Scandal: BoM ignores major site changes at iconic, historic, Sydney Observatory. Sloppy or deliberate?

Australia’s oldest and most iconic site has changed dramatically, but major site changes are not even being recorded.

The way the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) treat this site says a lot about the unscientific, shoddy, biased standards it uses at sites everywhere. This was their headquarters. Experts walked past new walls, construction and highways, yet they didn’t record them? Beggars belief.

Just as Peter Ridd warns us that we can’t trust some marine and reef institutes,  Bill Johnston is the whistle-blower warning us about the Bureau of Met. There is no law  of science that says human institutes are infallible. When they run off the rails, how do we find out? Ridd issued a warning from the inside and ended up in the Federal Court. When people, like Bill write from the outside, the BoM waves the peer-review gatekeeper, and anonymous reviewers can easily shut that gate, and without any penalty.

Sydney Observatory 1864, the louvered thermometer house is out the front.

The louvered thermometer house in front of the Observatory in 1864. (Courtesy of the State Library of NSW.)

Sydney Observatory is one of the longest running stations in the Southern Hemisphere, starting in 1859. It was Australia’s premier meteorology site and in the 1800’s it was known as a cool breezy place that recorded temperatures that were lower than the rest of Sydney. One hundred and fifty eight years later and it sits on the verge of the main route to the Sydney Harbour Bridge which carries 160,000 cars a day and right beside the CBD of our largest city. What is really gobsmacking is that most of those significant site changes are not even recorded in the BoM metadata file. Oddly, the BoM makes corrections for site changes that don’t appear to affect the thermometer readings (see Bill Johnston’s full report) but they don’t compensate for site changes that do. Why are some changes overcorrected, yet others disappear from the record? The BoM are ignoring shrinking screens, walls that come and go, and new highways. Perhaps they tell themselves they have found other ways to correct, or check, these major changes, but if it isn’t published, it isn’t science. When a big screen became a small screen, where is the comparison data? When a wall is built nearby, what correction factor do they use? Is it “zero”; ignore the artificial heating, and pretend it’s CO2? Do they cheer when taxpayers have to pay billions to mollify atmospheric hob-goblins?

The details below come from exhaustive research by Bill Johnston. Around the same time as photos and documents show these unrecorded “forgotten” changes, the temperature record changes in a step. It’s quite possible that most of the warming in Sydney — since 1859 — is due to man-made site changes.

The biggest question for me, is why were most of these site changes not even recorded, or if, as Bill suggests, if they were — what happened to those records?

As he says:

After 1938 when work on the Cahill Expressway up-ramp started, staff passed within 15 m of the Stevenson screen to access their former office and observers were constantly in attendance. It’s impossible that rebuilding of the school, the move in 1947/48, opening of the expressway, construction of the wall and traffic-changes were not noticed or that works were not documented in local files. As they are not in the National Archives or other repositories, it’s plausible that site and instrument files (and possibly the data register) have been deliberately destroyed.

Don’t let anyone tell you this site is not important just because it is not an official ACORN station. This site “buys” history and prestige for the BoM, even as they forget, ignore or wash out the history of it. It features in the news constantly, and is used to “homogenise” many official ACORN stations. So artificial step-ups here can be spread to other sites. In a different kind of PR blur, short data sets (like Penrith’s which started in 1995) get converted into 150 year records by the mere mention that Sydney Observatory started in 1859 in the same story.

The BoM is behaving as a PR machine, a marketing arm of the renewables industry, and a political support team for Big Parasitic Government.  They are not even competent at keeping a written record of major site changes, yet they expect us to believe their tricky statistical games with homogenization? Where’s the accountability? The ABC never asks a hard question, and the SMH amplifies the fake news. The minister should be all over this.

Sydney Observatory used to be the coolest spot in Sydney, even in “unprecedented heat”

In 1896, the site was called the coolest, loveliest site, 10 degrees F cooler than the rest of Sydney. :

It has been a matter of surprise that when the thermometric-readings in various parts of the country were so high that of Sydney should be so low. The following clipping from Tuesday’s Herald fairly explains the matter. In future, in order to understand what the proper shade temperature of Sydney is, as against country towns, it will be well to add about 10 or 12 degrees (on the authority of the Herald) to the official reading of the thermometer at Sydney Observatory.

The truth is that on Sunday night at 9 o’clock, when the temperature at the Observatory, was 88.6 F, it was 98 F in one of the coolest buildings in Sydney with all windows open.  And it is easily accounted for when one takes into account the heat of last week and its effect upon the buildings—how they absorbed it all the week and retained it, never cooling.

This estimate [that the Observatory was 10 F cooler than the rest of Sydney] was certainly verified by a corrected thermometer (one low rather than high) at Ultimo. There, covered by a strong passionfruit vine, the reading on the shadeside of the building was 120 F.

The Herald might have added that the Observatory with its “loveliest little summer house, almost buried in foliage,” is situated on the highest hill in Sydney where breezes off the water blow on nearly all sides of it.  — Trove, Sat Jan 18, 1896, The Armidale Chronicle

Ten degrees Fahrenheit is 5.5 degrees C. You might think past records from there should be raised by at least 5 C (or more) in order to compare with temperatures today. Instead the Bureau of Meteorology ignores most of the changes to this site since 1896.

A wall built behind the Stevenson Screen at Sydney Observatory. Photo.

The brick wall was built behind the Stevenson screen around 1972, but the BoM does not record it.

The official history of this site only mentions three changes — the last of which occurred in 1917.  A brick wall was built around 1972 (see the photo). The Western Distributor (a giant spaghetti hwy) was done around the same time. These would have changed those “cooling breezes” but are not even listed in the metadata. Johnston estimates temperatures warmed there at the same time by a third of a degree. That’s a third of the whole warming trend of the last century.

As usual Johnston analyses records by looking at rainfall and temperature together. Wet years are cooler years, and dry years are warmer. If a thermometer moves to a warmer spot, the relationship changes — the rain stays the same, but the temperatures rise. This marks an artificial change.

Instead, the site is surrounded by walls, traffic masses, buildings, and the BoM puts out fake news press releases about records. Did the opening of the Cahill Expressway make the area warmer? The BoM apparently don’t think so.

