Let’s play the Heatwaves PR game. If CO2 had an effect we’d see a significant increase in the rate of global warming over the decades since WWII, the models would work, and climate scientists would be able to predict our climate. Since none of that is true, those with a political agenda have to clutch at noisy but marketable extremes instead. Apparently even a half-true, noisy, non-causal link is good enough for post-modern scientists.
Heatwaves are perfect for generating scientific sounding fear, but not so useful for generating actual scientific knowledge. There are an infinity of ways to measure them. They can last 3 days – 160 days, and be cut off at any number from 35 – 40C, or at some percentile outlier. They can be measured one town at a time, or on a regional or state-wide level. The permutations are rich with headline scoring possibilities. And in the end, on a long warming trend that started 300 years ago, it is obvious, inevitable, and predictable that we should score more now. What’s surprising is how often we don’t.
On ABC radio before Easter, Dr Vertessy, Director and CEO of the Bureau of Meteorology, claimed that we are seeing “of the order of five times the number of very serious heatwaves” as in the middle of last century [listen at 11 mins]. Ken Stewart wrote to Vertussy and asked what metrics he used to define heatwaves. Nearly two weeks later, Vertussy has not replied, so Ken analyzed the records himself using a 40C cut off, and also looking for the top 5% of summer maximums.
The end result is that it can be said that there happens to be more heatwaves in Adelaide, but there are less heatwaves in Sydney, Melbourne, Hobart, or Darwin. When will the BOM issue headlines declaring that for nearly nine million Australians in Hobart, Melbourne, Darwin and Sydney there are less heatwaves now than there used to be. Aren’t CO2 emissions useful?
It goes without saying (nearly) that there is older Stevenson screen data for most of these locations which isn’t included, though I “can’t think why” this important historic data would be ignored.
Melbourne — top 5% “hot scoring” days (Click to enlarge)
Melbourne — days over 40C
Sydney –days over 40C
Sydney – top 5% “hot scoring” days
Hobart — days over 40C
Darwin — top 5% “hot scoring” days
I’ve included Perth to show how useful heatwaves are to generate any headline you want.
Perth — top 5% “hot scoring” days
Perth — days over 40C
As Chris Gillham notes in an email, the Perth ACORN data comes from two stations — the airport and the inner city. But the airport’s long-term maximum is 1.2C warmer than the city, because it’s about 10 km further inland from the coast. If Guildford is used, which is closer, the warming trend would be much less.
“A far more suitable matching station for ACORN Perth Airport is Guildford Post Office, which took temps about two km due north of the current airport screen from 1901 to 1954 but which only provides monthlies and not dailies. The BoM almost certainly has the daily observation sheets and their reluctance to digitise might be due to Guildford PO 1901-1954 having a mean max of 24.8C compared to Perth Airport’s 1945-2014 mean max of 24.5C (2000-14 25.3C) and Perth RO 1897-1991 at 23.3C. The RO comparison achieves a 2C raw max increase to 2000-14 whereas the much closer neighbouring Guildford PO only warmed by 0.5C. It’s also worth noting that in the raw overlap years from June 1944 to April 1992, Perth Regional Office had 110 days at or above 40C, while Perth Airport had 175 days at or above 40C. It’s naturally hotter inland with more heatwave days.”
The end result is that politically correct scientists can find any headline they want using the Heatwave Randomiser.TM. Scientifically correct scientists would never cherry pick an irrelevant, unreliable, non-indicator. A half-truth is not The Truth.
The ABC interviewer, Richard Aedy, allows Vertessy to use blanket motherhood statements without any specific details in support against the articles in The Australian last year [at 12-15 minutes]. He’s feeding “Dorothy Dixer” questions to allow Vertessy to appear to reply, but it’s more an advertorial than an interview. Aedy has made no effort to research the questions raised in those articles. Thus a government funded public broadcaster interviews government funded public servant to produce propaganda about the success of government funding, with the prospect of a global agreement to build a bigger and less accountable layer of government in Paris later this year. The message between the lines from both is “vote for big-governments.”
Ken’s full post has graphs for other capitals.
A money quote from Solving Tornadoes …
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You can pay someone to promote a publication they haven’t even read, apparently…
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Heat waves are from global warming and cold snaps are from global warming. Is there anything the Green Blob will not use?
Does it make any difference if it is true or not?
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How far behind the times are you?
It hasn’t been global warming since – well – since the globe stopped warming, I guess. It’s
climate changeanthropogenic climate changeclimate disruption now. Or maybe they’re calling it something else this week. 😉251
Yes, but when you get through the chatter and junk, they still cite global warming caused by CO2 as the reasons for wrecking the western world and punishing to poor everywhere.
40
Do we dare hope for some warmer winters in Canada? I’d vote for that!
