraction of the Australian landmass, and then summed to obtain the national area average of 40.3C on 7 January:

Qld – 36.8 * 0.224829 = 8.27

NSW – 39.9 * 0.104656 = 4.18

Vic – 37.8 * 0.0296265 = 1.12

Tas – 27.1 * 0.0088255 = 0.24

SA – 43.4 * 0.128087 = 5.56

WA – 42.4 * 0.328743 = 13.94

NT – 40.1 * 0.175234 = 7.03

AUS = sum of the states = 40.3C

A different measure

So does this mean the BoM’s estimate of Australia’s hottest day on 7 January is wrong?

Maybe. Maybe not. The BoM has explained that the estimate of an area average on 7 January 2013 could have been 40.00C or 40.33C, dependent upon which measuring stick is used.

The BoM uses various measuring sticks and it seems the much vaunted ACORN network of grid area weighted temperatures at 112 weather stations had an anomaly on 7 January that was 5.36C above the 1961-90 climatological average of 34.64C.

That adds up to 40.00C. The BoM decided instead to add the ACORN anomaly that day to its Australian Water Availability Project (AWAP) network of stations to achieve an Australian area average of 40.30C on 7 January 2013.

The BoM believes that to gauge the extent of heat across Australia, the most appropriate dataset to use is AWAP which uses daily gridded data from all available and unhomogenised temperature measurements at around 700 stations daily.

The grid file for the BoM’s archived daily maximum RMSE Australian temperature map on 7 January 2013 suggests 718 weather stations were monitored, almost the same as the 721 stations within this analysis.

The AWAP network commenced in 1911 and its real-time daily gridded data monitoring system for daily maximum and minimum temperatures is generated at 1pm EST (2pm EDST) each day for the previous day. The BoM had previously calculated AWAP measures from 1996 but the methodology was not extensively published in peer-reviewed literature until 2009.

The BoM has explained that the AWAP network is not fixed in time due to network changes and basic quality control but sensitivity analyses show stability in the calculations since 1950.

Different datasets

For many years the BoM developed what it calls the High Quality network of weather stations around Australia that meet strict criteria to ensure accurate temperature comparisons back to 1910, with an anomaly baseline from 1961-90.

In early 2012, the HQ network was superseded by the Australian Climate Observations Reference Network (ACORN) comprising 112 stations around the country with an anomaly baseline from 1981-2010 and a slightly warmer trend than HQ according to the CSIRO and the National Climate Centre.

The accuracy of HQ and ACORN datasets can be questioned but they are accepted as the official yardsticks and ACORN feeds global temperature indices. ACORN’s 112 stations are located strategically around Australia to represent an accurate spatial average of Australia’s national temperature, accounting for numerous factors such as historic location shifts, equipment changes, urban heat island (UHI), etc.

The BoM cites 21 December 1972 as the previous hottest Australian day at 40.17C.

Climate researcher Ken Stewart looked closer and found the averaged mean ACORN maximum on 21 December 1972 was 35.91C, somewhat warmer than the raw average max of 35.1C at 721 stations on 7 January 2013 but nevertheless a lot cooler than the 40.17C estimated by the BoM’s AWAP national daily procedure.

Age of weather stations

There have been confusing responses from the BoM to written questions about the AWAP network, with one estimating that around 11 million records are used over 103 years of data and another estimating that around 13 million records are used over 102 years of data.

The research team analysed all 1,886 BoM weather stations (from BOM Product IDCJMC0015) to identify mainland locations that remain open with more than 30 years of temperature data, and that have now been introduced to the BoM’s derivation of daily maxima. They found there were 269 excluding the 112 ACORN stations (download Excel spreadsheet).

The ACORN stations have a mean age of 86.5 years whereas the new ones they introduced have operated for an average of only 46 years. That is, since 1966.

Who knows what extreme events might have been recorded at those stations prior to 1966? For example, these records generally do not include the 1939 heatwave.

What’s going on?

The oddity you may have noticed above is that Tasmania was the only place where the estimated and actual maxima agree, and all available stations in that state contributed to the average.

This is a hint at the procedure used by the BoM to declare Australia’s hottest ever day.

The BoM’s estimate is area-averaged, whereby the entire Australian continent is divided into grid cells of latitude and longitude, and the weighted average of these cells is calculated. The BoM has used cell sizes as small as .25x.25 degrees in their evaluation of ACORN data.

All methods achieve average temperatures based on complicated variants such as land area proportions, meridional convergence and a distance weighted interpolation over multiple cells.

Valid extrapolation of temperatures can only be over limited distances but Australia historically had many areas with no temperature estimates at all. It is these unknown elements that can produce different results and demand the application of an accepted and consistent methodology.

But the BoM has introduced a new, unpublished procedure that apparently calculates area weighted means within states, then an area weighted mean across states based on their relative land areas.

Few inland thermometers

It sounds complicated because it is. The adjustments are needed partly because most weather stations in the 1800s and early 1900s were established in populated areas but there was a dearth of isolated inland thermometers and temperatures to build a true national average or historic comparison.

In March 2012, the BoM stated there were 761 weather stations in Australia, 16 with 100 years or more of data, 184 with 50 or more years, 506 with 30 or more, and 29 with less than five years of data.

The maps below show how many more weather stations are feeding Australia’s temperature record from 1930 to 2010, with scant recording possible of the interior where most of the January 2013 heatwave occurred.

How is it possible?

It is difficult to imagine how an area-averaged, day-by-day comparison of station recordings as early as 1910 or 1911 is possible, regardless of cell grid weighting, when in many vast areas there were no stations to weight.

A similar problem persists today and to compensate for the sparsity of weather stations in many inland regions, often with totally empty grid cells between them, the ACORN database applies a weighted average which proportionally multiplies their occurrence, at the same time dividing the occurrence of temperatures among more densely located stations in populated regions mostly on the coastal fringe.

As an example, to achieve 40.3C you would have to add another 494 stations which all had Leonora’s maximum of 47.8C (the hottest station in Australia on 7 January) to the other 721. Then you’d have 1,215 stations which altogether averaged 40.3C if the estimate was based simply on unadjusted maxima.

Australia’s “area averaged” record hot temperature on 7 January was (probably) based on an algorithmic compensation for hot outback areas with few thermometers, and an estimation of how this procedure would apply to every day of temperature readings at each of the 700 to 800 weather stations over the past 100 years.

It sounds tricky because many of the stations have shifted, usually to airports, or simply didn’t exist back then. It would be interesting to know what are the error bands in the BoM’s unknown all-station procedure and whether those errors have any consistency back to the early 20th century.

A confusing heatwave

Confusion about the BoM’s representation of the January 2013 heatwave is also caused by its explanation of what’s causing Australia’s heatwave in which a map shows over 70% of the continent recording temperatures in excess of 42C during the first two weeks of January 2013. The bureau then states that “it’s not like these sorts of days occur that often. The records set last week sit between two and three standard deviations above the long-term January mean of 35C”.

The bureau seems to be confusing the daily maximums with the highest temperatures over 14 days. The mean and standard deviation would be the daily mean and standard deviation, whereas the actual figure needed to calculate is the mean and standard deviation for the maximum temperatures over a 14 day period, which would be much higher than the daily figure (read more).

Further, in claiming the records are two to three standard deviations above the 35C mean for January, it should be pointed out that January 2013 was far from over when the statement was made so a valid comparison was not possible.

The January mean from 1961-90 is 34.64C with a standard deviation of 0.91. Temperatures cherry-picked from a short time period are going to deviate from the mean value over a longer period.

There is no doubt the January 2013 heatwave was hot over an extended area of inland Australia. However, such misrepresentations of available data suggest an exaggeration of its intensity in an historical context.

New BoM daily dataset

In its answers to questions about the procedure used to estimate a record hot day on 7 January 2013, the BoM revealed that a more detailed analysis of the January heat event, including changes in daily average temperatures, is likely to be peer-review published within months.

The BoM has advised that upon publication of the research paper, the historical analysis of daily AWAP temperatures will be made publicly available.

This will hopefully provide a new, publicly accessible database of estimated historic daily temperatures since 1911 at more than 700 Australian weather stations.

With a far broader range of stations than the 112 in the ACORN dataset, the new AWAP gauge will arguably contain even more debatable estimates of anomalies at any given location on any given day since 1911.

Dubious

The assurances of the BoM suggest its measuring stick might be accurate for Australian daily temperature estimates starting in the 1950s.

Significant questions still surround the validity of the HQ and ACORN anomaly adjustments or lack of adjustments for historic and recent temperature readings.

The ACORN estimated average anomaly at 112 weather stations is added to Australia’s average maximum in 1961-90 and applied to a different dataset of more than 700 stations over 100 years, with identical mathematics producing “typically small” differences in the latter half.

Anomaly inconsistencies remain between AWAP, the ACORN absolute maximum of 35.9C on 21 December 1972 and the absolute maximum of 35.1C at 721 stations on 7 January 2013.

The claim of a 40.3C record hot day on 7 January 2013 is dubious, particularly when compared before the 1950s.

 

The independent research team includes Chris Gillham, Ian Hill, Ed Thurstan, David Stockwell, Ken Stewart, Geoff Sherrington, Warwick Hughes and Anthony Cox

A similar analysis with a bit more detail can be viewed here.

8.6 out of 10 based on 138 ratings

300 comments to Mystery black-box method used to make *all new* Australian “hottest” ever records

  • #

    Oh my God. That’s all. Just…Oh my God.

    213

    • #
      Debbie

      OMG!
      I agree Robert.
      Such a huge fuss and a huge PR machine over nothing other than some hot Australian summer weather.
      Thanks for putting it all back into perspective Jo.
      I sincerely wish people would leave all those data sets alone and stop torturing them all the time.
      Poor things!
      😉

      332

    • #
      Nice One

      I know. It never occurs to Nova that the vast expanse not covered by stations in 1930 might have been even cooler. A true skeptic would accept that. Non-skeptics will give me about 40 thumbs down.

      10108

      • #
        Heywood

        Wow… You waited so long for Jo to put this post up and that’s the best you can come up with?

        432

      • #
        Debbie

        Well yes Nice One,
        they also might have been hotter or wetter or drier or . . .
        ? ? ?

        370

        • #
          Heywood

          Yeah, but that wouldn’t support “The Cause” now would it.

          161

        • #
          Nice One

          I agree Debbie. I am quite open to the concept of it potentially being warmer/wetter/drier, but we don’t have as much data back then so you’ll never know. Nova wants you to assume it would have been warmer – that’s simply poor logic.

          But, even if 1930 did have a moment that was warmer, that doesn’t negate the fact that the CLIMATE GLOBALLY is getting warmer.

          119

        • #

          How they do it.

          Here is statement one:
          “I am quite open to the concept of it potentially being warmer/wetter/drier, but we don’t have as much data back then so you’ll never know.”

          Here is statement two:
          “…that doesn’t negate the fact that the CLIMATE GLOBALLY is getting warmer.”

          You see, even though he doesn’t know…he still knows!

          160

          • #
            Rereke Whakaaro

            And taking the long view, Nice One is right, the climate is getting warmer globally. But it is doing it at an incredibly slow rate of 0.005oC per year. In English, that is five one-thousandths of a degree Celsius; a rate of change that is well within the rate of adaption for plants, animals, corals, and humans. Nobody is going to die because of such a slight change in temperature.

            The reason why Nice One pushes the “getting warmer” line, when the actual figures are so small, is that he wants you and others to associate that concept, with the idea that it might be caused by Carbon Dioxide, and specifically Carbon Dioxide that is produced by mankind’s activities.

            This propaganda technique is known as “Concept Association”; a fairly crude approach, but one that works if people are not aware of it.

            142

          • #
            Allen Ford

            even though he doesn’t know…he still knows!

            He’s channelling Bill Shorten!

            60

      • #
        Heywood

        Something I have noticed from my time following the “climate” debate.

        I would have thought that a warmist would read this and be a little bit relieved, ie. “Phew, maybe the BoM was a little bit off on their calculations and it wasn’t that hot after all. Maybe this global warming stuff isn’t as bad as we thought.”

        But no. It seems that deep down the warmists WANT it to heat up, want their prophecies to come true, just so they can be proven right.

        Nice One is a fine example of the above. Rather than consider an opinion which might actually be good news for everyone, he/she/it would rather protect the “consensus” position, and attack anyone who might make the warmist position look a little bit shaky.

        Someone who is truly worried about the future, would read this post of Jo’s and get a little excited. If it is analysed and found to be wrong, this same person should feel disappointed.

        The reality is, that warmists like Nice One here, gains some sort of pleasure out of enforcing their belief that we are going to fry and die.

        Sad really.

        781

        • #
          Roy Hogue

          Heywood,

          You’ve put your finger right on the point of the matter.

          It seems that deep down the warmists WANT it to heat up, want their prophecies to come true, just so they can be proven right.

          The reality is, that warmists like Nice One here, gains some sort of pleasure out of enforcing their belief that we are going to fry and die.

          Not so much sad as tragic.

          470

          • #
            ExWarmist

            Sorta along the lines of…

            Diary entry Jan 17th 2041.

            : “The firestorms have started, the ravaged cities have collapsed as food production and transport systems have all broken down. There is a grey pall of burning smoke from the cities that is so dark the sun can barely shine through. Today I escaped a pack of starving wild dogs, that were finally distracted by a rotting human corpse beside the side of the road. It’s so very hot – running low on water.”

            Diary entry Jan 19th 2041.

            : “Found an abandoned car today, fossil fuel powered – not green, oh the fools – if only they had listened. I was able to get the water from the windscreen wiper reservoir – so got some water today. The dogs are back again, but this time they fought with a gang of wild humans gone mad from hunger, thirst and the ever pervasive heat. The winners from both sides ate the dead.”

            Diary entry Jan 24th 2041.

            : “Yeah I know – I haven’t written for a few days, been heading south, I’m sitting in the thin shade of the old “Waterworld” sign – the one with a big Polar Bear on it, it’s all gone, the water is long dried up, and all the Polar Bears are dead. What can save us – it’s too late.”

            Diary entry Jan 29th 2041.

            : “Made it across the old QLD border into the Democratic Republic of New South Wales, the guard towers are abandoned, but got the fright of my life when a solar powered auto-sentry cannon whirred into life and tracked me for 100 meters – fortunately it was out of Ammo. Found a dead dog today – it was good to eat again.”

            Diary entry Feb 12th 2041.

            : “Spent the last 14 days evading capture by cannibals – the world has gone mad. Low on both food and water again. Very low. Found a dead apple tree in an abandoned back yard – there was some rotten fruit on the ground, which I ate, caught a possum with some fruit scraps, and ate it as well.”

            Diary entry Feb 16th 2041.

            : “In what used to be Newcastle – the heart of darkness – now abandoned. There is a huge coal carrier ship beached on the shore, like a dead dinosaur from a forgotten age. If only everyone had listened to me. I knew what was happening. I told them this would happen – but not enough people listened. Tipping points I said – we’ll now they have happened and all is lost, and it all could have been avoided, we could be all driving electric vehicles powered by windmills, tides and solar – it would have been a golden age without war or violence under a benevolent world government. I’m getting sick of saying this – how long can anyone endure this.”

            Diary entry Feb 17th 2041.

            : “On board the coal ship. I crawled through a hole in the side, obviously caused by the acidic ocean, just eating the bones of this ship like nothing else. Just walking around gob smacked at how irresponsible people are to build a ship like this and crew it. It’s a death ship, a ghost ship, the doom of this world. I’m holed up in what seems to be the Captains cabin. Found a few scraps in the galley, and some fresh water – so surviving for now.”

            Diary entry Feb 18th 2041.

            : “Huge storm last night – the ship is in two big pieces. The piece that I am on has been moved away from the shore and there are sharks in the water – no easy way to get back to land. It’s not looking good.”

            Diary entry Feb 19th 2041.

