Canberra’s “hottest ever” September record due to thermometer changes and a wind profiler

With only a million dollars a day it’s hard for the BoM to keep up with their own stations. Luckily Bill Johnston has arrived to help out for free. The BoM announced that it was Canberra’s hottest ever day last week, but forgot to check whether the heat was due to the site moving three times,  changes in thermometers and a wind profiler they installed themselves in 2010.

Normally the BoM would detect and correct for these sorts of things by using Homogenisation Magic (HM). That’s where they spot these effects by comparing a station with surrounding stations. However in this case HM missed all three site moves and the wind profiler.  It looks like those might add up to 2.2°C of artificial warming. Nothing to worry about, but the hottest ever record will have to be shredded, and naturally, the BoM will need to issue a correction with at least as much fuss and coverage as the mistaken headlines. It’s only fair…

Canberra airport, Temperatures, graphed, rainfall residuals.

After the effect of rainfall is removed there are at least three site moves, a screen change, equipment change, and alterations to the surrounding area that may influence the site. These step changes align with documented moves and account for most of the warming.

Instead of using Homogenisation Magic, Johnston did things like getting site photos from national archives, and from google as well as using the BoM’s own data. He found out that most things have changed about the Canberra site since 1995. In 1995, not only did the thermometer shift to a new spot, the old liquid-in-glass style was converted to an electronic sensor (and we know they can be more sensitive and responsive to temperature changes). On top of that the screen around the thermometer shrank to about a quarter of its original volume (from 0.23m3 to 0.06m3). In the last ten years, large gravel or concrete pads were built near the sensor as well as a thingummygig called a wind profiler (which is a vertical radar array for detecting atmospheric turbulence).

Johnston uses a change in the relationship between temperature and rainfall to spot the site changes (then confirms them with documentation). If a site moves to a warmer or cooler spot the temperatures will shift up or down but the rainfall won’t.  The relationship between rain and temperature will be broken — an effect that shows up during the following years of data. These changes in pattern often occur at the same time as a site change, and Johnston uses the shifting ratio’s to estimate how much effect the site change has.

Johnston has looked at a lot of sites around Australia, and estimates that many modern records wouldn’t be records at all if the BOM bothered to dig out historic photos, maps, and data and took more care to estimate the effect of site changes. The techno magical homogenization tool sounds fancy but allows site problems to be turned into misleading headlines.

— Jo

_____________________________________________________________

Welcome to Canberra airport where it’s always sometimes hotter

A sad day for meteorology but another marketing success story for Australia’s BoM.

Guest post by Dr. Bill Johnston[1]

Main points.

  • Canberra’s record “hottest ever September day” is a great headline but not remotely real. The BoM forgot to mention thermometers were moved at least three times, each time to a warmer site.
  • Homogenisation is a complete failure. Canberra temperature appears to follow model projections because homogenisation ignores site changes in 1973, 1997, 2004 and 2010.

Introduction

It’s not fair to expect meteorologists who don’t observe the weather to know much about their data.

However, its reasonable for people in Canberra gouged by ACTEW-AGL’s energy prices to expect Ashleigh Lange from the Bureau of Meteorology to have researched the BoM site at Canberra Airport so she knows what she is talking about when claiming “Canberra records its hottest ever September day” (Canberra Times, 23 September 2017).

It was cold as a toad three days before the record was allegedly “smashed”; people and businesses were forced to turn on the heat, which sent ACTEW-AGL laughing all the way to the bank. Which bank? The ones that won’t support low-cost coal-fired electricity generation of course.

Why is site history important?

Moving a Stevenson screen often results in a permanent change in background heat sources and sinks. For example buildings may shield prevailing winds; a site near a runway is likely warmed by tarmac not the weather. So for places like Canberra airport, where the site moved at least three times (See those details below) its important to know if temperature changes are due to site effects or the climate.

Canberra airport

Canberra Airport

Figure 1. The original 1939 Canberra airport Aeradio site was near the hanger (S1) where the office was located. The site moved to S2, probably in 1973; then to an AWS south of the meteorological office at S3 (December 1995); then S4 in December 2008.

Rainfall can be used to help analyze the effect of changes in the site and equipment

Evaporation cools the environment and there is a simple relationship between average Canberra maximum temperature (Tmax) and annual rainfall. Dry years are warm years, and the drier it is, the hotter it gets [Figure 2 (a)]). [It’s not the same for minimums where things are more complicated. A wet year can have slightly warmer nights.  Clouds and humidity reduce heat loss by radiation so temperature is warmer in the early morning. (Exposure of the Stevenson screen to down-slope drainage of cool air is also important.) As foggy and cloudy winter days often don’t bring rain in Canberra, relationships between Tmin and rainfall are less clear-cut.]

The variation in Tmax can be split into the portion attributable to rainfall (the component described by the linear regression line [Figure 2 (a)]) and the residual variation, which is the portion not explained by rainfall. The relationship is robust if it is statistically significant and more than 50% of Tmax variation is accounted-for (R2adj, the coefficient of determination, is greater than 0.50). Although random in the rainfall-domain, Tmax-rainfall residuals may embed a hidden time-signal. As rainfall effects are removed the trajectory of residuals (rescaled by adding grand-mean Tmax) is unaffected by persistent weather effects and is analysed for step-changes using an independent statistical test [Figure 2 (b)].

Residual step-changes show that either the S1-site changed in 1973 (due to works nearby, for example) and it moved to S2 later (about 1975); or the move in the ACORN-SAT catalogue is miss-specified. Many things changed in 1995 [the site moved to S3, an AWS replaced thermometers, and it is likely that a small Stevenson screen (0.06m3) replaced a previous large one (0.23m3)]. In 2005, a vertical radar array for detecting atmospheric turbulence (wind profiler) was installed on a 350 m2 gravel or concrete pad 30 m north of the screen and a bitumen car-park replaced a former playing field 25 m east (Figure 3). However, the site didn’t move to S4 until December 2008, afterwards, in 2010, the wind-profiler relocated 40 m north of the S4 screen.

Canberra airport temperature series, moves, sites, step changes, rainfall. Graph.

Figure 2. Tmax depends on rainfall (a); however, due to embedded site changes, variation explained (R2adj) is only 0.36 or 36%.  As the naïve regression (Tmax = 21.91 – 0.34oC/100 mm) accounts for rainfall; rescaled residual variation (b) is due to non-rainfall factors including site and observer inconsistencies data in-filling etc.; and site changes and relocations. (Out-of-range outliers (o/r; red squares) are excluded from analysis.) Segments defined by step-changes are analysed separately in (c). Except for 2005 to 2016, relationships are significant. Differences in R2adj reflect both the number of cases and closeness of data to respective regression lines and are not comparable. Dotted lines indicate median rainfall (vertical) and overall average Tmax (horizontal), which provides a visual reference. (A P value of 0.10 is not statistically significant.)

 

Factored on step-changes, simultaneous analysis[3] shows regressions [individually free-fit in Figure 2 (c)] are parallel; rainfall reduces Tmax 0.33°C/100 mm and 78.8% of Tmax variation is explained (vs. 36% for rainfall alone). Moving the site beside the runways in 1972; then to the AWS and small screen in the vicinity of the new met-office in 1995; then installation of the 2005 wind-profiler array; sealing the car-park; then in December 2008 moving 400 m south along the eastern airport boundary, where a wind-profiler array was installed in 2010 caused data to warm 1.75°C[4] (0.43°C + 0.76°C + 0.56°C [Figure 2 (b)]). With those changes and rainfall accounted-for no Tmax trend remains that is indicative of changes in the climate.

The history of Canberra airport’s moving weather station

Temperature measurements started at Canberra airport in 1939 when Aeradio was set-up to monitor aircraft and advise pilots of inclement weather. In those days planes flew through turbulence not above it like jets do and Aerado ensued aviation safety. Plans at the National Archives of Australia show the Aerado and meteorological offices were in the northwest corner of the original hanger, still standing at RAAF (Royal Australian Air Force) Fairbairn. In June 1940 weather observers and radio operators were conscripted to the RAAF and after WWII, in July 1946, air traffic control merged with the Department of Civil Aviation and Weather Bureau staff transferred to Department of the Interior. As technology changed and demand for services increased facilities across Australia were up-graded in the 1950s. Radar was introduced to monitor aerosonde balloons; the busy met-office in the hanger at Canberra airport was provided with forced ventilation in 1954.

The National Library of Australia holds aerial photographs from 1956 and 1960 that show a meteorological enclosure between the north-south runway and the hanger (at about Latitude ‑35.3049, Longitude 149.2014) (S1 in Figure 1). The 2012 ACORN-SAT[2] catalogue states vaguely that the “original site (070014) was on the eastern side of the airport”; and “there are indications … of a possible move in about 1975”. The Canberra Aero Comparison (70228) (December 1995 to 1997) site summary locates the second site (S2) in the centre of the airport near intersection of the N-S and E-W runways (Lat. -35.3083, Lon. 149.1936). The site moved 800 m northeast to an automatic weather station (AWS) in December 1995 (S3); then 400 m south in December 2008 (S4). Canberra Airport Comparison (70014) metadata doesn’t mention either of the two earlier sites so perhaps the Bureau doesn’t really know what happened.

 

Discussion and conclusions

Daily temperature fluctuates around average site temperature. For September, average S1 Tmax from 1939 to 1972 is 15.8°C; from 1973 to 1996 (S2) it is 16.0°C; from 1997 to 2004 (S3), 17.3°C and at the current S4 site it is 18.0°C. Due to site changes and moves which have nothing to do with the climate, average September Tmax has shifted-up by 2.2°C!

World’s worst-practice compounds multiple site and instrument changes. Although the 1973 S2 site operated in parallel with S3 until December 1997; reply to an FOI request confirmed that data for thermometers observed in parallel with the AWS until March 2010 at S3 (which would enable the change to the AWS/small screen to be cross-referenced using the same instrument) are not available. Internal Bureau policy directed that manually observed data were discarded without being databased and that paper records were destroyed. In the absence of comparative data statistical inference and interpretation of site factors (Figure 3) is the only evidence that the heat signature of the MO-site (S3) is different to the runway (S2) site.

Canberra airport, temperature sensor. BoM.

Canberra Airport

Canberra

Figure 3. Google Earth satellite images of the Stevenson screen (sc) and meteorological office (mo) at S3 beside a sports oval on 11 March 2004 (left); and with the wind profiler array (wp) and sealed car-park on 31 March 2008 (the site did not relocate until December 2008).

