Two-thirds of Australias warming due to “adjustments” — according to 84 historic stations

1954 Yearbook Brisbane

Here’s an update to the digging through our historic records we discussed a month ago, we can now include nearly twice the stations and the difference between temperatures originally recorded 100 years ago and temperatures today are even smaller.

Chris Gillham has been working with CSIR documents and official Commonwealth Year Books. Last month he used the 1953 Year Book which contained 44 weather station averages for 1911-40 to compare with 2000-14 temperatures, but has since discovered that the 1954 Year Book provides an additional 40 stations with 1911-40 data. The average rise in mean temperatures across all 84 weather stations around Australia over the last 70 years of global warming is about 0.3C. This larger dataset suggests as much as two thirds of the current official trend in Australian warming was due to post hoc adjustments, not heat recorded by thermometers.

These historic temperatures were calculated by the best scientists of the day, using the best equipment of the era (the same Stevenson Screen we use now). Yet again, global warming appears to have a “man-made” contribution. Far more important than CO2 is man-made “pollution” called homogenisation.

When doubling the recorded trend makes “No difference”

Bear in mind – some adjustments are necessary because raw is not automatically right. Stations have moved. But the Australian Met bureau can’t explain why all these adjustments are necessary, and indeed still claims the adjustments make no difference to the trend when clearly they do. Ken Stewart heard Dr Vertussy, the Director of the Bureau of Met (BoM), claim on radio last week that the adjustments make “no difference at all”. We look forward to Dr Vertussy’s reply.

And then there is the bizarreness of the half a degree adjusted cooling that occurs in these historic records when modern screens are much more likely to be near tarmac, bitumen, jumbo jets and 15 storey apartment blocks. The Urban Heat Island effect means that modern temperatures are artificially elevated in city CBDs by as much as 5- 7 C, with tests also showing several degrees of UHI at regional weather stations. So we have the paradox that the old records near dirt roads and horse drawn carriages were apparently reading artificially warm compared to thermometers today near roads with 10,000 internal combustion engines passing daily.

Guest post by Chris Gillham

New historic temperatures suggest even more of Australia’s warming trend is due to adjustments

The earlier analysis of unadjusted temperatures in the 1953 Year Book found a 0.4C increase in mean raw temperatures from 1911-40 to 2000-14 at 44 weather stations across Australia, but it turns out that the 1954 Year Book adds another 40 to create a pretty large network of 84 stations.

These 84 stations suggest Australia’s mean temperature increased 0.3C from 1911-40 to 2000-14.

The Year Book network also suggests that the raw mean minimum has only increased 0.1C nationally and was static or cooled in NSW, Victoria and WA. When capital cities are removed and a comparison made of only regional weather stations, the average nightly minimum is nowadays cooler in those three states than when your grandparents were born – particularly in winter.

The 84 Year Book stations all existed in 1911 whereas many of the 112 stations in the ACORN network didn’t open till decades later. Nevertheless, 29 of the stations in the Year Book network eventually became a part of ACORN and these had a 0.1C cooling adjustment to maxima and a 0.5C cooling of minima in 1911-40.

The broader network of 84 unadjusted temperature stations reinforces the findings of the earlier 44 station Year Book analysis. In fact, it suggests that if the thermometers themselves recorded a 0.3C mean warming at an historic network of 84 stations, but ACORN recorded a 0.9C warming at 112 stations since 1911, about 0.6C or two thirds of the latter is probably due to adjustment of the early records and/or the addition of hotter stations to the network as the years rolled by.

As would be expected after 1910, the Year Book text suggests all temperature recordings in the 1911-40 climate period were in Stevenson Screens. So ACORN adjustments – particularly to minima – are presumably to compensate for station relocations since 1940, mostly to nearby airports, with a UHI adjustment that at least doubles the temperature increase itself.

Summary points 1911-40 to 2000-14 (National 84 stations)

 maxima up 0.5C

 minima up 0.1C

Excluding capital cities (National 67 stations)

maxima up 0.5C

minima up 0.1C

ACORN stations in the Year Book network  (National 29 stations )

raw maxima up 0.5C adjusted in ACORN up to 0.6C

raw minima up 0.4C adjusted in ACORN up to 0.9C

The biggest cooling adjustment was at Launceston where the 1911-40 raw minimum was cut from 7.4C to 4.8C in ACORN (adjusted -2.6C compared to maxima cooling of -0.9C). Launceston had a Stevenson Screen by 1895 but the airport is 160m higher in elevation than the city which results in lower temperatures, particularly minima. The airport’s raw mean minimum 2005-14 was 6.4C and the town of Launceston’s raw mean minimum 1885-1959 was 7.0C, a difference of 0.6C.

Australia’s Year Books can be an enlightening source of unadjusted temperatures compiled by our leading meteorologists in their day to most accurately represent Australia’s climate for a global audience. They can provide an accurate average of climatic conditions at various weather stations where the BoM has lost or not got around to providing temperatures in the first half of the 20th Century.

The 1970 Year Book provides a different network of regional weather station minima and maxima for January and July, again based on the 1911-40 climate period, and 49 of these also have 1911-40 temperatures in the BoM’s Climate Data Online. The 1970 Year Book and CDO agree that the average Jan/Jul minimum at these 49 stations across the country was 12.4C and the average maximum was 24.1C in 1911-40. As it turns out, when averaged together these hottest and coldest months also show a mean raw warming of 0.3C by 2000-14 (18.3C > 18.6C).
There are 64 weather stations in the 1970 Year Book that don’t all have CDO temperatures for 1911-40 but can be compared with 2000-14. They suggest 0.5C mean warming for January and July from 18.1C to 18.6C.

Among the 1970 Year Book stations, 22 have since become part of the ACORN network. These 22 show a 0.5C January and July raw mean increase from the Year Book 1911-40 temperatures to 2000-14. In ACORN and after a 0.5C cooling adjustment to 1911-40 Januarys and Julys, they show a 1.0C increase in mean temperature for those months.

The BoM’s ACORN review panel is unlikely to have paid any attention to the submission detailing an unadjusted mean temperature increase of 0.4C at 44 weather stations sourced from the 1953 Year Book. Let’s assume they know that adjustments for UHI and airport relocations have accurately caused a majority of Australia’s climate warming, so the historic documents aren’t worth considering.

But maybe Australia’s politicians and media should consider the fact that an alternative dataset of 84 stations shows the thermometers themselves have only warmed 0.3C over the past century.

REFERENCES

The 1953 and 1954 Year Book spreadsheets are here and the 1970 Year Book spreadsheet is here.

Current temperature sources:


9.2 out of 10 based on 112 ratings

155 comments to Two-thirds of Australias warming due to “adjustments” — according to 84 historic stations

  • #
    handjive

    Another great moment in homogenised climate science.
    Well done.
    As the old saying goes, “a liar must have a long memory.”

    Vertussy’s radio interview is astounding.
    The Environmental Intelligence Agency?
    Climate Comedy Gold!
    ~ ~ ~
    The BoM’s partner in climate quackery, the CSIRO has wasted more taxpayer money, using their climate crystal ball:

    the conversation: A new website shows how global warming could change your town

    “These changes are captured in a new Climate Analogues tool released by CSIRO today.
    It’s not just capital cities – you can find climate analogues for more than 400 towns around Australia, under various climate scenarios.”
    . . .
    Unfortunately for the CSIRO, the models fail to predict which cities and towns will have a higher percentage of lotto winners, a metric just as useful.
    But, continue sending money to waste on climastrology.:

    guardian.com: Climate change a CSIRO priority as new chief looks to secure funding
    Larry Marshall says global warming is high on the public’s agenda because ‘the science is so compelling’

    “Science” and “compelling” are not the words needed there, Larry.

    593

    • #

      Three cans of worms for us there, handjive.
      The “climate analogues” site seems to be busted at the moment. I hope it stays that way, as the whole tenor and supporting material seems to comprise the full complement of CAGWCC phony associations and predictions, eg CO2 causation with water vapour enhancement, worsernworser weather events, all the stuff that has been demonstrated to be wrong. The analogues appear to be self-driven, eg you select a location and push sliders to see how worser it gets. Do-it-yourself Thermageddon.

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      • #
        Graeme No.3

        The sliders are being replaced by buttons.

        A. Worse than we thought
        B. Disastrous
        C. Catastrophic

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    • #

      The new CSIRO tool launched today and linked above by handjive is worth examining.

      The analogue map tool for “current” temps collates several hundred AWAP stations based on 1986-2005 means. These are all maxima with no minima. You can alternatively choose a 1980-99 baseline – still 20 years, not 30, but you have to register and sign in. Without registering you can access “current” (AWAP 1986-2005) maximum temperatures from the map.

      The CSIRO/AWAP temps allow a comparison of 66 regional locations with 1911-40 temps among the 77 regional stations in the Year Books. The CSIRO has excluded Moruya Heads, Jervis Bay, Richmond Qld, St Lawrence, Townsville, Robe, Yongala, Stanley, St Helens, Bushy Park and Daly Waters from its AWAP dataset … thus we end up with 66 comparable against the Year Books.

      I’ve uploaded an Excel spreadsheet at http://www.waclimate.net/csiro-66.xls showing the 66 regional locations in CSIR 24.7C). Comparing the 66 in YB 1911-40 and CDO 2000-14, the unadjusted mean temp still increased by 0.3C, the same as my comparison of the 77 regional stations in the Year Books.

      The overall 66 stations basically suggest their unadjusted maxima increased 0.3C from 1986-2005 AWAP to 2000-14 RAW – up from 24.7C to 25.0C. Since YB 1911-40 unadjusted minima at the 66 increased only 0.1C to 2000-14 RAW, it would be interesting to see a CSIRO/AWAP average of 1986-2005 min as well as max.

      At the bottom of the Excel spreadsheet I’ve added the seven capitals for comparison, and they show CSIR C conversions and figure out the true history of Australian temperature trends, even though climate change is said to be the greatest threat ever to the survival of mankind.

      But with budget deficits to the horizon, how much did it cost taxpayers to develop this elaborate new CSIRO web tool that seems to have a sole function of guessing what the apocalyptic climate might be decades into the future?