            : “Completely out of food, sucking on my shirt. I’m making this my last entry, as it is clear that I’m going to die on this death ship. I have but one consolation, one satisfaction that burns deep in my heart, that I’m going to share with you, my reader, should anyone (doubtful) survive to read this. It is this – I was right. I knew what was happening. I was right. You should have listened to me – if you had put me in charge all this would have been avoided. Damn you all to hell. You are all unworthy of my vision. Damn you all to hell for I was RIGHT!”

            336

          • #
            ExWarmist

            Too the people who gave me down thumbs without comment.

            All I can say is – “If the shoe fits..”

            Did your find the narrative just “a tad” too clear as a mirror into yourself?

            43

          • #
            Roy Hogue

            All I can say is – “If the shoe fits..”

            Ex,

            I think the shoe does indeed fit.

            As tragic as the whole thing is, I had a good laugh when I read your Diary.

            42

          • #
            ExWarmist

            As tragic as the whole thing is, I had a good laugh when I read your Diary.

            Well Roy – it’s just a fantasy, as soon as I was writing about dead polar bears, acidic oceans, and gangs of cannibals – it’s obvious that I’m playing for laughs. Only a Warmist would take it seriously.

            Like the sad folk that gave the “shoe fits..” comment a thumbs down – do you realise that you make me right when you do that – have you no self awareness whatsoever???

            Seriously (to the thumbs down folk) – your lack of critical introspection is an enabler for (i) your Warmist Fundamentalism, and (ii) your inability to critique your own methodological framework, that together keep you intellectually and emotionally enslaved to the Warmist memes.

            11

        • #
          Mark D.

          Heywood, That is a really good point.

          Arguably it could be a sign of mental illness. Maybe Warmist Psychosis?

          Irrational thinking due to a Doomsday Phobia?

          202

          • #
            Graeme P.

            Mmm, any chance of getting some uni funding to show that irrational doomsday warming belief is a psychological Condition. Lewy…we need you….

            161

          • #
            ExWarmist

            Also applicable…

            The Cassandra metaphor is applied by some psychologists to individuals who experience physical and emotional suffering as a result of distressing personal perceptions, and who are disbelieved when they attempt to share the cause of their suffering with others.

            From the same page…

            Environmental movement

            Many environmentalists have predicted looming environmental catastrophes including climate change, rise in sea levels, irreversible pollution, and an impending collapse of ecosystems, including those of rainforests and ocean reefs.[13] Such individuals sometimes acquire the label of ‘Cassandras’, whose warnings of impending environmental disaster are disbelieved or mocked.[13] Environmentalist Alan Atkisson states that to understand that humanity is on a collision course with the laws of nature is to be stuck in what he calls the ‘Cassandra dilemma’ in which one can see the most likely outcome of current trends and can warn people about what is happening, but the vast majority can not, or will not respond, and later if catastrophe occurs, they may even blame you, as if your prediction set the disaster in motion.[14] Occasionally there may be a “successful” alert, though the succession of books, campaigns, organizations, and personalities that we think of as the environmental movement has more generally fallen toward the opposite side of this dilemma: a failure to “get through” to the people and avert disaster. In the words of Atkisson: “too often we watch helplessly, as Cassandra did, while the soldiers emerge from the Trojan horse just as foreseen and wreak their predicted havoc. Worse, Cassandra’s dilemma has seemed to grow more inescapable even as the chorus of Cassandras has grown larger.”

            61

          • #
            Roy Hogue

            You know that doomsday is just around the corner. So beware the consequences of your profligate ways before it’s too late.

            Brief pause…then a long test tone.

            The preceding announcement was only a test of the doomsday warning system. If this had been an actual doomsday you would have been given instructions about where to go and what to do when you get there. Your screen would then go dark.

            100

        • #
          llew Jones

          They mostly, apart from other dubious things, are masochists who unfortunately would derive great, perverse pleasure from being frizzled in their hoped for coming CAGW.

          Alternatively, if idiocy were to prevail, they would characteristically enjoy a return to a primitive hair shirt lifestyle aka as a “sustainable” future.

          There is not much one can do to help them.

          130

        • #
          AndyG55

          Yet I bet many of the warmists CHOOSE to live in warmer areas and by the rising ocean waters. Odd really

          If they are really, personally worried about warming (and sea level rise etc) then move to somewhere cold, and high, where it won’t be a concern for them.

          Then that can STOP PANICING !!!!

          140

          • #
            AndyG55

            ps, there are of course other warmists that choose to live near the trough, in Canberra. Lots of them !!!

            140

        • #
          Geoffrey Cousens

          Quite right;its a standard “doomsday cult”.

          50

        • #
          Nice One

          wrong, I’d be happy if climate sensitivity turned out to be very low.

          The science isn’t showing that at the moment, and stupid posts about Idso only serve to disrail proper debate on the topic.

          So do “it was hotter somewhere sometime in the past” posts. So what? You’re still not negating the fact that the planet is warming, and to the best of sciences inperfect calculations, we are the cause.

          Nova attempts to derail REAL scientific debate by posting theories like “the oceans aren’t warming, well they might be but from 700 meters downwards it HAS to be the subterranean floor, even though we’ve no evidence to support that theory”

          426

          • #
            AndyG55

            “I’d be happy if climate sensitivity turned out to be very low.”

            Good..

            SMILE !!!!!!

            because its ZERO !!

            111

          • #

            ‘So do “it was hotter somewhere sometime in the past” posts.’

            They don’t like history, do they? That’s the big steer they want to give the “debate”: away from history. The New Man at Year Zero must be unencumbered by the past, and must remove that encumbrance for the rest of us.

            60

          • #
            llew Jones

            “So do “it was hotter somewhere sometime in the past” posts. So what? You’re still not negating the fact that the planet is warming, and to the best of sciences imperfect calculations, we are the cause.”

            Should read: to the best guess of the alarmist sect of climate science humans have produced the Anthropocene (new post industrial revolution epoch in which there has been massive damage by humans to the exceptionally fine balance of nature – so forget about the Holocene). If we are responsible for the Anthropocene (Steffen’s specialty) then what blameworthy aspect of man’s activity is the most likely to scare the daylights out of the poor cretins… whoops humans?

            Oh yes of course man’s use of fossil fuels and we have a settled science for that one. That should convince most dumb humans..plus for good measure human’s changed land use. That should do.

            Well obviously it has worked for ignorant little cheer leaders. NO it’s time you grew up and realised you are being conned.

            There is, believe it or not, a significant number of highly credentialed climate scientists who reject that quasi religious nonsense. Why? Wonder of wonders because of the lack of sufficient scientific evidence for it.

            So it might be to the best of the quasi religionist’s imperfect calculations but it has nothing to do with the present settled science (think of the unknown nature of CO2 feedbacks et al).

            40

      • #
        cohenite

        A stupid comment given 2 things; firstly we don’t know so all we can do is compare what we do know and on that basis there has been no change.

        Secondly, the BOM now incorporates a spacial weighting on its sites which is an assumption that the site temperatures are spread over the spatial weighting. If it is alright to make that assumption now that the site temperatures are the same over the spatial weighting area why not for the past as well?

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        • #
          cohenite

          Sorry, my comment is directed to the nuisance, Nice One.

          141

        • #
          Rereke Whakaaro

          Cohenite,

          I always get twitchy when the word “assumption” is used in any scientific debate. There is an historic tendency for “assumptions” to become conflated with “observations”, and eventually become part of the “evidence”.

          From a psychological view point, if somebody has worked for their entire career, using a set of “generally accepted assumptions”, they will fight to the death to defend the status quo, rather than admit that their life’s work may have been in vain.

          171

      • #
        Ian

        Nice One some would say you’re a fool to make such a stupid comment but as I think that’s rude I won’t. However I can’t quite see the point of your comment because, as has been pointed out, the temperatures could have been higher or the same or lower. Who can say? One thing a true sceptic would question is the fact that the “highest average temperature” is identical to the average temperature of the 339 highest reading stations yet is significantly higher than the temperature average for 721 stations. The questions a true sceptic would ask are why weren’t all stations included? Who decided which stations should be omitted and on what basis? Did you wonder that Nice One?

        310

        • #
          Ian Hill

          All stations were included Ian, but some are more equal than others.

          I’ve studied SA closely. A station in metropolitan Adelaide may contribute about one hundredth that of an outback station in the north. I’ve yet to work out the exact ratio. But they can truthfully say all have been used.

          Look at NT, lots of area, not that many stations. When considering the state area ratios used to work out the national figure, Alice Springs is probably more than ten times as “equal” as any station in SA. Of course Alice Springs or other stations close to the SA border need to be used to help work out the SA average. Similarly for the other large (in area) states.

          80

      • #
        Peter Miller

        I have never been a fan of the concept of: “Trust me” when it comes to today’s purveyor of climate statistics.

        Experience has shown us climate statistics are routinely manipulated by ‘scientists’ whom we should be able to trust. So they do not deserve our trust. The purpose of this manipulation is to perpetuate the myth of CAGW, perpetuate undeserved employment and fame.

        So BOM, the ball is in your court to prove what you said.

        As for the comment about the vast expanse of Australia not being measured in 1930 is about as crass as you can get. If there are no statistics, then there are no statistics – snide remarks and guesses are the hallmarks of an alarmist cult member, not of someone with something serious to say.

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      • #

        Don’t worry, N.O., it is now okay to call a weather anomaly a weather anomaly!
        The Primate of the High Church of Gaia, Prefect for the Congregation of Propaganda and retired railroad engineer Rajendra Pachauri, has placed his imprimatur on the diocese of the UK, Met Office parish report that there has been no warming for 17 years.

        Most importantly, his Choochooness has granted the climate a special dispensation through his Gaian Bull, Cape Omnia ; weather is no longer climate and the tides no longer have to rise!

        So, don’t worry, NO, weather happens!

        By the way, the next time you report in to Troll Central Command could you ask your puppet masters how they intend to overcome the fact that their entire propaganda campaign has been undone by just one ex cathedra statement by his Choochooness? 😉

        350

      • #

        The last comment of the posting.

        The claim of a 40.3C record hot day on 7 January 2013 is dubious, particularly when compared before the 1950s.

        Nice one

        It never occurs to Nova that the vast expanse not covered by stations in 1930 might have been even cooler. A true skeptic would accept that. Non-skeptics will give me about 40 thumbs down.

        By N.O.’s analysis we shouldn’t question the BOM claim despite what the available data says, because the “true” reality could have been that BOM was right. It is a bit like saying that the climate models are correct on twentieth century warming despite them being contradicted by the data. The hypothesis (which we should accept as truth) is the warming is hidden in the deep oceans, where we cannot measure it.
        Nice One, you get a thumbs down because you are talking utter rubbish. You should look up the definition of “skeptic” in a proper dictionary, rather than that of John Cook.

        280

        • #
          Ian George

          Nice One
          The new data set for Australia is ACORN. Let’s see how it compares with the raw data.
          This is raw data for Bourke in Jan, 1939 compared with the adjusted ACORN temp. Every temp over 30C has been adjusted down, every temp below 30C has been adjusted upwards. There is no rhyme nor reason for these adjustments.
          Jan raw Jan ACORN
          1st 38.9 38.4
          2nd 40 39.1
          3rd 42.2 41.9
          4th 38.1 37.9
          5th 38.9 38.4
          6th 41.7 41.5
          7th 41.7 41.5
          8th 43.4 43
          9th 46.1 45.7
          10th 48.3 47.9
          11th 47.2 46.8
          12th 46.2 45.8
          13th 45.7 45.3
          14th 46.1 45.7
          15th 47.2 46.8
          16th 46.7 46.3
          17th 40 39.1
          18th 40.1 39.1
          19th 40 39.1
          20th 41.9 41.7
          21st 42.5 42.1
          22nd 44.2 43.8
          23rd 36.7 36.5
          24th 40.3 39.2
          25th 36.6 36.5
          26th 29.4 29.5
          27th 29.3 29.4
          28th 28.8 28.9
          29th 30.6 30.5
          30th 35.6 35.4
          31st 38.6 38.3

          This reduced Bourke’s monthly max average mean from 40.4C to 40C and reduced a 17 day +40C heatwave to 11 days.
          If ACORN has done this to other stations much of the present warming could be explained. And if the BOM did this with its weighted scaling……………?

          300

      • #
        Redress

        Nice One

        If you look at the weather factors that cause the heat wave conditions in the regions including the interior,
        blocking high
        northerly winds
        low humidity etc,
        then your statement that,

        ” It never occurs to Nova that the vast expanse not covered by stations in 1930 might have been even cooler.”

        is a complete nonsense, and this is backed up by the historical data in the form of newspaper reports. These reports are not driven by CAGW or other variants.

        Try looking up the records at

        http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper

        and read how the event was reported in the 1930’s…..and the raw temperature records direct from the then BOM.

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  • #
    AndyG55

    “recording 40.33C and surpassing the previous record set on 21 December 1972 (40.17C)”.”

    So, in just over 40 years of rampant warming.. the temperature has rise 0.16C !!!

    Danger, Will Robertson, Danger !!! 🙂

    421

    • #
      Nice One

      Only if your method is to take the two highest points of data and draw a line between them. Rather stupid for all sorts of reasons.

      637

      • #

        It is the CAGW camp that has committed the endpoint fallacy!

        The latest egregious instance involves hokey stick Mann. He uses a starting point on a graph that uses combined land and ocean data and compares it to one that uses land temps only. Since using only land temps gives warmer temps, the legerdemain creates a fait accompli! It reminds one of Mann’s “nature trick” doesn’it, NO?

        If you really want to analyze the relationship between CO2 and temps then lets look at the “big picture”, shall we?

        We are nearing the end of the current interglacial, the Holocene. The last three interglacials were warmer than the Holocene and yet CO2 levels were lower during the previous interglacials.

        Temps during this interglacial period peaked 7000 years BP yet CO2 levels were lower than they are now. It was also warmer during the Minoan, Roman and Medieval warm periods and, yes, CO2 levels were lower.

        So, NO, how can CO2 be the dominant forcing if temps were warmer but CO2 levels were lower?

        Endpoint problem resolved!

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        • #
          gnome

          I loved that “hokey stick”. Is it new?

          I intend to use it exclusively from now on whenever discussing the “unprecedented” (etc) warming.

          Goodbye “hockey stick” Hello “hokey stick”. Let’s see the warmists answer that one!

          30

      • #
        Roy Hogue

        If the shoe fits, wear the damned thing. Stupid is as stupid does. Are you not capable of grasping that concept? You are in that category. You put yourself there with everything you say.

        Point your finger at Nice One for a change.

        And have a nice day.

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      • #
        AndyG55

        Thank you for realising we are at a “highest point”, Nonce.

        Its cool from here, for the next 40-50 years.

        62

      • #
        AndyG55

        And , Nonce..

        If someone is claiming a record high temp, you DO compare it to the previous record high temp.

        You don’t do what the warmists do, and compare it with some previous low temperature, just so they can say its getting warmer.

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    • #
      sophocles

      and don’t forget, 1972 was in a time of slight cooling, so slight the climate researchers were scaring up grant money by declaring we may be heading into another glaciation!

      Follow the money… who funds the BOM? The Federal Govt?
      Who needs to justify certain taxes to it’s vict… ah … taxpayers?
      Who faces an election this year?

      131

      • #
        Backslider

        Its a sad fact that many warmists were not around in the 70’s and do not bother to research and learn just how freakish the “global cooling” alarmism was. It was essentially the same as the warming alarmism today, with “respected scientists” rolling off reams of “peer revewed” alarmist propaganda.

        gravy train === gravy train

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      • #
        DavidH

        Just wondering … was there any “adjusting” of temperature records down then to enhance the apparent amount of cooling? And that then contributed to an even faster apparent rate of warming once it started, not to mention the upwards “adjustments” on top?