50
BoM and the Klimatariat need to get a divorce, the marriage has had a corrupting influence.
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A co-dependency, one might say
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What sort of government would allow a government agency to behave this way and do nothing about it? A cowardly government? An inept government?
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“What sort of government would allow a government agency to behave this way and do nothing about it? A cowardly government? An inept government?”
Well, that could be a government with an agenda which coincides with that of the activists; a government so infiltrated by the activists that it can’t now change direction; a government which has simply made the relevant agency so autonomous that the agency can make up the rules as it goes along. To differing degrees, I suspect all of these apply to most contemporary western governments.
In the case of the US, the Environmental Protection Agency (an Orwellian name, if ever there was one) seems to be completely out of control, with the blessing of Obama, but with the assistance, too, of badly drafted legislation and a bizarre legal judgement, to the effect that CO2 was a “pollutant”; also with the help of a supine Congress. Well before the Clinton e-mail scandal became public, the EPA had one of its own, when it transpired that then-head Lisa Jackson used an e-mail address in the name “Richard Windsor”, to send e-mails which she’d prefer hoi polloi never to see. It seems to be administration policy now to allow the EPA to declare the law to be whatever it wants, in the knowledge that Congress won’t object.
In Britain, we have a monstrosity called the Department of Energy and Climate Change, set up by Gordon Brown, which is a department with, plainly, a built-in government agenda. It is stuffed to to the rafters with greenpeace-style ideologues. I am pretty sure that a new DECC civil servant won’t last twenty seconds, if he/she doesn’t take an oath of fealty to the warmist creed. It must be quite a lot like one of those university campuses with a “safe speech” rule. One activist, Bryony Worthington, was permitted to write the disastrous “Climate Change Act”. The minister in charge of the department was Ed Miliband who (God help us) could be PM in under three weeks. Bryony Worthington was rewarded with elevation to the Lords, so now she potentially gets to vote on her own legislation, if anyone tries to repeal it.
Elsewhere, the Meteorological Office has been beating the alarmist drum for many years, as have quangos without number; likewise, the completely bought-and-sold Royal Society. James Delingpole just brought to light an instance of the Arts Council’s insistence on “sustainability”. As far as I know, the Arts Council has yet to adjudicate on the destruction of England’s landscapes. We have separate quangos for ignoring the destruction of landscapes in Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland.
It seems to me as though (from my very distant and sketchy perspective), Australia has a ruling party which does, at least, include some openly sceptical members, but I’d hazard a guess that the green entryism into the corridors of power has been just as extensive in Canberra as in Whitehall and DC. Undoubtedly, the BOM and a number of universities appear to be dedicated to the warmist cause, regardless of the evidence.
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Vertessy must be pursued over these remarks until he properly responds. Otherwise he will simply make them again, again and again…,
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i assume these figures are taken from the ‘new improved’ homogenised Acorn data.
It would be interesting to see what the raw data has to say.
A simple way of curing the problem of fibbing bureaucrats would be …………….rats, I can’t think of one which would not create more pointless bureaucrats.
Sigh………….
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Yes, Peter, sorry, the graphs are from BoM ACORN data.
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I can. But — private funding in the free market. Real debate.
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Jo,
You could always look into the $4 mill Mr Abbott just donated to fund Bjorn Lomborg’s research.
Must be good – Tim Flannery just had a hissy fit.
It may be well worth donating to privately.
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17 April: News Ltd: AGL commits to closing power stations
ELECTRICITY giant AGL will close its coal fired power stations by 2050 under a new greenhouse gas policy.
THE owner of three coal fired power stations, Loy Yang in Victoria and the Bayswater and Liddell stations in NSW, has also committed to not build, finance or buy any new coal fired stations in Australia…
AGL will continue to invest in renewable energy sources, he added, and work to improve the greenhouse gas efficiency of its operations, which also include gas fired power stations, solar power and electricity retail…
He also called on the government to encourage investment in low emission energy technology.
http://www.news.com.au/finance/business/agl-commits-to-closing-power-stations/story-e6frfkur-1227308145832
what a headline in Murdoch’s Business Spectator!
17 April: Business Spectator: Tristan Edis: Is AGL really leaving the dark side?
AGL’s new CEO, Andy Vesey, is clearly trying to reposition perceptions of AGL as the company comes under attack from environmentalists as part of the “big dirty 3” with Origin Energy and EnergyAustralia. AGL now stands out like a sore thumb as Australia’s largest greenhouse gas polluter with its ownership of three of Australia’s largest coal-fired power stations – Loy Yang A, Bayswater and Liddell.
First came his management restructure this week where he promoted the company’s division focused on selling energy efficiency and solar products and services to a stand-alone reporting group, rather than having it sit under either their retail or power generation divisions.