Homogenisation makes no Tmax adjustment despite the weather station moving three times to situations whose background heat signatures are different; and changes such as to the AWS and small Stevenson screen in 1995, which is documented; and installation of wind profiler arrays in the vicinity in 2005. Bureau meteorologist Ashleigh Lange who claimed 30.2°C on Saturday 23 September  “smashed a 52-year record” and was the “hottest ever September day” may not have visited the site, analysed any data and may not know that Tmax is affected by background warming independent of the climate. Even if it’s an above-average anomaly, inflated by site factors it is not a valid 52-year record.

Homogenisation provably does not improve site records. Choosing not to adjust for site and instrument changes in 1973, 1997, 2004 and 2010 causes Canberra data to warm like the models claim it should. Although Canberra airport data are not used directly to calculate Australia’s warming, Bureau meteorologists use the site to stir alarm about the climate.

Furthermore, airport data spread their faults far and wide: to ACORN-SAT sites at Bathurst Agricultural Research Station (63005), Dubbo airport AWS (65070), Moruya Pilot Station (69018) and Nowra RAN (68072). Data for those, adjust others, including Sydney Observatory, whose numerous faults find their way to Alice Springs (via. Tibooburra). Homogenisation of faulty ACORN-SAT site data using other data that are faulty is flawed. Instead of being recycled into yet another version, ACORN-SAT should simply be abandoned.

Bureau marketing of record-heat that doesn’t exist is the reason for the RET; the rivers-of-cash ACTEW-AGL takes from the Canberra community and the ACT Labor-Greens government’s hard left-turn to consumer-subsidised unreliable “renewables”.

Trends don’t exist; the cost is too high; people are hurting and losing their jobs. An open public inquiry into the Bureau of Meteorology and its dodgy homogenisation methods is long-overdue. In the meantime, the Bureau should cease making claims about record temperatures, which like at Canberra are provably false.


[1] Former weather observer and NSW natural resources research scientist.

[2] Australian Climate Observations Reference Network – Surface Air Temperature (ACORN-SAT) (Bureau of Meteorology 2012)

[3] Multiple linear regression of the form: Tmax ~ Sitefactor + rainfall

[4] As economists adjust the value of goods for inflation, Tmax values are calculated with rainfall held constant at the median of 616 mm.

9.7 out of 10 based on 79 ratings

203 comments to Canberra’s “hottest ever” September record due to thermometer changes and a wind profiler

  • #
    Timo Soren

    I very much doubt BOM will respond to a comment saying what they should do. It’s like telling an arrogant young tyrant he needs to be nicer. Just incurrs their wrath.

    I think they should be forced (by legislation) to take specific action and provide proof it was done. Like investigate the data they destroyed, make a complete accounting and then determine more than a few blokes to fire.

    Repeat with any of the inane actions they have done.

    412

    • #
      Sceptical Sam

      Timo, as I’ve said over and over again, there’ll be no investigation instituted by Parliamentarians of any colour.

      What’s needed is the independent Auditor-General (Australian National Audit Office (ANAO)) to undertake an efficiency and effectiveness or a performance audit of the BoM. The Auditor-General reports to the Parliament as a whole, not to a Minister; is fully independent of politicians and politics; and, sets his/her own work programme. The Auditor-General is fearless.

      Currently, for example, the ANAO is undertaking a Performance Audit of the Bureau of Statistics (Transforming the Australian Bureau of Statistics: management of risk). If anything needs “transforming” it’s the BoM!

      The Auditor-General receives requests for audit from Members and Senators of the Parliament of Australia. Requests that are received, and responses to these requests, are published on its website.

      https://www.anao.gov.au/work-program

      The trick is to find an MP (or a number of MPs) who are prepared to request the Auditor-General undertake an audit. When you’ve found a group of MPs who are prepared to help, it might also be useful to provide them with a suggested “Terms of Reference” and a “Statement of the Problem”.

      In the interim, each time one of these findings of BoM incompetence (and there have been many over recent times) comes to light a letter needs to go to the Auditor-General and your “helpful” MP, pointing out the intractability of the BoM to sorting the mess out; and pointing out that the BoM’s corrupted datasets are informing the development of Government policy which, in turn, is costing the Australian economy, consumers and business vast amounts of money.

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      • #
        Roger

        Spot on – hope Everyone follows your suggestion.

        Here in the UK I have a meeting with the Prime Minister (my MP) this Friday to set out and explain how OLEV (Office for Low Emission Vehicles – which sits across 3 main government departments) is at best ‘misguiding’ itself as to the benefits of electric vehicles and the policy proposal that from 2040 the sale of internal combustion engine cars in the UK will be banned.

        OLEV have seemingly chosen to assume that because Elon Musk is building a renewable energy battery making facility in Nevada that All electric vehicles will be made entirely using renewable energy and thus will not cause massively increased CO2 emissions. Internationally published business predictions (Forbes and others) see China being responsible for between 65% and 85% of global EV battery production. As a pointer towards this Nissan agreed the sale of its global battery plants to Chinese investors in Augiust of this year, that includes its battery plant in Sunderland, UK that does not use renewable energy. We know from the Paris Climate Agreement and China’s INDC that it intends to Double its CO2 emissions between now and 2030, so it is very unlikely that it’s battery manufacture is going to get as high as 50% renewable energy in the foreseeable future if ever.

        Calculations show this UK electric vehicle policy will mean a rise to 18% above UK’s 2015 CO2 emission levels by 2048 if 50% renewable energy is used to make the batteries – and that is just from the batteries, it doesn’t include the CO2 emissions from generating electricity to run 23+ Million of them by 2048! IVL Swedish Research Institute found that using 50% renewable energy to make a battery for a Tesla produced as much CO2 as driving a normal car for 8 years, around 15-20 Tonnes CO2e).

        Calculations based on UK and International wind farm statistics show that ~ 23.5 % of the UK landmass will need to be covered in windmills to power all these electric vehicles by 2048 – and that is not achievable and will not happen ! Wind reaches about 24% – 26% efficiency in the best UK locations whilst PV struggles to reach 10%. The other aspect is that currently the taxes on petrol and diesel fuel raise £33.12 Billion a year for the UK government, that will need to be transferred onto electricity bills or road pricing. As an aside to that I wonder how many of the people who currently praise their electric vehicle Because it is cheaper to run today using electricity rather than petrol/diesel will feel as pleased about it when it becomes more expensive to run than a normal car and can’t be used for long distance driving.

        It will be interesting to see how the Prime Minister reacts to these figures – but I’m not holding my breath for a damascene conversion – a decent sized niggle of doubt in her mind is I think the best I can hope for at this stage after years of political green-washing. I have produced a source list of peer reviewed papers for all the facts used and that makes interesting reading against the rather naive and, dare I say it , nonsensical correspondence I have from OLEV.

        At every opportunity we must keep chipping away at politicians (who tend to be out of touch with the real world) using Facts rather than the AGW Fiction they are fed by the green blob at large and by green blob civil servants involved in policy making.

        191

        • #
          daveR

          Good on you, Roger, for working against the clampdown. My MSP, Transport Minister Keith Brown, is quite the architect of all greenism. His current Scottish cabinet envisages zero vehicular emissions by 2050 via banning solely petrol and diesel engined transport by 2035. Yes, some sixteen years.

          Meanwhile, Scotland increasingly becomes a net electricity and energy importer given succoured obeisance to EU’s LCPD. Forget any nuclear build out – the sad fact is that this drive towards rump-UK political independence necessarilly means a reincorporation within an increasingly failing EU dictatorship.

          Thanks for the fight!

          60

          • #
            Roger

            Dave, if you would like to have a.PDF copies of what I will be leaving with the pm then email me tomorrow (wed) that will give me time to set up an email address I can shut off once I have yours – then the green blob can’t pester me through it.

            Let me know here and I’ll Post the address in reply.

            All the best
            Roger

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        • #
          Sceptical Sam

          Thanks Roger.

          EVs you say?

          I’m pleased you raised that issue here. What you say resonates and should do so with your Prime Minister. She is, after all, a very intelligent woman.

          It was also raised in a slightly different context in the Weekend Unthreaded (WEU) last week-end (30/9/17) at 9.0 to 9.4.2.1; and, as a result I had a look at the feasibility of ownership. This is where I landed:

          EVs vs Petrol

          1. Tesla Model “s” 85kw
          https://www.tesla.com./en_AU/used?model=ms

          Purchase Cost: (2nd hand in Australia) $AU110,000 to $120,000
          Battery: 85 kWh
          Range: 424 km
          Cost to fully charge: 85kW + 20%* = approx 100kW @ 31.1c/kWh** = $31.10
          *see WEU 9.3.2.1 (30/9/17)
          ** current price of domestic power on my last account (including pro-rata daily connection fee)

          2. Corolla SX Petrol CVT
          http://www.toyota.com.au/special-offers-and-great-value/offer-details?offerid=d022bbfe-c544-4315-8f05-70c4cb754355

          Purchase Cost: $27,000
          Fuel equivalent for 424 km @ 6.4litres/100km @ $1.10/litre = $29.90

          Purchase cost difference = $115,000 – $27,000 = $98,000

          Fuel cost difference = $1.20/EV range, in favour of the Corolla.

          And that’s without addition of the fuel tax equivalent for electrical power being added. (currently, fuel taxes add approx 50% ton the cost of fuel in Australia).

          91

          • #

            I was thinking about this the other day. If EVs became the majority of vehicle ownership and disregarding the actual running costs, there are many other issues that are never discussed.

            Consider roadside assistance. One of the most common callouts is for people running out of petrol, and easy fix for as all roadside assistance services carry a small quantity of fuel to get a car going once again. How will they do this with EVs?

            How will commuters charge their EVs in dense city environments while at work? Imagine couriers and others that have to travel all over the place each day. By how much will industry/business actually slow down?

            No figures are ever presented so that those who regularly tow, have an idea of how far they can go when the EV is subjected to heavy loads.

            There are many more issues that are always swept under the carpet, as these aren’t a good look for EVs.

            The unintended consequences are never considered.

            30

            • #
              OriginalSteve

              Converting to run on EVs is stupidity par excellence and ignore s whole bunch of engineering realities completely and foolishly ignored.

              (1) How do you shift road frieght? Maybe electric trucks? How do you make batteries big enough to carry that much frieght? Perhaps the manufacture the trucks with a 1/4 ton of fairy dust to make them lighter….