Another major change (which has occurred in many other places too) was the switch from the old large Stevenson screen to a small one in the late 1990s. These are very different boxes — the older, large ones are 230 litres the new smaller ones, 60 litres. How could such a small screen not make any difference to the responsiveness of the thermometers within? Small boxes heat faster, they respond to the surrounding changes quicker. Even if the averages were somehow similar, the extremes, the distribution, or the seasonal spread may change. Data could be skewed in so many ways. Surely, the BoM didn’t just ignore this. Could it be that the BoM experts feel they could compensate for this big change with statistical tricks? Where is that published? There is another step up in temperatures in 2013, a big one of 0.77C — one that doesn’t fit with rainfall patterns. Johnson finds that the spread of datapoints changes after 2013. He wonders if the BoM changed the filter algorithms and allowed more spikes (noise) through, which would make the temperature appear to rise when it hadn’t.

Sydney Observatory, Stevenson Screen, location, Sydney Harbor Bridge, Opera House, satellite image.

The Stevenson screen is located next to the Expressway that feeds Sydney Harbour Bridge, and beside the CBD.

 

The BOM needs an independent audit. No one would accept this from a public company.

— Jo

 

________________________________________

Sydney Observatory’s temperature trends, extremes and trends in extremes

By Dr. Bill Johnston

Former NSW Department of Natural Resources Senior Research Scientist (and weather observer).

The Sydney Observatory weather station seems to tick all the boxes:

  • Starting in 1859 it is Australia’s longest continuously operating weather station and the main reference weather station for Australia’s largest city.
  • Observations were initially made under the watchful eye of NSW Government Astronomers, and since 1908 by the Bureau. As the Bureau’s (1922) NSW office, situated behind the historic 1862 Messenger’s cottage, was 35 m west of the site, datasets and the site should be rigorously documented and non-climate effects understood.
  • Now an annex of the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences, the Observatory itself is well maintained and preserved; a site of exceptional national significance; it is interesting, easily accessible and free to visit.
Sydney Observatory

Figure 1 The two Stevenson screens at Sydney Observatory are beside an open wire fence in 1966 (A); the school gymnasium opened in 1952 (B); west is the 1922 Sydney Weather Bureau office (C); north, the Fort Street School (D); the original (pre-1917) site was in the Observatory grounds (E). The area enclosed by the Cahill Expressway up-ramp is about 1 ha; school grounds are concrete and the buildings and heritage-listed fig tree in front shade the site in the late afternoon, especially in winter. (A 1974 aerial photograph shows the open wire fence (A) replaced by an 8-foot high  (2.4 m) solid brick wall.)  (Portion of “View from IBM; Max Dupain and Associates 1966”. State Library of NSW, Mitchell Library, courtesy of Hely, Bell & Horne.)

The Stevenson screens have always been close to where the action is: they moved to the front yard of the cottage in 1917 just before work started on construction of the Harbour Bridge (1920-1932). The Weather Bureau office behind the cottage was built in 1922; the Fort Street school was demolished and rebuilt from 1938 to 1941; they moved away from the school (and fig tree) to the southeastern corner of the yard probably in 1948/49, and the school gymnasium opened in 1952.

The Cahill expressway opened in 1958; a brick wall replaced the open fence south of the screens probably in 1972/73; an electronic automatic weather station (AWS) was installed in 1990 and thermometers were removed on 31 May 1995. A small screen replaced the large one (and the AWS was probably replaced) in 1997. Also, immediately in front (east) of the cottage the Bradfield Highway was widened three or four times and various changes implemented to smooth the movement of traffic out of the city centre.

Sydney Observatory, Step Changes, rainfall and temperature, Bureau of Meteorology, Graph, 2018.

Figure 3. Residual step-changes in Sydney Observatory temperature data aligned with changes verified independently (the effect of rainfall is removed statistically). Red squares indicate statistical outliers. As step-changes are aligned with site changes post hoc, analysis is independent and unbiased by prior knowledge. The Tmax decline in 1879 is not climate-related and can only be due to cooling in the vicinity (watering) or changed exposure (shading) or a change of instrument (changing to a thermometer having a different calibration).

The question is: why haven’t all these changes and their effects been documented by the Bureau or the many climate scientists who use the data as a climate-change reference?

Sydney Observatory, Temperature, Stevenson Screen, serial number, photo.

Figure 2. The small Stevenson screen seems neglected; there are cobwebs between the louvers and in the roof cavity and it is covered in a thin coating of black soot, which would make it warmer (left). The serial number (right; 97/C0526) indicates it was made in 1997; data stepped-up in 1998 but Bureau documentation says the screen was replaced in 2000. (Its also possible that nobody really knows!)

In their haste to make the weather warmer Bureau-metadata (data about the data) only mention the 1917 site move, the AWS being installed in 1990 and the small screen (in 2000). They forgot that the site moved away from the school building and fig tree in 1948/49; the Cahill Expressway opened in 1958 and that the wall was built in 1972/73.

But here’s the big problem: homogenisation changes the data to achieve the warming trend they want. Adjustments are made arbitrarily for changes that made no difference (like the maximum temperature in 1917 and the minima in 1964), while changes that did impact on data (for example, the 1948/49 move; the expressway and the wall and small screen) are blamed on the climate.

When journalists describe normal summer days as ‘scorchers’, ‘weekends from hell’, ‘sweltering’, ‘record-breakers’ the BoM doesn’t correct them and mention our hot history.  Every time there’s a day warmer than the last time it was cooler its announced as significant event. They even create inflated stories about events that haven’t happened yet, with creatively adapted file-photos to make it seem they have.

For the last 158 years Sydney’s climate has not changed or warmed. There are no records being cracked; not at Sydney; nor at Newcastle’s Nobbys Head where the AWS and small screen moved to the edge of the cliff above the beach in 2001; not Brewarrina Hospital where new accommodation warmed the site; or Wanaaring where they put the small screen beside a dusty track; nor Moomba between the airport runway and materials dump; neither at Melbourne’s Laverton RAAF (also a small screen) nor Sydney airport where the small screen is 35 m from traffic emerging from the General Holmes Drive tunnel; nor Alice Springs, Hobart, Charleville, Adelaide, Mandora, Launceston, Ceduna, Cape Leeuwin nor  … (insert so many here). Site changes have happened everywhere, and nowhere does warming unequivocally reflect the climate.

The bottom line

Evidenced by careful analysis (and tracking-down historic aerodrome maps and information at the National Archives of Australia; the National Library of Australia (NLA); state libraries; museums; searching NLA’s collection of historic aerial photographs and the online collection available from Business Queensland; local historians and groups such as the Civil Aviation Historical Society at Essendon) it’s clear that the Bureau of Meteorology either doesn’t know what’s going-on or they “know” the answer they are looking for before they start. Either way, they are crafting an enormous myth about Australia’s climate.