And today the company has announced a new policy for how it will position itself on the issue of climate change policy.
According to Vesey, “to support the Commonwealth Government’s commitment to work towards the two degree goal, companies such as AGL need to take the lead”.
He notes, “It is important that government policy incentivise investment in lower-emitting technology while at the same time ensuring that older, less efficient and reliable power stations are removed from Australia’s energy mix. Decarbonisation and modernisation of Australia’s electricity system are important goals requiring effective policy.”…
They promise to not acquire any more coal power stations. But given the ACCC tried to block their earlier acquisition of the Macgen power stations, they would probably face competition regulatory constraints to a future acquisition anyway. Furthermore it probably wouldn’t be a terribly sound commercial move given how long the company already is in power generation and their very high exposure to future carbon regulatory moves. This also goes for their commitment not to invest in constructing any new coal fired power station. The large oversupply of power generation, plus the carbon regulatory risk associated with such a power plant makes it completely unbankable anyway…
They’ve also said they’ll close all their existing coal fired power stations by 2050 – yet all three of them are scheduled to retire before 2050 anyway.
Of far greater consequence though is that AGL has said it will not extend the life of any of its existing coal-fired power stations. Coal fired power stations’ life can be extended a considerable time beyond their original design life through refurbishments, so a commitment to not do this is important.
It doesn’t mean much for their biggest polluter Loy Yang A because it isn’t scheduled to retire until 2048. Also Bayswater would still be around until 2035. But Liddell is scheduled for retirement in 2022. Based on data presented by the prior CEO Michael Fraser, Liddell’s cost structure is quite competitive, so there would be a strong temptation to refurbish such a plant. This makes this commitment more than symbolic…
http://www.businessspectator.com.au/article/2015/4/17/energy-markets/agl-really-leaving-dark-side
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Say, how wonderful is this news then: (my bolding)
Such wonderful news if they all proceed out to 2050.
Loy Yang will have been in operation for 65 years.
Liddell will have been in operation for 77 years.
Bayswater will have been in operation for 65 years.
AGL will have so long recovered their investment cost that they will be laughing all the way to the bank.
Renewable plants, any of them, anywhere, will be so envious of these plants life span.
In fact, at some time in the near future, a wind plant will become a thought bubble somewhere. It will proceed from that thought bubble to planning, and from there to construction. It will come on line some time in 2025, proudly delivering its power, umm, free, thanks to the blowing wind. This same wind plant, not even a thought bubble now, will be useless and closed before Loy Yang, Liddell, and Bayswater close.
And hey, dear old Tristan Edis will be standing there in his bathroom tomorrow morning Saturday 18th April 2015, lathering up for a shave, and looking in the mirror with such a proud look on his face. The image looking back at him from his mirror will be ever so quietly whispering to him.
“God, you’re a bl00dy idiot!”
I hate to use current euphemisms, but right now I’m LOL.
These idiots think this is a victory.
God save me from idiots.
Tony.
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Umm, moderators, 6.1 in moderation?????
Offending words?????
Beats me.
Tony.
[“idiot” is what stopped it. Fortunately mods have leeway to decide the issue in your favor and this is too good to snip. Just remember this in the future. Thanks.] AZ
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Humanity is amongst one of the most adaptable species to temperatures and other climatic conditions in all of biology.
Some of this is due to the fact that we are a naked ape.
We don’t have a permanent body coverage of any type so we wear protective and by other species standards, artificial coverage which we can adjust literally in seconds to cater for very large shifts in local temperatures.
But we go even further.
In addition to devising highly protective structures ie; houses and buildings and unlike other species that also have protective structures be they burrows or hollows in trees or ice dens and etc, we have learnt to modify the internal climate of these structures, these buildings to fit our own comfort levels which helps to relieve the heavy stress of having to face extreme outside weather conditions for many hours by being able to relax and recharge in the far more comfortable personally rated climate inside of the / home / house/ office/ factory.
This highly adaptive trait of using artificial body covering plus technology to alleviate the stress of operating in very hot or very cold or unpleasant conditions has also allowed mankind to adapt to and live in and make habitable just about every single location of the planet’s land surfaces.
Extremes of temperature, ie; heat waves and etc, should really be measured as a standardised temperature gap between the ambient average temperature of a location and the highest temperatures recorded over a standardised period.
Currently there is just one basic temperature of roughly around 40 plus C, regardless of the range of local average temperatures, that if occurring for a few days then comes under the heading of a “Heat Wave”.
A couple of examples;
Dallol a former mining town now abandoned, in the Afar depression in Ethiopia was the hottest permanently inhabited place on earth.