      503

      • #
        Glen Michel

        How does Launceston have a warmer temperature at lower elevation when the minima is taken. I would have thought that inversion would result in minimum temps being lower at lower elevations.
        Have I misread something?

        73

        • #
          toorightmate

          My secondary school teacher and my flight training metrological notes are also way off the mark by instructing me that temperature decreased by ABOUT one Fahrenheit degree for each 1,000 feet of altitude.
          You just can’t trust anyone!!!

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        • #

          Further to my handjive reply above about 1986-2005 AWAP maximum temps at 66 regional stations from the CSIRO’s new temperature prediction tool being 0.2C warmer than max in the 1911-40 Year Book datasets …

          The 1986-2005 AWAP max temps can also be compared against 160 CSIR max recordings from stations prior to 1931 (source document in F at http://www.waclimate.net/csir.pdf). CSIR was the predecessor of the CSIRO. This dataset contains all monthly and annual temps at most Australian stations prior to 1931, and 160 of them can be compared with the AWAP baseline max dataset used by the CSIRO to predict your locality’s modelled future temperature.

          160 stations is about 50% more than all of ACORN so it’s a fair sample from across Australia. Pre 1931 temps have a slight risk of having some 1800s pre-Stevenson influence (not enough to affect the averages by 0.1C from my estimates) but the 1986-2005 maxima in the new CSIRO/AWAP doomsday dataset exclude all the capes, lighthouses and other remote locations, only covering population centres including all capital cities – so UHI is likely to be a factor throughout this dataset.

          The 160 stations had a pre 1931 CSIR unadjusted average max of 25.1C and a 1986-2005 CSIRO/AWAP average max of 25.2C – up 0.1C. However, in 2000-14 CDO raw, the average max was 25.6C. I assume the BoM would attribute this difference to the hottest decade, etc.

          There are no CSIRO/AWAP minima provided but pre 1931 CSIR min at the 160 stations averaged 12.1C and 2000-14 CDO raw min averaged 12.5C.

          All up and ignoring AWAP, the 160 stations had a mean temp increase of 0.4C from 18.6C pre 1931 to 19.0C in 2000-14.

          The 54 NSW stations among the 160 had a 0.1C increase in max from 23.8C pre 1931 to 23.9C in 2000-2014 (23.4C in AWAP 1986-2005). Raw min up from 10.0C to 10.3C, so an unadjusted mean temp increase of 0.2C at the 54 NSW stations since 1931. ACORN estimates a 0.9C mean warming across NSW from 1910-19 to 2005-14 (based on 30 adjusted ACORN stations).

          AWAP should be the same as raw so I’m only doing these timeline comparisons because 1986-2005 is the “current” dataset being used by the CSIRO (presumably in cooperation with the BoM) to predict the future of Australian locality temperatures in its new Climate Analogues tool (http://www.climatechangeinaustralia.gov.au/en/climate-projections/climate-analogues/analogues-explorer/).

          I’ve uploaded an Excel at http://www.waclimate.net/csir-year-book-awap.xls with the 66 Year Book 1911-40 and 160 CSIR pre 1931 vs AWAP 1986-2005 max comparisons on separate sheets.

          60

    • #
      Jon

      Antroproghenic post climate change?

      10

  • #
    Ken Stewart

    Well done Chris. And no, I haven’t had a reply from Dr Vertussy yet (after 6 business days) but then I’m not expecting anything worthwhile.

    492

    • #
      Yonniestone

      The reply is being homogenized as we speak Ken. 🙂

      383

    • #
      Ian Hill

      I agree with Ken – great work Chris.

      These historic temperatures were calculated by the best scientists of the day, using the best equipment of the era (the same Stevenson Screen we use now).

      The Year Book is prepared by the ABS, formerly called the Commonwealth Bureau of Census and Statistics, and the staff there would have been meticulous in the checking of all the data coming from the BOM. No computers in the early and mid 20th century – it would have all been done by hand with a typing pool to prepare each page and a team of proof readers. For several staff it was their entire job – to prepare each year’s Year Book.

      How climate scientists must despise these old and undeletable records of the climate.

      674

      • #
        Peter Miller

        Ian

        Why on Earth would anyone give you a thumbs down (4) for this comment?

        These findings on temperature manipulation are truly horrendous, although long suspected by most sceptics.

        A classic case of changing the data to fit the theory, but that is the bottom line of most of today’s ‘climate science’.

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        • #
          Popeye26

          Peter M

          I’ve often wondered and asked the same question on Jo’s blog before.

          The ONLY reasonable explanation I can come up with is that there are several leftie/warmist bombers that come in here from time to time, and as they have no credible response or argument they can proffer, they merely hit the red “thumbs down” button.

          Let’s face it – it’s much easier than asking questions or providing credible arguments against someone else’s opinions which may differ from their own.

          I actually think it’s quite funny – I compare it to ANY/ALL of the warmists scientists on the gravy train who have NEVER agreed to debate other scientists (or anyone) who doesn’t agree with their meme.

          Cheers,

          303

          • #
            lmwd

            several leftie/warmist bombers that come in here from time to time

            Yep, and they don’t have the courage or knowledge to comment because they know you’ll require them to back up what they say. They are motivated by ideology not fact and they’ll well aware of the calibre of people who post on this site.

            I suspect a few of them have taken to swarming other media, like The Australian, who has dared to step out of the alarmist line and actually print skeptical articles and comments. They believe the other commenters are less well informed and able to defend their comments. The tactics they use is like a scatter gun attack (whole lists of scares at once) on every person who comments skeptically – rarely do they or can they back up their assertions with evidence or references.

            The Australian is one of the few mainstream media here in Australia who at least attempts balance and it is no surprise the alarmists are attacking so ferociously on this site.

            191

        • #
          Popeye26

          I also notice “someone” gave you a “thumbs down” for noticing Ian’s “thumbs downs”

          I pity whomever did so – how small, unimportant and shallow must his/hers/their lives be.

          Further proof of my supposition above.

          Now, my turn to start counting re thumbs – ROTFLMAO!!!

          Cheers,

          202

        • #
          Ian Hill

          Peter, I’m not surprised at those four (still) thumbs down. If there were a lot more then I’d have hit on a point they could genuinely debate. As Popeye26 comments, they don’t have anything to say about it though.

          101

    • #

      Chris has been using his time to dig through these old records with us for years at a large cost to his own self employed income. Not only do I admire the effort but respect him for the sacrifice. It is great to see the bending of history limited by each bundle of this old stuff. This helps to show who is “in denial of the science” by showing that there are two distinctly different versions of “the science”.

      201

  • #

    OK, you see the adjustments. But why adjustments? Is this some petty bureaucratic nonsense, or something much more sinister?
    How do you tell, how do you know? Most time the sinistra leave tracks. Idiocy mostly seems transparent. Do you Aussies know? Have you even looked? 🙂

    920

    • #
      el gordo

      ‘Is this some petty bureaucratic nonsense, or something much more sinister?’

      Its not a full blown conspiracy, just biased bureaucratic nonsense which needs to be sorted before Paris.

      What’s your opinion of Scafetta?

      http://people.duke.edu/~ns2002/scafetta-forecast.png

      163

    • #
      Bob Fernley-Jones

      Interesting question Will

      10

    • #
      David-of-Cooyal in Oz

      Perhaps they still believe in Arrenhius and the “greenhouse effect” and haven’t seen or read the refutation, of which I was advised here a few days back. The AAS recently used Arrenhius as their (only) reference for the cause of global warming.
      Cheers,
      Dave B

      62

    • #
      Ian George

      Will
      These are the adjustments for Bourke in January, 1939. All temps above 30C have been reduced and those under 30C have been raised. There is no rhyme nor reason for a daily change to the temps and where the final monthly average is reduced by nearly 0.4C.
      raw ACORN
      1st 38.9 38.4
      2nd 40.0 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 43.0
      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 40.0 39.1
      18th 40.1 39.1
      19th 40.0 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

      Mean 40.4 40.03
      ‘……. bureaucratic nonsense, or something much more sinister?’ I’ll leave that for others to determine.

      90

  • #
    Lank

    Good work Chris.

    I like Jo’s last sentence “So we have the paradox that the old records near dirt roads and horse drawn carriages were apparently reading artificially warm compared to thermometers today near roads with 10,000 internal combustion engines passing daily.”

    Perhaps the BOM and CSIRO will term this the equine flatulence affect.

    562

    • #
      Originalsteve

      Maybe human and horse hard work & sweat has raised ambient temperatures…?

      A crowded stadium full of people should in theory then become a cause of cataclismic localized climate armageddon…..ban footballs games before we have unstoppable and torrential rainfall flooding out games, unstoppable heat and stadiums being submerged by raised water tables caused by climate change!!

      Makes a s much sense as believeing in faries at the bottom of the garden…or CAGW….oh…hang on….

      303

    • #
      TedM

      Yes would go well with the equine faeces that they publish.

      91

    • #
      Bob Fernley-Jones

      Maybe dust settles on the whitewash making it less white, but then modern paints also have lower albedo?

      10

  • #
    Leonard Lane

    More data-based evidence emerging that modern Australian temperature data have been corrupted to make a stronger case for global warming. It takes a special kind of “climate scientist” to distort public records for their personal monetary gain.
    Accurate historical climate date are priceless.
    Homogenized data appear to be worse than useless, they are harmful to real scientists and the tax-paying public who paid for data which are now corrupted.

    363

    • #
      Graeme No.3

      IN defence of “climate scientists” I don’t think that many are thinking of money, more that they have deluded themselves that
      CO2 causes warming.
      The level of CO2 is rising
      therefore temperatures should be rising.
      So if the readings aren’t going up, they are wrong and have to be adjusted.
      Once adjusted/homogenised etc. rewards such as invitations to International Conferences (where they discuss what excuses they can make for the plateau in temperatures).

      The first follows because they wouldn’t have been hired if they didn’t believe.
      Also must be the thought at the back of their minds that employment will only continue if they still believe.