REFERENCE

Johnston, Bill (2018) Sydney Observatory’s temperature trends, extremes and trends in extremes. PDF (580Kb)

9.8 out of 10 based on 88 ratings

155 comments to Scandal: BoM ignores major site changes at iconic, historic, Sydney Observatory. Sloppy or deliberate?

  • #
    TonyO

    “The BoM is behaving as a PR machine, a marketing arm of the renewables industry, and a political support team for Big Parasitic Government.”

    Sorta says it all.

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    • #
      Phillip Bratby

      Is anyone surprised?

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        • #
          sceptic56109

          Sloppy or incompetent are terms used by the left to excuse man-made disasters such as Wivenhoe Dam in Australia and Oroville Dam in California. Loss of life or enormous damage are explained away as mistakes made by incompetent dam managers, but are these stunning errors just that?

          90

      • #
        OriginalSteve

        Slightly OT , but this needs talked about.

        When life aligns with predictions….

        http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2018-02-07/power-failure-at-royal-adelaide-hospital-disrupts-surgery/9406270

        “At least one operation was disrupted when a software failure left part of the Royal Adelaide Hospital without power for up to 20 minutes this morning.

        SA Health said early advice indicated there were no adverse patient outcomes and no emergency surgeries were affected.

        It said maintenance crews were testing a generator and the power outage happened because a software failure prevented the affected section of the hospital from being switched back from generator to mains power.”

        100

        • #
          Rereke Whakaaro

          A “software failure”? Don’t you test software, before putting it anywhere near the real world?

          Na mate, she’ll be right.

          100

          • #
            OriginalSteve

            Yep…and its only a hospital….no biggie….

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          • #
            NuThink

            Test software completely – that would be a first. There are times when real time software is very difficult to test, but the case of the Royal Adelaide Hospital is not in my opinion one of those.

            The Arianne 5 gave a spectacular demonstration of a simple software bug that cost a lot of money and 2 satellites and many red faces.

            On June 4, 1996 an unmanned Ariane 5 rocket launched by the European Space Agency exploded just forty seconds after its lift-off from Kourou, French Guiana. Ariane explosion The rocket was on its first voyage, after a decade of development costing $7 billion. The destroyed rocket and its cargo were valued at $500 million. A board of inquiry investigated the causes of the explosion and in two weeks issued a report. It turned out that the cause of the failure was a software error in the inertial reference system. Specifically a 64 bit floating point number relating to the horizontal velocity of the rocket with respect to the platform was converted to a 16 bit signed integer. The number was larger than 32,767, the largest integer storeable in a 16 bit signed integer, and thus the conversion failed.

            40

            • #
              OriginalSteve

              Id have hoped the control system was also hard wired using relays. In industrial systems, emergency stops go into a PLC programatically, but they are also hard wired to physically drop out power in case the PLC fails.

              I cant fathom a lack of backup control system….i wonder if Elon…no…lets not go there….

              30

          • #
            crakar24

            I was once told by a computer chump that software never fails but the hardware does………oh how i laughed

            40

            • #
              Rereke Whakaaro

              I sometime refer to it as “squidgywear”, because people are never quite sure where it is going to go, next.

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        • #
          Kinky Keith

          Thankfully it wasn’t human error.

          30

          • #
            Rereke Whakaaro

            Some human must have thought that using unproven* software was a really bright idea.

            * Unproven, Meaning insufficiently tested to stress and identify the boundaries of valid operating conditions, and identifying the points of terminal failure.

            Don’t they teach this stuff in “Computer Studies 101”, any more?

            20

            • #
              Graeme#4

              It’s amazing how many software folks think that their software will work ok and never needs testing. Just hope they keep these folks away from aircraft and autonomous vehicle software.

              20

  • #
    Douglas Stewart

    Gosh! Is the Science Minister aware that we are being diddled?

    190

    • #
      Bill Johnston

      I think its a case of fiddling while making it appear that Rome is is burning.

      Minister Frydenberg is wedded to the idea of global warming and finds it impossible to commit to an investigation of problems within his Bureau of Meteorology.

      Cheers,

      Bill

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      • #
        Geoffrey Williams

        I’d do anything go get rid of Frydenberg!
        Anything, including voting for the opposition;
        Just to get rid of a man, supposedly a Liberal thinker of a conservative government, who has sold us all to the devil for silver! I want to see his face when he’s dumped.
        Regards GeoffW

        190

    • #
      PeterS

      Science Minister? Now that’s an oxymoron and an Orwellian title to boot.

      190

    • #
      Dennis

      It was the Minister for Science who opposed Prime Minister Abbott in Cabinet to convince the majority of Ministers that an audit, due diligence to be conducted at the BoM, was unnecessary.

      221

    • #
      toorightmate

      The Science Minister would not know if a bull was up him.

      80

    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      Um, Being “diddled”, in the part of the world where I was brought up, refers to an older male, being over-familiar with a younger person.

      Who would do such a thing, with the apparent awareness of a Minister of the Crown?

      00

  • #

    Let’s be flexible. Things can be deliberate and sloppy.

    200

    • #
      PeterS

      Indeed although we know you mean – more accurate.

      90

      • #
        Extreme Hiatus

        Perhaps a convenient new term is required: slopperate. After all they’re only human… I mean huperson.

        111

        • #
          Eugene S. Conlin

          I mean huperson.

          unfortunately EH that contains a genderism (“son”) at the end – I am Perturbed by Proxy (PbP) – let them be known as hupers
          /sarc

          if they can make up words so can I

          70

  • #
    Jonesy

    I keep asking…how many individuals are doing this? Surely, the entire BoM cannot be corrupted by the green blob?

    Aviation products have been deliberately made vague for area briefings whilst the aerodrome forcasts are still accurate. No longer are the BoM accurately reporting on state wide weather events. Fronts and cloud coverage now look like a grade 2 students drawing of a milk coffee biscuit…cost saving or averting liability?

    303

    • #
      Bill Johnston

      Its not secret met business. Notwithstanding there are many hundreds of hard-working, honest and productive people working for the Bureau, there is a small, protected group who do homogenisation and stir alarm about the climate even though it hasn’t changed.