        10

    • #

      AndyG55,
      This mere 0.16C of rise in the record is more significant than you state. CAGW not only predicts that there will be global warming, but that, as a consequence of warming, the climate will become more extreme. If Australian average summer temperatures have risen in line with the claimed global average of 0.4C to 0.6C, one would expect that in 40 years the 2013 record would far exceed 0.16C. The more limited data earlier available suggests that 1972 may not have had the C20th hottest day. If the BOM data for average summer daily maximum temperatures shows a rise greater than 0.16C, there are four possibilities that might explain this anomaly.
      1. The 1972 hottest day was relatively a more extreme event than 7th Jan 2013. This is like the claim that Bob Beamon’s long jump world record set in 1968 is the greatest ever, despite having being bettered since. The reason is that it was far in excess (55cm) of the existing record. The evidence that 1930 was warmer than 1972 (but with less temperature station data) gives circumstantial evidence that 1972 was not a greater than a 100-year extreme.
      2. BOM data exaggerates the true warming trend.
      3. Global warming has not lead to more extreme weather. At least not in the case of Australian maximum average temperatures.
      4. A combination of the above three.
      Think of this another way. If the climate is becoming more extreme as a result of warming, then variation of daily temperature from the annual mean will be greater. Alternatively over time, todays’ maximum temperature will become progressively worse as a predictor of the maximum temperature of tomorrow. New records, adjusted for the trend in daily average temperatures, is just the less frequent consequence of this.

      51

      • #
        AndyG55

        And realistically, any “Australian average temperature” is going to have an error of at least +/- 2 or more degrees C, no matter what mathematical/statistical spin they try put on it.

        20

  • #
    Beth cooper

    Some like it hot.

    60

  • #
    Andrew P

    Thankyou so much for this analysis. It is such a relief to have some rational analysis of the situation instead of scare-mongering and hype.

    141

  • #
    Tim

    With both records, no one outside the BOM team has access to the methods or data.

    Déjà vu?

    “They have come up with every possible excuse for concealing the background data on which their findings and temperature records were based. This in itself has become a major scandal, not least Dr Jones’s refusal to release the basic data from which the CRU derives its hugely influential temperature record, which culminated last summer in his startling claim that much of the data from all over the world had simply got “lost”. Most incriminating of all are the emails in which scientists are advised to delete large chunks of data, which, when this is done after receipt of a freedom of information request, is a criminal offence.”

    Christopher Booker-Telegraph 28 November 2009

    252

  • #
    DaveA

    Thanks, every time I see news articles about our extreme summer I ask where the chart is. They don’t seem to want us seeing the “record” in a historical perspective.

    180

  • #
    Michael

    This is all about science- commentators. Hey Joanne- how was the original record calculated? Its pointless to compare a value from a new method to an old method.

    17

  • #

    Firstly, what does an “average’ maximum temperature for a whole continent really mean?
    At some places, the maximum may have been reached for just a few seconds, then cooled down by a few degrees.
    In other places, a lack of cloud cover may have enabled high day-time temperatures, but equally quite cool over-night temperatures (deserts).
    It’s all very meaningless.

    Secondly, our formerly great BoM is populated by a bunch of sandal wearing tree hugging gaia worshiping pinkos whos interests lie in perpetuating this AGW scam for as long as they can.
    The only kind of thermometre they should be left in charge of, is a rectal kind.

    OK, start the attacks, I’m going to bed.

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    • #
      Joe V.

      Firstly, what does an “average’ maximum temperature for a whole continent really mean?

      Exactly. Have they even decided what it means yet ? Or is it just another instrument of torture , where the results it produces are more important than anything it might mean ?

      160

    • #
      John Brookes

      Good point Baa. I’d be more interested in a sort of integrated temperature over a whole day. And with the amount of data BoM has now that shouldn’t be hard to do. However, even though I’d like to see this data, I don’t think it will make much difference. The numbers are large enough that for every day the maximum was reached briefly there will be another where the temp hung around the maximum for a long time.

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      • #
        Roy Hogue

        Really?

        50

      • #

        John, for once I agree with you about integrating temperatures over 24 hours. Then we wouldn’t have to worry about the spurious spikes in Tmax as they would be smoothed. However we have only been able to see 30 minute data, much less 5 minute data, for a couple of decades, so it isn’t much use for climate analysis. For real world practical purposes it would be very useful indeed but that doesn’t seem to be the BOM or CSIRO’s purpose lately.

        The rest of your comment was pure speculation, about as useful as Nice One’s. Of course we don’t know. We’d like to, but we don’t have the data. That’s the point of Jo’s post.

        Ken

        71

        • #
          Quack

          You mean “removed” as in covered up!!! the givernment will do this no problems!!! MIB5!!

          22

      • #
        Tristan

        If it’s possible that there are more suitable definitions or more accurate estimates of temperature profiles, then it might not have been a record.

        That’s the important thing to keep in mind. It could all be one great big hatchet job.

        Secrets John. Secrets.

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      • #
        PeterB in Indianapolis

        This was actually a pretty good comment by John, so you might want to read it before the reflexive “thumbs down”.

        Daily maximum temperature is indeed somewhat meaningless, other than as a scare tactic, and it would be nice to see time-integrated temperature plots from these stations rather than simply “daily maximum values”.

        I don’t NECESSARILY agree with John’s conclusion, but I might if we did have access to the time-integrated data.

        40

      • #
        mullumhillbilly

        Its a good point JB, to compare relative hotness in different places or times, an integrated daily temp is the only method that makes mathematical sense. But lets take that a bit further. To average that over larger areas which have few or no stations, an acceptable method of kriging is required, one that takes into account elevation and possibly aspect differences. . Let’s also consider air pressure and humidity, since the temperature alone is a poor indicator of the actual heat content, eg warmish humid high pressure air contains more heat energy than very dry hot low pressure air. And it might also be relevant to know what’s happening at more than 1.2m (Stevenson screen height) above ground. A simple area-weighted average of maximum temperatures for scattered ground level stations says very little about change in “climate”.

        And why stop at the Australian land surface? To detect “global” warming, we’d need to apply the integration method for the global surface. Average global temperatures, reported as they are, are a complete farce. The only measure that would accurately report any retained heat energy, would be to somehow measure and continuously integrate the actual heat content in the atmosphere, oceans and upper land surfaces. In other words, it can’t be done with scattered thermometers. Satellite recordings which integrate the energy outgoing across the full spectrum are the only reasonable measure, and establishing a baseline on that will be interesting to say the least.

        And why stop at the Australian land surface?

        00

    • #
      Grant (NZ)

      A single measure (maximum temperature) is meaningless. Even if they added in minimum temperature then you could say something about a trend.

      I have been monitoring weather where we live for the last 10 years. For each month I average the daily maximum, minimum and median. From this I can infer something more about a trend. On its own the maximum is a meaningless value. It is just telling me that at one instant during the day a certain temperature was reached. There is no telling at what time and for how long that temperature was sustained. To compensate for this I also look at the minima and the median and this is much more informative. The peak temperatures we have had this year were greater than in 2008 (when we had a sustained drought) but the minima this year have been lower than in 2008 bringing down the median temperature.

      Citing a “hottest” day based on the maximum temperature is an utterly meaningless measure.

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      • #

        Exactly, Grant. I’m more interested in minimum temperature,as that is a possible measure of the residual energy left in the local system after a night of radiating into space, or back radiation from water molecules. All spoilt by air movement from locations with higher or lower energy. I also convert to Kelvin to analyse. And calculate the percentage difference from the daily long term mean. I wish I had more time and computer power, but at the 11 subtropical Queensland locations I have been monitoring, the last 10 years has seen a distinct cooling– despite wetter conditions for the past 3 years which are supposed to be associated with warmer minima. On the other hand, South Australia does not show this cooling trend. So should we find the “average”? No way. Climate is regional.
        Ken

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      • #
        gnome

        The best and most sensitive instruments in the world are my fig trees.

        No crop in the last two years because the first frosts came before the fruit ripened.

        This year? who knows. It looks unlikely that they will ripen before the first frost, but they might. Ask me in a month or two if this was a cold growing season or not. I will consult my instruments and let you know.

        Why can’t the statisticians and “scientists” match my figs for accurate information?

        40

    • #
      Roy Hogue

      It’s all very meaningless.

      Secondly, our formerly great BoM is populated by a bunch of sandal wearing tree hugging gaia worshiping pinkos whos interests lie in perpetuating this AGW scam for as long as they can.
      The only kind of thermometre they should be left in charge of, is a rectal kind.

      Oh Baa! Don’t be so harsh. Maybe they actually know where there’s an “average place” where the “average temperature” makes sense.

      You could find it according to many different criteria:

      1. Elevation — that might result in more than one place, adding weight to their cause; tough calculus problem though, integrating elevation over all of Australia

      2. Population — surely that would give an average place; same calculus problem though

      4. Numbers of kangaroos…

      5. Average number of daytime hours at the summer or winter solstice — should be easy to figure that one

      6. Some combination of methods for those looking for a greater challenge

      Gee whiz! A whole bunch of possibilities make sense. 😉

      Or maybe, as I said before, when all is said and done it was just hot somewhere on some day.

      Believe it or not, that’s what the whole picture shows!

      70

      • #
        Backslider

        I think they should get one of those desert lizards that picks up its legs in turn to keep them from frying……… just count how many times per day the little fecker does this and we will know for sure how hot it was.

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  • #
    Buffalo Soldier

    Mess with the black box u mess with the Boeing.

    30

  • #
    John Brookes

    Well, Perth had its hottest summer since records began, and its the first time this has happened since, well last year, which was the hottest summer since records began….

    Now I know someone will point out that it doesn’t count because some time last century the Perth weather station moved from East Perth to Mount Lawley. But I don’t really care. It was hot, as it was last year.

    Anyway, it seems as though your quibbles with the BOM pronouncements assume that BOM is aiming for a result, rather than just trying to get the best estimate. My bet is that they are just trying to do a good job.

    428

    • #
      janama

      Not sure how you got that impression John.

      Perth Mean Summer Temperature

      Doesn’t look like we’ve experienced a record year there.

      And I’m not sure where you got your data as Perth only has a record going back the 1945 at Perth Airport.

      Here

      But for this year there is no highest temp as that was back in 1991

      daily temps 2013

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    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      John,

      My bet is that they are just trying to do a good job.

      I actually agree with you. But you also need to add the phrase “… within the bounds of their operating constraints.”

      Those constraints will include the level of capital investment, staffing levels, their “standard” operating procedures and practices, and the expectations of their political masters, the latter being the primary determinant of the other constraints.

      201

    • #
      cohenite

      John, defender of the indefensible mentions Perth’s temperature ‘record’; Perth’s temperature record and ‘record’ is is problematic.

      It is basic issues like this which should make any reasonable person question the official statements about temperature records.

      It really is a scandal that a once premier scientific body has this cloud hanging over its head. It is another legacy from the ALP/Green political blight which undermined the scientific, educational, legal and social structure of this country.

      71

    • #
      Backslider

      John, your numbers are wrong simply because you have your thermometer too close to the exhaust of your air conditioner.

      51

  • #

    A famous Australian movie about a race horse was reaching an important stage in production: the re-staging of a legendary race. The director explained to a certain legendary Sydney trainer that there was a problem: he, being the perfectionist he was, wanted all the horses to come home in a certain exact order, just as they had done in the real event all those decades ago. Yet the arranged movie race must seem just like a real race.

    “Won’t be a problem!” said the trainer, quick as a flash. And the director couldn’t understand why all those racecourse people were grinning and sniggering.

    Of course, I’m not comparing the BOM to the racing industry. No animals are harmed in the making of their climatology.

    100

    • #
      Ace

      …oh no…serious injury caused to one animal species, the Homo Sapien.

      30

    • #
      SimonV

      So….the BoM are part of a conspiracy to fake current temperature data to make people think that temperatures are going up?

      Is that what you’re saying?

      Would there be a purpose to do doing this, at all?

      Maybe it involves…er…”banking families”, eh?

      [Conspiracy? Banking families? Maybe you have your own delusions?] ED

      113

      • #

        Conspiracy? They’re part of a dismal CONFORMITY. Everybody has an acute sense of what the guy directly above wants. People doing presentations and collecting info and stats in large organisations have been doing it since forever, though that does not apply to organisations genuinely curious about how thing are actually going. Since its foundation and Henry Hunt, the BOM has been under undue pressure (from farmers, as the early CRU was under pressure from insurers). But the BOM has always known its task was meteorology, not priestcraft and conjuring for pharaoh, as we are seeing now.

        With the BOM, it’s all getting too frivolous and obvious with this new found hobby of graphic art. Beyond the GetUp Green bourgeoisie, nobody is listening, and nobody should be listening.

        50

      • #
        llew Jones

        Here is the obvious reason why our BOM is adjusting the temperature data. David Jones head of the BOM has a lot of personal skin involved in the anthropogenic climate change scam from way back:

        Idiotic Comment of the Day: David Jones, BoM

        Thursday, 10 December 2009 10:03 am

        …..”The decade 2000-2009 is very likely to be the warmest on record,” said World Meteorological Organisation secretary-general Michel Jarraud.

        Head of climate analysis at the Bureau of Meteorology Dr David Jones said the data should silence climate sceptics.

        “Clearly climate change hasn’t stopped, global warming hasn’t stopped,” he said. “The planet is continuing to warm – and it’s warming in our back yard.”

        Where is the imagined conspiracy or any need to promote one when the head of BoM is a declared climate change alarmist?

        http://www.australianclimatemadness.com/2009/12/idiotic-comment-of-the-day-david-jones-bom/

        70

      • #
        AndyG55

        You seriously are an ignorant PUTZ aren’t you.

        Its a simple process.. You put a worm in charge of the section, and he/she gradually replaces any actual scientists with CAGW ciphers, and sympathisers.

        Like you. a sympathiser, a worm, a FOLLOWER !!

        30

        • #
          SimonV

          And where are they putting all the “real scientists”?

          Are they all stashed away in a cave in Antarctica somewhere?

          Surely if BoM replaced all its scientists with cranks who are in possession of unscientific beliefs, then all BoM’s peer-meteorological organisations overseas would notice the dwindling quality of their work and blow the whistle on the situation?

          10

  • #
    Grant (NZ)

    When this data and methodology are published will the CO2 concentration at each weather station be published alongside the temperature?

    100

  • #
    Carbon500

    Yet more climate hysteria about temperature changes which supposedly threaten us all.
    Putting issues of how the data was produced aside, has the BOM discussed these supposed changes in the context of other factors affecting climate – for example latitude, land/water influences, geographic position and prevailing winds, mountains and highlands, ocean currents, and pressure and wind systems – or are we again to believe the simplistic notion that CO2 is the regulator of all temperature changes on Earth?

    72

    • #
      Hostyle

      Typical ignorance, Carbon500. Your “ther factors affecting climate – for example latitude, land/water influences, geographic position and prevailing winds, mountains and highlands, ocean currents, and pressure and wind systems” are all factors influencing local weather, not the climate. There are many factors affecting climate, such as incoming solar radiation, changes in Earth’s orbit, Albedo and the composition of the Earth’s atmosphere. Climate scientists do take all these effects into account.

      00

      • #
        Michael

        Climate can be local, regional or global- its just a range of normal conditions on certain time scale. Weather is climate. Thanks to Hostyle for dissing a whole range of climate scientists such as those studying the changes in the Arizona Desert Climate.

        00

  • #
    Colin Henderson

    It is a new record for the amount of hot air produced by the BOM!

    162

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    Joe V.

    Whether it’s the hottest Mean, Median , Min. or Max it indicates what exactly ?
    Nothing. It’s just one day !

    One point in time, on one day tells nothing about the heat content of the atmosphere.
    It allows dramatic headlines though, if that’s what matters.

    80

  • #
    Doug Proctor

    Doesn’t this sound like the same sort of problem with the Met Office in Britain and the New Zealand service?

    Hansen’s NOAA/GISS data uses suspect algorithms to include non-existent data in the Arctic. As NASA does for the non-existent ozone measurements over Antarctica.

    This is very spooky. But not necessarily conspiratorial.

    In private, oil and gas, for-profit companies, projects come up for budgeting approval. As these projects climb the corporate ladder, the maps become cleaner and simpler. Risks become less, and potential profits become greater. The worst offended are the biggest: the offshore, hundred-million dollar test well becomes a 95% certainty to find a $15 billion pool with eight equal satellites.