      393

      • #
        ExWarmist

        I’m with Graeme No.3 on this, the corruption is much more subtle.

        I suspect that the average climate scientist is entirely earnest in their activities, and quite blind to the methodological issues that are pervasive in their standard operating procedures.

        (The less than average climate activist masquerading as a climate scientist is another kettle of fish).

        256

        • #
          ian hilliar

          But at least part of that is because they are such very poor scientists, with nil statistical ability. I mean , I am not great on stats, but at least there is nothing wrong with my logic circuits.

          20

      • #
        Neville

        Agreed, Graeme No.3. I think it’s comparatively unlikely that they do it for actual monetary gain; more likely it’s some kind of academic arrogance, and confirmation bias thing.

        203

      • #
        Glen Michel

        Quite agree! I find the rank and file dutiful in their work.Unfortunately,they go along with this meme that CO2 is the dominant driver of tropospheric temperatures.This has to be pursued and argued;traction is the problem!

        163

      • #
        mike restin

        But, without the lie most would have to find real jobs that contribute.
        Therefore, they do it for the money.

        202

      • #
        Lawrie Ayres

        I think you are being naïve. Of course it is about money, maybe indirectly in so far as having a job. Where would these people find work outside the BoM? The CSIRO is also profiting from the inflow of climate scam money and they demand it continues and hence the BoM constructed temperature increases. I believe they know the truth but know that admitting it will be the finish of them so they stay quiet. That is unethical and [corrupt] in my opinion.

        Eventually the truth will out and when it does all those who said nothing will have to face a severe judgement. They are corrupt pure and simple. They also give good scientists a bad name.

        *edited. Its better not to use that f word (even though it is not the crass one) – Jo

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        • #
          Ross

          I agree Lawrie.

          If the individuals are earnest scientists doing “their best” then clearly it is not good enough. They are not questioning the data, the alarmism, the media reports etc.
          So they must be doing it to “save” their own jobs which means individually it is about money.

          61

        • #
          RB

          Best use the C word.

          the trends on the mean of the terrestrial datasets and on the mean of the satellite datasets are near-identical. Indeed, the UK Met Office uses the satellite record to calibrate its own terrestrial record.

          10

          • #
            Greg Cavanagh

            How can you calibrate a set of readings? They are what they are.

            Let the differences stand, and let the answer come forth in due time.

            51

            • #
              RB

              Perhaps its an euphemism?

              I’m wondering if people want to see the this relegated to history by Monday week.

              01

      • #
        James Bradley

        Self justified core belief system.

        21

      • #
        JohnM

        I believe there’s two groups within the BoM, those who honestly report on and interpret observational data and a warmist group that’s prone to exaggeration (and being well-funded).

        Reputations and income are now at stake for many, but even simpler than that is that group-think and habit are making them interpret even “line ball” issues in favour of a certain argument, perhaps because they know that argument well and don’t know the details of the opposite view.

        Either way I think there is a growing problem with the poor ethics of many of the so-called climate experts in this country. It’s almost matched by failing ethics on climate issues in journalism and in politics,

        41

        • #
          Thejoker

          I believe there’s two groups within the BoM, those who honestly report on and interpret observational data and a warmist group that’s prone to exaggeration (and being well-funded).

          Is that right? Care to name one person within the BoM or CSIRO that is prone to exaggeration? Care to name just one scientist that has exaggerated or misled?

          Yet, here we have Jo Nova, who knows that the BoM has published information that shows exactly how much the adjustments affect the temperature trend and amount of warming – almost zero and certainly not 2/3rds – and yet she’s happy to put up this post which contain obviously false assertions.

          Nova needs to make corrections to this post or else she stands accused of knowingly publishing a falsehood.

          It is Nova’s integrity that is on the line here – not that it appears to be worth much.
          [See my remarks at 2015/04/09 at 9:09 am, you are in moderation] Fly

          [The BoM adjustments page you linked too does not mention the 1953 or 1954 Year Book, nor list most of the sites nor list details of adjustments that we are discussing. If you find a page that covers those points, we will be very interested and I’ll update the post. –Jo]

          00

      • #
        Rereke Whakaaro

        ‘Climate Science’ is a specialisation, and like any specialisation, it becomes a bit of a club for its practitioners. It develops an esprit-de-corp, as the military would have it.

        As a group, people will go along with the general consensus, because they do not want to be the person who gets ostracised for going against the others, and risking the group’s sense of security.

        Over time, the consensus view therefore becomes the baseline against which all else is measured and judged, and in those circumstances, the truth often becomes twisted, or rejected to preserve the needs of the consensus. In short, the science becomes politicised, and therefore amenable to being manipulated by politicians.

        There are numerous examples in the history of science, and medicine, where this has been the case. They used to teach “The History of Science”, as a mandatory first year prerequisite, for anybody going on to study for a BSc. or a BEng, so at least they would be aware of the risks.

        I think they stopped that course as soon as it was discovered that it produced a large number of sceptics.

        31

  • #
    sophocles

    That 0.3 degrees fits well with the paper A Reanalysis of Long-Term Surface Air Temperature Trends in New Zealand* by C.R. de
    Freitas, M.O. Dedekind and B.E. Brill (2014) It found about 0.28-0.29 degrees for NZ’a Warming.

    262

  • #
    Dennis

    Try to imagine the hidden costs to nations relating to global warming climate change false predictions based on tampering with the historical records. Insurance, local government regulations and decisions, state and federal government expenditure, etc.

    283

  • #
    gbees

    The BOM homogenization investigation “Terms of Reference” fails to include one of the most important required outcomes. Who gave the orders to ‘adjust’ the data? The voters need to know who in the long chain of authority has his/her hands involved in this outrage.

    363

  • #
    manalive

    I’m not sure I follow (I like pictures), the BoM Climate Tracker shows that the av. temperature trend 1910 — 1950 was flat and that most of the warming in the Australian record, which eyeballs ~0.9C, occurred after 1950.
    Does this research show that the 1950 — 2007 (say) trend is actually ~0.3C?
    If so, that graph would look a whole lot different if corrected.
    That Annual Mean Temperature graph always looked a bit too cute to be true because it too neatly fits the IPCC narrative of post 1950 human influence on temperature while the satellite data shows that the SH temperature trend from 1980 (in red on BoM graph) around 0.2C.

    102

  • #
    Richard111

    Beats me all this discussion on global temperature when there is not a single proof that CO2 can do what ‘they’ claim. This constant temperature discussion is deliberately designed to distract any talk about the science of radiation and the effects on atmospheric gasses.

    153

    • #
      David-of-Cooyal in Oz

      G’day,
      I decided to do a search (using Safari on the iPad) of “Arrenhius refuted” and came up with a paper by Timothy Casey at
      http://greenhouse.geologist-1011.net
      at the top of the list. First produced in 2009, the version I found is dated 2011 and is titled “The Shattered Greenhouse: How Simple Physics Demolishes the “Greenhouse Effect”, and is compelling.

      But now I must be careful. I might be getting overconfidant, as I’ve just decided to send the above to the SMH…

      Cheers,
      Dave B
      PS Done. Now my pessimism returns… Will it be published?

      51

      • #
        Rereke Whakaaro

        That depends on the suicidal tendencies of the sub-editor responsible for reviewing it.

        10

        • #
          David-of-Cooyal in Oz

          Well he’s still alive. SMH today: warmists 3 letters, 1 article; skeptics zero.
          Cheers,
          Dave B

          10

  • #
    Bulldust

    I see Cook got an article in The Australian called (online) “Unscientific way of climate denial”, but it is paywalled. On page 10 for people with the hardcopy.

    70

    • #
      Bulldust

      Nowhere in the article does it state how many papers constituted the infamous 97% statistic. Interesting ommission that…

      143

      • #
        Graeme No.3

        Usual arrogance from Cook and lack of detail. I have put my little bit into the discussion. Pointing out that the number of paper expressing any support was 32.6%.
        Said “discussion” not changing any minds as too much consists of flat possibly dubious statements from both sides. Interesting that the believers are quite out-numbered and quite out of date. They made their mind ? up around 2000 AD and haven’t bothered to check any thing since. One warmist kept prattling along about flat earthers and all glaciers retreating. I pointed out that The Flat Earth Society has endorsed the idea of man made warming, and that over 2000 glaciers (outside Antarctica) have not been retreating since around 2009. I doubt she will pay the slightest attention to the latter and will continue to insist that they’re all retreating. I wonder if she is a climatologist?

        152

        • #
          lmwd

          Ah, you’ve come across Patricia then? She doesn’t take on board anything that anyone says and often doesn’t even read your comment properly before commenting herself. I mentioned this person on the Al Gore thread yesterday in reference to the John Cook article. There are a lot of alarmists swarming The Australian right now on any climate related articles, no doubt trying to beat them back into the alarmist line.

          Patricia simply attacks everyone who comments skeptically and her tactic is to use whole lists of scares simultaneously (never referenced or backed up, it’s a scatter-gun attack) often combined with rude, condescending language/tone. Her behaviour on-line comes across as almost manic.

          I’ve found the best way to tackle her is to post extracts from research, actual quotes and with academic reference that refute her scares. You have to pick one or two at a time as you can’t tackle all of them at once. That strategy tends to send her scuttling or into blathering incoherency. She comes across as quite unhinged at that point.

          20

          • #
            lmwd

            I mentioned this person on the Al Gore thread yesterday

            Correction, I mentioned her earlier today and the John Cook article yesterday.

            00

  • #
    Mikky

    ACORN-SAT no doubt has some errors but in order to compare early and modern temperatures you HAVE to do the procedure known as homogenisation, due to station moves and changes in equipment. A very significant change in equipment was the introduction of automatic weather stations in the last few decades, I’ve seen 0.5C shifts in temperature data when that happened.

    Also, it is not clear that UHI gives a net warming bias. In the early days many thermometers were probably located near man-made objects (maybe near wooden horse stables, or the bicycle shed of early post offices), it is only recently that the area around them has been kept clear.

    621

    • #
      Just-A-Guy

      Mikky,

      A very significant change in equipment was the introduction of automatic weather stations in the last few decades, I’ve seen 0.5C shifts in temperature data when that happened.