      Homogenisation in Australia started before 1996 (probably around 1993) under the watchful eye of Neville Nicholls. He and subsequent others that reviewed the method either never looked at any data or they looked over-there instead. Any reasonable check would have picked-up on problems at Sydney Observatory (and another 100 or-so sites that I’ve researched) two decades or longer ago. I guess it never crossed their mind that someone might come along and sift through aerial photographs and other records to try to track down and attribute changes in datasets.

      Minister Frydenberg has been sent many examples of poor practice and site changes that are masqueraded as climate change and global warming by the Bureau, and its impossible (or not) to believe he and the minister for Paris (Greg Hunt) would NOT support an independent open-review of the whole mess that is Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology before embarking on barking-mad changes to Australia’s energy network that are bound to send us broke.

      The Bureau too has been contacted directly, with more examples; like placing wind-profiling radars too close to Stevenson screens at many airports; placing unmanned automatic weather stations beside dusty tracks and in dusty paddocks near remote airstrips; or moving them too close to expressways and car-parks; the dodgy practice of letting through to the global-warming god the changeover to probes in small screens that are sensitive enough to pick-up signals from a dog walking past.

      Cheers,

      Bill

      491

      • #
        Leonard Lane

        Bill, I don’t think incremental changes in leadership and management will ever catch up with the homogenization, arbitrary changing of the raw data, etc.. I think it is going to take massive changes in leadership, management , and independent oversight to solve BOM’s problems and stop their shenanigans.

        150

      • #
        Environment Skeptic

        ‘all Rome’s lead to road’
        It is time to take contemporary meteorology to the next level.
        Temperature sensors need to be embedded into the bitumen on roads.

        ” I think it is going to take massive changes in leadership, management , and independent oversight to solve BOM’s problems and stop their shenanigans.”

        All it would take is a change of creditors. It is the creditor that controls the purse strings and subsequently the kind of debt/spending that is approved or not approved.

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    • #
      Jonesy

      Thanks for your work, Bill. Agreed with positioning, I worked it out once that for every knot of wind roughly equaled a one second air change time within a big stevenson screen.

      80

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    crakar24

    Its like that old saying “what caused the great pause”………….they ran out of excuses to adjust the data.

    140

  • #

    Good morning Jo,
    Great work (again)!
    At the risk of plagiarising the left! … We have to maintain the Rage on this “Climate Change Scam”.
    (BTW., Have you heard the latest? The Green Blob are losing sleep over the decreasing traction of climate change & Catastrophic CC., so they now are gunning for “Atmosphere Cancer!!”) (Is there no end to this lunacy?) – Source WattsUpWithThat.com, 28/1/18.
    ‘Anywho’, the new German “Jamaica Coalition” have after three and a half months of exhaustive meetings decided that the 2020 CO2 Emission Reduction Goals are no longer achievable.
    Isn’t it funny what that smell of “Ministerial Leather” – & possible withdrawal of – can do to one’s ideals!
    Oh, and here’s a little curve ball for all you leftist sycophants who like to try & denigrate this site!!
    Bet you can’t find any more than three mentions of Trump’s 2.4 million jobs in one year, or Malcolm/Tony’s 830 000 jobs in four years in any of the jaundiced “lame-stream” media? (Good luck.)
    Let us all hope that in the next six to 12 months the tide finally starts to turn on the general public’s passive acceptance of this greatest scam in the history of civilisation.
    Ever-increasingly warm regards, Reformed Warmist of Logan!
    PS. Take a look at Donna Laframboise latest blog of 26/1/18, where she lays bear the junk science (& in-proven at time of writing) of the last three IPCC. Reports! (It is a great read!)

    280

    • #
      ian hilliar

      Well;, the good news is that, in his State of the Union address, Trump did not once mention global warming or climate change. Not once. Even better news none of the Democrat replies mentioned climate change, either. Not once. It is a dead dog in the US, so stand by for fall out as people and institutions begin to pull their investments out of “green energy” schemes.

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  • #

    PPS. Sorry, I forgot … Donna’s blog is: NoFrakkingConsensus.com

    70

  • #
    Kinky Keith

    As a scientist, I am totally disgusted at the misuse of the once, good name of science in the chase for political and academic advancement.

    As mentioned above, the Weather industry has been taken over by groups more interested in power, cash and control than in doing reliable accurate science.

    The current manipulation of the general public is a deplorable facet of modern life that doesn’t seem likely of change in a hurry.

    The situation described above is ,sadly, the template for modern science.

    KK

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  • #
    Roy Hogue

    Sloppy or deliberate?

    Deliberately sloppy. No doubt about it. That’s the modus operandi of climate change.

    130

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      • #
        Environment Skeptic

        Not sure who who currently owns all the thermometers in Greece, so i can only assume the private conversation between the creditor and the new buyer for the purpose of privatising the BoM’s thermometers would go something like this, in part….
        “Do you see those thermometers and all those mann made hockey sticks??….[a pause]….one day they will all be yours..”

        30

        • #
          Environment Skeptic

          After further thought, is is evident many of those thermometers are on prime real estate and when the thermometers are privatised they will fetch a higher price.
          Also, shouldn’t matter if the stations have cobwebs and such. Many investors trying to win creditor loan finance like to do their own renovations and cobwebs/insulation would add to the sale value and creative scientific scope. Best to leave the thermometers alone in original condition untouched or there is no scope for ‘adjusting’ the readings and so forth…

          ….there are cobwebs between the louvers and in the roof cavity and it is covered in a thin coating of black soot, which would make it warmer (left). The serial number (right; 97/C0526) indicates it was made in 1997; data stepped-up in 1998 but Bureau documentation says the screen was replaced in 2000. (Its also possible that nobody really knows!)

          30

  • #
    destroyer D69

    Compare records for temps at Mackay airport and Mackay BOM weather station. Consistent cooler at the station on a hill overlooking the harbour (approx 200 feet high) and directly exposed to marine winds. This difference is a well known and consistant difference recognised by the aviation community and general public in Mackay.

    120

  • #
    el gordo

    William Dawes was Australia’s first meteorologist and he was camped at Observatory Hill between 1788 and 1791, this from Gergis et al 2009.

    ‘Daily temperature and barometric pressure observations recorded by William Dawes in Sydney Cove and a temperature record kept by William Bradley on board HMS Sirius anchored in Port Jackson (Sydney Harbour) in the early months of the First Fleet’s arrival in Australia were analysed. Remarkably, the records appear comparable with modern day measurements taken from Sydney Observatory Hill, displaying similar daily variability, a distinct seasonal cycle and considerable inter-annual variability.’

    210

    • #
      beowulf

      If Dawes was there in 1791 he might have recorded the temps of the El Nino at that time.