    Each level of bureaucracy tweaks the story to enhance its chances of acceptance. The question that is never answered because it is never, never asked (that will get you fired), is whether those at the very top actually believe the proposal as proposed.

    Which, of course they don’t, but do not wish to admit (the question has been described as “career-defining” for good reasons).

    It is not that these over-the-top expositions are necessary. But they are, like shouting over your opponents at a rally, useful.

    For shame. Ours, that we put up with it.

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    Warwick Hughes

    Re janama and John #10 and #10.1
    There is evidence that Perth Metro max data is faulty – suddenly reading higher after July 2011 compared to the Airport – so Perth’s hottest summer was likely 2009/10
    see –
    Perth Metro BoM station 09225 looks to be reading too warm from mid-2011 – could much publicized summer hot days be exaggerated ?
    http://www.warwickhughes.com/blog/?p=2129

    150

  • #
    GregS

    Thanks Jo & Team! Btw, if/when the BOM do publish their methods, I suggest Our Team use these methods to search for new cold temperature records, because something tells me the BOM won’t put quite as much effort into those ones….

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  • #

    You’d really think that by now various groups would stop digging the hole they’re in.

    We are dipping into some serious chill. If this is the “hottest year” then will they show a drop next year? You think? So, at what point do they stop? Are they going to keep insisting it’s hotter and hotter when we’re under snow and ice?

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  • #
    Owen Morgan

    Didn’t they manage to raise a few eyebrows in Minnesota, a couple of winters back (I can never get my head around the fact that January is a summer month in Australia and NZ), when they used a very creative form of area-weighting to “prove” that global warming was happening? They managed to create a hot spot near the Canadian border, in a place for which the climate scientists actually had no measurements, but which was known to the locals to be having a typically bitter winter at the time and was possibly the very coldest place in the entire, very cold State.

    90

    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      (I can never get my head around the fact that January is a summer month in Australia and NZ)

      Neither can us natives. The whole concept of January is just something introduced by the colonists.

      80

      • #
        Grant (NZ)

        Oh no! Rereke, you aren’t going to go all Treaty of Waitangi on us and claim compensation for the imperialists imposing the Gregorian calendar on the tangata whenua, are you?

        I think its being summer pre-dated colonisation and even the Great Migration.

        30

        • #
          Rereke Whakaaro

          I don’t see why not. We never needed blankets until youse white fellahs gave them to us in return for Queen Street. And if we never needed blankets, it obviously wasn’t cold enough for us to need them, otherwise Maui would have given them to us first.

          40

          • #
            Grant (NZ)

            It makes you wonder (on a more serious note) what would have happened if settlement had not taken place when it did. I haven’t looked too closely, but there seems to be a pattern of exploration and discovery during the warm periods (RWP and MWP) and then colonisation and settlement during cooler periods – think of the potato famine sending the Irish to America and the colonisation of Aus/NZ taking place in the 1800s when England was cool.

            Just conjecture. No published works. (Probably never get a chance to study it because the official line is that climate never changed before).

            20

    • #
      Roy Hogue

      Didn’t they manage to raise a few eyebrows in Minnesota…

      I think they came up with something like 170 F (plus a little). It’s a good example of what creative software design can do for you. Really creative stuff! 😉

      Some very creative egg on their faces too!

      Maybe I remember the number wrong but it was outrageously high, whatever it was.

      40

    • #
      Streetcred

      They found it here … M4GW

      30

  • #
    Ian George

    Jo
    They must be using the same gooblygook method to summarise temps at a state level.
    For instance the BOM summary for NSW in Feb says that we had a 31.6C max average which is 0.2C above the average.
    But when you look at the data supplied you find the following.
    Of the 157 stations listed, the average temp is 27.7C.
    If you calculate the 81 stations that have the anomaly listed, the anomaly is -0.53C (the anomaly listed stations are usually those with long-term data).
    Of the anomaly listed stations, there are 55 stations below average and only 22 above average, with 4 stations listed as right on average.
    So how could NSW max temps possibly be above average?
    Does the Bureau take the temperature from the gridded maps? But if one looks at the max temp deciles map even that doesn’t show above average temps.
    See summary here.
    http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/current/month/nsw/summary.shtml
    (Also posted on WH.)

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    pat

    thanx jo and others for trying to unravel the unfathomable.

    woke up in a lush, drenched queensland this morning to hear tim flannery on various radio stations with variations of what i presume might be in the following article which is behind a paywall or registration, which i gather is on the front page of the herald-sun.

    with no sense of shame, the flannery quotes on radio were all about how the rains had been predicted by CAGW “experts” all along:

    4 March: Herald-Sun: Matt Johnston: Climate change factor in record hot days with more to come, says Climate Commission
    http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/climate-change-factor-in-record-hot-days-with-more-to-come-says-climate-commission/story-e6frf7kx-1226589495316

    4 March: Sunshine Coast Daily: Jessica Grewal: “Angry Summer” just a taste of what’s coming
    BLISTERING heatwaves, record floods and menacing bushfires experienced during Australia’s “Angry Summer” have been just a preview of what’s to come, the Climate Commission has warned…
    The report’s author Professor Will Steffen said while Australia had “always been the land of extremes”, climate change was making the “weather worse”.
    He warned it was “highly likely” extreme heat would become more frequent and severe in the coming decades and said the decisions made in the next few years would largely determine the impact the weather had on future generations.
    He said the commission remained “very concerned” the continuous emission of “more and more” greenhouse gases was increasing the risk of extreme weather.
    Events referenced in the report include the effects of ex-tropical cyclone Oswald in late January, when record rainfalls triggered flooding in much of Queensland and northern NSW…
    At the time of going to press, a flood warning had been issued for 13 rivers in Queensland and 18 in NSW.
    The commission was established in 2011 as an authoritative source of information of climate change science.
    “Angry Summer” draws upon the latest research by the CSIRO, Bureau of Meteorology and the intergovernmental panel on climate change.
    Chief Commissioner Professor Tim Flannery said it was crucial the community was aware of the influence of climate change to ensure it was better equipped to handle weather events in the future…
    http://www.sunshinecoastdaily.com.au/news/angry-summer-just-taste-whats-coming/1776827/

    presumably, there will be freely accessible MSM links with flannery’s quotes at some point later in the day.

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  • #
    George McFly......I'm your density

    looks like the BoM used both classical statistics methods to create the desired results……smoke and mirrors

    Some vulgar people call it lying….

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  • #

    Jo asks:

    Is the BOM a science agency or a PR bureau?

    PR bureau – and a successful one. I recall a conversation at the time this “hottest ever” was released:

    Commenter (up here at 19°S): “Isn’t it HOT …”

    Self (pulling out TempRH meter): “Er … hang on … give it time to settle … 32°C … 60% … no, it isn’t …”

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  • #
    Bribie John

    “Is the BOM a science agency or a PR bureau?”

    Much as the ABC is, a PR bureau!

    100

  • #
    Albert

    1 hot day is recorded as the hottest month, the hottest summer

    30

    • #
      AndyG55

      BOM are making a real mess of this.

      People on the streets are awake to the fact that it has been a pretty average summer.

      People in the capital cities know there were only 2 day that could be called “hot”

      People on the streets are looking at BOM, and saying.. are you for real !!!!!

      BOM are making a fool of themselves.

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      • #
        JFC

        Nope, I think that’s just you Andy. I doubt even Nova would support your absurdity.

        010

        • #
          Rereke Whakaaro

          Wrong, JFC.

          People only tend to notice significant and abrupt change.

          A moderately mild summer will go unremarked unless there are one or two days of very hot, or very cold temperatures. If they have a few days of hot temperatures, they will think that the rest of the summer was noticeably cold. Likewise, if there is a cold period in the middle of summer, they will remember the rest of the summer as being unusually hot. Pointing out how hot one or two days were, therefore sends entirely the wrong message.

          The spin doctors who work for the BOM should know this — it is first year Psych. But, I guess that is what happens when you go with the lowest tenderer.

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          • #
            AndyG55

            “it is first year Psych”

            Yep, but that’s what Arts students don’t do !!

            11

          • #
            Carbon500

            “People only tend to notice significant and abrupt change.”
            Exactly what a meteorologist here in the UK says (Robin Stirling in his book ‘The Weather of Britain)- he comments that ‘most people tend to remember unusual and sensational events, and so it is with weather’ and ‘bad days are forgotten unless a special event is spoiled’.

            20

          • #
            Roy Hogue

            …‘most people tend to remember unusual and sensational events, and so it is with weather’ and ‘bad days are forgotten unless a special event is spoiled’.

            The good a man does is interred with his bones but the evil he does, be it only one mistake, lives on forever. For some it’s easier to hold on to a grudge than a friendship. Bad days tend to be remembered, even held on to when there’s nothing else there.

            I get the impression that for many people there is nothing else to hold on to. But at least there’s something or someone we can blame; or something we can talk or complain about to fill the otherwise suffocating silence all around us. And above all else, we’ll use any excuse to make ourselves feel good about ourselves.

            The weather is a handy scapegoat sometimes.

            20

          • #
            Rereke Whakaaro

            That was very philosophical.

            I am not sure whether to be impressed, or to be scared stiff.

            20

          • #
            Roy Hogue

            Definitely do not be impressed. I just decided to put together some thoughts I’ve had for quite a while. They seemed to fit the general theme of what you wrote.

            They are scary, which is probably why they’ve been on my mind so much lately.

            10

        • #
          AndyG55

          Nope.. if you think otherwise you have been smoking too much weed. Fool !!

          Only the inner-city latte set have so little common sense as to believe that this was a hot summer, just because BOM says so…. are you one of those ???

          Or are you on the trough.

          31

        • #
          AndyG55

          Gees, SkS is really dipping beyond the bottom of the barrel with these last couple of trolls !!

          Dregs would be way to kind word to use.

          21

      • #
        Apoxonbothyourhouses

        My figs don’t read BOM pronunciations and they think last year and this year in Sydney were kind of coolish. Indeed my apolitical, grant-free figs are so pissed off with what they think is a cool summer that in protest they are staying a non mature pale colour. I make sure they listen to the hot ABC and shown them artcles in the SMH but they simply refuse to brown. Last resort threatening them with hockey sticks hasn’t worked either. But then what do my figs know – they have only been practicing for millions of years. Ignorant sods.

        50

        • #
          Dave

          .
          Apoxonbothyourhouses
          Yup,

          Something is happening, my Pecan Nut trees have flowered and set for the first time in 9 years, a very cold winter and mild summer with heaps of water – I’ve got Pecans everywhere. Pecan Pie coming up. This is in South East Queenland. Not bad for a temperature based species. Looks like TIM and WILL are wrong again. Plants don’t tell fibbies like highly paid fruit loops.

          What type are your figs? I’ve got Brown Turkey and gave a good crop in October.

          30

          • #
            Apoxonbothyourhouses

            Curious; two mentions of figs at the same time. Answer Black Genoa. We are probably five hours south of you and here the temperature never drops below about 6C.

            Ours normally mature during January.

            Trimmed back to bare limbs two years ago and have plenty of fruit but only a small percentage have fully developed to mouth watering munchiness. Seem slightly smaller but that could just be imagination.

            20

  • #
    UzUrBrain

    Through my comments on another posting it came to me that the problem I was describing about the ARGO buoys probably exists with the Surface Stations. In the ARGO buoys they are using laboratory grade equipment with a professed accuracy of 0.001% for the electronics ONLY and claiming that as the accuracy from the actual source (ocean) to the resulant display – That is not how it works. You also need to take into account the accuracy of the probe, and the effects of the and the Probe – Which they did not – and that would be the REAL accuracy of the temperature loop. Worse than that – and that is my concern, is that they also fail to recognize and take into account the change in accuracy caused by the change in temperature. A laboratory grade instrument is, typically, only accurate in the neighborhood of 20 oC 72 oF. Outside those bounds, the accuracy suffers. Usually, quality equipment will provide a graph or data on that error. Has this error been included in the readings reported by the surface station equipment? Worse yet, as you get near the bounds of operation -20 /+ 50 oC the numbers could be nothing more than garbage. Has anyone looked into this? I recall seeing a report on a surface station temperature report from Alaska, where the instrument quit all together when it got to minus 40 or 50 below. I just cannot believe that the numbers before then were valid. If these stations are solar powered, you also then need to consider the batteries, and the fact that they have reduced voltage and current capacity at low temperatures and these low temperatures radically affect the operation of the equipment.
    I have a friend who has made several record setting hot air balloon flights. http://euphoriaballoons.com/links.html I have helped him to get equipment that works under these extreme conditions and test it to make sure it works. He has had to put his radio inside his “sleeping bag” cold suit just to keep it working – and it is a military spec radio that is supposed to work under these conditions. His battery cost over a $1000, looses over a volt at these temperatures when fully charged, more as the trip progress and is only good for one flight. Higher temperatures can have an equal effect upon “laboratory” equipment.

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    • #
      Matcha

      Ocean temps will be fairly moderate anyway, so no need to fear errors at the extremes. Temps are likely 15C – 25C, yeah.?

      20

  • #
    handjive

    “Hottest summer ever” conveniently possible because weather is now climate according to the Climate Commission Weather Commision.
    .

    ❝ A few years ago, talking about weather and climate change in the same breath was a cardinal sin for (climate) scientists.

    Now it has become impossible to have a conversation about the weather without discussing wider climate trends, according to researchers who prepared the Australian Climate Weather Commission’s latest report.

    The report, The Angry Summer, says behind the litany of broken heat and rainfall records this year, a clear pattern has now emerged.

    Previously, ”weather is not climate” was the mantra, but now the additional boost from greenhouse gases was influencing every event. ❞
    .
    Time to move the goal posts for the failed warmists. This time they’re burning bridges as they go!

    Now we can ALL point to weather as climate!

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  • #
    Yonniestone

    Channel nines’ Today show has been spouting this “hottest summer ever” crap all week and with Jo’s team finding obvious and serious flaws in the Bom’s claims you’d think there would be a counter view or rebuttal allowed? NO all we get is a beat up story on B1 and B2 in bloody western Sydney, WHO CARES!? And while I’m at it how’s Cameron Williams’ form? He goes after Barclay Nettlefold in an aggressive manner over swimmers behaving badly while the guy’s on the back foot (easy target) and making claims of knowing the real “truth” strutting about like the toughest Bantam cock in Australia! Cameron if you want to really impress how about taking on a real opponent say the BOM, Combet or Flannery and use your jumped up self righteous attitude for Australia and the common good. Sorry for the rant but self serving cowards really boil my blood.

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    • #
      dlb

      Yeah good ole commercial broadcasters. Do anything to stir up up a bit of controversy and get us to buy more useless crap. I wish you people hadn’t defunded the “Green ALP ABC” they may be biased but at least they made you think.

      20

      • #
        Yonniestone

        I’m not sure what “you people” you mean, but the “green alp abc” is biased and only makes me think of how much public money is wasted on such biased drivel never allowing a counter argument to their left agenda.

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  • #

    […] How did the BoM torture the data to find Australia ‘hottest ever’ summer? Because data was tortured or omitted? Purely PR non-science. They were caught out by a team of real scientists and meteorologists: Keep reading  → […]

    30

  • #
    janama

    I knew it! – Just heard Flannery in 2GB news say that because of all these record temperatures over the past summer it proves that global warming is happening!
    sheesh!

    60

    • #
      Joe V.

      They let him talk on 2GB ?
      Or is it just to help him look silly ?

      50

    • #
      Tim

      Why does Flannery persist with his discredited predictions?

      Why does anyone still take him and his creative computer models seriously?

      Is his job title: ’Weather Prophet’ – or maybe – ‘Weather Profit’?

      50

    • #
      old44

      Strange how when there is a drought or high temperatures Flannery blames Global Warming but when it is cold or wet it is Climate Change.