      Your point is well taken. Except . . .
      Over the last four months on this site, I’ve seen this brought up many times. What I have also seen is that, if the newer temperature measurements were brought down to comply with all the previous readings, then all would be fine.

      What has actually happened is that the newer readings are raised even further.

      Hadcrut3 unadjusted & Hadcrut4 – 1990 to present.

      And so what you say may be logically sound, in practice the opposite is what’s being done. That’s the whole point of the discussion.

      Abe

      353

    • #
      Tim Hammond

      The data is the data. That’s all we have. We don’t know what the data “ought” to be – if we did, we would simply use the data that knowledge is based upon.

      The honest way of doing this is to write a paper that attempts to show a temperature history explaining how the data has been adjusted in light of possible variances in siting etc.

      But leave the basic data alone.

      Changing the data and then saying “look, warming!” Is simply not science.

      322

    • #
      Peter C

      In the early days many thermometers were probably located near man-made objects (maybe near wooden horse stables, or the bicycle shed of early post offices), it is only recently that the area around them has been kept clear.

      Disagree with all of that. The photographs of historic weather stations in Australia ( at least the one’s I have seen) all show Stevensons screens well located on grass and well clear of surrounding buildings and vegetation.

      The older weather men were very careful with their instruments including placement. Do you have a picture of an old Stevenson screen placed next to a horse stable of bicycle shed?

      311

    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      … in order to compare early and modern temperatures you HAVE to do the procedure known as homogenisation …

      No, you don’t. Have a look at my comment at 15.1, in regard to disjoint series.

      The word “homogeneous” means “uniformly consistent.” Homogenised milk, has the cream spread throughout. In the process of becoming homogeneous, the nature of the cream is lost, never to be recovered.

      In the process of making temperature readings homogeneous, something of the nature of the readings, (probably their accuracy) is lost, never to be recovered.

      Other than taking averages, or median values, how can you homogenise temperature readings, without adding some subjectivity into the process?

      And who is to say what subjective changes are correct? Are they published anywhere? Is there an audit trail? Is there an Independent Auditor? Is the Independent Auditor’s Report available for public scrutiny?

      And you wonder why we are sceptical.

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      • #

        Temperature measurements may be at best approximations but had
        the original data remained unhomogenised and measurements at
        the same weather stations continued unadjusted, wouldn’t you
        get consistency of trend over time, comparing apples with
        apples, not cherries with, well, cherries?

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    • #
      PeterFitzroy

      Why use a average value like Jan/Jul – this is just measuring the relative difference between summer and winter. If all temperatures in all months increase, this value will not change. Snake Oil

      21

    • #
      Harry Twinotter

      Homogenisation is required to extract climatic temperature data out of stations designed to measure the weather. Not only do the instruments change, the time of observation changes as well. UHI may or may not be an issue, it depends on the circumstances.

      Working out a climatic average for a region has it’s own issues, it is going to be an estimate no matter what they do. Converting the temperature to an anomaly and gridding the data helps get a more accurate result.

      01

  • #
    el gordo

    Good work Chris Gillham.

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    pat

    ***say climate groups? how dumb can u be, Lisa Cox? your “climate groups” are simply people who believe in CAGW – that is your only criterion:

    8 April: SMH: Lisa Cox: Energy white paper ‘wilfully deluded’ on climate change
    The Abbott government’s energy white paper is “wilfully deluded” for failing to put climate change at the centre of Australia’s future energy policy, ***say climate groups…
    But it is the suggestion that future energy policy should be “technology neutral” that has raised concerns among the Greens and environment groups, which want policy that focuses on ceasing fossil fuel use…
    The Climate Institute described the energy white paper on Wednesday as a “fantasy of climate ignorance” but acknowledged the report did recognise the risk Australia’s fossil fuel industries posed in “an emissions constrained future”.
    “But the white paper doesn’t think through the challenges and opportunities of a world seeking to remove carbon pollution,” chief executive John Connor said. “There’s no recognition that helping achieve the internationally agreed goal of keeping global warming to 2°C requires a plan for an energy sector with net zero pollution by mid-century,” chief executive John Connor said.
    The paper argues that no single energy source should be prioritised over another and such decisions should be left for the market to determine.
    It says electricity from fossil fuels, particularly coal, will continue to play a “vital role” in “providing low-cost energy around the world” and that investment support for low emissions technologies, such as carbon capture and storage, will be important for Australia…
    Greens leader Christine Milne said the paper should be “binned along with the Warburton review into the RET [renewable energy target]”.
    “All we’re getting from this report is a commitment to business as usual for the big old polluters, and a promise to cut the renewable energy target, abolish the Australian Renewable Energy Agency and close down the revenue-raising Clean Energy Finance Corporation,” Senator Milne said.
    http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/energy-white-paper-wilfully-deluded-on-climate-change-20150408-1mgrnu.html

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  • #
    Thejoker

    The assertion made in this post and by Gillham that adjustments to ACORN account for 2/3rds of warming are a complete nonsense and a fabrication. The BoM has published online the result of the adjustments to the dataset before and after and are available here:

    http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/change/acorn-sat/#tabs=Adjustments

    It is very clear that your assertion that these adjustments account for 2/3rds of the warming are utterly false.

    Or are you accusing the BoM of publishing false data at this site? That is a serious accusation.

    Yawn – Fly

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    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      The BoM has published online the result of the adjustments to the data set before and after and are available …

      According the BOM chart you reference, all (or the vast majority) of adjustments before 1960, appear to be downwards. Whereas after 1960, they appear to be upwards.
      Surely it would be reasonable to expect that any differences between the AWAP and the ACORN-SAT would be internally consistent in terms of the overall trend exhibited?

      I have yet to see any simple explanation for that.

      Also, and speaking as an engineer, if we take a series of readings, of some phenomena, over a long period of time, using a linear meter, and then switch to taking a series of readings, of the same phenomena, using a more accurate digital meter, it would never occur to an engineer, to try to adjust one series to align with the other, or even stitch them together. You simply show both series, with a discontinuity line at the point in time when the measurement system was changed. In engineering, the observed measurements are sacrosanct. Why is meteorology, or climatology, or climate science, satisfied with a lesser standard? Especially considering the considerable economic implications of getting subjective “adjustments” wrong.

      382

      • #
        Thejoker

        This is just a unicorn diversion. Climate science, like many sciences, has to deal with the data it has as a result of the historical development of measurement. you know nothing about metrology if you believe that any dataset cannot be improved by corrections and calibrations and this is exactly what the process of developing the ACORN dataset has done. You have the raw datasets if you want them – that data is there to scrutinize and has not been thrown away.
        But climate science is trying to determine long term trends – the homogenization is therefore necessary.

        Meanwhile Gillham and Nova have effectively accused the BoM of presenting false data – if they cannot prove this accusation then they should withdraw and apologise. given that they weren’t even honest enough to provide the link to the BoM information about adjustments, which I’m sure they both knew existed, I doubt either of them have the integrity to do so. Meanwhile I would contend that this post and the assertions in it are pure rubbish and contain false science and false allegations.

        [There is no mention of “false” data here. Quote please. As for the BOM information about adjustments, We’ve already discussed many of them — with whole blog posts. The BOM put these up in response to The Australian articles — but refused to supply the information we’d been asking for for 2 years until it appeared in Lloyds articles.We shouldnt even have had to ask for this info. It should have been available in 2012 with the start of the ACORN dataset. But feel free to supply those links again, and why don’t you find my responses and give us those links too? – Jo ]

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        • #
          Rereke Whakaaro

          … you know nothing about metrology if you believe that any dataset cannot be improved by corrections and calibrations …

          The first part of this quotation, is perfectly true. I do know nothing about metrology. In fact I didn’t even know, that a formal science of the study of cities existed. We learn something every day. But I don’t see how this relates to the climate (apart from the heat island effect, of course).

          In almost every other area in the physical sciences, the observations and measurements are taken to be what they are. There is nothing you can do to them, to make them any more accurate than they were, when the measurements were taken. You have parallax error? How do you know? Is it to the right, or the left? Was it a trick of the light, or something in the observers eye?

          I suggest that it is you who knows nothing about science in general, let alone “metrology”.

          As soon as “adjustments” are made, it is no longer objective science. It becomes subjective opinion, that has nothing to do with the truth of the matter. And adjusting readings taken to an accuracy of one half of one degree, to change subsequent calculation results by tenths of a degree, is pure fantasy. From an Engineers perspective, you are arguing over the “quality” of the noise in the system, and totally ignoring the underlying signal.

          You have chosen an appropriate moniker. You are a joke.

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          • #
            Thejerko

            What I am saying in a nutshell, dear Rereke, is:

            It really all depends on whether the adjustments are designed to make the data more accurate or more politically correct.

            102

            • #
              Rereke Whakaaro

              Yes, indeed. That is the question.

              The longer we have this “discussion”, the more public opinion shifts towards an understanding that the whole climate scare is politically motivated, and science is just being used as a means to an end. Once the public have made that shift, they will not shift back again.

              111

          • #
            Rereke Whakaaro

            I am reliably informed that Metrology is not the Science of Cities, as I assumed (mea culpa in mixing my latin with my greek), but the Science of Measurement.
            Now I didn’t know that. Measurement and Standards, used to be specialisation of Physics. Now it has the status of an “‘logy” all on its own. Isn’t progress wonderful.

            21

          • #
            Thejoker

            What the hell are you talking about, Fly?

            The BoM has provided the data at the link I provided that shows the affect of the homogenization process. It shows that it is negligible and, therefore, the claim that 2/3rds of the warming is due to the homogenization process is demonstrably untrue.

            This post is dishonest and scientifically invalid.
            [I am giving you a timeout so you can calm down. We expect civil discourse, and you are starting to attack people who just happen to have views other than your own, rather than argue the facts of the matter, as you see them. It is also better if you can express your understanding in your own words. People tend to not bother wading through wikipedia references, since they have been so unreliable, and a source of contention, in the past] Fly

            —–
            We compare Year book 1954 to raw temp and ACORN temp of last 15 years. The BoM compares AWAP to ACORN. AWAP does not equal the 1954 Year book. Indeed AWAP stands for “Australian Water Availability Project”. You have nothing. Again. -Jo

            00

        • #
          Peter Miller

          The problem with homogenisation is not so much the theory, as the practice.