              (2) how do you charge such trucks quickly for quick turn around? What happns if the batteries fail out on the road – you would nee the mother of all tow trucks to drag the dead one back, itself being electric.

              (3) If all people have electric cars, and need to charge each night, as this would double each houses power consumption, assuming not everyone has solar ( or maybe they do so their fridge stays running and you can stay warm…..the greenists hate humans, so…), so how do you upgrade every suburbs infrastucture to cope with doubling the average load to every house?

              (4) Generation – everyone has electric shopping trolleys now, all autonomous because the gummint says we are to dumb to drive ourselves and could kill the planet if we do, so these cars are autonomous. But we have reduced power generation by average 20% in every state to bring our capacity into “SA flaky” zone so no gaurantees they will actually charge. How do you get to work at the Ministry of Truth if your car cant be charged? Blame some dissident perhaps?

              Could be fun…..not….

              10

              • #

                I was commenting more on just regular cars being swapped for EVs in urban areas, the transport industry, especially the long distance one, creates a whole new set of problem. Add to that those who want to tow caravans, boats, floats etc any distance, and you have another issue. Multiply that manyfold for remote areas. There’s a bushfire in the wilderness, but the electric firetrucks can only get there with a reduced quantity of water and won’t be able to get back. That ambulance service in rural Victoria will require more vehicles, as for everyone in service, another is on charge. The list becomes endless.

                20

          • #
            Sceptical Sam

            Look, I’m pleased somebody gave me a “red thumb”. Thank you.

            I have an open mind on this and, accordingly, I am interested in what motivated your red thumb.

            Was it my analysis? If so, what bit do you disagree with?

            Was it the fact that I referred to the Prime Minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland as a “very intelligent woman”?

            Or was it something else entirely?

            10

  • #
    TdeF

    The invention of man made Global Warming by the new IPCC on formation in 1988 was coincidental with the world wide change from glass themometers to electronics over the decade 1985 to 1995. This is coincident with a change in resolution.

    Whenever you change measurement technique, you have a problem. With much higher resolution, the two can never agree. If one has a (visual) resolution range of 0.5C and the other an electronic resolution of 0.02C, you can get shifts of 0.5C if you are not very careful. There are other problems, but this is the big one. This observed problem in parallel testing, a shift upwards of 0.5C was reported in Germany and nothing was done there, or here. Frankly, it suited the story of the IPCC and the money started to flow. Fame and fortune. R&D grants.

    In fact neither value is actually wrong, but the shift is entirely artificial and does not represent a real change in temperature. Of course the speed of response can do the same thing, as has been noted. In the new science, only record highs matter.

    You had a similar mismatch with Michael Mann who bolted themometer data onto his tree rings. This is all bad science. There is enough to worry about without all the effects of urbanization around boxes without moving them or incredibly, changing what is inside them. As we now pay the world’s highest prices for electricity. Australian data was critical in establishing rising world temperatures, because of our dominant position representing one third of the planet. I hope the BOM is pleased with its good work.

    Now we can also hope the BOM automates the place completely and they can go home. We can buy our weather, like everything else, from overseas. All paid with the income from coal.

    323

    • #
      RickWill

      There is a silver lining. The level of CO2 in the atmosphere has to increase as wind and solar are installed because they are so energy intensive to manufacture while producing so little in usable output. The extra CO2 is benefiting crop production.

      The 2016/17 year saw a strong rise in Australian agricultural records:
      http://www.queenslandcountrylife.com.au/story/4961467/grains-lead-aussie-ag-exports/?cs=4699

      Total ag exports were up by $3.9 billion to almost $50 billion, with the cropping sector alone rising $3.7 billion, with a 49pc year on year increase in production the major driver.

      With Australia’s heavy industry being wiped out there are more workers available for lower energy intensive industries such as agriculture. That helps contain costs.

      The northern hemisphere will suffer increasing crop failures as the globe cools so that should help demand from Australian producers.

      Not all bad.

      202

      • #
        TdeF

        Yes, self defeating. Home solar people get cash (goes to the installers) for 15 years of carbon savings but for half that time, the world is far worse of in total CO2 thanks to the solar cell manufacture. All fantasy science.

        Most importantly, as 98% of the CO2 is dissolved in the world’s oceans, 370x as big as the the thin air above, no scientist would consider the tiny amount emitted by man will change the basic equilibrium between water and air. Equilibrium never gets a mention, but CO2 exists without mankind. It has a level set without mankind. There is absolutely no evidence that mankind has increased the level of CO2. There is conclusive evidence that no more than as 2% of CO2 is man made, so it is all a lie and after thirty years, not even plausible.

        Denier? That would be an understatement. It was never proven in the first place. What science?

        321

      • #
        Will Janoschka

        “The level of CO2 in the atmosphere has to increase as wind and solar are installed because they are so energy intensive to manufacture while producing so little in usable output. The extra CO2 is benefiting crop production”

        Well maybe! Certainly to fabricate, install, and maintain such wind\solar installation requires tremendous ‘energy’ conversion to “work”, with the inherent entropy production of both CO2 (good) and methane CH4, oxen burps (stinky). Mostly from coal burning “energy”; And much moe ‘energy’ than such installation will ever produce in their lifetime! Did you forget the /sarc?

        The ‘hurrier’ these fake scientists\politicians go, the ‘be-hinder’ they get!! That is the eventual silver lining. Kick back have another dram of whatever you prefer on me!
        Kiss wife, young mother, and tickle tummy of grandsprout for the best reward (smile) you will ever get
        All the best!-will-

        55

      • #
        John of Cloverdale, WA, Australia

        Rain can be a good thing or a bad thing. If we can control the climate maybe we can control the weather (sarc).
        Wet week for southern Western Australia leaves inland farmers relieved but coastal crops ‘living in water’

        51

        • #
          tom0mason

          Or is it —

          To control the weather we must control the climate, to control the climate we must control the people, to control the people we must enact more laws and statues, to maintain the laws and statues we need more police and better surveillance of the populous, ….

          60

          • #

            Is this a life’s philosophy? Don’t do anything that involves asking people to do something?

            24

            • #
              Robert Rosicka

              Your going to have to draw me a picture , I have no idea what that comment is about GA

              21

              • #
                KinkyKeith

                Just a small correction before GA gets to it:

                you’re.

                GA is saying that government or community has the right, perhaps even the obligation to, expect people to clean up after themselves, or to not pollute the environment or to question requests from approved authority figures who may, from time to time, give us guidance on how to follow the ethical direction they feel, deep down in their souls, is best for humanity.

                Summarised, this may be stated:

                Don’t think for yourself, do as your told and last and most important, shut up.

                KK

                30

              • #
                Robert Rosicka

                Thanks KK , now I understand it .

                20

              • #

                more or less… innaction is not pardonable because of a personal philosphy. And “do as you’re told”… but you just wrote that to get a response, right?

                21

              • #
                Robert Rosicka

                I like The explanation KK gave better , it was more honest and straight to the point .

                40

              • #
                Will Janoschka

                KinkyKeith October 4, 2017 at 12:38 pm

                “… expect people to clean up after themselves, or to not pollute the environment…”

                Not proper for government nor community but reserved for mom and pops backed up by granma & pawpaw! If not well learned by military age; you have only raised cannon fodder. 🙁

                32

              • #
                KinkyKeith

                And nobody picked it up.

                🙂

                20

              • #
                KinkyKeith

                Yaw.

                00

            • #
              AndyG55

              “asking people to do something”

              You mean like asking you to actually stop with your inane moronic comments?

              And maybe just once engage your insipid mind before going near a keyboard?

              11

  • #

    Every month now seems to be the hottest ever. While everyone froze their brass monkeys of this winter, down south, it was still declared the hottest winter evah! The BOM doesn’t even care anymore, repeat the lie often enough and they are convinced it will become the truth.

    353

  • #
    pat

    kudos to Bill Johnston – amazing work. any day now, ABC will announce a BoM attack 4Corners. I dream of a day when money will not be wasted on the following:

    2 Oct: ScienceMag: Grass-fed cows won’t save the climate, report finds
    By Jacquelyn Turner
    But the 127-page FCRN report released today, Grazed and Confused (LINK – PASSWORD-PROTECTED), says there is no evidence that grass-grazing cattle will make a difference. Grass-fed cattle do contribute to CO2 sequestration, the international group concluded after sifting through more than 100 papers—but only under ideal conditions…

    In the end, the real solution is reducing global meat consumption, says Tim Benton, who studies sustainable agro-ecological systems at the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom. “Our ever-increasing demand for meat is driving the planet in an unsustainable direction,” Benton says. “No one farming system will fix it.”
    http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/10/grass-fed-cows-won-t-save-climate-report-finds

    2 Oct: AFR: Ben Potter: Australia can’t ignore China’s move to a national ETS
    Even if China’s national ETS only starts with coverage of the power sector, it will roughly double the share of global emissions covered by ETSs to about a fifth, says Peter Castellas, chief executive of the Carbon Market Institute…
    For exporters of thermal coal at least, Chinese buyers will be looking to their Australian suppliers to help them defray the carbon liabilities they will increasingly face. That could come in the form of a reduction in the price or a requirement that the Australian supplier deliver carbon credits to cover the liability.

    Either way it means less money in the pockets of the Australian exporters over time. Aluminium exporters may also be covered from the start, but by 2020 they are likely to be covered along with exporters of iron ore, non-ferrous metals such as copper, chemicals and petrochemicals…READ ON
    http://www.afr.com/news/australia-cant-ignore-chinas-move-to-a-national-ets-20171002-gysp38

    2 Oct: CarbonBrief: Daisy Dunne: World can meet growing food demands and limit warming to 1.5C, study says
    However, these mitigation techniques will take up precious farmland and could have an impact on global food production, explains Dr Stefan Frank, a researcher at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Vienna and lead author of the new study published in Environmental Research Letters…

    One way to meet this goal would be to introduce a “carbon tax” on food, the study finds, whereby foods that cause high carbon emissions during their production, such as beef and rice, are taxed the most…

    However, although the introduction of a carbon tax could help to cut farming emissions, it could also threaten the food security of the world’s most vulnerable people, the research suggests.
    This is because a tax on food could restrict the calorie intake of low-earners who are vulnerable to food price hikes. In many parts of the developing world, poor people spend as much as 60-80% of their income on food, according to the World Food Programme…
    https://www.carbonbrief.org/world-can-meet-growing-food-demands-and-limit-warming-to-1-5c-study-says

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      TdeF

      The best I have read is to change the cows diet so they do not fart methane.