      Here’s Capt Watkin Tench speaking of the Sydney heatwave a few miles inland at Rose Hill, February 1791:

      “An immense flight of bats driven before the wind, covered all the trees around the settlement, whence they every moment dropped dead or in a dying state, unable to endure longer the burning state of the atmosphere. Nor did the peroquettes [parrots], though tropical birds, bear it better. The ground was strewn with them in the same condition as the bats.”

      This followed a recorded temp of 109deg F a few weeks earlier on 27/12/1790. Apparently it got hot in the olden days too. We’ve seen Flying Fox kills in the last 10 years but no Galah kills that I am aware of, so I guess it’s cooler now than 1791.

      This excerpt is taken from the journal of Capt Watkin Tench of First Fleet fame, in the book “Watkin Tench – 1788” edited by none other than everyone’s favourite climate alarmist FLIM FLAM.

      90

      • #
        David-of-Cooyal-in-Oz

        G’day b,
        My guess is that there’s more water available for them these days, ranging from farm dams, through individual water features to weirs and Warragamba dam. Still gets hot, but the birds can get a drink.
        Cheers,
        Dave B

        10

  • #
    Robert R

    they are crafting an enormous myth about Australia’s climate.

    This deception is exactly the same as what now happens in Victoria and South Australia on hot days. On the quiet, they secretly turn on hundreds of millions of dollars worth of new big C02 emitting dirty diesel generators. They then act as if the billions of dollars worth of unreliable renewables that aren’t working, are actually working to produce enough power.
    Running these generators costs them a fortune, a fact they cannot really disclose, so now they are trying to figure out how to motivate consumers to use less power when they are hot (or cold).

    261

    • #
      RickWill

      It only costs those buying electricity a fortune. “They” just get a handsome return on the four layers of generation now installed. Before it ends all consumers will be asked to dig much deeper. The easiest way out is to make your own electricity.

      SA and Vic power prices are on the verge of rocketing to $14,000/MWh as I type this.

      130

    • #
      Robert R

      In a huge cloud of C02 emissions, the world’s biggest rocket has just been launched into space today in the US with a Tesla car on board!
      I don’t get it, why a Tesla? Was Elon Musk intending to go to Mars in this Tesla?

      61

      • #
        toorightmate

        Robert R,
        You have missed the point.
        Sending a Tesla motor vehicle into space is such a phenomenal contribution for mankind.
        I missed the point also.
        It all seems to me like the broken pencil – POINTLESS.

        41

        • #
          Robert R

          May be they didn’t want the Tesla any more when they found out that the CO2 emissions generated from the one off manufacture of its Tesla battery approximates the entire CO2 emissions generated in running an average petrol engined car for six and a half years of the average petrol car’s life!

          101

      • #
        Another Ian

        The list of manufacturing faults must have been huge to go to that expense to hide them

        50

      • #
        EternalOptimist

        They normally send a block of concrete as a dummy payload, but someone realised a block of concrete might come in useful.

        100

  • #
    Bob Peel

    There is so much superannuation locked into renewables such that no politician dares to halt the subsidisies and to let the funds (read “mums & dads”) absorb the hit. Therein is the complete current answer to the “Why”. All other argument is moot unless a solution to that thorn is found or circumstances bring things to a head, so we could get on with reality and calling-out this social experiment as being “done”. (My qualifications are in engineering not in finance). Cheers.

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      RickWill

      The banks call the tune. They are so invested in new wind and solar that they will not back coal projects.

      Few people actually understand the mess. I still see financial sites and politicians comparing LCOE for unbuffered intermittents with on-demand generation – incredibly naive!!

      The one “good” aspect is that SA is doubling down and betting heavy on wind, solar and batteries so its eventual collapse should ring warning bells for those like minded lemmings.

      Will be an interesting mess if an LNP government inherits the SA disaster.

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        Mall

        Break the big 4 bank cartel. I am sure overseas banks, particularly Chinese would be happy to invest in coal fired power generation. After all they are investing in these at home.

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      Dennis

      Noting carefully, including Industry Superannuation Funds, owned and operated by the union movement that controls the ALP and contributes also to the Greens.

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      Serp

      Yep. The returns on renewable investment are “too good to ignore” (Peter Costello).

      Each increase of the RET ratchets up the attractiveness of such investments.

      I cannot see how Australia’s plight is rectifiable. There’s been too much travel in the wrong direction and the people driving (Weatherill, Andrews et al) have their constituents’ best interests at heart –well, that’s the schtick.

      And now all we can do is wait patiently for this financiers’ picnic, brought about by government having succumbed to what is no more than the wishful thinking of greens, to come to a close.

      Those who have the wherewithal to escape should be preparing now. What a bummer, this is the best country in the world isn’t it?

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        DaveR

        It is rectifiable. The RET has to be reduced in a series of stages. It will take a new conservative leader to do it, and its none of the people currently in cabinet. Vote for other parties than the liberals.

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    Leo G

    The Stevenson Screen is poorly located on ground which slopes down from a brick wall. The ground surface appears to be quite compressed with only a grass stubble, so runoff would aggravate dry subsurface moisture conditions. In summer clear sky conditions, the dry surface would significantly increase ground surface temperatures compared with more natural conditions (level ground with more porous topsoil and grass cover allowing more consistent natural evaporative cooling).
    This apparatus has a similar soil condition problem to BoM’s site adjacent to the archery field at Sydney Olympic Park at Homebush Bay. My residence is about 4km north and most days has temperatures close to those recorded at Homebush Bay. After several days of dry nights and clear-sky daytime conditions however, the daytime maxima diverge significantly (up to 10 degree C).

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    robert rosicka

    Forget about the incompetence at BOM and concentrate on the frord being committed by the successive governments via the ministers for little critters and all things green.

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    robert rosicka

    Forget about the incompetence at BOM and concentrate on the frord being committed by the successive governments via the ministers for little critters and all things green.

    92

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    pat

    it will take a while to absorb all this info, jo. meanwhile,

    6 Feb: USA Today: Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang will rival coldest Games ever
    by Doyle Rice with AP
    The Games, which begin Thursday in Pyeongchang, South Korea, will easily be the coldest since the 1994 Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway.
    Those 1994 Games were among the coldest on record, according to AccuWeather.