      Just a rough indicator of how hot this year was in Melbourne, I used 20% less electricity compared to last year, my average usage is about 14 kW per day but the A/C raises that to between 25-52kW.

      May be worth checking out, in the BOM weather observations Ferny Creek has replaced Dunns Hill, it may be interesting to see if the Dandenongs suddenly get hotter.

      20

  • #
    Mike

    Hot on the tail of Rajendra Pachauri’s “Return to Almora” comes “Angry Summer” a steamy novel by Federal Government’s Climate Commission.

    Centrefold lies a bare naked Australia with all the hot bits exposed, climate on steroids, fifty shades of heat.

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-03-04/climate-commission-says-summer-extremes-made-worse-by-climate/4550894

    Larry Flynt is offering $1m for the negatives

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  • #
    Speedy

    Morning All

    Is there anyone with personal integrity (a conscience?) or scientific principles within the BOM? Know how to blow a whistle? If so, we could have BOM-Door to go with ClimateGate.

    Failing that, an FOI request for the algorithm for review and verfication. Not the BOM would need to be secretive about this – after all, they’re not hiding anything, are they?

    Cheers,

    Speedy

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  • #
    janama

    OK Let’s get some facts!

    This is what the Climate Commission report says:

    The Australian summer over 2012 and 2013 has been defined by extreme weather events across much of the continent, including record-breaking heat, severe bushfires, extreme rainfall and damaging flooding. Extreme heatwaves and catastrophic bushfire conditions during the Angry Summer were made worse by climate change.
    All weather, including extreme weather events is influenced by climate change. All extreme weather events are now occurring in a climate system that is warmer and moister than it was 50 years ago. This influences the nature, impact and intensity of extreme weather events

    Here are the rainfall figures from the Weatherzone site for the east coast where the rain and flooding has occurred.

    Rockhampton:

    December Rainfall: 7.4
    December highest rainfall: 533.4 in 1990

    January Rainfall: 555.6
    January Highest Rainfall: 660.2 in 1974

    February Rainfall: 114.4
    February highest rainfall: 478.4 in 2008

    Bundaberg:

    December Rainfall: 47.6
    December highest rainfall: 572.8 in 2010

    January Rainfall: 494.8
    January Highest Rainfall: 693.2 in 1974

    February Rainfall: 237.4mm
    February highest rainfall: 728.6 in 1971

    Gympie:

    December Rainfall: 21.0
    December highest rainfall: 584.5 in 1926

    January Rainfall: 431.4
    January Highest Rainfall: 601.5 in 1895

    February Rainfall: 459.6
    February highest rainfall: 933.9 n 1893

    Brisbane:

    December Rainfall: 50.8
    December highest rainfall: 478.8 in 2010

    January Rainfall: 271.0
    January Highest rainfall: 343.4 in 2012

    February Rainfall: 250.6
    February Highest rainfall: 272.4 in 2010

    Ballina:

    December Rainfall: 135.4
    December highest rainfall: 414.4 in 2010

    January rainfall: 348.6
    January highest rainfall: 362.2 in 2008

    February rainfall: 437.4 – a record!
    February highest rainfall: 400.6 in 2001

    Coffs Harbour:

    December Rainfall: 79.6
    December highest rainfall: 391.4 in 2010

    January rainfall: 480.8
    January highest rainfall: 512.6 in 1967

    February rainfall: 379.2
    February highest rainfall: 522.2 in 1985

    Sydney:

    December Rainfall: 45.2
    December highest rainfall: 401.9 in 1920

    January rainfall: 137.8
    January highest rainfall: 387.1 in 1911

    February rainfall: 165.4
    February highest rainfall: 630.6 in 1990

    There is only one record broken and that is in Ballina in February.

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    • #
      llew Jones

      Flannery and Steffen are either delusional or liars. If Abbott wants a few more votes he should make sacking both these untrustworthy characters a policy promise. We can blame the Libs for Steffen’s appointment so they should do the right thing and undo some of the harm his appointment has caused.

      Both have been instrumental in bringing unnecessary massive damage to the Australian economy through things like the carbon tax and its massive negative impact on industry and the massively expensive, white elephant desalination plants in Qld and Victoria.

      Steffen, who is not a native Australian, comes from colder northern climes and has little personal familiarity with the weather history of Australia and thus is clueless about those summer weather events that were even more severe than this recent summer and that many of us “natives” have experienced.

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    • #
      peterfitzroy

      How cleaver of you to skip Kempsey, Port Macquarie and Taree. Cherry Picking at its finest

      11

      • #
        Rereke Whakaaro

        If you think they are significant, why don’t you put the numbers up so we can all see the evidence of Cheery Picking?

        Or could it be that your dog has just eaten the piece of paper you had them written down on?

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  • #
    Streetcred

    Paul Homewood rips into and destroys BoMs SA temperature claims:

    All Time Temperature Records In South Australia

    The highest January temperatures recorded in South Australia were all set in 1960, except for the record set in Moomba this year. However, since Moomba only started measuring in 1995, this record is meaningless.

    Furthermore, Oodnadatta and Marree only commenced operations in 1940, suggesting that even higher temperatures may have been recorded if they had been operating in the 1930’s. And Whyalla only ran from 1957-2001.

    The only long running South Australian station, with records before 1940, appears to be Port Lincoln. Although this shut in 2002, it is significant that the all time record there was 45.6C, set on 10th January 1939.

    It is amply apparent that the top temperatures set this summer are not as high as those set in 1960. It also seems highly likely that even higher ones were set in 1939, as was the case in NSW. It is a pity the Bureau did not point this out.

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    pat

    a couple of comments on bolt’s tips page today mentioned greg hunt was on abc news radio this morning virtually agreeing with everything the climate commission had to say. both commenters said they will now be voting informal. i’m not familiar with bolt’s commenters, so i can’t say if they were trolls.

    this is the australian/AAP take:

    4 March: Australian: AAP: Focus on long-term weather changes: Hunt
    AUSTRALIA’S summer may have been the hottest on record but it’s the long-term trends that matter, not figures for one season, opposition environment spokesman Greg Hunt says.
    After all, over the same period Russia, China and the United States shivered through their coldest weather on record, he says…
    “We recognise that it’s been a hot summer,” Mr Hunt told ABC Radio on Monday.
    “The long-term trend however is the important thing.”…
    Mr Hunt accepted the science that showed global temperatures were increasing but said care was needed when looking at short-term events such as the record cold temperatures abroad.
    “It would be wrong to interpret those as a disproof of any long-run global temperature change in the same way it would be wrong to use any short-term record in any one part of the world,” he said.
    “It’s the long run that matters.”…
    Mr Hunt said the best global action on climate change would be an agreement between China and the United States to cut emissions.
    Australia’s carbon tax had delivered a lot of pain to electricity consumers but “bizarrely” had not cut greenhouse gas output, he said.
    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/breaking-news/focus-on-long-term-weather-changes-hunt/story-fn3dxiwe-1226589829490

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    pat

    can barely understand a word of this lengthy piece…read it all if u think u can:

    28 Feb: Climate Spectator: Tristan Edis: Hunt puts some flesh on bones of Direct Action
    Winners of the abatement auction rounds will be awarded contracts providing guaranteed payment rates from government for each tonne of CO2 abatement they deliver. Payment will only be provided on delivery of “measurable and verified” abatement. No payments will be provided prior to delivery of abatement.
    What Hunt explained as the key components for the operation of the fund sounded essentially like a baseline and credit abatement scheme (similar to the NSW Greenhouse Gas Abatement Scheme), but with government as the only purchaser of abatement credits, rather than obligated entities.
    His description was that the Coalition would take the core approach of the Carbon Farming Initiative, and expand it out to additional abatement activity methodologies. For example, Hunt said he would be open to using methodologies prepared for the Clean Development Mechanism with suitable modifications to fit Australian circumstances.
    The Clean Energy Regulator would take on the task of administering the scheme and undertaking measurement and verification of the abatement delivered by contracted parties.
    When asked about the existing NSW and Victorian energy efficiency tradable certificate schemes and the potential for a national scheme, Hunt explained that the Fund could effectively serve a similar function, providing abatement payments for the same activities as covered by the existing energy efficiency schemes. However he didn’t cover off on the extensive use of deeming under these schemes, which does provide credits upfront, rather than as abatement is delivered…
    The 2010 Direct Action election policy outlines, “assessment of projects will also take into account any additional significant public policy benefits”. It seems hard to imagine how such an unavoidably qualitative assessment could be compatible with an auctioning process based on lowest cost per tonne of CO2…
    On top of this, the program would also impose historical emission allowance baselines on existing emitters. These emitters could then elect to sell down their emission allowances via the auction process…
    The DAERF is still built upon an assumption the Coalition will be able to acquire a huge amount of abatement for around $10 per tonne of CO2. No one with any kind of track-record in delivering abatement projects thinks they’ll get anywhere close to the 5 per cent reduction target with the money they’ve budgeted.
    The other major gap is overoptimistic bidding in the auction process. A proponent can be tempted to overestimate the quantity of abatement they think they can deliver for a given price to ensure they win a bidding round. They then find projects are more costly or harder to develop than they had initially proposed…
    http://www.climatespectator.com.au/commentary/hunt-puts-some-flesh-bones-direct-action

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    • #
      Roy Hogue

      Why are these people not ashamed to show their faces in public?

      40

      • #
        The Black Adder

        I agree Roy,

        They take us for idiots!!

        And unfortunately, there a lot of them in Oz…

        That’s why Juliar can still get a Primary Vote of 31%

        Hunt better pull his finger out when in power, but I am highly sceptical…

        Sigh!!

        20

    • #

      Tristan Edis is just an opportunistic climate carpetbagger. In other times he’d some other kind of con artist.

      80

      • #
        Roy Hogue

        Mike,

        Carpetbagger could be applied to a long list of them. I never realized how well that name fits until you used it.

        Opportunists? Yes, every one of them from A to Z!

        10

  • #
    DaveA

    Climate Commission just went Full RetardThe Angry Summer

    60

    • #
      Backslider

      “The Angry Summer”….. “Superstorm Sandy”… blah blah blah……..

      Just look at the pic:

      Looks like they employed some Mad Barry’s marketing rejects……

      40

      • #
        DaveA

        It looks like…. They’ve Gone Crazy!!

        Heat Extreme Records running out the door at never to be seen again CRAYZEE PRICES!!

        *Tim Flannery surrounded by Panasonic air conditioners*

        These records are so hot I think I’m going to melt!

        20

    • #
      The Black Adder

      The Climate Commission …

      Rhymes with The Green Imposition !

      20

  • #
    janama

    I’ve written a post on the Climate Commission report but for some reason it’s sitting awaiting moderation?

    (It is now posted) CTS

    10

  • #
    pat

    time out for a laugh:

    23 Feb: ThisIsMoneyUK(Financial Mail on Sunday)-
    TONY HETHERINGTON INVESTIGATES: Carbon credit 20% profit boast from MH Carbon Limited that went up in smoke
    T.D.writes: I invested in carbon credits that I bought from MH Carbon Limited, after the company told me that businesses buy these credits. Mine were supposed to be sold in October.
    When October came I was told that while I stood to make a 20 per cent profit, if I waited until November this would rise to 25 per cent. It seemed sensible to wait, but then in November, MH Carbon told me no one was buying.
    The company added that in April the Government would be introducing legislation that would force businesses to buy carbon credits or face heavy fines. I invested all my savings, so now I am extremely worried.

    HETHERINGTON’S RESPONSE:
    I have yet to see any ordinary investor make a penny from trading in carbon credits, and I am afraid you are not going to be the first – though I do have some good news for you.
    MH Carbon, based in the City of London, is run by its sole director Jeffrey Razaq, so I asked him whether it was true you were first told your credits were showing a 20 per cent profit, with a promise of more to come, yet suddenly they could not be sold at all.
    He told me he had bought the company on November 14 last year, and that the broker who dealt with you had already left by then. There was no record of what you had been told, he said.
    Well, I asked, what about the idea that the Government was going to force companies to buy carbon credits from investors like you? Razaq came up with an announcement made last June, but he had the honesty to admit that all this does is make major companies report their greenhouse gas emissions. By no stretch of the imagination does it force them to buy credits.
    Fair enough, but what about the claim on MH Carbon’s website that ‘the EU carbon price may triple by 2013’? Did it? And even if it did, there are two different types of credit – one traded by governments and international corporations, and ‘voluntary credits’ sold by firms such as MH Carbon to people like you – so which one saw the massive price rise?
    Razaq conceded there was no threefold price rise. It was simply a prediction, and it certainly did not apply to your ‘voluntary credits’ anyway. He said: ‘As this figure has not been achieved, I have taken the decision to remove reference to it from the website.’ …
    I did wonder how much Razaq actually knows about carbon credit trading. Enquiries show he has previously worked as a director of companies authorised by the Financial Services Authority, and licensed by the Office of Fair Trading, but these were in unrelated fields.
    So, I asked him where he learnt about carbon credits. Nowhere, came the answer, with Razaq telling me he has not worked in the sector before. The good news – as you already know – is that after I contacted him Razaq rang you up and asked what you wanted.
    You told him you would settle for your money back, and forget about any mythical profits. And to my pleasant surprise, you now have your £9,960 savings back.
    Razaq told me: ‘I personally believe that the regulation of the carbon market by the FSA would be a welcome step to provide investors with greater protection and peace of mind with these alternative investments.’
    Of course, he is absolutely right. As things stand, carbon credits are a minefield for investors and a playground for conmen. The FSA is well aware of this, and officials complain privately that they are hog-tied by existing laws that were passed by Parliament more than a decade ago, when carbon credits barely existed.
    And that means it is up to Treasury Ministers to find a way to bring in regulation and stop the rip-offs. I won’t hold my breath.
    http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/experts/article-2283339/Carbon-credit-20-profit-boast-MH-Carbon-Limited-went-smoke.html

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    • #
      SimonV

      Ah yes, this is amazingly relevant to what is being discussed here – good of you to show up, I guess…

      04

  • #
    Steve

    Steve’s how to on measuring the temperature of a continent. (all IMO and off the top of my head, glad to accept refinement)

    Step 1: In-fill the blank spots in the thermometer grid or set up temporary thermometers in order to gain data for modelling. This will be used later in verification stages. Placed at step 1 as it will take some time to set up.

    Step 2: Isolate the data from the satellite record which has the best data on daily temperatures.

    Step 3: Isolate the sub set of ground station temperatures where there are also good satellite measurements of temperature.

    Step 3: Model temperature distribution across the continent from the satellite record, using the ground stations as reference points and visa versa. Include factors such as the pressure regime of the continent, wind direction and any other factors that skew temperature distribution as observed from the satellite data.

    Step 4: Use statistical methods such as Kriging (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kriging) or it’s derivatives to produce a model that uses ground station temperatures to accurately predict the overall temperature of the continent, check this model in a reverse fashion using your newly set up temporary weather stations in the blank areas of the continent. This modelling will use the observations from Step 3

    Step 5: Take your model and predict the continental temperature for those days were you have both good ground station data and good satellite data, refine the model and identify your error bars and circumstances under which your model fails. This should be a very large number of days to process, there will be areas which fail statistical significance, accept this as a failing of the model’s ability to predict things that are too far away from your ground station samples, your model will not be perfect.

    Step 6: Remove ground station measurements from your sucessful attempts to model the temperature and model the temperature using this smaller set of ground station data, observe the effect this has on the accuracy of the technique to estimate the continental temperature. Adjust technique for problems with reduced data.

    Step 7: Publish your PhD thesis in the use of multivariate statistics to model [AGW] climate, receive more grant money to continue research.

    Step 8: Apply newly refined model to historical temperature records.

    Step 9: Accept invitations to other countries to set up similar programs of temperature modelling, tour world.

    Caveat: Step 9: If you have ever professed that you don’t “believe” in Global Warming you will be sleeping in budget accomodation for the duration of this world tour. (no, I couldn’t help the tounge in cheek in the end)

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    • #
      Roy Hogue

      Brilliant reasoning, Steve! Nobel Prize caliber all the way.