      First carbon dioxide was the villain. Now cellulose digesting herbivores farting methane. Kangaroos, wilderbeest, elephants, buffalo, caribou, emus, giraffes, hippopotamuses, there is no end to evil animals in the world, trying to destroy our cities and Western democracies, the exclusive job of Greens. Now the Greens want the animals gone as well as the people. Is there no end to their caring?

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        Kevin Lohse

        There is an element of the deepest Greens which believes that any form of life is an anomaly in a largely sterile universe and should be expunged. So yes, their caring will stop when they get their way.

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          OriginalSteve

          When communists talk of peace for you, they mean the peace of the grave if you disagree with them…..

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        Will Janoschka

        “Is there no end to their caring?”
        There always is an auto-magical end to profound ‘stupidity’; called extinction! Just the cleaning up trash from this wonderful very UN-sterile universe! 🙂

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        Geoffrey Williams

        Well said TD, and while we are on the subject, what about all those whales, the pin up babes of the ‘green’ world ocean.
        They must be contributing enormously.
        And by the way, I love whales.
        Regards GeoffW

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        OriginalSteve

        OK, the extreme greens want anything gone that keeps humans alive.

        Cows provide *meat* – meat is a big no no – requires energy to farm it, eaten by humans, and humans bad ( angry emoticon ), so cows bad ( angry emoticon ). The methane thing is a convenient synergy to the ultimate aim of banning of animal farming ( smily emoticon ).

        Now wonder why they would build a seed store in the artic, away from fall-out and out of reach of most humans. Contorl of humanity , probably through tightly controlling food production for all huamnity ( the extreme greens would see it as “controlled benevolent death” ) will probably be controlled through GM seeds that never reproduce. Revelation in the Bible in the Last Days, talks of starvation ( the pale horse of the 4 horses of the Apocalypse ), so you have to wonder…..

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      tom0mason

      The same FCRN report ‘Grazed and Confused’ is précised here https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2017-10/uoo-nrg100217.php. Unfortunately it still gives nonsense about methane and animal farts disturbing the climate. Utter bilge, who paid for this?

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        Will Janoschka

        “Utter bilge, who paid for this?”

        Consider the vast number of current young earthlings that have much more money than ‘sense’! Consider also the bored ‘very few’ with more ‘wealth’ then any other, that are quite desirous of physical evidence of their own superiority to all! What ‘must be’ the result of such current combination? 🙂

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        greggg

        ‘who paid for this?’
        Vegan warmists? Two religions in one.
        The question is how do emissions from grazing animals compare to emissions from crops per nutrient density.

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          greggg

          Not that crops are a substitute for meat nutritionally. They’re just not.

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            OriginalSteve

            Agreed. But you are talking greenist relgious dogma, not common sense.

            Bear in mind the multiple Inquisitions that took place in the middle ages, allegedly at the hands of a “christian” church ( the RCC isnt Christian, but thats a whole ‘nother story… )

            Now imagine what the extreme greenist religion, freed from any moral governance, as the world continues to attack and reduce the imapct of true Christianity, will classify very violent acts as “OK”. Will we see the rise of the Green Shirts?

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            Will Janoschka

            The folk that ate of that monster “python’ got much very dense protein. Besides ‘tastes’ much better than mud! 🙂

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    Leonard Lane

    Ho hum–another bogus
    “Hottest day, week, month, year or decade ever.” Seems every time someone takes a look at BOM and what it is doing, an error, misrepresentation, or fake news results.
    In the previous exposures of bad or misleading data, conclusions, or press releases some would try to cover for BOM by saying “it is just another bureaucracy.”

    How long will that coverup hold? Now I know why there is no transparency in BOM or the government responsible for it. There are untoward things, procedures, data, and conclusions that must not see the light of day. Why? They set out to monitor the weather and climate with a predetermined outcome. It would wreck the entire green program if the citizens and competent scientists could lift the BOM lid and look inside.

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    John Westman

    Lot of interesting stuff Dr. Bill.

    It seems to me that the use of thermistors at airports has rendered the temperature data not suitable for the purpose of calculating trend lines.

    I was sitting in a hangar at Wagga Wagga airport some several hundred metres from a Rex aircraft(turbo prop, burning kerosene) that was having difficulty starting. I got a very good whiff of kerosene, which means that the air parcel around that aircraft had travelled that distance, along the ground. There was a gentle breeze at the time. I suspect that wind speed plays an important part in how a particular parcel of air becomes mixed with the surrounding atmosphere.

    It is clear, depending on weather conditions at the time, that a parcel of heated air can travel quite some distance.

    As one who has flown into Canberra airport, I am a little familiar with its layout. Canberra is a very busy airport with plenty of heavy lift aircraft taking off. Those “heavies” generate an enormous amount of heat on take-off. It is perfectly logical that there will be plenty of extra heat heading the way of the thermometer, if it is downwind.

    Using thermistors, which are highly sensitive and capable of detecting enduring spikes, must result in bloated temperature recordings.

    Not only are more “heavies” generating extra heat but look at all those air-conditioned buildings spewing hot air to the outside, and hot air rising of the tarmacked areas. As the airport is in a state of constant enlargement, more “heavies; more buildings; more car parking, we have an ongoing and worsening problem.

    Locating thermometers at airports perhaps suits the purpose of BOM, but not that of science!

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      Will Janoschka

      “It is clear, depending on weather conditions at the time, that a parcel of heated air can travel quite some distance.”

      A parcel of air,”heated or not’ is but academic meteorological BS; promoted to SCAM all for political or financial gain. As the troposphere remains well mixed.
      There can be no ‘parcel of ‘atmosphere’. The very closest is the conceptual compressible fluid dynamic ‘particle’ (group of gas molecules); that must retain all properties of local mass, sensible heat, and cohesion. This is not an attempt to scam, but only what engineers may possibly consider without destroying the very ‘what is considered’ about this atmosphere.
      All the best!-will-

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        Geoffrey Williams

        Will what you say is so true; Anyone who takes regular walks ourdoors, as I do with my dogs usually morns and evenings will be aware that air temps can change quickly and often.
        Roadways, open spaces, tall trees and bush, and elevation, amongst many other things I have observed can change the surrounding air temps dramatically.
        Regards GeoffW

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          ROM

          Take a ride in the back of a ute for a few kilometres down a country road during a mild and relatively calm evening and you will experience quite large changes and rapid shifts in temperatures of a more than couple of degrees as you drive through pockets of different airmass temperatures that usually extend over a few hundred metres distance at least in size and area.

          These large air masses of varying and different temperatures drift downwind but often hold their basic structure quite closely in calm conditions often for some kilometres when drifting downwind over the flat landscape of our Western Vic Wimmera region’s plains.

          I have frequently seen long lines of very clearly defined heavy dust drifting from a source such as clover / medic seed harvesting with a vacuum type seed harvesters or cultivation of a dry soil paddock , drifting 3 or 4 kilometres downwind on a calm evening.
          So parcels of air / air masses of slightly different characteristics from the surrounding air mass can and do drift for quite long distances under low atmospheric turbulent conditions.

          The drifting of artificially heated air from jet engines, air conditioner radiators and higher temperature sources of every type can and do drift for some long distances, the drift distances depending on the turbulence of the local air mass and atmospheric conditions.

          The distance of drift for such varying parcels of airmass are usually tied to turbulence of the local atmosphere, a turbulence which promotes the mixing of the air masses involved and so controls the distance the airmass with its different temperature or humidity characteristics will drift before becoming indistinguishable from the greater airmass of the local atmosphere.

          As for riding in the back of the ute on a public road, its illegal so put a collar around your neck and a short restraining chain hooked to the ute so you are not able to put your nose over the side and call yourself a “dog” and all will be legal you hope although the gendarmerie might take a different view of your situation.

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            ROM

            And when it comes to airports and aerodromes, I spent a lot of my leisure time since late 1959 hanging around airfields across SE Australia and I can assure our commenters and lurkers from personal experience that when it is hot, airfields will be hotter than Hades and definitely hotter than anywhere else around due in no small part to the acres of heat absorbing and heat radiating black sealed surfaces on the runways and taxiways and hardstandings.

            Conversely when it is cold and you are freezing your proverbials off then if you frequent airfields you will most likely already have had those proverbials well and truly frozen off sometime previously.

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              Peter C

              Ok,

              So the atmosphere is not well mixed on the small scale. This applies to the BOM temperature measurements at Canberra airport. Local “parcels of air” can exist for quite a while and influence the measuring device.

              On the larger scale this might also be true.

              I am trying to understand the atmosphere at the continental edge of Antarctica. It seems to me that the atmosphere is tending toward isothermal when solar heating is minimal and there is not much mixing.

              Who cares? Well almost nobody. But it is a question raised amongst sopme skeptics

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                Will Janoschka

                The term,“parcels of air” was invented by academic meteorologists, to support nonsense of their ‘adiabatic’. Adiabatic gas compression\expansion refers to something like internals of a diesel engine (with no time for ‘heat transfer’ to\from engine block up or down).
                These same fools disregard the required isentropic temperature increase with spontaneous gravitational compression of atmosphere as atmosphere continually descends about 30° and 90° latitude.
                The gas law has 5 variables. to determine one result such as temperature, ‘all’ of the interactions of the other four “must be” carefully considered!
                There is no simple about Earth’s wonderful atmosphere!
                All the best!-will-

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                KinkyKeith

                Hi Will

                I know that you have mentioned this before but maybe we can work with both set ups as long as the physical condition are kept in mind.

                KK

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                Will Janoschka

                KinkyKeith October 5, 2017 at 9:15 pm

                “I know that you have mentioned this before but maybe we can work with both set ups as long as the physical condition are kept in mind.”

                I am interested and willing. Please propose the method for meaningful combination of measuring for the sake of measuring, (promotion), and measuring to falsify some guess, (science).
                With planetary atmosphere the concepts of constant volume Cv and constant pressure Cp make no sense at all.
                We have a planetary atmosphere where none can be constant over local space\time but are overwhelmingly constrained via gravitational compression and Solar effects. Besides neither agree on any reference frame for discussion. Can be rotating, Solar or inertial. 🙁
                All the best!-will-

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    wazz

    I agree with John Westman – The huge enhancement of UHI post 2000 as all the office blocks and shopping precincts were built just to the west and south-west. Thats plenty reason enough for any warmth in BoM data. But thanks to Bill for telling us there have been 4 sites. And I do wish some of this heat would affect the interior of our house.
    Thanks Jo.