[quoted ]
During the early 1960s, an American mining company conducted a geological survey of the Danakil. It was in Dallol the team measured the record average temperature of 96° Fahrenheit (35°C). The daily high will frequently eclipse 115°F (46°C).
Then there is Mecca;
Mecca is the hottest continuously inhabited place on Earth, according to Weather Underground. How hot does it get there? Well, do you consider 101 degrees a hot day? Because that’s the average high in Mecca in April. Now think about the tourist boom in Mecca that comes with every Ramadan, which in 2014 fell during July, when the city is a nice, frosty 109 degrees every day, though it’s been known to hit 121 on occasion.
A couple of anecdotes;
One of my daughters has been a nurse in Darwin for some 17 years now. She tells the story of how a new nurse from Tasmania turned up at work soon after arrival and to the stunned Darwinians who were bitterly complaining of the cold and had what passes for winter woolies on up there, were told by the new nurse that she had to have the A/C on all night as it was so hot that she couldn’t sleep without it on.
The night temperature was 23 C.
From the Readers Digest many, many years, half a lifetime ago in fact.
A couple of Alaskans were working on a boat repair along with a middle aged Inuit [ called Eskimos in those days ]. Soon after midday the old Inuit announced he was leaving and heading north as it was getting too damn hot for him and he couldn’t take this heat anymore.
It was 32. F [ 0.0.C ]
Heat waves and temperatures are relative to what we are adapted to, often illustrated down here when in mid winter the thermometer might reach the mid 20’s and everybody is shedding clothing left right and center.
In the middle of summer we are putting extra clothes on at temperatures below the mid 20’s as it is getting a bit on the chilly side at those temperatures.
Or the contrast between Hobart and it’s mean average maximum temperature of 16.9C and its mean minimum average of 8.3C and Marble Bar with it’s mean maximum temperature of 35.4C and its mean minimum of 20.1C.
Whats a bloody hot day with Marble Bar average level temperatures or a period of days of similar temperatures in Hobart , a Hobartian heat wave, doesn’t really rate very high in Marble Bar.
So just what is a “Heat Wave” officially?
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Not sure how my post above got up this high as it was around number # 20 when I started so apologies to all who should have been above me
30
Gday Rom
You are correct. That’s why I used daily temperatures in the top 5% for each day at each location, calculated from 1961-1990. 3 days in a row or more of that defines my heatwaves. Hot is a relative concept as you show. Heatwave length and intensity is determined by advection- winds- more precisely wind direction and strength. A 10 year running count of days in heatwaves shows long term trends (which are definitely not linear).
40
A “heat wave” is something described by the ABC, BBC MSN or other press folk in an endeavour to seek attention and increase sales. It often has no standing, but so what.
The word “evahhhhh” is often associated with the descriptions.
10
Tony you should have used the more politically correct term: “mentally challenged” I think it might have passed!
30
Just forgot to carry the 0s through to idi0t. You can never have enough 0s.
10
Tony,
Building new coal fired power stations in 2050 might be considered by folk at that time to be a brilliant idea.
It would then be analogous to “the best invention since the reinvention of unsliced bread”.
The power station designs at that time will be “off-the-shelf” from any Chinese engineering design office.
20
@pat:
This makes the commitment more than symbolic.
Not really, it might be a realistic assessment that the green [snip] won’t last very long.
Why rule out an up-grade; cheaper and more profitable than “renewables” AND more reliable. They get favourable publicity until reality is the vogue.
So, either the head of AGL is mad or he is left out the likely end. Guess which I favour?
50
Release Tony From Ozs comment
These power stations represent over 6,000 MW and close to 1/3 of Aussie baseload
I have a feeling AGL is going for GAS, GAS & more GAS
Good returns with a few Wind Mills operating in the district
Come on Mods
60
While the great work being done by Ken Stewart and others needs to be seen and understood by the masses they are spoon fed absolute drivel and lies from the MSM such as Waleed Aly on channel 10’s The Project, this is so infuriating on so many levels but the clincher is no one will be allowed to go on and take these sweeping statements of green idealism apart, Andrew Bolt would be a great choice but they wouldn’t want to upset too many “PC man child” egos and the Bolter would probably be accused of racism to boot.
Message to Waleed, if you want to use your position to promote beliefs, at least be adult enough to front the counter views face to face or not bother in the first place, honestly if free to air TV disappeared overnight I wouldn’t miss it or the clowns appearing on it.