      Just one suggestion — you might improve it slightly if you include a step where you lose all your original data completely. 😉

      20

      • #
        Steve

        Good point Roy; Ammendment follows.

        Process fork 1: Your results are in support of AGW theories or you put such statements within your thesis

        Step 10: $$$, gravy train all the way, initial data is filed in the basement of a condemned building, guarded by a cheeta with a coridoor leading to it full of sharp knives.

        Process fork 2: Your results are against the current AGW theories or you put in such statements which goes against the current government mandated position on AGW.

        Step: 10 funding dries up, your dog leaves you and you are evicted from your university funded accomodation for unprofessional behaviour.

        But seriously:

        It is possible to accurately estimate the whole land temperature historically before satellite record or for those periods for which the satellite record is patchy.

        But

        It’s a lot of work.

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        • #
          Roy Hogue

          But seriously:

          It is possible to accurately estimate the whole land temperature historically before satellite record or for those periods for which the satellite record is patchy.

          But

          It’s a lot of work.

          I would never challenge that assertion. But I wonder if it means anything useful to do it except to satisfy curiosity!? You can possibly give me a better reason.

          My one comment would be that the complexity implicit in, “It’s a lot of work.” tells me that it isn’t a foregone conclusion that it’ll get done right. And then there’s the problem of dishonesty that we’re all worried about.

          Love your step 10! 🙂

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  • #
    Quack

    I fugired it out guys.

    There are no extremes.

    There are no extreme extremes.

    the recent *extreme” is only a little bit more than the previous “record* extreme” so theres no much difference at all.

    and the second *previous extreme* is not much more than the “extreme” before that and so on and on and on.

    EXTEREMES DON’T EXIST!!!

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    • #
      Steve

      Gee, that’s a little .. extreme.

      Random chance … the chance something could happen, after the fact, is 1:1 🙂

      So I expect you are completely correct from a certain point of view, it’s not extreme, just new data.

      04

    • #
      JFC

      Quack, you’re barely literate, give up mate, give up.

      04

      • #
        AndyG55

        Still, puts him streets ahaead of you in cognative ability.

        How about you actually contribute some rational thought for once.. can you do that ????
        .
        .
        .
        .
        .

        Whoops, sorry.. too much expectation.

        20

      • #
        Roy Hogue

        JFC,

        No matter. Quack is still ahead of you. So I wonder, where, exactly, does that leave you? 😉

        Just wondering…

        10

  • #
    Considerate Thinker

    My gentle personal observation – dear BOM here in Melbourne where you would expect a UHI distortion of at least 3 degree celcius, this summer had a few days that were hot and sticky due to moisture and heat and stalled wind systems, mostly the off shore change finally came in and it cooled, just like it always has. Unlike most summers we were comfortable sleeping and didn’t even switch on fans as in other years,and during the day it really was sufficient to use drapes to keep the interior cool from direct sunlight penetration. In past years of “extreme heat” I opersated fans and also a portable air conditioner, but this year really didn’t need to drag that out of mothballs.

    I guess I must have missed all this heat as this summer was really in retrospect rather mild. I guess you BOM people live in the Will Steffen world of political unreality where you need to keep on side with a politically bereft heavily in debt Gillard Government, in order to keep the cheques coming and if that means cooking the books, the data by adjustment, ignoring historical temperatures.

    Did you have to go to extremes in your office heating it up to sweat the thermometers and your co-conspirators, or is it your intention to paste propaganda to try and save the Gillard Government – your gravy train?

    Sorry my own observations confirm yours is… propaganda – but forgive me I’ve seen it all before!!

    40

  • #
    The Black Adder

    Great Work Blokes and Sheila’s !!

    I classify the BOM and the Australian Cricket Selectors and the PM…

    All In the ‘ No f$&k’n Idea ‘ Department ….

    Closely followed by nice one, JB, Ricardo Montalban, Catamonsgtmen and MattB…

    In the ‘ I’m with Stupid! ‘ Department ….

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  • #
    janama

    One thing I noticed while scanning the data is the variance in the length of the record.

    Some of those figures which show 20NN as the record in fact only went back to 1999.

    The standout was Gympie that goes back to 1870 where 5 of the wettest months were recorded before the turn of the century and the wettest year on record is 1893 with 2242.9mm of rain in one year and February being the record with 933.9.

    There are stations which are now closed yet still have data for the period when they were open yet it’s not included in the climate record.

    1893 must have been quite year as Drake recorded a yearly rainfall of 1966.1mm, it’s highest reading still and February of that year had a record 897.9mm.

    Lismore (center street) which is now closed also has it’s highest reading in 1893 of 2213.0mm with February a record with 799mm.

    Brisbane regional office (now closed) also has it’s highest reading in 1893 with 2242.4mm and February also a record with 1025.9mm

    40

    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      There are stations which are now closed yet still have data for the period when they were open yet it’s not included in the climate record.

      Now that is interesting.

      Excluding those old stations from the climate record might be excusable on the grounds that they were inaccurate, and would therefore impact the forecasting ability of the models.

      But I don’t buy that. There are other, more kosher, ways in which records can be depreciated in the modeling, without going to the extreme of changing history, or pretending that it (like the MWP) didn’t exist.

      Excluding some records, on a selective basis, is a policy decision. I wonder whether that policy was set at the Senior Management level in the BOM, or in the Ministerial Office?

      Does anyone feel an FOI coming on …

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  • #
    janama

    Further to the above – Ballina is listed above as a record February year but if you use the closed station, Cumbalum (Fairview), which was closed in 1985 it has a February record in 1893 of 871.6mm and a yearly reading of 2611.7 (not the record, the record is 2659.8mm in 1890)

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    Raca

    Thanks for the work put in by the team. I posted before and post this again (in another way). The 40.3 is not a scientific statement. Science is 40.3 plus or minus some figure – or standard deviation and p etc. The bureau cannot state as science that a record occurred on 7 Jan without indicating the error estimate on both the historic and the 7 Jan figure, irrespective of what appears a flawed analytic technique. I have tried to get arror bounds from them for the figures – blank wall.

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  • #
    Tom

    Anyway, it seems as though your quibbles with the BOM pronouncements assume that BOM is aiming for a result, rather than just trying to get the best estimate. My bet is that they are just trying to do a good job.

    I’m waiting for history’s judgement. With political activists like John Brookes and [Snip] Stephan Lewandowsky, will UWA be judged the most discredited Australian TAFE campus pretending to be a university? Or will that honour be claimed by the fruitbats that have made UTS a national joke? Even Melbourne is still in the running for the junk science prize with Karoly and his WWF/Greenpeace secretariat making its “research” an international laughing stock.

    I suspect the campuses that forge an internationally bankable reputation for quality and integrity are yet to rise from the ashes of Australian academia’s decade of shame.

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    • #

      Tom, I’m with you most of the way, but please don’t say [what was there before the moderators snipped it].

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    • #
      gnome

      Doesn’t UNSW have a centre of excellence in climate research, and doesn’t it employ Matthew England and Andy Pitmann?

      Any academic establishment which supports the hokey team is equally risible. When we all move on, UNSW will be left as eggfaced as UWA.

      10

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    manalive

    It looks to me like the BoM could be desperately trying to preempt any independent audit of their records by a possible probable future Abbott government.

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    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      Well, the BOM did an audit of New Zealand’s National Institute of Water and Atmospheric research.

      Perhaps NIWA could return the favour. Wouldn’t that be cosy?

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      • #
        Ross

        If that was to be the case RW , there is no need to do an audit as we all know now what the result would be.

        30

      • #
        Streetcred

        I’m led to believe that BoM’s conclusions in respect of the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research’s new fangled temperature record was not positive. So much so that NIWAR refused to release it under a FOI request arguing that there data records didn’t constitute an official NZ temperature record. It must have been real bad because in the ensuing court case the ‘judge’ ruled in their favour … I can only think of words along the lines of not “in the national interest” to expose the shenanigans of the NIWAR.

        10

        • #
          Rereke Whakaaro

          It must have been real bad …

          Well, it certainly was not pretty.

          But the shenanigans were not on the part of NIWA, as evidenced by the fact that most of the management team (including the CEO, John Morgan) are still in situ.

          10

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    pat

    to think one of my first jobs was in an abc newsroom! hard to believe i once loved aunty.

    ***”It has now come to pass”???

    4 March: ABC Sydney: Lawrence Champness: 123 weather records broken in 90 days of summer
    Tim Flannery on climate change in relation to the summer’s weather. He talks to Adam Spencer about the report entitled ‘The Angry Summer’.
    ***It has now come to pass. Our climate has changed” said Tim Flannery, Chief Commissioner of the Climate Commission…
    Many deniers of climate change point to problems with the period of time records have been kept for.
    “We’ve got to work with the data we’ve got. Records have been kept in Sydney for I think something like 150 years. Of course they have got better and better as time has gone on, we’ve got satellite surveillance and all sorts of things now we didn’t have in the past…
    A caller to the program, Danny from Macmasters Beach, expressed a viewpoint that has been talked about a lot in New South Wales recent weeks in realtion to the state’s desalination plant; “A few years ago we were saying our dams would never fill again. Looking at the weather now, how do we put faith in the science?”
    Flannery responded by referencing what he said when the desalination plant was first built:
    “I’ve been consistent with what I said then and what I said then was that there was a risk that some of Australia’s major cities were going to face serious difficulty accessing fresh water.
    We’d had a 12 year drought, our catchments were at record low and there was an issue, and there continues to be an issue.
    Just because there is a wet period now doesn’t mean that we aren’t going to go back into those very dry conditions…
    China is often mentioned in relation to climate change and Spencer asked Flannery about how China is addressing their pollution.
    “Everything I hear from China is that they are seeing this as their great smog, like the London smog of 1952, this is the moment when the country is going to focus on this for a whole series of reasons.
    Of course they have capped their coal use now, they said 4 billion tonnes is absolutely it. If that happens that is going to be absolutely revolutionary, we’ll see China’s emissions peak a lot earlier than people have been predicting.
    This is still something that is in the realm of conjecture but at least we are headed in a positive direction”…
    “With the current policy settings, the emissions from Australia’s electircty sector have declined by 8.65 % over recent months.
    We can also see that the cost was less than was projected. We can also see that Australia’s emissions are likely to have peaked either last year or will peak this year instead of continuing to escalate into the future.
    That’s a positive story and it is something that is being seeing now in many countries” said Flannery.
    “The challenge now is to reduce emissions steeply, unless we can do that over this coming decade we face more climatic uncertainty in the future.”…
    http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2013/03/04/3702888.htm?site=sydney

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    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      Of course they (China) have capped their coal use now, they said 4 billion tonnes is absolutely it

      And that is because the PRC Central Planning Committee has decreed that the use of coal for power generation will be phased out over the next few decades, as more capacity from Nuclear power plants comes on-stream.

      I am surprised that Tim Flannery forgot to mention that point.

      51

    • #

      pat mentionss here about what Professor Flannery says:

      Of course they have capped their coal use now, they said 4 billion tonnes is absolutely it. If that happens that is going to be absolutely revolutionary, we’ll see China’s emissions peak a lot earlier than people have been predicting.

      Does this man have any idea.

      In 2008, The U.S. generated one quarter of the electrical power on Planet Earth. As part of that, their coal consumption topped out and has now shrunk.

      The U.S. burned just under 1.05 Billion tons of coal ….. during that year of 2008.

      Flannery’s total of China (supposedly) topping out at 4 Billion tons a year is currently close to (a bit less than) the actual total World Consumption now for electrical power generation.

      What needs to be considered here is that virtually all of these Chinese coal fired plants have only started to go in over those 4 to 5 years, with most of them still to be constructed.

      A year and a half back, China finally surpassed the U.S. as the largest power generator on Earth, and their current burn rate for coal is around 1.5 Billion tons, so you can see what is in front of them now.

      Now keep in mind that each of those large scale coal fired plants has a life span of 50 years, and they are not yet half way through construction of all those plants.

      Then on top of that, India will be doing the same thing.

      Flannery says that this is the hottest year on record.

      Flannery tells us he knows the cause, emissions of CO2.

      Flannery, without even blinking then says China will top out at 4 Billion tons of coal, and that’s going to be revolutionary.

      Is this man serious?

      With China, and then India proceeding at pace, and those CO2 emissions increasing, not just a little, but bloody well exponentially, and that CO2 spreads out across the Globe, is Flannery advocating that China and India stop before we all die.

      No, he just says it’s revolutionary that they are topping out at 4 Billion tons.

      What a [self snip]

      4 Billion tons of coal equates to 11.44 Billion tons of CO2 per year ….. for at least the next 50 years, and that’s just China.

      Oh, I am so heartened that we’ll all be saved by this new Chinese revolution.

      Tony.

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      • #

        The Chinese are experts at announcing good intentions. They know it’s all a silly game and that the climate luvvies will cut them slack no matter how trivial the mitigation they announce or how much coal they burn. The classic case was Malcolm Turnbull assuring the doctors’ wives that China was closing down coal power stations at a fast rate. He just left out the bit about which ones they were closing…and what they were replacing them with.

        Who you gonna believe? The Minister for Goldman Sachs, or your lyin’ eyes?

        100

        • #
          Tim

          Surely you’re not suggesting that the Minister for Gold-In-Sacks could be a big player in the Carbon Trading Market? Shame on you.

          51

      • #
        Roy Hogue

        Is this man serious?

        Well, it’s not my place to make sweeping comments. But even a dumb old computer programmer from halfway around the world can answer that one.

        It’s ambiguous because he’s playing both ends against the middle. And there is your real problem with the man.

        It’s like the government in Saudi Arabia, they try to keep a foot on both sides of the fence, please two camps; and they’ve been doing it for so long they think the pain they feel is hemorrhoids.

        40

      • #

        Aww! Come on guys.

        I make a glaring mistake, and even after 15 hours, none of the usual crowd come in and point it out, umm, which of itself is again insightful. I half expected to be stomped on with hob nailed boots for an error like this.

        Note I referred coal consumption to the generation of electrical power.

        I neglected to mention that not all of that coal is used for this purpose. Some of that total is Coking Coal, used in the production of steel.

        That comes in at around 10 to 12% of all that coal.

        So, after it niggled away at me, I checked this morning, and then came back here to point it out myself.

        There is some thought that China is hoping to top out it’s coal consumption by 2015, and they tell us that will be in the vicinity of 4.3 Billion tons, but hey, Tim has his finger on the pulse here, so I’ll accede to his total of only 4 Billion tons.

        That’s still the bulk of it going to power generation, around 3.6 Billion tons of it.

        Most of that coal comes from within their own Country, and barely 5% of it is imported.

        They have known reserves of around 130+ Billion tons of coal, split around 60/40 Anthracite/Lignite.

        So, in reference to the insight that no stomping shows me.

        It indicates yet again that those warmist fellow travellers are only interested in telling us we have this huge problem, the emission of CO2 causing this so called catastrophe.

        As to their interest in finding out what the end result of their cure for this so called problem might be, well, it’s more exciting to yell about the problem, and even when it is pointed out, they still prefer just to yell about the problem. They’re not interested in doing something about it, just finding affirmation to support their belief that there is a problem they can keep yelling about.

        So, I do apologise for my error.

        Oh! As to emissions, well they are as I indicated, as the ratio of coal burned to emissions produced is still the same, so, at Tim’s 4 Billion tons, that still comes in at 11.44 Billion tons of CO2 ….. for the next 50 years minimum.

        Tony.