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      John Westman

      I suspect that the prevailing winds at Canberra are from the general area of the West, exactly where all the development has taken place. Ditto for the runways and the heavy lift aircraft.

      Another reason to question the location of the thermometer site.

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    Robert Rosicka

    Don’t you people have better things to do than constantly exposing erroneous and faulty BOM equipment and methods , public safety depends on them doing weather forecasts and cow towing to the greens by scaring the crap out of the public with a made up meme ,they can’t do that if they have to keep explaining themselves to a bunch of climate contrarians now can they ?

    (No mercury thermometers were harmed in writing this post)

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    Robert Rosicka

    OT , Tasmania is the only eastern state right now that is producing more electricity than its using .

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    Ruairi

    The B.O.M. now sensationalize,
    And by magic will homogenize,
    For ‘the hottest September’,
    That man can remember,
    From their dubious temperature highs.

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    Roger

    Dear ‘Red-Thumbers’

    it must be quite frustrating and anger-making to live in a green bubble that is constantly being punctured with facts and science that demonstrate the bubble is really just a fantasy land.

    I can understand how you want to relieve those feeling by acting as a Green Keyboard-Warrior to click on a ‘Red Thumb’.

    But there is a better and permanent cure for your frustration and anger, all you have to do to start this cure is to open your mind to learn and understand the differences between hypothesis, theory and proven scientific Fact; then return to the basic principles of critical evaluation, reproducibility and other basic principles of science. You will learn and see that AGW is merely a hypothesis – and a largely disproven one at that because there is no empirical evidence to support the hypothesis.

    Climate models don’t count as empirical, they have all failed to predict and are recognised as mere fictions, they are the product of assumptions that have shown themselves to be false by the real-time behaviour of earth’s climate. Not even the man-made ‘evidence’ produced by the likes of BOM crosses the threshhold of proof to meet the requirements of being empirical – the fundamental flaws, manipulations, errors and failings it contains have been too well exposed and documented to be able to have any faith in its temperature ‘records’.

    If you can manage to do that and seek out the Facts as opposed to the AGW fiction then your mind will clear, you will relax and become far happier ….. you will understand how you have been wilfully misled into fearing a catastrophe that only exists in the propaganda of those who want to control the world through fear and make us all walk in the footsteps of Marx and Lenin.

    But I would add a caution – if you find it impossible to open your mind and consider that you may have been misled then you may need professional help to overcome the problem.

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      Lionell Griffith

      But I would add a caution – if you find it impossible to open your mind and consider that you may have been misled then you may need professional help to overcome the problem.

      Consider the obviousness of their error, would it be possible for them to select the professional that really can help them? Since their conclusions are based upon preconceived assumptions, invalid interpretation of measurements, manipulation of evidence, and reliance on so called experts who themselves are biased by the same things, it is exceedingly likely they would also select the wrong professional for help. Thereby confounding their error with confusion from confirmation bias. Which, was exactly the problem from the get go.

      This strongly suggests that we need a solution that is not dependent upon their discovering and correcting their errors.

      Consider that 10% of the population makes things happen, 20% help that 10%, 30% watch what happens, and the remainder wonder what happened if they even notice. One can conclude we are almost if not completely on our own.

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      Annie

      Unfortunately the red thumbers don’t often seem to read the comments they red thumb. Often the red thumbs appear very quickly when little miss/mrs/mr mindless goes quick-firing them down the thread. Maybe it’s young master mindless who should have an earlier night?

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        OriginalSteve

        They are more active during school holidays…maybe mum or dad gave them a job to do to keep them busy in the office?

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      Roger I don’t think there are any greens reading this. You flatter yourself. And you can exclude me – I only red-thumb blatant abuse and bad manners not opinions I disagree with. Probably 2 or 3 a week at most (mods can substantiate this I assume).

      I suspect there are a few on your side who don’t like considered argument and red thumb anything they think is not hard line or where there is a sniff of orthodoxy. There are also those who just dislike someone else – some here of the skeptical persuation attract thumbs no matter what they write.

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        el gordo

        ‘Roger I don’t think there are any greens reading this. You flatter yourself.’

        Not so quick, I know people of the green/left persuasion who visit here occasionally and don’t speak.

        We need to create a mini red and blue team arguing the science, sprinkled with wit, this will attract a larger audience.

        I nominate Craig Thomas for the blue team.

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        • #

          that would be a discussion forum not one of self-congratulatory agreement with anaecdotes for evidence. Yes, let’s set it up but no teams. The teams thing is someone else’s fantasy.

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            el gordo

            So its you against the contrarians, no contest.

            Ask me any question on the science of climate change and limit yourself to a simple sentence so that everyone can understand.

            I’ll reply in like manner.

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            • #
              Gee Aye

              Can you re remind me of this at some point… sorry not now. If a day passes other stuff got in the way

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              Gee Aye

              Quick look. Not my expertise but I’ll have a stab if it is on topic or unthreaded. A not unknown interaction of oceans and climate but better research into the mechanism. Reminds me of another paper fro. A few years ago but strugggling to remember what.

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                el gordo

                The open fred is fine, we’ll look at it there.

                To give you a leg up (as its not your area of expertise) a Klimatariat perspective on climate change can be found at Skeptical Science. Its where I found that paper.

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    pat

    try guessing who wrote this before checking at bottom of letter:

    30 Sept: Guardian: Letters: Delving deeper into the BBC’s idea of impartiality
    Readers respond to Nick Robinson’s recent Guardian article about the mainstream media winning back trust
    Nick Robinson’s article asserting that Nigel Lawson should be corrected but not silenced by the BBC on climate change (Silencing the disagreeable won’t work. Put them on air (LINK), 28 September) suggests that he and his colleagues are still ignoring the potential harm caused by the broadcast of misinformation to their audiences. Lord Lawson has a track record of misleading the public about climate change. His lobby group, the Global Warming Policy Foundation, was found in 2014 to have breached Charity Commission rules by promoting climate change denial. In the same year, the BBC upheld a complaint after Lord Lawson made inaccurate and misleading claims about climate change on the Today programme on Radio 4.

    The BBC is now considering a complaint from me and others about further false claims by Lord Lawson on Today in August. In particular, the BBC needs to recognise that his erroneous assertion that extreme weather events are not increasing in frequency or intensity endangered listeners by creating the false impression that they need not respond to the rising risks of heatwaves and flooding from heavy rainfall in the UK.

    The BBC should properly weigh up the rights of marginal voices like Lord Lawson to mislead its audiences about the risks they face against the rights of its audiences to receive accurate information about those risks.



    Bob Ward
    Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, LSE
    https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/sep/29/delving-deeper-into-the-bbcs-idea-of-impartiality

    Robinson’s not-so-non-partisan piece, linked from above:

    28 Sept: Guardian: Nick Robinson: If mainstream news wants to win back trust, it cannot silence dissident voices
    Traditional media must tackle fake news and accusations of bias by asking some awkward questions of themselves and others
    The latest data from the Reuters Digital News Report shows a decline in trust in the UK media of 7%. In one YouGov survey, Wikipedia was held to be marginally more trustworthy than the BBC. So what’s the problem and what can be done about it?…

    Campaigners on left and right have been looking at and learning from the method behind what some regard as the madness of Donald Trump’s attacks on the “failing” press as purveyors of “fake news”…

    Most shockingly, Churchill’s pre-war warnings about the dangers of German rearmament were heard by radio listeners not in his own country but in the US. The BBC, influenced by the government, muzzled him.

    The way Churchill was handled is a powerful warning of the dangers of the BBC believing it is being balanced by silencing the voices of those who do not represent conventional wisdom…

    It’s a riposte to Brexiters who fill my timeline with demands that we should not interview “that failed leader” Nick Clegg, to remainers who say the same about Nigel Farage, and to those who argue Nigel Lawson should never be interviewed about climate change. They should be challenged and if, as Lawson did on Today recently, they get their facts wrong we should say so. But they should not be silenced…

    theirABC doing their fave thing, interviewing one another, especially if there’s a new book to spruik:

    AUDIO: 11mins17secs: 1 Oct: ABC Sunday Extra: The Year That Made Me: Hugh Riminton, 1992
    Hugh Riminton fell into journalism, when a case of mistaken identity led to an interview for a radio cadetship in New Zealand. Almost forty years later he can look back on a career in which he’s been witness to many of the events that have shaken the world and transfixed television viewers. It’s chronicled in his new book, Minefields: A life in the news game’.
    Presented by Hamish Macdonald
    http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/sundayextra/2017-10-01/8990588

    rough paraphrase of the funniest bit.
    love how Hamish thinks “the money has gone out of it”. if only that were the case with theirABC:

    5mins25secs in:
    Hamish: has the role of the correspondent changed in this post-truth/fake news era?

    Hugh: the money has gone out of it. advertising has gone elsewhere. that has profound effect on our ability blah blah.

    Hamish: trust deficit now; people don’t trust you and me.

    Hugh says there always was a trust deficit. in ancient times, in the village there was a mob. often the louder voices were the ones who were most angry. then the media came along and mediated those crude emotions etc.
    the public would talk to power through the media. the media has almost disappeared, we’re back to voices of the mob.

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    pat

    ***the only one?

    3 Oct: Hobart Mercury: Tasmania records coldest start to spring since 2003, according to Bureau of Meteorology
    by HELEN KEMPTON
    TASMANIANS who thought the start to spring was particularly brisk were correct, with the Bureau of Meteorology confirming the state has shivered through its coldest September since 2003.
    Cold outbreaks brought snow to elevated areas several times during the month and kunanyi/Mt Wellington recorded its coldest temperature of the year on the morning of September 5…

    The Tasmanian mean maximum temperature for September was 0.74C below average and the island state was ***the only one to record a below-average statewide mean temperature for the first month of spring…

    The mean daily minimum temperature for Hobart was 5.8C, which is below the long-term average and the coolest since 2003.
    The city’s coldest morning was recorded in September 1, when the mercury plummeted to just 1C.
    http://www.themercury.com.au/lifestyle/tasmanian-records-coldest-start-to-spring-since-2003-according-to-bureau-of-meteorology/news-story/0d4d3bc0d28327922b043ab1324d81dc

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    pat

    comment in moderation re:

    3 Oct: Hobart Mercury: Tasmania records coldest start to spring since 2003, according to Bureau of Meteorology
    by HELEN KEMPTON

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    Richard Ilfeld

    If the design capacity of our all electric society (I know, I know, but bear with me for a moment)is 99.99% system up time for the whole system, the suggestion is that once in every 10,000 days all will fail. Given the proven order of magnitude overestimation of safety by government entities (Dams, highways, bridges, generating plants, I don’t care the reliability of public institutions always seems an order of magnitude less than the ‘authorities’ assure us has been considered); we need to reduce that to 1000 days. So once every three years we’ll wake up and everybody’s cars will have failed to recharge. Or we’ll have an accident on the motorway, an epic traffic jam, and everybody’s battery will die at once. Or an evacuation. Or a record cloudy period. Or cold spell.