    At a rehearsal Saturday for the opening ceremony, for example, the temperature was 6 degrees Fahrenheit with a wind chill factor of 7 below zero — so severely cold that audiences walked out in the middle of the rehearsal, according to local reports…

    A normal high temperature for Feb. 9 in Pyeongchang is 30 degrees, and the normal low is 12 degrees. According to data compiled by the Pyeongchang organizing committee, February temperatures over the past decade there averaged 23 degrees…
    https://www.usatoday.com/story/weather/2018/02/06/winter-olympics-pyeongchang-rival-coldest-games-ever/309081002/

    7 Feb: ABC: More battery power on the way for South Australia following Elon Musk announcement
    By political reporter Nick Harmsen and Sarah Hancock
    Another big grid-scale storage battery will be installed in South Australia’s mid-north in the same region as the Tesla and Neoen big battery at Jamestown.
    Tilt Renewables will connect a solar and battery system to its existing wind farm near Snowtown.
    It also plans to put a pumped-hydro storage project in a disused quarry at Highbury in Adelaide’s north-east

    The pumped hydro venture — 300 MW/1350 MWh — would be able to store enough power to exceed the output of the South Australian Government’s temporary diesel-fired Adelaide power plant for up to 4.5 hours.
    At Snowtown, a 44 MW solar farm and 21 MW/26 MWh battery would be financially supported by South Australian taxpayers, through a $7.1 million grant from the state renewable technology fund.
    The proposed battery will be about one-fifth as powerful and will have one-fifth of the storage of the Tesla and Neoen one, which is already feeding into the electricity grid.

    There is also a 30 MW battery due to start operating within months aimed at improving security of power supply on Yorke Peninsula.
    In the state’s Riverland, the Lyon Group is involved in another solar farm and battery storage venture.

    Development approvals are still needed for the Tilt ventures, but South Australian Energy Minister Tom Koutsantonis said they would help drive down power prices.
    “More renewable energy means cheaper power for South Australians,” he said…

    Meanwhile, an Australian energy company has hit out at the South Australian government over its plan to launch the world’s largest virtual power plant that will see at least 50,000 homes in South Australian given solar panels and batteries.
    ShineHub — a Sydney based company — claims it was the first to come up with a similar idea and that it launched an almost identical concept last year in South Australia…
    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-02-07/tilt-renewables-to-add-solar-and-batteries-to-snowtown-wind-farm/9403970

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    • #
      Peter C

      Will the4 SA government ever stop this idiocy?

      South Australians you have an election in 1 month. Please, please do not return the Weatherill government.

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  • #

    Bill, you are most probably correct with regards to implementation around 1993. I n 1992 more than 190 countries have endorsed (signed their souls away) the UN’s AGENDA 21. This was the beginning of the end. From this date on wards, institutions like CSIRO, BOM, Learning institutions, Local councils, States, Gov, etc. implemented the sustainability “gospel” (in fact all 6 “pillars” of AGENDA 21). Most Australians have not heard of AGENDA 21 (already been “upgraded” to AGENDA 2030, 17 “pillars” or AGENDA 21 in overdrive). The bad news is that major political parties support/obey/worship/adhere to the UN’s AGENDA 21 and 2030. There is only one solution: All the small political parties who are aware of the UN’s AGENDA must join forces to form a major party/coalition for Australians. I am afraid to say that if this does not happen, Australia as we know it will be history within a decade. I have migrated to AU 11 years ago and have lived through what is happening right now in this country. Dark times ahead.

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      Len

      Agenda 21 is still current. A UN organisation, ICLEI, deals directly with local government councils. There are 88 councils in Australia on their programme. The UN organisation bypasses Federal and state governments. There is a headquarters in Melbourne for Australia who hold regular meetings with people from all over Australia attending. Australia’s membership is only second to the US. I know of one represetative from Northam, WA.
      Agenda 2030 is on a National basis. eg. SG Five. Promote women and girls. Equality = Matriarchy

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        Dennis

        UN Agenda 30 came into force in Australia during January 2016 while the Minister for Foreign Affairs was overseas, her favourite destination following in the footsteps of Kevin 747.

        That was a federal election year and Agenda 30 was not mentioned by the Government or the Opposition.

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      • #
        Dennis

        UN Agenda 30 came into force in Australia during January 2016 while the Minister for Foreign Affairs was overseas, her favourite destination following in the footsteps of Kevin 747.

        That was a federal election year and Agenda 30 was not mentioned by the Government or the Opposition.

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  • #

    The other thing to keep in mind is that min/max is a measure of what high or low temp was achieved with or without the interference of cloud. 1950 had many high minima in Eastern Oz because of cloud. It had many low maxima because of cloud. And the southerly fronts that brought so much cloud were not cool because of the amount of CO2 present in the atmosphere. And the cooling nor’easters which prevail in many cloudy years do not blow off the ocean because of the amount of CO2 present in the atmosphere. And when inland winds prevail, as in the early 1790s, and a there are high maxima and low minima because there is less cloud and less oceanic influence. CO2 can’t do that. It’s not that clever.

    We do not live in a glass receptacle with a lamp shining on it and a few simple gases on the inside. And min/max, even accounting for UHI, means a bit…but not much.

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    JMO

    I have lost any respect for BOM.

    I remember the BOM said a category 3 cyclone a few years ago off the Capricornia coast was a category 5, also when the temperature in Canberra on 18 January 2013 ( 10 years after the bush fires) at 41.7 C BOM said it was highest on record when many times previously it had been well in the 42’s C and then on January 18 2017 (4 years later) the temperature record was adjusted down to 40.0 C !

    Then, following year, on January 18 2018 – lo behold the temperature recorded for 18/1 2013 is back up to 41.6 C. They are all over the shop!

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    Bob Fernley-Jones

    Great post!

    There is sloppiness everywhere in the ACORN-SAT site metadata, including contradictions with records at the same sites contained in the Climate Data Online portal.
    One that makes me smile is that while Sydney is/was* an ACORN-SAT station, the BoM have stated that it has not been used in determining national trends because it has been affected by the so-called UHI (Urban Heat Island) effect. (Although it is/was used for homogenization of other sites!)

    And yet, here is an extract from the official site catalogue history:

    “…The area is heavily built-up and has been since at least the late 19th century. An analysis of minimum temperature trends in the ACORNSAT data showed no evidence of an abnormal warming trend relative to nonurban sites in the region, indicating that any urban influence on the data was already fully developed by the time ACORN-SAT begins in 1910.”

    * Temperature data discontinued as at 28/Feb/2017.