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        • #
          Rereke Whakaaro

          We knew that Tony. We were just being too polite to mention it … 🙂

          31

        • #
          ianl8888

          … Some of that total is Coking Coal, used in the production of steel

          I’ve been busy today until now … but I did comment on this issue for several previous threads. Geologists are doomed as Cassandras, I fear. In fact, the only question I’ve ever been asked by lay people is: “Well, where’s the gold, then ?” 🙂

          I’ve tried to understand this phenomenon. Maybe people think that stuff that happened millions of years ago cannot possibly have any importance now ? Maybe most people just cannot think in 4 dimensions ? I just dunno … no importance at all, until a Mining Tax is relied upon by stupid Govt

          BTW, most coal-fired power stations burn raw fuel (coal) with an average SE (Specific Energy) of 25-28 MJ/kg (MJ = mega joule, or 10 ^6 joules). So 1 tonne of this fuel contains 25-28 GJ (giga joule). And 1 watt = 1 joule/second (energy conversion)

          This is how TonyOz correctly arrives at the annual burn rate tonnage for a 1GWh power station. Apart from that, power station websites mostly tell you their annual tonnage requirements anyway

          20

          • #

            ianl8888, and all you others,

            I know I’ve linked to it before, but it’s still well worth looking at, and new readers could also benefit by reading it as well.

            With respect to burn rate and CO2 emissions, here’s the link I always refer to.

            Carbon Dioxide Emission Factors for Coal

            Once upon a time, it was just 3 paragraphs long, and then about a year or so ago, the whole lot disappeared, and when it did come back, it was huge, I suppose using the thinking of hiding something in plain sight, burying it with reams of text, mostly aimed over the heads of the average person.

            However, the relevant information is all there under the second heading titled:

            Coal Combustion and Carbon Dioxide Emissions.

            The reference I use is the last paragraph there and on the last two lines.

            The rest is technical information well worth having a look at, but the information is all there at that point.

            Ever the warmist supporter, Wikipedia prefers to use 2.92 as its multiplier, inflating emissions data somewhat.

            Tony.

            10

    • #
      Roy Hogue

      On a lighter note…

      Can’t someone manage to take away Flannery’s bottle and his stash? He’d undoubtedly do better if sober. 😉

      20

    • #
      Roy Hogue

      And all that bluster and blather will make no temperature difference at all. 🙁

      20

  • #
    Mattb

    Error Spotto: in the 1st graphic the caption is “There were not many long term sites (in black dots) in the centre of Australia in 1930.” but it should be (in red dots).

    35

  • #
    Fred

    Now even Qantas is getting into the fray bound to blame global warming.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-21651737

    30

  • #
    Gerry

    A couple of points..

    It sure hasn’t seemed like a record hot summer in Melbourne this year, despite the warnings about 30+ temps for 5 days in a row …..we used to get warnings about 36-38+ temps for days in a row …..propaganda ….

    The BoM is clearly reacting to the news they didn’t publicise from their sister organisation in London ….and it seems that in the best AGW tradition they have fiddled with the stats …CO2 is still rising ….and warming is stagnant ….nothing has changed there

    20

  • #
    Dave

    .
    Just read Will Steffens “The Angry Summer“.

    This is the new dumbing down of the CAGW crowd, the Climate Commission and BOM. Don’t release the data – just write a report by a leading climate scientist in everyday language. No papers peers reviewed, no data given, no explanations at all.

    Let’s call this the ANGRY SUMMER, not catastrophic or extreme, these terms are not getting the reaction required by Prince ChooChoo (Thanks Eddy), so being laymen, dummies, flat earthers, mugs, non scientists, non peer reviewed – we have to now have this kindergarden edition by FLIM FLAM and WILL STEATHLY to explain and get our support. What the stuff is an “ANGRY SUMMER“? They are becoming almost a new upper class, looking down their long noses at the great unwashed. We do not understand. We must accept the results of the Climate Scientists, BOM, CSIRO, The Climate Change Department, The Climate Commission, Tim Flannery, Will Stephan et al. What a joke – they think the people of Australia need a little education in climate science. What we need is data that is analysed correctly and available to all. I don’t understand much of it, but there are many who do and their interpretation should be published for all Australians to judge.

    The “Angry Summer” leader Tim Flannery says the new Climate Change is like an athlete on steroids: He is now the ultimate political idiot. In The “Angry Summer” Will states:

    The basic physics that underpin the connection between
    a warming climate and more rainfall are well known
    (Figure 13). Higher surface ocean temperatures drive
    more evaporation, leading to more water vapour in the
    atmosphere. This, in turn, leads to more precipitation
    (rainfall, snow or hail).

    So the as the CAGW continues, the globe heats up so much that we get more rain, hail and snow? They tell me this is basic physics, I must believe in this garbage, this is all fact. Where is the data Tim Flannery, and why are all the DAMS full? Why is what you told me years ago that it wouldn’t be enough rain to fill our dams, and we built desal plants in QLD that are now in mothballs because TIM – we’re fuching flooded in, the roads are cut, the dams are bloody full. Do you understand that everything you say is Bullshlt.

    And then I read TonyfromOz on the coal usage in China. Tim tells us China is capping coal at 4 billion tonnes PA. Well I was so relieved until Tony tells us different. Tin Flannery is lying through his teeth again – they are going to pump out 11.44 billion tonnes of CO2 PA for at least the next 50 years. Tim and Will – you are both the biggest bullshltters I’ve come across.

    Then I thought I’d look up my local area records on BOM – Gympie has records back to early 1900’s. Just produced the January records for 1900 odd to January 2012 (records not available for 2013) and lookie, lookie – more Bullshlt:
    Gympie Mean Maximum Temperature. It’s getting cooler.

    And it’s the same for every month of the year – the maximum temperature is decreasing – especially now. WTF – Tim and Will, why are you continually lying to us.

    To all of the CAGW crew, Climate Change Department, Climate Commission, Tim Flannery, Will Stephan and BOM – just start being honest with the Australian public – continue lying and you are gone. Tim and Will are already off my Xmas card list and now on my FO for ever list.

    Plus just sent the Climate Commission an email to pay for the Desal Plant in QLD because Flannery lied to everyone. FOTimFlannery.

    This is all getting printed out and stuck on the notice board of the smoko room wall tomorrow.

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    • #
      bananabender

      Virtually every dam is SE Queensland has been spilling for weeks. There is still another two months left in the wet season.

      If Prof Stewart Franks is correct we may be getting another 20-30 years of this very wet weather based on past climate history.

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      • #

        Flannery, and water never filling dams again.

        Find the common phrase at this link.

        SEQ Water

        Tony.

        40

      • #
        AndyG55

        Earth will always be trying balance the atmospheric heat. With the Sun’s current sleepyness, the Earth will be cooling and thus the atmosphere and oceans will be trying to rebalance themselves by shedding heat/energy. Increased entropy leads to increased atmospheric activity.
        I suspect that Stewart is totally correct in his prediction.

        Notice that during the slight warming we had at the end of last century, things like hurricane numbers etc were gradually dropping. I suspect we are heading into an opposite phase. Gradually decreasing tempseratures, with slightly increased atmospheric activity.

        21

    • #
      Backslider

      Gympie Mean Maximum Temperature. It’s getting cooler.

      Thats not just a bit cooler….. its a LOT!

      21

    • #
      Crakar24

      Thanks for the link Dave after a quick read i found the graphics reminded me of a Coles catalogue out of the local paper i wonder if it was produced by the same people?

      The statement you highlighted is especially important

      The basic physics that underpin the connection between
      a warming climate and more rainfall are well known
      (Figure 13). Higher surface ocean temperatures drive
      more evaporation, leading to more water vapour in the
      atmosphere. This, in turn, leads to more precipitation
      (rainfall, snow or hail).

      This statement conflicts with the original theory, the original theory stated implicitly that:

      Rising CO2 levels will lead to a higher WV content in the atmosphere, this higher WV content will cause the temps to rise between 2 and 6C by 2100. This in essence is the theory of Anthropogenic Global Warming. There now appears to be a subtle shift in their approach, the claim now appears to be that rising CO2 levels will lead to a higher WV content in teh atmosphere, this higher WV content will cause more rain, snow or hail (no mention of droughts).

      It appears as though they have omitted a final statement at the end of the above quote and in its entirety should read:

      The basic physics that underpin the connection between
      a warming climate and more rainfall are well known
      (Figure 13). Higher surface ocean temperatures drive
      more evaporation, leading to more water vapour in the
      atmosphere. This, in turn, leads to more precipitation
      (rainfall, snow or hail). This additional precipitation
      leads to a cooling of the surface thus negating any warming
      caused by the intitial co2 induced warming of the climate.

      Ergo AGW out Climate Change in.

      And of course no report produced by Steffan and co would be complete without the now common place disclaimer

      IMPORTANT NOTICE – PLEASE READ
      This document is produced for general information only and does not represent a statement of the policy of the Commonwealth of Australia. While reasonable efforts have been made to ensure the accuracy, completeness and reliability of the material contained in this document, the Commonwealth of Australia and all persons acting for the Commonwealth preparing this report accept no liability for the accuracy of or inferences from the material contained in this publication, or for any action as a result of any person’s or group’s interpretations, deductions, conclusions or actions in relying on this material.

      What this means of course is that all those local councils that have brought in all those stupid laws to fight climate change/extremes will be left holding the bag when everything goes pear shaped.

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  • #
    old44

    This politically corrupted organisation has to to be cleaned out from top to bottom.

    73

  • #
    bananabender

    It’s actually pretty simple to calculate the Hottest Day Ever with a high degree of certainty. You only need a few million carefully sited and well calibrated thermocouples connected to continuous loggers and record the data for a couple of million years. Just remember to compensate for the Adiabatic Lapse Rate and Urban Heat Island Effect

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  • #
    theRealUniverse

    Temperature records are meaningless gobbeldygook.

    11

  • #
    Dan Clancy

    Why are you people still commenting on this subject? The all knowing John Brookes has spoken so shut up and go home!

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  • #
    PeterB in Indianapolis

    In the grand scheme of things, whether or not Australia had the hottest January ever is of little consequence globally. The Australian landmass is approximately 2% of the globe. There were plenty of places in the Northern Hemisphere that were darn cold in January to average things out.

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    • #
      llew Jones

      Meanwhile how’s the other 98% faring according to UAH:

      “…The anomalies are computed relative to only 2003-2006 because those years were relatively free of El Nino and La Nina activity, which if included would cause temperature anomaly artifacts in other years. Thus, these anomalies cannot be directly compared to, say, the Reynolds anomalies which extend back to the early 1980s. Nevertheless, they should be useful for monitoring signs of ocean surface warming, which appears to have stalled since at least the early 2000′s.

      http://wattsupwiththat.com/

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  • #
    Nathan

    Do I hear skittles falling?
    NASA admits bias on climate science.

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  • #
  • #
    PeterB in Indinapolis

    “Is the BOM a science agency or a PR bureau?”

    Neither. It is a freak-show of circus rejects.

    Seriously though, there is plenty of precedent for adjusting past temperatures lower and current temperatures higher, so they are just following everyone else’s lead here, nothing surprising.

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  • #
    pat

    hmmm!

    4 March: BBC: Czech President Vaclav Klaus faces treason charge
    The upper house voted to refer the president to the constitutional court to rule on whether he had violated the constitution with a New Year amnesty.
    The wide-ranging measures were controversial as they resulted in multiple high-profile corruption cases being suspended.
    Mr Klaus’s term as president of the country is due to end on Thursday.
    Thirty-eight senators in the 81-seat house, controlled by the left-wing opposition, voted to impeach the president, with 30 voting against. Only the Senate has such power in the Czech legal system.
    The worst punishment he faces is the loss of his presidential job, a role the 71-year-old must relinquish later this week having served two terms in office…
    The BBC’s Rob Cameron, in Prague, says that the Senate is dominated by leftist opponents of Mr Klaus, whose departure from office is imminent so this vote is a symbolic – albeit dramatic – end to his presidency.
    Our correspondent adds that it is still unclear as to what exactly a guilty verdict would mean as Mr Klaus will no longer be in office when the constitutional court delivers its ruling, and the biggest sanction he would face is the loss of his presidential pension.
    But, he adds, it would certainly be a stain on what is already a rather mixed legacy.
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-21660234

    given BBC World Sce radio report i heard last nite said Klaus spoke against “popular” issues like “global warming”, it’s funny the above piece doesn’t mention his CAGW scepticism. however, this companion piece does, yet claims Klaus was a populist, meaning his views were “popular”, i would have thought:

    4 March: BBC: Why Vaclav Klaus divides Czechs
    And if you look at his presidential tenure since 2003, you find so much populism and Europhobia…
    His views on the environment are known around the world. He is the only head of state to openly challenge the assertion of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that global warming is man-made…
    No-one knows what role he will play in future beyond overseeing a think-tank – the Vaclav Klaus Institute – in Prague. Possibly he himself does not know. But few believe he is ready to give up waging his personal war – against European integration, against environmentalism, against misquotation…
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-20961896

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  • #
    ExWarmist

    My apologies for the OT comment – but readers here may be interested in this new paper by Chris Berg.

    The Federal Treasurer Wayne Swan wrote in The Monthly in March 2012 that: ”Australia’s fair go is today under threat from a new source. To be blunt, the rising power of vested interests is undermining our equality and threatening our democracy.”

    But not all vested interests are private corporations.

    This paper draws attention to two statutory agencies of the Commonwealth Government that have an explicit, legislatively-defined functions to lobby and advocate for public policy change – the Australian National Preventive Health Agency and the Australian Human Rights Commission.

    These two agencies are effectively taxpayer funded lobbyists, embedded in the public policy process, enjoying privileged access to the institutions of government.

    Both of these agencies are highly ideological. The Human Rights Commission pushes a distorted idea of human rights, which FreedomWatch has been documenting over recent months . The Preventive Health Agency gives paternalistic policies an institutional foundation: an advocate for the Nanny State in the corridors of power and a body that is likely to remain with us indefinitely.

    Especially the illuminating points on the grant cycle on page 27 which illustrates a potential +ve feedback loop where successful NGOs can tap into ever increasing streams of Tax Payer money.

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  • #
    Albert

    The New York Times reported quoting Australian alarmists, ”A blistering four-month heat wave during the Australian summer culminated in January in bush fires that tore through the eastern and southeastern coasts of the country, where most Australians live.”

    ”A blistering four-month heat wave?” I must have slept through it.

    This is interesting re Black Saturday fires 4 years ago;
    http://media.theage.com.au/news/national-news/sp-ausnet-civil-class-action-begins-4080871.html
    Arson was also another factor
    The alarmists have their views but I would rather trust the FACTS

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  • #
    pat

    make of this what u will:

    5 March: Australian: Sid Maher: Tony Abbott plans to keep carbon compensation
    TONY Abbott has promised people will be better off under his plan to dump the carbon tax, revealing a Coalition government would retain some of the tax cuts and pension increases that compensates for its effects…
    Asked about individuals’ financial position in the event of the abolition of the carbon tax, for which the government has provided $15bn in compensation over four years, Mr Abbott said: “We are absolutely confident that people will be better off under us and we give a commitment that people will be better off under us.”.
    After the Prime Minister said average families would pay higher income tax and lose payments worth up to $2300 a year if the Coalition won the election, Mr Abbott said it did not automatically follow that the tax-free threshold would return to $6000 from $18,000 if the Coalition won office and scrapped the carbon tax.
    The Coalition has said that scrapping the carbon tax will cut electricity prices by 10 per cent.
    “The point to make is that the increases that people got on July 1, 2012, when the carbon tax came in, were carbon tax compensation,” Mr Abbott said. “They weren’t, as it were, just clear gains. They weren’t simple increases or simple tax cuts. They were compensation for the carbon tax.
    “Now if you don’t have the carbon tax you don’t need the compensation, but we will continue to fund tax cuts and pension increases.”…
    As well as the lift in the tax-free threshold, the carbon tax compensation package included increases to the pension and family payments.
    Mr Abbott conceded he could not afford to break an election promise if he won office after spending two years campaigning against the government’s broken promises.
    “Well I don’t believe that I will; I don’t believe that I can,” he said…
    “I’m constantly being challenged to explain how I’m going to repeal the carbon tax. Let’s challenge the Labor Party: are they going to defy a government that has a clear mandate to repeal it? Are they going to tell the people, essentially: ‘Up yours? We don’t agree with your position on the carbon tax’.
    “So this is really an issue for the Labor Party, not for me. If we win the election. it will be as much a referendum on the carbon tax as it can possibility be about any particular issue.”
    Mr Abbott said the carbon tax abolition legislation would be put to parliament within weeks of a Coalition election win and it would be put back into the Senate as quickly as possible again if it was defeated.
    Mr Abbott said if the Senate was obstructive on matters for which the Coalition believes it had won a mandate there would be a double-dissolution election…
    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/climate/tony-abbott-plans-to-keep-carbon-compensation/story-e6frg6xf-1226590320197

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    pat

    how come i didn’t notice?