    The system the neo-luddites on the left would have us abandon willy-nilly has been tested by a severely applied Darwinian methodology for the better part of 200 years. Things run to best practices and provided proper maintenance work pretty well.

    Imposing massive new systems upon society without even reasonable testing goes beyond stupid to malevolent.

    So I’m rapidly tiring of the excuses for bad behaviour that invariability end up excusing the greens for culpability if their data is bad, or their proposals screw up life for the rest of us. Failure to answer a critique that is well documented with factual evidence needs to be considered culpability for fraud; fraud needs to be assumed to have a purpose.

    When did the last bureau of audit, or other investigation, provide results that did not whitewash the status quo?

    Here’s a radical proposal, a derivation of Charles Murray’s “By the People, rebuilding Liberty without Permission”. I propose that some wealthy person or group, instead of funding yet another lying politician, fund a foundation committed to recording weather in a public, documented way and making the data public. The project may include fully documented raw data from the past; only data with original records with a full chain of custody for any copying accepted. This groups is not making conclusions, it is doing the expensive part of climate research for scientists who can then work with raw data that is also fully available to their peers and critics. The ABC would likely not survive the public ridicule if their values continued to diverge & mislead.

    This needs to be extended to other government data, which is proving to be wrong in many instances. Like temperature, these distortions have been written off to complexity, confusion, inertia, error….anything but an external purpose.

    To me, it is the evils of monopoly becoming apparant. Whether you consider the alternative a competitor or control group, singla data pints from government clearly present society with a morla hazard.

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      OriginalSteve

      I have suggested voting out all 3 main parties at the next election who advocate climate madness – liberal, labor and greens.

      This will keep them away from the levers of power and allow the mess to be corrected. It seems radical but we also have a radical problem whereby it seems all main parties seem intent on actually destroying out country deliberately, ebenrgy being the main method of attack.

      Voting out the trouble makers at the election is actually robust democracy at work, and the guage of a society it is willingness to use braod shoulders to uphold a bit of uncertainty in the electoral space, if to only cauterize a heavily beeling national wound…..

      The more I think about it, the more it makes sense.

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      Roy Hogue

      If the design capacity of our all electric society…

      Imposing massive new systems upon society without even reasonable testing goes beyond stupid to malevolent.

      Thank you for saying it.

      They do it or try to do it all the time these days and no one seems to notice that nothing ever gets a test run. No one seems to notice that they never look back to see if what they’ve already done is working in the best interest of society. No one ever seems to notice that the way things are has developed over many years and represents a lot of working out the problems the slow hard way and compromising to get a system that works.

      If it was possible to solve all problems simultaneously does anyone think that society would not move in that direction? The incentive is there but the simultaneous solution to all problems doesn’t exist. If we want something because it’s beneficial then we better be willing to put up with its inevitable problems.

      Electricity is a crucial ingredient at my house and I suspect the same is true everywhere. Where once there was nothing that needed standby power or was on all the time I now have so many things that way that I’m not going to try to count them for fear that I would miss some of them. And that’s no doubt the least part of my home’s demand for power.

      00

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        Roy Hogue

        I guess I should have said, “No one ever seems to notice that the way things “were”…

        rather than “are” because everything is already in a state that would not happen in a free market.

        00

  • #
    Richard Ilfeld

    points, not pints….pun not intended but I wish I’d thought of it.

    40

  • #
    Curious George

    Don’t be so hard on poor BOM. They are doing just fine in their mission: protecting their salaries.

    60

  • #
    KinkyKeith

    A great piece of work by Bill.

    Several things stand out;

    1. The poor handling of raw data. Without this being preserved there is NO science.
    2. The unscientific blending of records taken from different locations, even if the move is within a stones throw the new location represents a completely new data set.
    3. The willingness to “blend” data obtained from instruments of vastly different sensitivity.

    Perhaps the most appalling thing seems to be the suggestion about homogenization. The way I read it, there seems to be a seriously unscientific process of data mashing at work.

    This mess is not science.

    KK

    112

  • #
    David Maddison

    BoM staff, we know some of you secretly read this. Wikileaks is waiting for your uploads. Do the right thing and tell the Australian people the truth. As public serpents it is illegal for you to lie under section 13 of the Public Service Act. Remember what’s coming to you at the Climate Nuremberg Trials. If you tell the truth now you might be able to do a plea bargain and be exempt from jail.

    (1) An APS employee must behave honestly and with integrity in the course of APS employment.
    (2) An APS employee must act with care and diligence in the course of APS employment.

    61

  • #
    Dennis

    I just noticed a headline at The Australian, Sydney and Melbourne likely to experience 50 deg C days by the turn of the century.

    Quckly, send more taxpayer’s money.

    71

    • #
      TdeF

      Yes and more often. 50C summers. Runaway global warming caused by cars. Consensus science.
      In fact last summer in Melbourne was the coolest I can remember, but no matter. It will all get much hotter soon. Please send money.

      The story of Chicken Little seems to fit the Sky is Falling but that was meant to be a salutary children’s tale, not the basis for six billion of dollars in RET taxes. Plus all those hundreds of people on full time salaries for Climate Change. As Tony Abbott said, socialism masquerading as environmentalism. Other people’s money.

      I also note in the story on Puerto Rico the photo of acres of solar panels smashed beyond repair by the regular hurricanes which are the climate in Puerto Rico. That must be what they mean by renewables. All Donald Trump’s fault it seems, like the hurricanes.

      81

      • #
        el gordo

        The AGW paradigm remains in place until we can prove BoM can’t forecast the seasons correctly, what chance of predicting the atmosphere 80 years from now.

        They are misguided by their faith, but we still have to come up with an alternative to unseat them. Melbourne is looking excessively hot in the run up to Xmas.

        http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/outlooks/#/overview/summary

        If you disagree with their summary, what is your forecast?

        20

    • #

      Does that mean it will get as hot as some days in the 19th Century?

      50

      • #
        el gordo

        As you know BoM ignore the 19th century because it doesn’t fit their meme, but I have it on good authority that 1878 was a ferociously hot year around the world.

        30

  • #
    David Maddison

    What possible reason was there to reduce the size of the Stevenson Screen?

    41

  • #
    Ross

    Some how some legal geniuses have to work out a way to get BoM into Court to hit them hard in the pocket due to false information and predictions, if it is possible.

    60

  • #
    pat

    4 Oct: RockhamptonMorningBulletin: Jason Tin: $600m climate change ‘slush fund’ used to stage talkfests on solar
    A $600 MILLION climate change “slush fund” driving up NSW power prices is being used to stage talkfests on solar energy, fund studies into the environmental impacts of “lighter coloured” roads and even pay for bureaucrats to ­attend energy forums.

    About $600 million was ripped from energy distributors Ausgrid, Endeavour and Essential over the past two years for the state’s Climate Change Fund, with the peak body representing the distributors confirming the costs of the contributions are simply being passed onto consumers.

    There are now calls for a ­review of how the fund, which was established in 2007 and was once used to pay for the now-closed Solar Bonus Scheme, is being operated.

    It can today be revealed it is being used to fund “free solar seminars” in rural areas and numerous clean energy “workshops”.
    The “outcome” for one workshop was a “new partnership between Hawkesbury Council and community energy and environment groups”.

    (LINK) More at The Daily Telegraph (BEHIND PAYWALL)
    https://www.themorningbulletin.com.au/news/600m-climate-change-slush-fund-used-stage-talkfest/3230665/

    ADD ANOTHER FEW HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS FROM THE ABC’S ANNUAL BILLION-DOLLAR PLUS FROM THE TAXPAYERS EACH YEAR, FOR ABC’S CONSTANT SPRUIKING FOR SOLAR, AND THE MONEY ADDS UP TO NEARLY A BILLION!

    30

  • #
    pat

    on all ABC radio – local, RN, News Radio today…and no doubt ABC TV, & elsewhere in the MSM:

    4 Oct: ABC: Sydney, Melbourne urged to prepare for 50C days by end of century
    By Jake Evans
    Sydney and Melbourne have been warned to prepare for scorcher days reaching 50 degrees Celsius by the end of the century — even if global warming is contained to the Paris Agreement target of a 2C increase.

    A new study led by Australian National University (ANU) climate scientist Dr Sophie Lewis has projected daily temperatures 3.8C above existing records for the two cities and even hotter extremes.

    “We have to be thinking now about how we can be prepared for large population groups commuting to and from the CBD on these extremely hot days, how we send young children to school on 50C days, how our hospitals are prepared for a larger number of admissions of young or old people, and how our infrastructure can cope with it,” Dr Lewis said.

    The study found containing global warming to 1.5C — the more ambitious target set by the Paris Agreement — would limit extreme heat, but Dr Lewis said ***angrier summers were inevitable…

    Pockets of Australia have tasted temperatures close to 50C, mostly remote country towns…
    “It’s not great news, obviously,” Deputy Lord Mayor of Sydney Jess Miller said.
    We know that more people die from heat-related incidents than they do from bushfires each year. I think we’re heading into a really scary health risk.”…

    Ms Miller said one of the issues facing Sydney and Melbourne was the emergence of “heat continents”, where entire suburbs baked for a significant period of time without relief…
    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-10-04/sydney-melbourne-urged-to-prepare-for-50c-days-by-end-of-century/9012640

    10

    • #
      Allen Ford

      From this morning’s Sydney Morning Herald:

      The study, led by Sophie Lewis at the Australian National University, analysed new models being prepared for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to examine the difference between a 1.5- and 2-degree warming limit compared with pre-industrial times.

      It is to be hoped that Doc Soph’s all new, you beaut models are properly calibrated to reality, unlike the last lot that have been exposed as running too hot.

      Good luck, Doc!