[Minor editing applied] Fly
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“under climate warming, cold air outbreaks, or CAOs, are projected to continue over North America”:
15 April: Phys.org: Cold snaps linger despite climate change
Keep a winter coat and mittens handy. A new climate analysis from scientists at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the University of Reading (UK) found that under climate warming, cold air outbreaks, or CAOs, are projected to continue over North America but less frequently. In a geographic swath stretching from Alaska and southwestern Canada to the northwestern and mid-western United States, the top five coldest historical events may still happen. Indeed, as humans, ecosystems, and societal infrastructures adapt to an average warmer climate, these findings show continued future challenges in coping with extreme cold events…
“Our research isolated the changes of future cold air outbreaks to changes in the mean, the variance, and the skewness of daily surface air temperature” said Dr. Yang Gao, postdoctoral researcher and atmospheric scientist at PNNL. “Our analysis identified processes that will regulate future CAOs and climate factors that conspire to produce a distinct spatial pattern of CAO changes in North America.”…
Cold air outbreaks may be more deadly than extreme heat spells. Certainly, they cause large economic losses through damages to crops, energy and other life-sustaining infrastructure. Looking at a large suite of climate simulations from multiple models allowed scientists in this study to identify common climate features that project cold air outbreaks in the future.
The PNNL-led research team analyzed model outputs from 26 global climate models used in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report (AR5)…
The team will analyze a multi-model ensemble of global climate simulations to examine changes in extreme events such as heat waves and drought. Further, they will analyze their potential linkages with atmospheric blocking and other atmospheric circulation features and surface conditions, as the same features could have very different effects on climate extremes on the other end of the extreme spectrum.
More information: “Persistent Cold Air Outbreaks over North America in a Warming Climate.” Environmental Research Letters 10(044001). DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/10/4/044001
http://phys.org/news/2015-04-cold-snaps-linger-climate.html
“extreme winters” not connected to “climate change”!
Climate Change Does Not Cause Extreme Winters in the Northeast
Science World Report-29 Mar 2015
It turns out that cold snaps, like the ones that hit the eastern United States over the past few winters, are not connected with climate change…
easier if the MSM stick to HEATWAVES anyway, if we’re supposed to be scared of manmade global warming!
Increase in frequency and intensity of heat waves in Malta projected
Malta Independent Online-10 Apr 2015
Spain could face 50 degree heatwaves by 2050
Global Times-8 Apr 2015
California Facing Extreme Heat Waves and Rising Seas
Bloomberg-2 Apr 2015
Folic acid may help elderly weather heat waves
Penn State News-31 Mar 2015
Can London cope with more heatwaves and flooding?
Business Green-25 Mar 2015
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In her Statement to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on the 15th
April, Dr Judith Curry commented:
‘Efforts to link dangerous impacts of extreme
weather events, to human caused- warming are
misleading and unsupported by evidence.’ …
‘Many extreme weather events have documented relationships with natural climate variability
in the U.S. extreme weather events,( drought,
heat waves and hurricanes) were significantly
worse in the 1930’s and 1950’s.’
http://science.house.gov/sites/republicans.science.house.gov/files/documents/HHRG-114-SY-WState-JCurry-20150415_0.pdf
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West of Sydney, on the other side of the sandstone curtain, Bathurst appears to have missed out on late 20th Century warming.
http://www.mythandthemurray.org/no-increase-in-hot-days-at-bathurst-or-the-misguided-politics-of-attributing-bushfires-to-global-warming/
92
Late 20th century warming may be due mainly to warmer oceans in the area, which may explain why coastal nights and winters have warmed, but summer daytime temperatures (determined mainly by the sun heating the ground) have not.
Bathurst may be too far away from the ocean for it to have any significant effect on temperatures.
20
My hat is doffed in the general direction of the Australian Government :-
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/04/17/aussie-government-gives-4-million-to-bjorn-lomborg-to-set-up-a-consensus-centre/#comment-1909524
$4million aussie for a centre of excellence to be run by Bjorn Lomborg !
A small step in the right direction. Maybe Jo can get a part time lecturer role?
Tim Flannery calls it an insult to Science ,,hahahahaahahahahahahaah.
The whole pseudo scientific climate debate is nothing more than an insult to rational people and real scientists.
222
Bjorn Lomberg is a catch on whatevah criteriah
yer may choose ter elect! )
41
Oops! Lomborg. (
41
I said that I would publish my letter to the Hon Mr Bob Baldwin about the BOM forum. This seems like an appropriate place since the thread is partly about the BOM.
Dear Mr Baldwin.
Re:
Technical Advisory Forum for the Australian Climate Observations Reference Network Surface Air Temperature data-set
Terms of Reference
http://www.environment.gov.au/minister/baldwin/2015/pubs/technical-advisory-forum-tor.pdf
The Department of the Environment has released the Terms of reference for the
Technical Advisory Forum for the Australian Climate Observations Reference Network Surface Air Temperature data-set .
This document is undated and does not identify the author. However your name is included in the link, so I assume you that you are familiar with it.