    4 March: ABC: Australia enters ‘new climatic territory’: Climate Commission
    Leigh Sales: Professor Flannery, in this report, what link are you asserting between extreme weather events over the past summer – fires, floods and so on – and climate change?
    TIM FLANNERY, CHIEF CLIMATE COMMISSIONER: Well, look, there are really two aspects to that. One is that everything we’re seeing is consistent with what the climate scientists have been telling us now for decades and it’s very consistent with the physics and chemistry that we know the way the earth works. But secondly, we’ve seen 123 records broken and each of those records really takes us into a new climatic territory. And when you get records being broken at that scale, you can start to see a shifting from one climate system to another. So the climate has in one sense actually changed and we are now entering a new series of climatic conditions that we just haven’t seen before…
    LEIGH SALES: How do you know that the new climatic conditions are responsible for the extreme whether events? How do you know that it’s just not some combination of metrological circumstances?
    TIM FLANNERY: Sure. Look, the studies suggest it’s a 1/500 chance that this sorta stuff is just normal. This is way outside the range of anything we’ve experienced before…
    LEIGH SALES: Haven’t we in the past been cautioned not to link individual weather events with climate change? And so for example how do you account for, say, at the moment in the United States where on the East Coast they’re standing by for an extreme blizzard, which is unusual for this time of year? Something that would happen more like the dead of winter.

    TIM FLANNERY: Well, look, that’s a whole very complex issue you’ve raised there. Just to go back to the point though about is this one event or not: we’re not talking about one event here, we’re talking about an emerging trend. And we can see that that trend is entirely consistent with what the climate scientists have been saying for years. It’s taking us into new climatic territory here in Australia as we break more records. Blizzards: look, we don’t know. Is that due to cold conditions or not? Sometimes when you’ve got very warm oceans, you get a lot of evaporation and you get more snowfall. So I think just to jump to the conclusion that you’re seeing a blizzard somewhere, it’s not telling you anything, that single event, about the climatic trend.
    LEIGH SALES: So does that mean now when people do see an extreme weather event, they can say it’s due to climate change, because as I say, in the past we’ve been cautioned not to leap to that conclusion?
    TIM FLANNERY: No, because there are a few well-attested examples in the climate community where we’ve got a very, very long record, temperature record and a very dense record, say, in Europe, where we can say a single event is due to climate change. But the statistical proof is really burdensome to do that. But that’s not what we’re seeing here. What we’re seeing is a whole slew of new records, new territory, new climatic territory, which we’re seeing in Australia and the US and in the Arctic…
    LEIGH SALES: The figures that were released last year I think that are the combined Meteorological Office in Britain figures with the East Anglia University, their climate unit, don’t they show that the pace of climate change has slowed in recent times? I’m not saying there’s no climate change, I’m just say that the pace has slowed.
    TIM FLANNERY: Sure. Look, the figures you’re referring to are a four-year forecast the Met’ Bureau does and they revise that four-year forecast every year. Now last year they just revised it down a built(sic). The warming trend was still there, they just – the amplitude of the change was less due to a series of factors…
    LEIGH SALES: So what are the implications of both the amplitude of that change that you just mentioned there and then also what you’ve found in this report today?
    TIM FLANNERY: Well, look, we published this report because the Australian public are quite frankly confused with what’s happened over this summer…
    The report shows how all of that relates to a change in climate due to the increased burden of greenhouse gases…
    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-03-04/australia-enters-new-climatic-territory-climate/4552284

    30

    • #
      Dave

      .
      Pat

      Tim is a liar and a fool.
      He starts off each little lying rant with either WELL LOOK or SURE LOOK!

      Then he has the hide to finish with:

      because the Australian public are quite frankly confused

      He was even on the Today Show with Karl this morning – denining that he said:

      the Dams would never fill.

      The only confused person is Tim Flannery – because he’s not able to cover for his old lies, so now he making more up.

      The government (ALP or LIB) should get rid of this CROOKED LIAR.

      This goose is the best advert for the case against this CAGW bulldust.

      30

      • #
        ExWarmist

        He is committed to his strategy of deceit and he will either sink or swim with it.

        My prediction is that TF (along with Karl K, and the rest of the climate crew) will end his career in ignominy.

        10

    • #
      Crakar24

      Well, look
      Sure, look
      Well, look
      No
      Look
      Sure, look
      Well, look

      What kind of education does this man have? and no his is not a climate scientist, he is not an ex-politician he does not even drive a train. Another jibberingly stunning performance by the village idiot.

      70

    • #
      Bulldust

      What I get from his dribblings at the ABC is that all warming events are a clear sign of the coming apocalypse, but a blizzard or extreme cold event is hard to explain.

      At least, come September, Flannery will be out of a job and some savings will be made. The man is an embarrassment to science in general.

      52

    • #
      DaveA

      I’m half way through. Leigh is doing a fairly good job challenging him, suppose even Their ABC has a BS threshold.

      TF: “…we’re not talking about one event here, we’re talking about an emerging trend. And we can see that that trend is entirely consistent with what the climate scientists have been saying for years”

      No Flannery, you ARE talking about one event here! You’re talking about one particularly hot summer, you aren’t showing any trend at all. They sit and wait for a hot summer and then tell everyone that climate change has struck, but ignore the mundane weather that surrounds it.

      50

  • #
    Dennis

    A bloke at the Rooty Hill RSL Club has calculated that this week will be one of the hottest on the political climate change scale since records began. The hot potato scale is apparently what he based his calculations after consulting a master of hyperbole and puffery by the name of Flannery who lives alongside a tidal river closer to the east coast. Flannery apparently expressed concern about this event and that it will probably result in his own political demise. The BOM back room plotters should consult Flannery about his reflections and how he would on reflection approach matters differently if he could start all over again. Reputation is a valuable item, we all only get one.

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  • #
    pat

    LOL…

    California cancels CO2 permit sale amid no demand
    SAN FRANCISCO, March 4 (Reuters Point Carbon) – The California Air Resources Board (ARB) on Friday said that since no covered entities have signaled their intent to purchase high-priced allowances from the state’s reserve, the March 8 sale has been cancelled…
    http://www.pointcarbon.com/news/1.2206612?&ref=searchlist

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    • #
      Dennis

      Back when the US west was wild when people learnt that snake oil was not what the salesmen claimed it to be they shot the salesmen and nobody wanted snake oil.

      31

    • #
      ExWarmist

      Oh dear – another step towards bankruptcy for California.

      Mind you – how long before Americans are forced to buy carbon credits with their 401ks (even if indirectly).

      Just because something is an appallingly bad idea doesn’t mean that it won’t happen.

      21

      • #
        Roy Hogue

        Not to worry! There is already some thinking going on about nationalizing 401K and IRA accounts with the rather obvious intent of the government getting its hands on that money, one way or another. It will soon enough be as evil to get above a certain rate of return on your investments as it is now evil to have a better employer provided health plan than His Majesty The Great Obama approves of.

        The bad ideas will always hang around the longest — most of them live forever.

        10

    • #
      Streetcred

      It’s not surprising, their industry has migrated to Texas. The Hollywood film industry should pay up, their members seem to be well entrenched in favour of their Carbon Tax. The token Prius is not acceptable.

      20

  • #
    janama

    Here’s an interesting stat.

    According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics the average maximum temperature for Sydney in January is 26.1C and February is 26.4C

    Link Here

    According to the BoM record for Sydney 2013 the mean maximum temperature for Sydney in January was 25.9 and for February it was 25.8

    Link Here

    So according to the Bureau of Statistics both January and February 2013 were below average temperatures!

    Is this due to the difference between Average and Mean?

    20

    • #
      Andrew McRae

      > Is this due to the difference between Average and Mean?

      Unless they used a geometric mean for temperature, no.
      The “average” is another name for the arithmetic mean.

      The numbers are different due to different time windows:
      BoS: “Averages are for the period (1971–2000)”
      BoM: “Summary statistics for all years” (goes back to 1858)

      10

  • #
    inedible hyperbowl

    The BoM is doing the thing I hate most. Fiddling the data.
    This is worse than an accountant fiddling the books.

    31

    • #
      Gee Aye

      your evidence?

      15

      • #
        janama

        Here’s the BoM’s chart for the record summer.

        BoM Poster

        They claim Birdsville had it’s hottest day at 49C yet in Dec 1972 Birdsville recorded 49.5C
        They claim Rockhampton had record rain at 349mm yet in in 1974 Rockhampton recorded 660.2mm

        The whole poster is a case of fiddling the data!

        40

        • #
          Dave

          .
          Janama,
          That’s right – they’ve totally ignored the data from Birdville Police Station weather station Dec 1972. Why?

          1. They’re just lying and don’t care.
          2. They’ve made a mistake.

          Sounds very like BOM have caught Tim Flannery syndrome.

          20

          • #
            Tim

            It’s a global warmista syndrome. They’re all singing for the same choirmaster.

            21

          • #
          • #
            Ian George

            Nice One
            As far as Walgett is concerned, the BOM uses the Council Depot to compare the two highest temperatures (48.0C in 1973 with 48.5C in 2013). So if it is OK to use different sites for comparison, then your argument doesn’t stand up.
            Walgett AP did not start until 1993, so the ‘record’, under your reckoning is only 20 years old.
            In fact, the BOM won’t consider temps before 1910.
            But if you think the BOM records are great, why has 2009 been ‘downgraded’ from 2nd hottest year to the 3rd hottest year in only 12 months (has been replaced by 1998)? It has been adjusted down 0.9C and 1998 has been adjusted up 0.12C.
            Check the 2011 and 2012 BOM annual summaries if you don’t believe me.

            10

        • #
          inedible hyperbowl

          Aye the evidence.

          21

        • #
          Andrew McRae

          As a taxpayer I hope I get my slice of the gigantic cherry pie they must be baking.

          11

        • #

          a poster is not data. C’mon, evidence.

          01

        • #
          Nice One

          Perhaps you should have read the report instead of glancing over the glossy poster. Then you would not have made this stupid error.

          The report lists the Birdsville record of 49 degrees as the hottest JANUARY temperature.

          http://climatecommission.gov.au/wp-content/uploads/Angry-Summer-amended-040313-web.pdf

          It also stated that Birdsville had a record 31 consecutive days of 40° or above. You missed that fact too.

          01

          • #
            Dave

            .

            Nice one – it’s my error – the Poster says Hottest Summer Record – but Poster also says Hottest January Record. It should be fixed up so they all read the same.

            1. Climate Commission Poster – Walgett Hottest day on record 48.5 deg C.
            2. BOM data 13th Jan 2013 Walgett – 48.5 deg C
            3. BOM data 3rd January 1903 – 49.2 deg C

            Not sure what you’re after GeeAye for evidence – but I only have access to BOM data.

            Nice One – I am only as you often state, a LAYMAN that should listen to the experts in the field – all I want is the truth – not some mouthpiece like Flannery putting together a media spruke full of SHlT and lies.

            GeeAye: you are obviously very smart in the field of peer review, science, etc – but this is a site for anyone to comment – why do you continually ask for evidence, peer review definitions, etc etc. Surely you know – and if you do – why didn’t you pick up on the error Nice One managed highlight above – or are YFOS?

            00

          • #
            Nice One

            Geee. A poster with multiple types of records on it. Who would have thought. Not you obviously.

            1. Climate Commission Poster – Walgett Hottest day on record 48.5 deg C.
            2. BOM data 13th Jan 2013 Walgett – 48.5 deg C
            3. BOM data 3rd January 1903 – 49.2 deg C

            They are different Walgett sites. Did you homogenise the data before comparison? I doubt it.

            It would be interesting to see what the Council Depot would have recorded if it were still open. During the overlapping period its maximums were slightly higher than the Airports.

            a LAYMAN that should listen to the experts in the field – all I want is the truth – not some mouthpiece like Flannery putting together a media spruke full of SHlT and lies.

            You expect the truth on Nova’s site? LOL

            but this is a site for anyone to comment – why do you continually ask for evidence, peer review definitions, etc etc.

            Because reading peer-review science means you are less likely to read rubbish personal views. A blog like this one you end up spending countless hours deciding whether or not what someone said was correct.

            Your own example of BOM temps here serves as a perfect example.

            Surely you know – and if you do – why didn’t you pick up on the error Nice One managed highlight above – or are YFOS?

            Perhaps you should ask this of all people reading this blog. Why is it the BOM are presumed guilty until someone like me, with good knowledge of the temperature data, has to spend time investigating your errorneous assumptions?

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          • #
            Tristan

            Because it’s far more convenient.

            Similarly, it’s far more convenient to measure global warming via the last 17 years of atmospheric temps alone, than it is to include the rest of the data, or to observe the relationship between SOI, TSI and temperature or to take into account all the measurements of OHC, SLR, Ice mass balance or sea ice volume/extent.

            As long as you close your eyes and keep repeating the same old myopic message, you can convince yourself that you’re right and everyone else is a wealth-redistributing socialist.

            01

          • #

            Imagine not drawing conclusions from 17 years of data, while happily drawing conclusions from 34 years of data – or a few years more or less. When one is talking not about dance crazes…but about the bloody climate!

            Imagine concluding that a trend will continue, because it has continued.

            Imagine being impressed by a record broken, but not by a record standing.

            Imagine being incurious, even evasive, about the great climatic events and evolutions of the past which are so apparent from so many sources. And yet to claim an interest in climate! Gawd, just start with the CET. Or if you have to have numbers only, check out those Australian rainfall records from the 1800s onward, numbers which nobody has yet been able to fiddle. Read yourselves rich.

            You can compute, collate, calculate? That’s great. Now learn to think.

            20

          • #
            Ian George

            Nice One
            YOU don’t mention that Birdville’s records only go back to 1954 and the records are patchy at that. So it’s not much of a record to go on.
            And you still haven’t responded to my comment re Walgett above at 71.1.1.1.3.

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    Joe V.

    Glancing at that picture on the front of BOM’s alarmist statement for January, had me wondering, do they really have elephants in Aus. , like on a scene from the hot plains of the Serengeti ?

    It took a rather closer look, to realise it was just the back end of a cow.

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    Joe V.

    Climate Alarmists on Steroids. Like another Broken Record. As the travesty continues & Pachauri’s intemperate remarks about the lack of warming for all of at least 17 ! years now needs to be drowned out by telling us the Summer is getting ‘Angry’.
    And this from a Publicly Funded supposedly Scientific body.
    Here from WTF, [with link to the Report attached lower down]

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    Andrew P

    http://www.warwickhughes.com/blog/?p=604
    Very interesting
    Apparently there were Stephenson screens in use before 1900

    21

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    genie81

    If we have the hottest days why is it that Russia has recorded its coldest time of the year this last month when instead of -8c it is -18c. Friends in Surrey UK have been suffering -2c when it is usually in the +. Maybe its only Australia that is hot although some scientists in the Antarctic have recorded usual temperatures and only 1 degree hotter in the water off South America. Funny how people differ in their records. The hottest time in History frmerly in the 1100-1200s no factories, cars, electrical appliances etc. Seems that this has been forgotten.

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    […] Things are getting wearying when the ‘powers that be’ take data tampering to an art form: Mystery black-box method used to make *all new* Australian “hottest” ever records […]

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    […] to answer, not cherry-picking often UHI (Urban Heat Island) affected temp station data and suspect Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) temperature calculations to promote a Government climate agenda and massage an ideological climate […]

    00

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    […] Mystery black-box method used to make *all new* Australian “hottest” ever records « JoNova […]

    00