          If homogenisation was being practiced the way the theory states it should be, then the temperature ‘adjustments’ of original raw data would be approximately 50% higher and 50% lower. The problem is the ratio is usually greater than 90% in lowering historic temperatures, the problem is then compounded in insufficient allowance for the UHI effect in peri-urban areas.

          None of this would matter if the western world was not set on committing economic suicide to solve a non-problem in Paris later this year.

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        • #
          RB

          There was a point made above about 0.5°C differences when new equipment was installed and Abe pointed out that homogenisation should drop temperatures since then down, not up.

          I noticed that maximum temperatures officially for the day are usually 0.5°C+ higher than the highest recorded half hour reading. Also, the mean of the official max reading and the min reading is closer to the mean of the half hour readings than the mean of the highest and lowest temperatures recorded.

          I can’t find on the BOM site what it is that they actually do to get the official maximum. Could TheJoker or anyone point to an explanation?

          11

          • #
            Just-A-Guy

            RB,

            There was a point made above about 0.5°C differences when new equipment was installed and Abe pointed out that homogenisation should drop temperatures since then down, not up.

            I should point out that in that comment I only meant to show how the ‘homogenizers’ are doing the opposite of what logic would dictate should be done.* The WMO suggests that best practice would be to raise the older temperatures to the level of the newer ones. They also provide guidelines as to how this should be done.

            But that isn’t being done either! At least not as an overall strategy. What we see overall is that the older the temperature records are, the more likely they are to be ‘homogenized’ downward. The newer the records the more likely they are to be ‘homogenized’ upward.

            But from my point of view, the most critical issue is that all of the organizations around the world keep claiming best practice but . . .

            The WMO makes it very clear that when a piece of data, (temp, rainfall, etc.) is adjusted, the original data must be kept recorded and intact. And yet, when the requests come in for the original data, the person making the request is given the run-around as pointed out by Jo earlier. And it’s not just her. How many times have we been confronted with yet another story describing how skeptics are prevented from access to the raw data.

            I feel this part of the discussion is more important because it’s a well established fact that any sciectific endeavour must be reproducible by others. This means any others that wish to do so, and not just those to whom the ‘higher ups’ decide should have access. And not just the raw data but also the methods applied to the raw data.

            Abe
            *The only case where I believe homogenization can be legitimately applied to the temperature data is when there is a documented change in instrumentation within the confines of the same exact location, only when a cross-calibration of both instruments has been correctly done, and only if the the original data is kept intact so that both can be reported.

            All of the other cases like site-moves, etc. should be left as is.

            21

      • #
        Just-A-Guy

        Rereke Whakaaro,

        . . .or even stitch them together. You simply show both series, . . .

        This is an interesting insight I never thought of. Basically we’re talking about just another ‘Hockey Shtick’. 😮

        Abe

        02

      • #
        Harry Twinotter

        “According the BOM chart you reference, all (or the vast majority) of adjustments before 1960, appear to be downwards. Whereas after 1960, they appear to be upwards.”

        I don’t see that myself – AWAP and ACORN-SAT look pretty close.

        A simple explanation for why AWAP was adjusted downward to get ACORN-SAT is the BOM removed a warm bias.

        01

    • #
      Ian Youles

      That BoM site about adjustments reveals the following temperature anomaly changes in degrees C (as per figure 1 digitized):
      1911-2013 ACORN increases the anomaly by 32% (AWAP +0.72 ACORN +0.95)
      1960-2013 ACORN increase 12% (AWAP +1.44 ACORN +1.62)

      In comparing figure 1 (BoM Aust temps) with figure 3 (BoM world temps Aust), the figure 1 data points are all around 0.25 degrees C higher than in figure 3; which is correct?

      Thirdly, figure 3 shows world data points for Australia, from 18 different methods, including BoM data. The range of data values at each point is from 0.1 to 0.5 degrees C and generally around 0.2-0.25. This means that whatever individual organizations may state as the error for their temperature calculations, the actual error or uncertainty in real world terms is at least +/-0.1 degrees C. This should be stated with all announcements of any temperature anomaly change; the use of hundredths of a degree in such announcements should be avoided.

      10

      • #
        Ian Youles

        I should have recorded my appreciation of the fine, painstaking work done by Chris Gillham. I note that his 2/3rds increase in ‘warming’ is only from the 84 stations existing up to 1940. On the BoM site, the figure 1 indicates, for all stations to the present, that the ‘warming’ under ACORN is at least 1/3rd and supports Gillham’s conclusions.

        10

      • #
        Ian Youles

        Correction
        Line 4 ‘1960-2013 ACORN increase 12% (AWAP +1.44 ACORN +1.62)’
        should read ‘1960-2013 ACORN increase 4% (AWAP +0.78 ACORN +0.81)’
        My humble apologies for this error.

        00

      • #
        Harry Twinotter

        The use of a precision of 0.01C is fine. I don’t think measurement error comes into it as the chart does not appear to show the error ranges.

        01

        • #
          Ian Youles

          It is not ‘measurement’ that is questioned, it is the accuracy of the calculations compared to others in the real world.

          As I stated earlier:
          “…whatever individual organizations may state as the error for their temperature calculations, the actual error or uncertainty in real world terms is at least +/-0.1 degrees C.”

          00

          • #
            Harry Twinotter

            Not really. When you accumulate a lot of data measurements in an average or whatever, you can increase the precision where it makes sense. It does not make sense to round up for the hell of it.

            00

            • #
              Ian Youles

              Just look at the fig. 3 graph carefully. The spread of values for each year from the 18 different organizations is generally +/- 0.1 deg C within a range of 0.1 to 0.5. Precision of each of the 18 calculations per year is irrelevant in the real world.

              00

  • #
    pat

    Juliana flies from North Carolina to Oregon to attend!

    7 April: Oregon Live: Kelly House: Teens’ climate-change suit hits court with call to protect our air
    The outcome of Kelsey Juliana and Olivia Chernaik’s climate change lawsuit against the state hinges upon two fundamental questions, both of them loaded with nuance.
    Is the air we breathe part of the public trust? And if so, is the state government failing in its obligation to ensure our air remains viable for future generations?
    The two teens, both of Eugene, argue the answer to each question is “yes.” They sued the state in 2011, claiming its failure to stay on track with its own greenhouse gas reduction goals constitutes a violation of the public trust doctrine.
    The state disagrees.
    In court proceedings Tuesday, a Lane County Circuit Court judge came one step closer to settling the matter…
    (Lane County Circuit Court Judge Karsten) Rasmussen said he expects to rule on the motions within one to two months.
    The two teens are supported by ***Our Children’s Trust, a Eugene-based group that treats greenhouse gas emissions as a threat to future generations. Our Children’s Trust has launched legal challenges in states across the U.S., but the Oregon case is the first to gain real traction in the courts…
    It has garnered national attention in part because Oregon’s lawmakers have already recognized climate change as a threat and set goals to reduce the state’s carbon footprint. The state is not on track to meet those goals…
    Dozens of children paraded around the courthouse, carrying signs in support of the two teens. Grandmothers stood near the entrance, singing a revised version of “You are My Sunshine,” with verses tailored to fit environmental themes…
    ***Juliana, who flew home from college in North Carolina to attend the hearing, referenced Oregon’s drought to make her point…
    http://www.oregonlive.com/environment/index.ssf/2015/04/arguments_in_oregon_teens_clim.html

    OurChildrenTrust.org: Our Allies
    Partner and Supporting Organizations:
    WITNESS, Earth Guardians, Global Kids, iMatter, Kids vs. Global Warming, Climate Reality Project, Ride for Renewables, Western Environmental Law Center, Crag Law Center, Texas Environmental Law Center, Cottonwood Environmental Law Center, WildEarth Guardians, Clean Air Council, Global Campaign for Climate Action, Fish Tank, Montana State University, Chasing Ice, Environmental Law Alliance Worldwide, TERRA, Sierra Club, etc
    Partner and Supporting Individuals:
    Dr. James Hansen, Dr. Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, … Dr. Jonathan Overpeck,… Dr. Stefan Rahmstorf,… Dr. Kevin Trenberth, …Bill McKibben, etc
    http://ourchildrenstrust.org/our-partners

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    • #
      Richard Ilfeld

      “The Children’s Crusade” I remember (dimly, it’s been many years) from world history did not end well.

      A cult that is failing historically becomes more extreme, while reasonable ideas that test well against reality fade into the mainstream. An interesting field of study for the interested is the fate of Armageddon cults after their sell-be date passes.

      We are daily passing predicted Armageddon dates posited by Gore et al in the early years of warming hysteria. The chaotic and outlandish responses by true believers are tracing really well.

      Whenever I see children marching round in circles I think of the origins of the verse ‘Ring around the Rosie’…..

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      • #
        Richard Ilfeld

        duh – sell-by date. sorry.

        30

      • #
        Annie

        Ring-a-ring-a-rosie, isn’t it? Or something like that, to do with smallpox….a-tishoo, a-tishoo, we all fall down…fall ill and die. Gruesome, eh what? 🙁

        10

        • #
          Ron Cook

          Bubonic Plague me thinks.

          Ring a ring of roses a pocket full of posies……Posies to ward off the plague.

          R-COO- K+

          00

        • #
          Richard Ilfeld

          The web bridges cultures — references sometimes do not. The ‘fully homogenized’ US schoolyard version:

          Ring around the rosies,
          Pockets full of Posies,
          Ashes,Ashes
          All fall down.

          Myths to ward off the bubonic plague included Posies carried, and a ring of ashes around infected dwellings.

          There will likely be an original in the dim past, and many, many variants. I Must remember we don’t share common backgrounds, not to mention being different cultures separated by a common language.

          20

  • #
    Gary in Erko

    The BOM review panel will be so pleased that a bunch of volunteers have done the work for them.