On the face of it the establishment of the Forum fulfils a recommendation of the Peer Review Panel which reviewed the Australian Climate Observations Reference Network Surface Air Temperature data-set (ACORN-SAT) in August 2011, only 3 years late.
It is hard to see how the Forum could properly discuss even the limited aims included in the Terms of Reference in the proposed time frame of 1 day, once a year. It looks like a white wash designed from the start to confirm the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) methods.
I am asking you, as the responsible Minister, to establish an enquiry, which would examine specific complaints about the Bureau of Meteorology raised by critics.
Examples of these complaints are:
1. The BOM ignores long term climate observations taken in Australia before 1910. The records include some very hot years during the 1890’s and the Federation drought. These records could significantly alter the Bureau’s public view that temperatures in Australia have increased and that the increase is due to human burning of fossil fuels (Anthropogenic Global Warming).
2. The BOM adjusts the climate records at particular sites by a process they call homogenisation. The adjustments seem to create an overall pattern of warming which was not present in the original data.
3. The particular method of adjustment has not been made public . This should be done and the nature and the reasons for the adjustments should be detailed for each and every site, as well as any overall processing or averaging involved in calculating the Australian Mean temperature.
4. The BOM seems to have redacted data for weather stations in the path of the recent Cyclone Marcia in Queensland. The Bureau maintains that Cyclone Marcia was a category 5 cyclone when it crossed the coast, but the previously available wind data from BOM stations only indicate a category 3 cyclone.
The BOM appears complicit in encouraging a noisy minority who are convinced about catastrophic anthropogenic global warming and are calling for government actions to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Actions taken so far have already hurt Australians socially and financially;
Subsidies for solar panels and wind farms cost tax payers directly .
High electricity prices as the result of feed in tariffs are costing manufacturing jobs because we are uncompetitive with other countries.
The government has already made large contributions of our precious tax dollars to the UN for combating global warming and more in promised.
A carbon trading scheme would be a disaster, not just for our country.
It is essential that the Theories of anthropogenic global warming are tested against reliable observations, before the Government commits any more public money. There is no evidence at this time of any catastrophic outcomes. The BOM has a crucial role to play here. Hence the BOM must be seen to be both accurate and scientifically impartial.
Yours Sincerely
232
And the reply is here:
Thank you for your letter of 16 March 2015 to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for
the Environment, the Hon Bob Baldwin MP, concerning climate change and the Australian
Climate Observations Reference Network – Surface Air Temperature (ACORN-SAT) Technical
Advisory Forum. The Parliamentary Secretary has passed your letter to me for reply.
The Australian Government takes its primary advice on climate change science from the
Bureau of Meteorology and the^CStRO. Given tne^impOTtance oTunderstal^Tng”the long-term
temperature trends affecting Australia, the Bureau has instituted extensive safeguards to
ensure the integrity of the ACORN-SAT data set, including rigorous review and improvement
processes. In 2011, the Bureau initiated an independent peer review of ACORN-SAT by
international experts to investigate the robustness of its observing practices, station selection,
data homogenisation, calculation of trends and overall confidence in ACORN-SAT.
The review ranked the Bureau’s procedures and data analysis as among the best in the world,
and made 31 recommendations for the future management of ACORN-SAT. Of these, 18 have
been completed and 13 are now being addressed, including the recommendation to establish
a technical advisory group to review progress on ACORN-SAT’s development and operation.
To implement this recommendation, the Parliamentary Secretary has appointed an
independent Technical Advisory Forum comprised of respected external scientists and
statisticians. The Forum’s working arrangements, including the way in which the Chair works
with other Forum members, are decisions for the Forum to consider at its first meeting.
To ensure the Forum’s independent operation, the Bureau of Meteorology has asked the
Department of the Environment to manage Forum membership and provide support to the
Forum Chair, Dr Ron Sandland AM FTSE. The Forum’s conduct will be made transparent by
online publication of agenda papers and minutes, the Forum report and the Bureau response.
Although the Forum is not a public inquiry and its terms of reference do not provide for
consideration of public submissions, Dr Sandland has indicated that he will provide your letter
to all Forum members in advance of their first meeting to ensure that members are aware of
the matters you raise during their deliberations.
Yours sincerely
First Assistant Secretary
Climate Change and Renewable Energy Division
This part looks good
Nothing seen yet, but maybe they will publish agenda, minutes and their report.
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Peter C,
Thanks for posting this and the reply you received.
Considering that heatwaves are calculated using the ACORN-SAT data-set, this thread is the perfect place to review your comments on the Technical Advisory Forum set up to review that data-set.
Although I won’t have time to comment on the actual content, I felt the need to at least mention the timeliness of your comments and their relevance to this thread. Kudos for your efforts.