      20

      • #
        Bill Johnston

        The Lewis paper is all about models and projections, plus the odd press release.

        It uses modeled data as though its real; with homogenized measured data from 1946 to 2005; it also compares distributions for 1945 to 2005, with ‘observations’ from 1976 to 2005. Why use degreeK; people understand degreeC, which is interchangeable with K.

        Automatic weather stations in small Stevenson screens became primary instruments from 1 November 1996. Sliding PDF’s are an invalid comparison when such bias is involved. However using sliding PDF’s in that context could be an interesting post! Also hardly anybody knows about the sort of statistics they use, or even if the tests are appropriate. Where does the standard error in quantile regressions of aggregated (modelled) data come from? What does it mean and who has a clue?

        If after accounting for attributed step-changes and rainfall; no warming trend is evident at Canberra airport, Sydney Observatory, Townsville, Adelaide, Launceston, Laverton, Alice Springs, Perth, Darwin, Oodnadatta or anywhere else; what is Lewis and King talking about?

        Cheers,

        Bill

        31

      • #
        Peter C

        Dr Sophie Lewis.

        Here she is.
        https://researchers.anu.edu.au/researchers/lewis-sc

        “I’m currently working on several research projects focusing on the attribution of extreme climate events, the evaluation of climate models and reconstructing past climatic change.”

        00

  • #
    pat

    reminder re Dr. Sophie Lewis:

    March 2017: JoanneNova: All Australians “are detrimental”. Climate Scientist worries that her baby will cause floods, droughts, and warm globe
    http://joannenova.com.au/2017/03/all-australians-are-detrimental-climate-scientist-worries-that-her-baby-will-cause-floods-droughts-and-warm-globe/

    10

  • #
    pat

    3 Oct: Weather Channel: Chris Dolce: First Blizzard of the Season Breaks October Snow Record in Havre, Montana; Up to 30 Inches Reported
    A heavy early-season snowstorm has dumped more than a foot of snow on parts of the Rockies.
    Travel impacts have occurred, along with tree damage and power outages.
    Unlike the snow the Rockies experienced in September, this storm is having a greater impact since valley locations are also being affected, in addition to typical mountain areas.

    Havre, Montana, has seen 14.8 inches of heavy, wet snow as of late Monday night, which would set a new record for highest snow total in October there if verified. The previous record was 8.6 inches, which fell on Oct. 4, 1914…

    The heaviest estimated snow amount from this storm is 30 inches in Rocky Boy, Montana. Drifts in at least one location were estimated to be eight feet high…

    Top snowfall totals as of late Tuesday morning include:
    •30 inches in Rocky Boy, Montana
    •20.4 inches near Encampment, Wyoming
    •18 inches near Steamboat Springs, Colorado
    •16 inches near Cameron Pass, Colorado
    •Up to 15 inches near Breckenridge, Colorado
    •14.8 inches in Havre, Montana (many large tree branches down; sporadic power outages around town)
    •14 inches at the Vail Pass rest area on Interstate 70 in Colorado
    •12 inches near Laramie, Wyoming
    •10 inches near Avon, Colorado

    Several ski resorts in the high country of Colorado have expressed their excitement about the snow…
    https://weather.com/storms/winter/news/rockies-snow-montana-colorado-wyoming-early-october-2017

    10

  • #
    rk

    CANBERRA AIRPORT.

    The change in the position to site 4 would cause increased temperatures compared to past years if the wind was blowing from the WNW which it was at 14.36 that day as, apart from the wind coming over a hot interior, there is a lot more tarmac and taxiways over at the Terminal now compared with years gone by. Also if there were a number of jets operating around that time of the day the air over the tarmac would certainly be much hotter as well. If the air reaching the Stevenson Screen happened as a jet was taking off on Runway 35 you would have over 600C coming out of the turbine section at the rear of the engine which would certainly affect readings. Stupid place to have it located.

    20

  • #
    Dr No

    Bill’s analysis sounds plausible but there are two questions worth asking:
    (1) Was the record supported by temperature recordings at surrounding stations?
    A new record at single site might be of some interest, but new records at several sites would be more compelling.

    (2) If Bill’s method of removing rainfall effects on temperatures is valid, then it is also possible that for some sites, the reverse could apply.
    i.e. some near-record temperatures could actually be treated as records once adjustments are made.
    I don’t think you can selectively cross out an apparent new record without allowing for the fact that adjustments can also produce new records.

    Any thoughts on this?

    32

    • #

      rk #27 is on the money.
      Even though site #4 is further away from the runways the jets are bigger and more frequent.
      It may be worth while comparing flight landings, cross winds and temperature to see if this site is directly affected.
      My own POV is that this is the smoking gun.
      The more BOM procrastinates the worse it will be for us all.
      More taxes, more schemes to save the planet more people enmeshed in the process.
      Eventually another super computer will be paid for and it still won’t make sense.BOM needs a painless audit.
      I say that mildly because a lot of good people are caught in this in the BOM itself.
      Few seem to be involved in the actual data gathering.
      Obama instituted the open publication of raw data and all statistical derivations.

      Higher bar for data retrieval and storage of open sourced documents.
      https://eos.org/editors-vox/do-you-expect-me-to-just-give-away-my-data

      We need the numbers – all the numbers – behind the published figures, graphs, contour plots etc. And these need to be specific; that is not averages within regions and so on. Your readers may well wish to re-plot these data to test a pet theory, or to assign them as a class problem, or to combine the results in a major review article. That is what your work is for.
      credit Mosher/ cf Judith Curry

      Resubmitted from Wattsup with that.
      The USA has gone this way, with our instrument readings and record taking, we need to catch up.
      Otherwise our data is useless and not worth paying for.

      30

      • #
        Bill Johnston

        Thanks Lewis,

        Tmax blows in on the wind; but whatever Tvalue is measured depends very much on the immediate environment around the screen.

        Temperature measured is actually the interaction between the atmosphere, the local environment (just over there), the screen and the instrument. It doesn’t mean it has anything to do with jets; the site is simply warmer and evolution of that warmth can be tracked by time-lapse satellite images using Google Earth (pro).

        It is wise to look at the data first than ascribe or interpret why it changed.

        Cheers,

        Bill

        31

        • #

          As I understand it, The maximum temperature is an instantaneous temperature taken at the peak of the reading for an electronic thermometer, at least in Australia and BOM.
          It is not averaged over a longer time period.
          Because of this an aircraft exhaust, air conditioner or incinerator burning trash can excite such a thermometer as a waft of hot air hits it.
          The screen won’t protect it from making such readings.
          So when BOM reports such a temperature, due to instrumentation, it is an additional error to those cataloged in your dissertation above.

          00

        • #
          rk

          Bill,
          Any temperature measuring device near a runway would be affected by jet exhaust as well as hotter air over the runway itself as the day progresses. I wonder if you realize just how hot that air is from the rear end of jet engines and it will extend along the whole length of the runway during a take off and much of the runway on landing. In the landing phase the hot air is going to follow the aircraft anyway because of reverse thrust.

          00

      • #
        Geoff Sherrington

        LPB,
        Why not calculate how much fuel is burned at Canberra, how much hotter that might make the air in a volume over the airport chosen as plausible to be affected?
        Maybe we can put this airport heat-from-fuel baby to bed if there just is not enough heat in the fuel to raise the temperature perceptibly. Do the math.
        However, various other effects in Bill’s account are likely increasing local temperatures, especially more acres of bitumen close to thermometers.
        Nice report, Bill. Geoff.

        00

    • #
      Bill Johnston

      There are no other stations that are directly comparable with the airport. Remember too we are talking about a daily record for the month of September; the site can also be viewed using Google Earth (pro) and changes can be tracked using time-lapse satellite views.

      Using linear regression to filter-out significant sources of noise (in this case rainfall noise) is not statistically controversial. Factors are additive, so residuals embed whatever signal is NOT explained by rainfall.

      The relationship between Tmax and rainfall is predicted by the first law of thermodynamics and is not invertable. Although its been said that high temperatures make droughts worse; the idea is physically impossible. As an obvious example, it would be nonsense to invert the relationship between slope and water-flow with the aim of proving water runs up-hill.

      Cheers,

      Bill

      31

      • #
        Dr No

        I was thinking about what would happen at a site where there is a rainfall effect on temperature.
        If the rainfall had decreased over time then we would expect to see a warming trend component. Agreed.
        However, if the rainfall had increased, then there would, by definition, be a cooling trend component.
        So, for some regions of Australia, where the rainfall has increased over time, you would have to subtract this cooling trend.
        Therefore it is possible that the “background” warming trend may be larger than evident in the raw observations.

        20

      • #
        rk

        Bill,
        On further checking I would say that maximum temperature was highly likely to be influenced by aircraft. The highest temperature is generally recorded around 2.30 PM. On that day there was a scheduled arrival at 14.20 and two departures at 14.35 and 1500 – the wind was 61 k.p.h. from the NNW at 12.15 and 39 k.p.h from the NNW at 3 PM. Temperature of 29.8 C at 3 PM. The 30.2 C was obviously before 3 PM with a wind above 40 k.p.h probably around 2.30 PM. Aircraft operations would have caused very hot air to blow towards that site.

        A further interesting thing I noted in looking at that month, the next day Sunday 24th they recorded a wind of 80 k.p.h. at 14.35 and yet the wind was only 39 k.p.h 25 minutes later at 3 PM. Highly unlikely to see a difference that great in 25 minutes plus the wind was also exactly 39 k.p.h at 3 PM the day before on the 23rd. Not believable as on no other day that month was it the same two days running at the same time.

        00

    • #
      AndyG55

      Yes, we know that adjustments downwards of the past temperature often lead to new records in the present.

      That is the whole idea of homogenisation and the other facets of the AGW farce.

      But you know that, don’t you, because you are part of it.

      14

      • #
        Dr No

        “But you know that, don’t you, because you are part of it.”
        I see, rather than address the issue being discussed, attack your opponent.
        And drag out the old “conspiracy” tactic. Surely that is past its use-by date.

        [Stick to the subject. What you see as conspiracy theory may look like a fact from your prior comments.] AZ

        31

        • #
          AndyG55

          You are very obvious deeply embedded within the climate alarmist “believers”.

          That is what you are, a gullible apostle for the AGW religion.

          Do you DENY that fact?

          Do you DENY that past temperatures have been adjusted downward, when even the people doing the adjustments admit to it, and actually planned to do it.?