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    • #
      Greg Cavanagh

      More like; the review panel should be embarrassed to have been involved.
      They were given one day of lectures and asked to sign off on how good BOM data was.

      21

      • #
        david smith

        Hang on Gary!

        How can we be volunteers when everybody knows us sceptics are each paid millions by Big Oil® to spread this nasty disinformation?

        Do I really need a /sarc?

        10

  • #
    Robert O

    Good work Chris. I would accept the concept that most of our alleged warming comes from altering early data, but since the Mini Ice age we are talking about 3/4 of degree celsuis anyhow. The other part of the AGW hypothesis is temperature increases, past, present and future are due to that notorious gas CO2 and we have to reduce our dependence on burning fossil fuel, coal, oil, gas, but evidence of any correlation has not really been forthcoming and, although theoretically possible, it seems to be drowned out by other factors some of which are unknown.

    So all the abatement schemes and taxes will not achieve anything much apart from make a few richer and most of us poorer. Is it possible to have some honesty in the climate debate?

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    • #
      el gordo

      ‘Is it possible to have some honesty in the climate debate?’

      At the moment there is little discussion in the MSM, so no real debate. This may only come about if the weather turns unusually nasty, according to a recent Gallup Poll people are influenced by such things.

      100

  • #
  • #

    I for one would be interested to know if Australia also adjusts for time of day change and what impact this alone would have on the historical records.

    Are any other non-controversial adjustments done in Australia?

    83

    • #
      Dave

      Good question?

      Maybe this is the reason for adjustments to justify the records?

      All the questions haven’t been asked or answered yet!

      53

    • #
      Greg Cavanagh

      Yes, it’s gotten considerably hotter since the introduction of Daylight Savings.

      00

  • #
    richard

    “Bear in mind – some adjustments are necessary because raw is not automatically right”

    are the adjustments right?

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  • #
    Steve

    I have read authoritative accounts of suspect homogenisation in several countries, USA, Australia, Paraguay, Brazil and New Zealand from memory. The practice seems widespread. Is it sufficient to explain the warming in the 1980s and 1990s? Of course, you just can’t continue doing it because the difference becomes obvious. Would that explain the 1998-2015 plateau? Zero CO2 effect QED?

    143

  • #
    Billy Vaughn

    Harry let the cat out of the bag a long time ago but the powers that be keep denying it.

    “..getting seriously fed up with the state of the Australian data. so many new stations have been
    introduced, so many false references.. so many changes that aren’t documented. Every time a
    cloud forms I’m presented with a bewildering selection of similar-sounding sites, some with
    references, some with WMO codes, and some with both. And if I look up the station metadata with
    one of the local references, chances are the WMO code will be wrong (another station will have
    it) and the lat/lon will be wrong too.”

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  • #

    0.3 deg C. On thermometers good to +/- 0.5 deg C at best. No significant change.

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  • #
    pat

    some encouraging figures:

    Mojo Box Office: Merchants of Doubt
    Domestic Total as of Apr. 5, 2015: $192,400
    http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=weekend&id=merchantsofdoubt.htm

    best weekend was the first – 4 theaters – $20,300
    5th weekend April 3-5 – 30 theaters – Gross $20,200, $673 average.

    my only fear is this unpopular “show” will turn up on cable where it will be repeated ad infinitum.

    60

  • #
    pat

    out of the entire world’s media, only the Times of Malta thought it was worth publishing some telling home-truths from Deloitte!

    5 April: Times of Malta: European energy needs re-think – Deloitte report
    EU energy policy is well-intentioned but is not necessarily producing the results that were intended, according to a new report from Deloitte.
    After analysing the energy markets in seven European countries – Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Spain and UK – the report concludes that the EU needs to revisit its energy market design…
    ***The EU energy and climate package attracted criticism in the last few years, as each day has brought more evidence that the policy measures have had numerous unexpected or unintended impacts on energy markets and industry: an excess of intermittent sources of electricity causing disruption for grid operators; surplus electricity resulting in a price collapse on the wholesale electricity market; electricity price increases at retail level; exit of gas from the fuels for power generation and the advent of coal as an electricity price setter and a lack of investment in cross border interconnections.
    At the same time, it also became evident that EU policy failed to solve the existing EU energy imbalances in general, Deloitte pointed out.
    “Ironically, after years of huge investments aimed at achieving the ambitious policy targets, a number of objectives still seem to be a long way away – and may not be reached. Even though the economic crisis has placed them within easier reach, the levels of consumption and emissions against which they will be measured will be lower than expected,” it noted…
    The report said that developments in technology – or the lack of them – were sometimes a surprise compared to the predictions of a decade ago. “Photovoltaic solar has crowded out concentrated solar. Carbon capture and storage to make the use of coal cleaner is still largely on the drawing board because the carbon price is not sending out the right signals. Wind has scaled up, but the technology is still largely the same. Second-generation biofuels that do not create fears of substituting fuel for food have been slow to materialise. On the plus side, smart meters and smart grids are now taking off, opening up new horizons for demand management,” Deloitte noted…
    “And more challenges lie ahead: there is a need to fix the emissions trading system (ETS) and get a carbon emission price that would be a true incentive to using alternatives or using carbon more efficiently.
    “A better balance is needed between the cost of incentives to ensure that renewable energy targets are met taking into account the impact on energy prices and to avoid passing on that cost to consumers…
    “The fundamental question is not the level of the targets or how they will be reached, but whether we need so many,” Ms Laurent said.
    “The result has been complex regulation with sometimes perverse results in terms of price signals for investors – and consumers. There is a case for just having an emissions target, leaving member states to decide for themselves what policy and energy mix suits them best.”
    http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20150405/business-news/European-energy-needs-re-think-Deloitte-report.562652

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      ianl8888

      On the plus side, smart meters and smart grids are now taking off, opening up new horizons for demand management

      That should mean something or other … I wonder what ?

      “Smart Grid” = remotely blocking power to a consumer when it is judged that enough has been consumed in some predetermined period ?

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    Ruairi

    It’s time for a reevaluation,
    Of the records at each temperature station,
    As to how much is true,
    And how much is due,
    To man-made homogenization.

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    Harry Twinotter

    Sounds like a Conspiracy Theory to me, or a bad case of confirmation bias.

    Similar criticisms were made about the US historical temperature records several years ago and it came to nothing. The Berkeley Earth group did a reanalyse of many of the temperature records and got about the same result as previous groups.

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      Rereke Whakaaro

      Sounds like a Conspiracy Theory to me, or a bad case of confirmation bias.

      The meaning of that sentence is somewhat obscure, due to the fact that it appears to be missing a subject. Nor does it have a reference to another comment that might provide a clue as to the subject.

      Similar criticisms were made about the US historical temperature records several years ago and it came to nothing. The Berkeley Earth group did a reanalyse of many of the temperature records and got about the same result as previous groups.

      We never did establish if they used the same methodology, or a different methodology as the original group? And if the latter, what the differences in methodology were, and in what way the differences were material to the challenge being disproved?

      The real test would be to give skeptical scientists from other physical discplines, access to the unadjusted data, and access to details of the algorithms used for adjustment. But we both know that will never happen, because that material has been classified and embargoed indefinitely. A sceptic might wonder why, and ask, “Since when has Global Temperature been a matter of State Security?”

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        Harry Twinotter

        “because that material has been classified and embargoed indefinitely”

        Like I said, it sounds like a Conspiracy Theory to me.

        [This was caught in moderation automatically. After a review of the entire exchange of which this is a part I decided to approve it.] AZ

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          Harry Twinotter

          Hmmm. I was expressing an opinion and observation like many of the commenters.

          Well if you are going to maintain a double-standard perhaps. So statements that imply a conspiracy theory with no evidence such as “because that material has been classified and embargoed indefinitely” are OK?

          Not to mention OP comments like “Far more important than CO2 is man-made “pollution” called homogenisation”. Where is the evidence that shows homogenisation to be pollution?

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            Just-A-Guy

            Harry Twinotter,

            AZ said:
            [This was caught in moderation automatically. . .]

            Harry Twinotter said:
            Hmmm. I was expressing an opinion and observation like many of the commenters.

            Non-Seqiutor. Whether you were expressing an ‘opinion and observation’ or not is irrelevant and does not follow from AZ’s statement. The automatic moderation being refered to is computerized. Computers can’t distinguish if a statement is an ‘opinion and observation’.

            Well if you are going to maintain a double-standard perhaps.

            Straw-man. You’ve used the non-sequitur as a basis for your assumption that there is a ‘double standard’ being applied to your comment. There is no double standard because the computer identified a word or phrase in your comment. Computers can’t distinguish if a statement is an ‘opinion and observation’ and therefore cannot apply a double standard to anything on that basis.

            Not to mention OP comments like “Far more important than CO2 is man-made “pollution” called homogenisation”. Where is the evidence that shows homogenisation to be pollution?

            Pollution was written within quotes. From the wikipedia article:

            Pollution is the introduction of contaminants into the natural environment that cause adverse change.

            The reason for the quotes is to denote the word as an allegory. The raw data is the ‘natural environment’ and the ‘pollution’ is therefore a contaminant. By changing the value of a temperature measurement taken in the field, the original measurement is removed and the new approximation takes it’s place.

            There is no requirement for evidence to be presented because the very act of homogenization, by definition, contaminates the raw data.

            Given your low level of skill in presenting a rational argument, I suggest you find a few web-sites and ‘hone-up’. After you’ve done that, you can come back and try to defend the practice of homogenization using logical statements.

            Until then, comments like these are just Red Herrings that only serve to distract ppl from the discussion at hand.

            Abe

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              Harry Twinotter

              I was responding to a comment from a moderator, that’s why my reply appears confusing.

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    observa

    Relax Chris, the Adelaide BOM are on the job cutting down trees so they can ‘set the climate change record straight’, after they trashed one of the world’s longest Stevenson Screen recording stations.
    Cutting down trees so they won’t interfere with the accuracy of the temp readings in future. Priceless!
    What would Anthony Watts know about such things eh fellers?