Abe
120
Jo, those graphs are great, but just a touch too small. I can’t read the writing. Can we get them a little bigger?
81
If you click they will enlarge. But I shall adjust as well.
Jo
10
@Turtle, there’s a link to the original post at the end of this one. There you get larger graphs by clicking on them.
60
Thanks Ben.
10
Who denies coal/carbon(sic) causes cold?
ClimateCentral, April 16, 2015: U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions Spiked 2 Percent in 2013
That surge was fueled, in large part, because of a growing economy, falling coal prices and a cold winter, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced Thursday in its annual greenhouse gas emissions inventory.
~ ~ ~
National Geographic, May 10, 2014: As the World Warms, Part of the American Southeast Cools
There are several explanations for regional “global warming hole,” scientists say
Although the Deep South has a reputation for hot, steamy weather, part of the Southeastern United States actually experienced cooler-than-normal temperatures in the years between 1991 and 2012.
The pollution emitted by coal-fired power plants may have contributed to cooler temperatures in some regions of the Southeast.
50
handjive,
They refuse to acknowledge the warming has stopped and the cooling is well under way so the call it a “hole” in global warming! FFS!
Abe
121
OT, but interesting. Check out WUWT here: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/04/17/aussie-government-gives-4-million-to-bjorn-lomborg-to-set-up-a-consensus-centre/
72
Spot on Jo, just that little bit further from the coast and a bit longer each day before the “Fremantle Doctor” arrives. For the non native West Ozzies, the “Fremantle Doctor” is the sea breeze. Natures own air conditioner.
90
Nature’s own hair dryer too! When we first visited Perth I asked my DIL if I could borrow a hair dryer. She’s very droll and said “Of course. You have a choice of two; the one that plugs into the socket or the one that will arrive shortly on the verandah!”.
40
Yes, there are days in Perth summers when the Easterly is blustering through after a 2000km trip over the deserts of the driest continent. When it’s 40C and 0% humidity at 30km/hr I can hang out washing and bring it back in in the same trip ;-).
20
No. The message between the lines is, “vote for less freedoms”!
90
Here we have a pilot heatwave service, which only exists because the Klimatariat told us heatwaves will increase under ‘climate change’
http://www.bom.gov.au/australia/heatwave/about.shtml
62
Interesting, the graphs for Melbourne certainly seem to confirm a personal impression, but that’s only an impression.
Thanks to Ken Stewart and Jo.
Poor Adelaide residents.
“Wind power has become a significant energy source within South Australia over the past decade. As of August 2014, there was an installed capacity of 1,473 MW, which accounts for 27 per cent of electricity production in the state. This represents around half of the nation’s installed wind power …” (Wiki).
Fat lot of good it’s done them ‘warming-wise’, “SA power bills, some of the highest in the world two years ago, continue to rise …”.
111
It’s bizarre, future historians will be amazed, S.A.’s Olympic Dam has “the largest known single deposit of uranium in the world” (Wiki) and yet they’re mucking around with windmills.
141
Say, listen ter that thrum …!
50
At least the heat is friendly. Look! It’s waving at us as it goes by. Shouldn’t we at least wave back? That seems like the friendly thing to do. And besides, what else can you do? Nothing I would think. The heat will be there as it pleases and we might as well get used to it. 😉
The scientists seem to be there as they please too and we can’t do much about them either. Unfortunately they aren’t so friendly and don’t wave at us as they go by. I wish they were as easy to ignore as the heat. 🙁
Comment generated by the Comment Randomizer TM, version 3.2.104
60
A ‘heatwave’ that lasts a few days,
Affects warmists in several ways,
As they bask on the beach,
They continue to preach,
That CO2 is what causes heat haze.
80
A cold snap is a term to underplay,
Freezing weather that comes our way,
For both Arhennius’ Laws and the Warmistas’ Cause,
Say the mercury’s gone the wrong way.
(Apologies to both Ruairi and the conventions of the art.)
60
Perhaps second line:
Freezing weather that’s here to stay,
to avoid the obvious error in the original?
30
That’s the thing about spontaneous verse.
It can become a whole lot more spontaneous once you’ve slept on it. 😉
30
Like the best Art, it grows on you.
Lovely rhyming and timing once it gets going.
30
More people DIE from cold than heat each year. More people die of starvation from poor food and water distribution than from “heat” related drought. More people suffer from “exposure” to cold than heat. Greenies will never see the pattern that history has already shown us and continues today.
90
I don’t want to downplay this. It’s true. However, let’s not ignore the fact that heat poses a significant threat to many people, in particular, the elderly and the sick in general. My doctor has warned me over and over about not letting myself get dehydrated when it’s hot.
Without anything to do with the climate change problem, we have a lot of sufficiently hot days around the world to be a threat to the vulnerable. And I don’t want to downplay this either. It’s a very real risk.