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    Another Ian

    Maybe BOM should read this

    “The Trials and Tribulations of Operating a Personal Weather Station”

    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/02/06/the-trials-and-tribulations-of-operating-a-personal-weather-station/

    Annie – Beware!

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      Annie

      Saw it Another Ian…thanks. We’ll get sorted sometime. We had 36C for a long time today and 37C briefly. Gear is on grassy area well away from the house and driveway but we have a lot of windbreak trees and shrubs around!

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    Another Ian

    O/T Some pretty red patches at

    https://www.aemo.com.au/Electricity/National-Electricity-Market-NEM/Data-dashboard#nem-dispatch-overview

    and near on the rest

    “Take it to the limit one more time”

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      RickWill

      Everyone in South Australia – Please blow harder! And if you don’t mind PLEASE, PLEEEEASE TURN OFF THE AIR-CONDITIONER.

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      • #
        C. Paul Barreira

        We’ve not had an air conditioner for over thirty years, not by choice, just the way it has been. If we had one now it would be busy. And if suited no one then too bad.

        My late mother had one. Around ten years ago either the then-Premier or another Minister on the morning of a forty-degree day asked people to avoid using air conditioners because they were damaging the planet. We called in some time during the afternoon to find my mother, then approaching her 80th year sweltering. And begged her to take no notice of such people ever again.

        Two years later one or other minister, perhaps Premier (it was the Premier on one of those occasions), repeated the advice. And so we travelled the relevant distance to check that all—or something at least—was well. Fortunately my mother simply said she would take no notice of those fellows and so was cool and comfortable. I had already written to Rann, the Premier, to ask who was responsible when people suffered from heat exhaustion or other debilitation provoked by obeying their political masters. I received no reply.

        Since then, the obsession with air conditioning has only deepened. And they, the clones of Rann, then blew up Port Augusta power station. For what? Nothing tangible, nothing measurable—just the expansion of state power, the creation of SovRepSA.

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          Graeme No.3

          Well, I’ve been running my airconditioner and feel quite cool (unless I am silly enough to go out when its 38℃. But I start up my AC in the morning when it is cool outside because it runs more efficiently then. Then leaving it running while it has to deal with any warmth creeping in. I would think it uses less electricity that way than leaving it off until, say 5p.m., and trying to cool the house down while it is 36-37℃ outside.

          And if there is a blackout I will blame those responsible, to whit the State Labor Government, and I hope lots of other people do too.

          And to increase the drain on electricity supply I may start viewing the TV news. I caught a brief bit yesterday (while setting the recorder for the weather forecast) and thought that Koutsantonis, Treasurer and Minister for Power, was looking and sounding desperate, but I may have been mistaken and it was just his usual demented ranting.

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        Another Ian

        Rick

        If they’re all hot and swearing that will stir up the needed breeze.

        Only problem – the focus will be parliament house, not the wind turbines

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    Greg

    On morning TV two hot days are claimed to be a heatwave.No corrections from the BOM.

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    Paul

    Would the fact that the changes mentioned which are not recorded, is because the BoM did NOT make the changes? Would it also be because the BoM HQ is in Melbourne and Sydney, NSW, does not matter? [sarc]

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    Greg in NZ

    O/T in Hawai’i – “The Maunakea Access road is closed… below freezing temperatures… possibly more heavy snowfall… Winter Storm Warning for Big Island summits”. Presently 7.6˚C below freezing with a minus 17˚C wind chill. Aloha!

    http://mkwc.ifa.hawaii.edu/current/road-conditions/

    It’s been snowing on/off down in the South Island the past few days – the first week of February, our high summer – all we need is snow on Rapanui / Easter Island, and that’d be a Polynesian Trifecta of Extreme Summer Snow 2018.

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    pat

    6 Feb: El Pais: After heavy snowfall Monday, cold snap to continue in much of Spain
    Wintry conditions are still causing widespread problems on the roads and to train services
    The cold front that hit Spain last Thursday is continuing to cause traffic problems throughout the country, with snow and frost affecting 350 roads and delaying the high-speed AVE train service. The Renfe train service has also been interrupted on the León-Oviedo line and between Rodalies and Catalonia…
    Around 50,000 students from six regions were unable to attend classes because of the conditions…

    Below-average temperatures have been forecast until next Friday, according to an alert from the meteorological agency AEMET, with Thursday and Friday tipped to be the coldest days. AEMET representative Delia Gutiérrez said the temperatures will be “far below” the average “between 3ºC and 6ºC below across the country and up to 6ºC and 10ºC below average in mountainous areas.” The windchill factor will intensify the cold conditions.
    https://elpais.com/elpais/2018/02/06/inenglish/1517908298_655695.html

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    pat

    no matter how often you find stuff like this in regional media, you just know the CAGW mob will announce it was the hottest year ever weeks, or even months, before the year is out:

    2 Feb: GrandHavenTribune: No matter what the groundhog says, expect cold
    by Marie Havenga
    A polar vortex over the Hudson Bay is causing cold air from the North Pole to swoop down over our region.
    “We’re going to be on the fringe of that cold air,” said Ernie Ostuno, lead forecaster for the National Weather Service in Grand Rapids.

    The sad part for Mr. Groundhog and us is that it will stick around for a while. We could be shivering in 20 degrees less-than-average temperatures for the next few weeks…

    “It looks like it stays cold for most of this month,” Ostuno said. “Probably at least for the next two-to-three weeks. ***We’ll have spells that are 10, 15 and 20 below average temperatures.”

    Next Wednesday and Thursday could feature wind chills of 10 below…
    “Cover your ears and face, and wear gloves obviously,” he said. “Your most susceptible areas are exposed to the wind.”…
    http://www.grandhaventribune.com/Weather/2018/02/02/No-matter-what-the-groundhog-says-today-expect-cold

    2 Feb: Brisbane Times: Toby Crockford: Parts of south-east Queensland record lowest February temps on record
    Parts of south-east Queensland recorded their lowest February maximum temperatures on record on Friday, as rain and cloud cover put an end to the hot weather, according to the weather bureau.

    Eleven locations in southern and eastern Queensland shivered through well-below average temperatures, which were expected to continue into the weekend, with top temperatures ***upwards of 14 degrees below the monthly average, the Bureau of Meteorology said…
    https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/queensland/parts-of-south-east-queensland-record-lowest-february-temps-on-record-20180202-p4yzbs.html

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    Geoffrey Williams

    The BOM'”s record keeping at Sydney Observatory is a scandal and no two ways as about it. Unfortunately no one in government seems to care either. And that’s another scandal.
    GeoffW

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    yarpos

    Apart from real time weather radar, I have little interest and no trust in the BOMs output.