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    Roy Hogue

    They’ve been adjusting the thing for years. You would think they’d finally have the climate machinery adjusted up to spec and their models would now be working.

    Oops! How silly of me. There’s no spec to adjust to — the planet didn’t come with written specs or instructions on how to operate it.

    How inconsiderate can things get? It’s no wonder they can’t get it right. The deck is stacked against them so what else can they do but keep adjusting to make their preferred world come true?

    It’s trial and error on a planetary scale. And their error is indeed, very trying. 😉

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      Roy Hogue

      I wonder if there’s a hidden control panel somewhere that if we could find it would allow controlling the climate and the weather.

      You’d think there just might be one from the dogged determination of these adjusters to find the right adjustment, wouldn’t you? 😉

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      Rereke Whakaaro

      Roy,

      You are talking to yourself again …

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    WJohn

    It is an insult to the dedicated people who day after day, year after year conscientiously recorded the figures.

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    Alan McIntire

    The “Scientific” way to handle those adjustments would be to start a whole new series of temperatures when a site was moved, not add them on to the prior series after some specious manipulations of unrelated figures.

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      Another Ian

      Alan

      Or at least run them in parallel for long enough to get a picture of any differences.

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        observa

        You mean like this?

        Nice try BOM with the tree cutting to try and emulate the original, but the problem is Adelaide has grown and had much urban infill between the West Parklands original Stevenson Screen site and the coast. To give you an idea when I was a lad learning to drive in the 60s, there was only 1 or 2 sets of traffic lights on Henley Beach Road between the beach and town. At West Tce and South Road which is hard to imagine nowadays, bearing in mind much of our weather comes from the West over the Gulf and there’s a regular temp difference of 2 degrees between the coast and Elizabeth.

        As for the shift to Kent Town, you couldn’t even begin to fathom the effect of the growth in the CBD over that time, let alone the effect of multistory HVAC outpourings blowing all over Kent Town. Still there’s no accounting for the Adelaide BOMs futile attempts to ‘set the record straight’ and felling trees around their shiny new Stevenson Screen.

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      Greg Cavanagh

      Agree 100%. Discontinue the old record and start a new record.

      I don’t think two seperate reading instrucments should be spliced at a discontinuity. And as Ian says, overlap readings for a year or three, THEN we can say how they compare.

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      RB

      Mildura has three years of overlap between the PO and airport. About 10% of the PO data is missing from the max temperatures and sometimes the difference is up to 15°C. After excluding any differences greater 3°C, the average is that the airport is 0.6±±1.6°C cooler (SD of 0.82).

      Berkeley Earth identify a break point (but not the move in 1947) in 1950 with about 0.9°C adjustment. This is the average difference when the large differences are not removed.

      So their method over corrects but the uncertainty is large. With the missing data included, the older site could have been cooler. They have to be treated as two different sets of data. Rather than adjust the temps, take the yearly change in temperatures (month to month) for them separately and find the average of those. Identify break points to ignore those years but don’t adjust. Looking at their plot, the temperature would be essentially flat.

      http://berkeleyearth.lbl.gov/stations/151971

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    Ken Stewart

    The only defensible homogenisation procedure is adjustment of one temperature series by comparison with a replacement station close by (a few kilometres) with at least 24 months (preferably 60 months) of overlapping data. Using data from hundreds of kilometres away is inexcusable. And to verify appropriateness of the adjustments, the difference in trend between the homogenised data and that of several neighbours should be less, not more. Thus Acorn homogenisation fails.

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    pat

    8 April: Breitbart: Danny Lee Weston: Messing With Texas: Yet More Temperature Tampering
    For over a century averaged temperatures in Texas have shown a steady decline during the first few months of the year. That was at least until recently when the historical data was “adjusted” to show warming instead.
    Climate sceptic and blogger Steve Goddard shows how during the January-March period, post-hoc adjustments have been made to the existing data set, making clear upwards alterations from the middle of the last century onwards…
    http://www.breitbart.com/texas/2015/04/08/messing-with-texas-yet-more-temperature-tampering/

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    Andrew

    Wow, -2.6C for 160m of altitude? On that basis Katoomba would be consistently 18C cooler than Sydney. It would be pretty much unbearable all year round – Jindabyne’s winter climate in midsummer! What planet do these “scientists” inhabit??

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    A C

    Very valuable work

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    pat

    too funny:

    8 April: Business Green: Jessica Shankleman: Mayor Boris exaggerated impact of London pollution laws, says advertising watchdog
    Boris Johnson and Transport for London (TfL) have been banned from claiming their new air quality laws will halve vehicle pollution in the capital, after the advertising watchdog said it had inflated the benefits of the policy in a newspaper advert.
    Following a complaint from the Clean Air in London Campaign, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) today ruled the Mayor’s Office and TfL misled the public in adverts promoting the new Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) in the Evening Standard newspaper…
    Simon Birkett, founder of Clean Air in London, complained to ASA that TfL had based its predictions on computer modelling rather than exhaust emissions. He also said the claim was inaccurate because it only covered nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and nitrogen oxide (NOx) and did not count other forms of air pollution such as carbon dioxide (CO2) and particulate matter PM10 and PM2.5.
    The ASA agreed people could be misled by the ad to believe all types of vehicle pollution would fall by half. “Consumers would expect carbon dioxide (CO2) to be included in the figure,” it said…
    The ASA also argued that the advert implied vehicle pollution would fall by half across the capital when in fact it would just be inside the ULEZ, which covers central London.
    “Because the claim related only to NO2 and NOx vehicle emissions, and excluded, for example, the figures for CO2, and total PM10 and PM2.5 emissions, we concluded that the claim was misleading,” the ASA’s ruling stated.
    Birkett welcomed the decision and said it showed the ULEZ was “too small, too weak and too late”.
    “Instead we need to ban diesel vehicles from the most polluted places by 2020, as we banned coal burning so successfully 60 years ago, with an intermediate step by early 2018,” he said in a statement…
    In its submission to ASA, TfL argued its forecasts were produced in a robust way using established modelling methodologies and bespoke modelling of how drivers would respond to the scheme.
    http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/2403030/mayor-boris-exaggerated-impact-of-london-pollution-laws-says-advertising-watchdog

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    pat

    more dodgy figures:

    7 April: Business Green: Jessica Shankleman: Solar farms shelved following government contract controversy
    The administrator of the government’s Contract for Difference (CfD) regime today released its register of projects, confirming that Wick Farm Solar Park in Somerset, developed by Hadstone Energy, and Royston Solar Farm in Hertfordshire, will not proceed as originally planned.
    Under the government’s new Contract for Difference (CfD) regime, companies bid in auctions for government contracts that guarantee them a price for the clean power they provide.
    The system is designed to drive down the cost of clean energy as developers are incentivised to put forward the lowest “strike price” at which they can still generate a viable return. This means the most cost-effective technologies and projects should start to dominate the market and provide more power at a lower cost to billpayers.
    In the first CfD auction last month, Royston Solar Farm Ltd and Hadstone Energy both won contracts with a strike price of £50/MWh for projects that would have delivered a total rated capacity of nearly 32MW this financial year.
    The bids were hailed in some quarters as evidence of how the CfD auctions were driving down the cost of clean energy. But experts across the solar sector were quick to warn the projects would not prove commercially feasible at such a low price.
    ***James Rowe, director of Hadstone Energy, today confirmed that Wyke had been scrapped. “We could never deliver at that price,” he told BusinessGreen…
    “We got the stick without the carrot, the hook without the bait,” he said. “For solar, this CfD round doesn’t look much like ‘world-leading competitive auction’, it looks a lot like policy failure.”
    Rowe would not comment on why the company submitted such a low bid…
    To help the renewable energy industry transition to the new CfD regime, most renewables technologies can still access the old Renewables Obligation subsidy scheme (RO) until 2016/2017.
    But solar farms larger than 5MW cannot access the RO. The government closed the RO to large solar farms on 31 March over fears a surge in development might use up a large chunk of its £7.6bn renewable energy subsidy budget, known as the Levy Control Framework.
    BusinessGreen analysis shows solar farm developers installed more than 1GW of new capacity in the first quarter of this year as they rushed to beat the 31 March deadline…
    Leonie Greene, head of external affairs for the Solar Trade Association: “This confirmation shows that what everyone in the industry was saying was right: the £50/MWh bids wouldn’t get built,” she said in a statement. “That no large solar farms will be built in the next year under either the RO or CfDs is a tragedy, as we predicted these types of projects could be cheaper than gas in just three years with stable policy support.”
    A further three solar power projects won contracts to deliver power at £79.23/MWh in 2016/17. Greene said these projects would proceed and had signed “very competitive pricing” deals.
    http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/2402973/solar-farms-shelved-following-government-contract-controversy

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      Graeme No.3

      pat:
      the only thing I find interesting is that they say that solar PV can be profitable at $155 per MWh but not at $100.
      Compare that with coal fired at $32 and you can see why electricity bills are rising.