          (how to erase the 1940s peak)

          13

        • #
          AndyG55

          “rather than address the issue being discussed”

          You seem incapable of reading the first two lines.!!

          I’ll repeat them so you may just read them and comprehend.

          Yes, we know that adjustments downwards of the past temperature often lead to new records in the present.

          That is the whole idea of homogenisation and the other facets of the AGW farce.

          23

  • #
    pat

    lol. former UK Tele writer, Peter Oborne:

    3 Oct: Greenpeace Unearthed: Peter Oborne: ‘The press has failed on climate change’
    by Joe Sandler Clarke
    “This planet is unbelievably beautiful and it’s becoming more and more fragile.”
    From his office in Chiswick, Daily Mail columnist Peter Oborne talks about what he calls his “awakening” on climate change.
    “I don’t accept the sceptical views that this is cyclical. This is an enormous issue and we have all been culpable. The right has been culpable for not treating this as a serious matter and I intend to start writing about it.”

    Lying back on his brown leather sofa, nursing heavy jet-lag after flying back from Pakistan that morning, he becomes animated when talking about the environment.
    There’s a pile of climate-related books on his desk that he intends to read.
    “I’m teaching myself about this stuff. I think we should be responsible and move toward other forms of energy.”…

    “I’m all for Matt Ridley and Nigel Lawson, who is a great mind, but other voices haven’t been heard enough. The press could campaign on these issues.”
    What’s behind this sudden “awakening”?
    Well, he explains, “you can see it in your own life”.
    “Here we are at the end of September, and the cricket county championship is still being decided. 25 years ago, it never went on this long.”…

    Over the course of an afternoon, just a few days before the start of the Conservative party conference, Oborne gives his opinion on everything from Brexit – he’s a fan – to Trump – he’s not…
    “I’m tempted to vote for Corbyn.” …
    https://unearthed.greenpeace.org/2017/10/03/peter-oborne-the-press-has-failed-on-climate-change-jeremy-

    10

  • #
    David Maddison

    Questions about BoM weather stations.

    How are they powered? Do they have a solar panel and storage battery? How much heat is released from the battery in the charging process?

    How much heat is generated by the system electronics?

    Is the electronics and battery thermally isolated from the measurement sensors?

    I supposed they have never measured these because they utterly lack scientific integrity and honesty.

    61

  • #
    David Maddison

    Is the BoM the most incompetent and dishonest of all science-related government agencies apart from the Climate Change Authority?

    54

    • #
      Dr No

      I would put the government’s border force agency first (led by that creep Dutton).
      Followed by the agency looking into the health effects of wind farms (they don’t exist)
      Followed by the corrupted MDBA – who have allowed irrigators to steal water off the tax payers.

      Really, there is far more important corruption and mischief going on than you imagine is taking place in the BoM.

      32

      • #
        Roy Hogue

        You seem to know a whole lot of “stuff” with such absolute certainty that it makes you unbelievable. If you’re going to continue in that general direction then at least put a little more thought into your choice of screen name. Dr No gives you away as a troll before I even read what you say.

        And being a troll, I predict that you’ll disappear as easily as you appeared. Just give it a month or 2 and you’ll get tired of having nothing to say and then, poof, no more Dr No.

        22

        • #
          Dr No

          Thanks Roy. I interpret your prediction as a dare.
          One which I will take up.
          So expect me to still be here in 12 month’s time.
          By then I hope to have taught you something.

          31

          • #
            Roy Hogue

            Duly noted. Remember though, history is not on your side of this “dare”. I have watched so many like you come and go that I couldn’t begin to count them.

            02

            • #
              Dr No

              Rest assured, I will not go away because of nothing to say.
              Just look at my informative posts below.

              20

              • #
                AndyG55

                “I will not go away because of nothing to say”

                We have notice you invariably have zero content.

                Its called “mindless yapping”, your stock in trade.

                01

          • #
            AndyG55

            No chance of you teaching anyone.

            Your knowledge bank is basically empty !!

            14

      • #
        AndyG55

        “I would put the government’s border force agency first”

        How many boats have arrived from Indonesia under this government..

        Seems the border force is at least FUNCTIONAL, which is more than can be said for BOM.

        14

    • #
      Dennis

      No, there is one worst by far, Office of Prime Minister & Cabinet.

      61

    • #
      Gee Aye

      Good god no.

      00

  • #
    Dr No

    While we are at it:
    “In the past 60 days (August 5 to October 4), Sydney has received just 1.6mm of rain. Sydney just had its driest September ever. It received just 0.2mm of rain in September, the lowest measurable amount. That’s literally not enough to wet the ground properly.
    That 0.2mm recording on September 20 was at the official city weather station at Observatory Hill, near the Harbour Bridge. Many suburban stations recorded nothing over the whole month.”

    Now, are we going to accuse the BoM of doctoring the rainfall observations?

    43

    • #
      AndyG55

      Your ignorance of Australian climate, is evident in your every post. !

      14

    • #
      Mark D.

      Now, are we going to accuse the BoM of doctoring the rainfall observations?

      What we’re likely to “accuse” BoM of, will be based upon analysis of what information BoM publishes and all other information available.

      Have you got anything to add?

      11

    • #
      AndyG55

      If BOM get caught out adjusting rainfall data, like they have temperature data.

      .. of course they will get called out.

      Comments like.. “hasn’t been as dry for 40 year” are being bandies about.

      So 40 years ago.. it was also dry…… do tell !!!

      NOTHING IS CHANGING !

      Just normal Australian climate variability.

      14

    • #
      Geoff Sherrington

      Dr No,

      Here is an actual example of a rainfall problem in the BOM official record.
      Problems will happen. If they are not detected and corrected promptly, then the record becomes corrupted. Not saying this is deliberate corruption, maybe just systemic.

      Go to the BOM online data here http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/data/
      Select daily rainfall and year 2016 for the station at Brunchilly, 15123, or simply click here for the same result.
      http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/ncc/cdio/weatherData/av?p_nccObsCode=136&p_display_type=dailyDataFile&p_startYear=2016&p_c=-45876424&p_stn_num=015123

      At Brunchilly year 2016 you will see a record with about a half inch of one-day rain in most months in the middle of a desert whose main rain is historically in the NT ‘Wet’ of Dec through to March. Try nearby Warramunga 15139, look at data quality for year 2012. Wow!!! Or Banka Banka 15067,year 2013. Wow, wow!!!

      How many more stations are slipping through the quality control systems on rainfall, whatever they are?

      Geoff.

      10

  • #
    Roy Hogue

    …always sometimes hotter

    Ah, the doublespeak. Alice would have loved it. And Jo has captured it perfectly. It ranks right up there with things that are x% better than the older version or the competitor without knowing what 100% is.

    They never want to give you an objective point of reference from which whatever they say can be MEASURED and nailed down unambiguously. Therefore the mishmash of thermometers is of no importance to them. And if they can get away with bringing the wind into the thing, so much the better.

    Canberra must be an awful place to live with temperatures at the mercy of subjective forces. Or maybe the truth is that the temperature knows exactly what it is but is under no obligation to tell anyone. So we poor humans have to go looking for it — and getting it wrong…

    10

  • #
    Dr No

    Australian temperature records tumbled again in September this year, with the country experiencing the hottest day since records began, and New South Wales breaking that record twice within a few days.
    On 22 September 2017 Australia experienced its hottest September day since records began more than a century ago, reaching an average maximum temperature across the continent of 33.47C – smashing the record set nine years ago by more than 6C.
    NSW reached a record September temperature of 35.81C on 23 September – almost 15C above the average September temperature and more than 1.6C above the record set in 2003.
    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/oct/05/sweltering-september-smashes-australias-temperature-records
    While there might be issues with Canberra’s temperature record, it is a bit hard to ignore continent-wide and state-wide record temperatures.

    31

    • #
      AndyG55

      UAH has September 2017 in =12th place.

      BOM’s 1 second data is meaningless to compare “hottest” anything !

      02

    • #

      sorry Dr No that is just weather in one place at one time and can’t be attributed to a climate trend. Links supplied below and as Andy helped to clarify,

      “UAH and BOM concur regarding the September 2017 average. A remarkably similar rank given that their data is obtained in different ways and the data period are different.”

      20

      • #
        AndyG55

        Thanks GG.

        Next time do my bidding earlier.. save all your triggering

        11

        • #

          glad you are happy that both BOM and UAH are claiming the same thing. Must be nice for BOM to see a zealot back down for once.

          00

          • #
            AndyG55

            So you think 5th warmest from BOM, is the same as =12th warmest from UAH ????

            Now I know you have basic maths issues… but REALLY ???

            00

            • #

              equal 12th warmest month which is what BOM stated and it is the direct comparison with what you were quoting from UAH. read the doc I linked to.

              The 5th warmest was the daily maxima and the daily minima was ranked quite low.

              No where have they claimed “WARMEST SEPTEMBER EVAH”, so I went and figured and provided the correct answer.

              00

              • #
                AndyG55

                Deceptive little worm, aren’t you

                That twelfth in 109 years. Not in 38 years like UAH.

                From BOM

                “In brief
                Daytime temperatures exceptionally warm for Australia as a whole….,”

                Keep with the worming and squirming , little GA

                00

              • #

                true but I was not deceptive if you read what I wrote. I noted theat they are different data sets and that they have come up with the same ranking. You are free to interpret it as you like but I’m glad you now recognise the rank as 12-13 and not 5th or hottest. You’ve done better than you usually do although you’ve gone back to the abuse.

                00

              • #

                I should add that the BOM rank is the same if you just look at the period covered by UAH

                00

  • #
    Geoff Sherrington

    Wish that the BOM would comment on how these graphs of their own data allow them to say, in general, that the future will have more heatwaves, longer heatwaves and more frequent heatwaves.
    Of course, they can say that is the case for all of Australia, but Melbourne and Sydney are exceptions. So how about Adelaide and Brisbane, also acting contrary to BOM assertions.
    BOM has to explain the simple observations before creating the complex scenarios and models. Geoff.
    http://www.geoffstuff.com/are_heatwaves_hotter.pdf http://www.geoffstuff.com/graphs_sydmelb_heatwaves.pdf
    http://www.geoffstuff.com/highest_sydmelb.jpg
    http://www.geoffstuff.com/century_days_sydmelb.jpg

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    AndyG55

    BOM is pushing a “WARMEST SEPTEMBER EVAH” message

    UAH shows September 2017 in =12th place

    Go figure !!

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