20
Very good point Roy. Especially when combined with real air pollution and still air (that wouldn’t be able to turn the wind turbines to power air conditioners in the future).
Athens 1987
Paris 2003 and not a peep about Global Warming from the socialists who just blamed the Government
10
Some bright spark climate expert points to the average homogenized data data which shows a different picture there a number of things to remind them about.
First, climate change are meant to make the weather more extreme. The published data contradicts this.
Second, the data can include legitimate adjustments for the urban heat island effect. But this is done by adjusting the past, not the present temperatures. If the adjustment is insufficient, or not done, or is out the date (as is often is the case) the present averages will be artificially inflated.
The is a third reason that is far more difficult to understand. Data is homogenized to literally “make the data homogenous“. The weather stations are inconveniently spaced for creation of national, regional or global temperature anomalies. In principle there is nothing wrong in homogenization. But the method is to load these spatial homogenization adjustments onto real temperature stations rather than creating fictional, evenly-spaced, grid reference points, along with adjusting the past. What results is that temperature anomalies for individual locations cease to be any reflection of the real world. Further, there are biases in the homogenization methods, and a lack of sense-checking the results (a common fault in climate science) that means warming trends tend to be increased, and historical natural fluctuations tend to be supressed.
50
Creating “fictional grid reference points” for the homogenized data seems like a much better idea than adjusting the real data. It could even be an original idea!
Unfortunately the BOM did not think of it. Maybe if the BOM technical advice forum ever meets again we could suggest it to them.
40
Thanks Peter C
The standard methods of homogenization were probably first developed by James Hansen, recently retired director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies.
There is an important distinction to be made when looking at temperature data. Homogenization is necessary to build up a global temperature anomaly. But in so doing it smooths out the local deviations from the wider trend. These exist all over the world (for instance in Paraguay at the end of the 1960s, when there was a clear fall in average temperature of 1C). They might be chaotic noise or they might be signs of a complexity in climate that is beyond our current understanding. Either way it needs to be smoothed, as there may be other, more significant local anomalies that are not picked up due to the lack of data.
This leads to a paradox. The global temperature anomalies might be very poor for properly understanding climate. Homogenization creates an inevitable bias towards the global trends, and against the idea of strong chaotic elements (that can throw out apparent patterns) or the importance of localized patterns. It can therefore give a pretense of knowledge, demonstrated by the complete inability of anyone using the data to make remotely accurate future forecasts. The problem for many is that there are, and always will be limits to our knowledge of the real world. Every statistic will be an approximation filled with unknown biases and to some extent conditioned by our beliefs about the world.
This idea is not my own. Frederich von Hayek titles his 1974 Nobel Prize Lecture “The Pretense of Knowledge“. Hayek applied this to economics, but it equally applies to our beliefs and knowledge about climate.
50
I think you have it wrong in your article. Dr Rob Vertessy says “very severe heatwaves”, not “very serious heatwaves”. He is referring to the BOMs Pilot Heatwave Service
http://www.bom.gov.au/australia/heatwave/index.shtml
The BOM defines a heatwave as 3 days or more of high maximum and minimum temperatures that is usual for that location. So the heatwave index is going to be calibrated for a particular location, just plotting out Very Hot Days may not show much.
One thing about AGW is the effect operates at night more than during the day – not surprising when you consider the physics involved.
02
For the heck of it, I did a decadal analysis of very hot days (>40C) on an inland station ie away from the coast.
I got an upward trend in very hot days.
1910s 36
1920s 39
1930s 39
1940s 45
1950s 21
1960s 33
1970s 36
1980s 55
1990s 42
2000s 60
01
Harry Twinotter,
What station did you survey and where did the data come from?
Abe
00
Harry Twinotter,
I’m not sure I get how AGW operates more at night. Could you explain?
Abe
00
Backscatter IR radiation has a larger relative effect at night because in general it is IR radiation loss that cools the earth’s surface during the night. The relative effect is less during the day. The signature of this is a larger warming trend during the night than during the day. There is better explanations on the internet (I am not a science-writer).
00
I redid Ken Stewarts “Very Hot Day” analysis for Sydney (station 066062) and got different results – I actually found a slight upward in Very Hot Days for each full decade since 1910. I sent him an email to see what he thinks.
00
Right on Manalive. I’ve been telling Australia about Olympic Dam’s uranium reserves for the past 15 years. I’m all set to unload it on the Royal Commission sometime fairly soon. OD alone, using IFR’s could power the entire planet for 4000+years. But thanks to those useless windmills, SA’ got, with GERMANY AND DENMARK THE MOST EXPENSIVE ELECTRICITY IN THE WORLD.
00