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    pat

    novel-length nonsense from long-time Guardian economics’ reporter. of course, it never gets close to explaining how we could survive without fossil fuels but, if it makes The Guardian crowd feel righteous, that’s all that matters:

    8 April: Guardian: Larry Elliott: Can the world economy survive without fossil fuels?
    The past three centuries of progress have been powered by coal, oil and gas. Burning much of what’s left will lead to environmental and economic catastrophe. Here’s how to save the earth without giving up on growth
    In terms of reducing the number of people living below the global poverty line of $1.25 (84p) a day, the post-cold war model of capitalism has been a success. Fewer people go hungry. More have access to healthcare and education. The size of the global middle class has increased, and consumers in Shanghai and Mumbai have been able to afford cars and fridge-freezers…
    But this process has had two unattractive side effects. The first is that the balance of power in the workplace has tilted decisively in favour of capital over labour: with an abundance of cheap workers to choose from, employers can be mean with pay. The second is that the triumph of the market has put pressure on the planet, just as Thatcher suspected it might. As the west outsourced its manufacturing to low-cost centres in Asia, energy demand in China, India and Indonesia rocketed. Globalisation means that people in the developing world know how we live in the west and they want some of what we have. In addition to higher consumer spending, that also means higher demand for energy, the bulk of which comes from fossil fuels.
    ***China currently builds a new coal-fired power station every two weeks. Burning fossil fuels puts carbon into the atmosphere, and the overwhelming view of scientists is that this leads to a buildup of greenhouse gases that results in global warming.
    To have a realistic prospect of preventing global temperatures from rising by more than the previously recognised danger threshold of 2C, scientists say it is not possible to burn all the proven fossil fuel reserves owned by companies and governments. Between two-thirds and four-fifths will need to be left in the ground…
    Can we imagine a future that is cleaner, greener and sustainable – one that avoids climate armageddon – without abandoning the idea of growth and, thus, forcing living standards into decline? The answer is that it will be hellishly difficult, but it is just about feasible if we make the right choices – and start making them now…
    ***There are more climate change sceptics than we might like to think. But the problem goes much further than figures such as Tony Abbott, the prime minister of Australia, or Nigel Lawson, the former UK chancellor of the exchequer, or about every Republican harbouring hopes of winning the nomination for the 2016 US presidential race. That problem is us…
    Fossil fuels are used to make and power mobile phones, tablets and laptops. There is no evidence that we want fewer of them. Nor would there be much support for a return to the days before fridges, gas cookers, washing machines and vacuum cleaners. Smoking in a restaurant or bar is no longer socially acceptable; until the same applies to driving your son or daughter to school in a gas-guzzling 4×4, Helm is right: we are not very serious about climate change…
    The second problem with the deep-green approach is that even assuming rich people in the west could be persuaded to curb their consumption, it would not stop CO2 emissions from rising. That is because the real growth in energy demand from now on is going to come from the developing world.
    Countries in sub-Saharan Africa are home to around 630 million people with no electricity…
    Without question, Africa’s energy consumption is going to rise. It has abundant reserves of coal – the most damaging of the fossil fuels – and nations such as Angola and Nigeria are significant oil exporters.
    ***One option would be to skip fossil fuels entirely and move straight to renewables, especially solar energy, but Watkins says that this is too expensive for most countries to contemplate…
    The rest of the world can help poor African countries with the cost of developing renewable energy; the rest of the world can provide Africa with expensive carbon capture and storage for coal-fired power stations; or the rest of the world can do nothing and watch Africa’s carbon footprint rise rapidly as it burns dirty fossil fuels. There is no status quo option…
    There are only three ways of reducing our carbon footprint: reduce the amount each person consumes, reduce the number of people, or make each unit of growth less carbon-intensive. Those who want to cut consumption and restrict population growth have the same question to answer: unless you are prepared to use draconian methods, how do you do it? …
    Obama could do his bit by making climate change a mission for the US – similar to the way that John F Kennedy vowed to put a man on the moon in the early 1960s. The mission could be to phase out domestic use and export of coal by a fixed date, or to set a deadline for shifting 50% of US energy consumption to renewable sources. Washington could then invite other nations to sign on to the same commitment.
    That message would be reinforced by putting a price on carbon.
    ***This could be achieved in one of two ways: through a carbon tax, or through a cap-and-trade scheme…
    ***Once shareholders understand that governments are serious about climate change, they will start to look at their investment portfolios. New technologies, particularly those with first‑mover advantage, tend to be profitable, and there will be incentives for pension funds and insurance companies to get their money out of the fossil fuel sector and into a sector that has massive growth potential…
    ***Coal is by far the dirtiest of the fossil fuels; it needs to be phased out first, and rapidly…
    http://www.theguardian.com/news/2015/apr/08/can-world-economy-survive-without-fossil-fuels

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    pat

    not needed to wrestle with the science of climate, but merely to create better models to reinforce the CAGW memes:

    7 April: Nature: Quirin Schiermeier: Climatologists to physicists: your planet needs you
    Climate scientists highlight cloud mysteries in a bid to compete with astronomy and cosmology.
    Climate science needs more mathematicians and physicists. So say prominent climatologists who are trying to spark enthusiasm for their field in budding researchers who might otherwise choose astrophysics or cosmology. Talented physical scientists are needed to help resolve mysteries that are crucial to modelling the climate — and, potentially, saving the planet — the group says, such as the ways in which clouds are formed.
    There is a misconception that the major challenges in physical climate science are settled. “That’s absolutely not true,” says Sandrine Bony, a climate researcher at the Laboratory of Dynamic Meteorology in Paris. “In fact, essential physical aspects of climate change are poorly understood.”…
    “We too quickly turn to the policy implications of our work and forget the basic science,” adds Bjorn Stevens, a director at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg, Germany, and a co-author of the Nature Geoscience paper. Although climate scientists agree on the basics — for example, climate change is primarily the result of human activity — large uncertainties persist in ‘climate sensitivity’, the increase in average global temperature caused by a given rise in the concentration of carbon dioxide…
    In some instances, the models cannot even agree on whether the future will bring more rain or less.
    Building better cloud-resolving models requires enormous computer power, as well as people who have a deep understanding of climate physics combined with skills in numerical modelling. But the number of scientists involved in developing computer algorithms for improved climate models is tiny, says Christian Jakob, an atmosphere researcher at Monash University in Clayton, Australia…
    Physicists agree that climate science is not a big attractor of physics students. “Very few, and rarely the best, choose to do a master thesis in climatology,” says Thierry Fichefet, a physicist and climate modeller at the French-speaking Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium. “Talented physicists commonly go into more glamorous fields such as astronomy, cosmology or particle physics.” …
    “We offer courses in climate science and our students do recognize the importance of the field,” says Paul Linden, a fluid-dynamics researcher at the University of Cambridge, UK. However, he says, classical subjects with a long history such as cosmology, are just more attractive, particularly at his university. “Most physics students would rather study with someone like Stephen Hawking, who is a member of our faculty.”
    http://www.nature.com/news/climatologists-to-physicist-your-planet-needs-you-1.17270

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    pat

    8 April: CarbonBrief: Roz Pidcock: The Carbon Brief interview: Jean-Pascal van Ypersele
    Jean-Pascal van Ypersele is professor of climatology and environmental sciences at the Université catholique de Louvain in Belgium. He has held the position of vice-chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) for seven years and is now running for the role of chair, to succeed Dr Rajendra Pachauri who stepped down in February.
    As part of his campaign for the IPCC chair, van Ypersele discusses….
    Greater transparency: “I think the IPCC would benefit from opening in an organised way its work to more media scrutiny.”
    The two-degree target: “The IPCC doesn’t say that fossil fuels … need to be phased out, it will say that emissions need to be brought to zero … which is different”.
    The IPCC’s new carbon budget: “Confronts policymakers with numbers that some have a difficulty to accept”.
    Climate risks increasing with temperature: “This is coming from the carbon cycle laws, the laws of nature which you cannot negotiate.”
    The first rule of climate science is honesty: “There is absolutely, absolutely no gain, I believe, in exaggerating anything.”
    IPCC authors: “[Authors from developing countries] have not always felt a perfect team spirit and respectful atmosphere in their work for the IPCC.”
    ‘Himalayagate’: “Now, did we learn enough about the lessons of the mistakes in the past? I think the answer is no.”
    The lack of women in senior IPCC roles: “I would most welcome having more women in the IPCC leadership … I’m very hopeful that we will have that in the next round”
    Climate skeptics on Twitter: “I don’t block any of them, contrary to some of my colleagues”
    His rivals for the IPCC chair: “There are some good people who have in their capacity as co-chairs, for example, done a good job. But the position of chair at the IPCC is different”…
    FULL INTERVIEW FOLLOWS…
    http://www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2015/04/the-carbon-brief-interview-jean-pascal-van-ypersele/

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    pat

    9 April: Investor Daily: Tim Stewart: ACSI appoints new CEO
    The Australian Council of Superannuation Investors (ACSI) has recruited from Cbus to replace outgoing chief executive Gordon Hagart
    Louise Davidson will leave her current role as the ESG investment manager at Cbus to join ACSI on 27 April.
    Speaking to InvestorDaily, Ms Davidson said the opportunity came out of the close working relationship between Cbus and ACSI…
    There is a growing understanding among super funds that they have an obligation to broader society when it comes to good stewardship of capital, Ms Davidson said…
    ***Ms Davidson said she believed very strongly in the power of collaboration – something that is evident in ACSI or the Investor Group on Climate Change (she is the secretary of the latter organisation)…
    The 31 Australian member super funds manage more than $400 billion in assets.
    “That’s a pretty significant increase in your impact opportunity,” Ms Davidson said…
    ACSI president Gerard Noonan said Ms Davidson is well known in the nation’s boardrooms.
    ***“She’s determined to improve corporate governance in listed companies as well as encourage company boards and management to take more seriously their environmental and social impact,” Mr Noonan said.
    “She will be a great asset to us and will continue Gordon’s impressive contribution to the responsible investment and sustainability debate in Australia,” he said.
    http://www.investordaily.com.au/appointments/37339-acsi-appoints-new-ceo

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    EternalOptimist

    Imagine there were two BOM’s
    BOM1 and BOM2
    They both use and publish the same base data
    but they use different and secret models
    and so they produce vastly different homogenized results

    how would the joker (or anyone else) know which one was correct ?

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      Greg Cavanagh

      Since they make no attempt to prove they are correct, why should we believe it’s correct?

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    Lewis P Buckingham

    Excluding capital cities (National 67 stations)

    maxima up 0.5C

    minima up 0.1C

    If this be true for Australia, the CO2 greenhouse argument is in tatters.
    We could easily be warming as we emerge from the LIA.
    The obvious explanation.

    AGW predicts an increase in minimum night time temperature,as the greenhouse gas blankets and keeps us all warm at night.
    The raw and so validated at the time, data, shows scant minima warming at night over long lead times.
    It would need a brave committee and good data to show the original data could be so wrong.

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    […] outcomes based in fact for the population rather than continue the gravy train for the fabulist fudgers at the weather bureau and like minded warming grants […]

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    Great piece, Jo. I look forward to further instalments.

    Cheers,

    Don

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