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    Crakar24

    So here’s the deal down here in weather ills wonderland.

    The government are being lauded by all and sundry wrt the erection of a virtual power plant using pv panels which will produce 250MW for about two a day for the eye watering cost of 800 million dollars.

    Concurrently Adani are being vilified by the totalitarian left because they have the audacity to propose a gas plant capable of producing 300MW at almost half the price.

    The fact the pv is being promoted as having the ability to stabilise the network and reduce power bills tells me we are now in the era of peak stupid

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    • #
      Lionell Griffith

      No way near “peak stupid”. Until they are stripped of their powers, the stupidity will continue to accumulate to the point of an avalanche. Even then, there is more to come.

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        crakar24

        You think we can get even stupider!!!! My God man do you hear what you are saying?

        If right may God have mercy on our souls

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        • #
          Lionell Griffith

          Once, being stupid was not a survival trait. The Darwin effect cleaned the gene pool. Now, we keep them alive. The gene pool has turned a bright green. About the only way we can end it is to stop feeding them. Let them do themselves in without first consuming us.

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      Another Ian

      crackar

      Think SA will make much of a change to the graphs shown here?

      http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2018/02/we-dont-need-no-677.html

      10

      • #

        I like the way those Greenie supporters still cannot differentiate between ENERGY and ELECTRICITY.

        They like to quote wind and solar as percentages of ELECTRICITY generation, because those percentages are always higher, albeit only 5% and under 1%.

        However, when it is expressed as ENERGY, and the oil for all forms of transport and every other application, and the coal for steel making and other applications, and the use of gas for all of its applications as well, are taken into account, it makes wind and solar power STILL look positively insignificant.

        Note also that right out to the extent of this graph, 2040, they (wind and solar) have hardly even made the tiniest dent in overall energy consumption.

        Tony.

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    pat

    a piece I can’t recall seeing here previously:

    21 Sept 2017: Guardian: Bureau of Meteorology attacks pushed by ‘fever swamp’ of climate denial
    Rob Vertessy, who retired as the BOM’s director in 2016, has hit back at ‘time wasters’ and ‘amateurs’ who are given a forum by the Australian.
    by Graham Readfearn
    “From my perspective, people like this, running interference on the national weather agency, are unproductive and it’s actually dangerous,” Vertessy told me. “Every minute a BoM executive spends on this nonsense is a minute lost to managing risk and protecting the community. It is a real problem.”

    Now, the agency is under another wave of attack through the pages of the Rupert Murdoch-owned broadsheet, which is publishing claims made by Jennifer Marohasy…

    Vertessy says staff inside the bureau are well aware of the concerted attempts to attack their work.
    “They understand that there is an organised climate denial network and that it has a fever swamp that communicates amongst itself and occasionally tries to enter the national debate through the agency of leading newspapers and the like,” he says.
    “That’s very well understood, because it is very well documented. It remains hurtful and creates anxiety among the technical specialists involved in this but those people do the right thing and buckle down. They are a great bunch of people.”…

    In 2009, the bureau’s then most senior climatologist, Dr Michael Coughlan, told me that the agency had stopped responding to claims being pushed in the Australian newspaper…

    Vertessy: “The BoM provides amazing access for the media to its people but, on climate change, we have had to implement stricter protocols about who is authorised to talk and how. I implemented a lot of that stuff, quite frankly, because the minute you are entering the polity of the country in the debate, as are senior bureaucrats, you have to treat it carefully and look at it as a risk and manage it accordingly.
    “If someone says the wrong thing then it’s likely to be amplified one hundred times fold into something that looks like a scandal, when it is anything but.”…

    What needs to be front of mind, Vertessy says, is that there is “virtually complete consensus on the extent to which the planet has warmed and why, since the beginning of the industrial revolution”.
    “The facts are just unequivocal because they have been replicated so many times, by so many teams, using multiple independent methods.”
    He says if the bureau “was really making a hash of managing its climate data” then it would be documented in scientific “journals and at symposia” but “that’s clearly not happening”.
    He says it “beggars belief” that these commentators “actually profess to know better”…

    “The data absolutely confirms that we have already seen consequences from climate change, certainly in the way the climate system is behaving. There’s just zero doubt about it any more.
    “Looking into the future is of course more fraught, but that strongly suggests that we are on a very dangerous trajectory.”
    He says while making predictions of the future clearly comes with uncertainties, the planet is on “a very dangerous trajectory”…

    “So I have to admit that I am something of a climate pessimist because I worry about the trajectory that we are on.
    “But, as the costs of climate change accumulate in the years ahead, I can see that leaders of this climate change denial movement will really be seen as culpable.”
    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/planet-oz/2017/sep/21/attacks-on-bureau-of-meteorology-pushed-by-fever-swamp-of-climate-denial-former-director-says

    2013: Uni of Qld: BOM Chief to shed light on environmental intelligence at Brisbane lecture
    Featuring Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology Director Dr Rob Vertessy, the free talk is organised in conjunction with the 2013 AMSI Winter School that will be held in UQ from 24 June to 5 July.
    UQ’s Head of Mathematics Professor Joseph Grotowski said that environmental intelligence is becoming an increasingly important need, as the world continues to tackle some of its most pressing problems arising from the weather, constraints on natural resources and changing ecosystems.
    “The talk promises a fascinating insight into how the role of the modern Bureau of Meteorology is becoming more and more that of providing broad-based environmental intelligence service for Australia,” Professor Grotowski said…
    These developments arise at a time when the planet is changing faster than ever before…

    29 March 2015: ABC: The weather man – Dr Rob Vertessy on Sunday Profile
    with Richard Aedy on ABC Radio Sydney
    The Director of the Bureau of Meteorology, Dr Rob Vertessy, says the Bureau is now an “environmental intelligence agency”.
    This Episode has expired and is no longer available to stream.

    —-

    FakeIntel?

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    observa

    No worries if you stuff up a series of one of the longest serving weather stations in the southern hemisphere. All you need is a 2 year overlap and she’ll be right mate

    41

    • #
      Kinky Keith

      Observa,

      The article says that the sampling rate in the good old days was every three hours.

      With modern technology it’s just on minute.

      As Jo has previously highlighted, this dramatically increases the chance of catching a new record “high” for the spot.

      A real scientist would not “blend” the old and new datasets because “they are not measuring the same thing”.

      But then, BOM probably doesn’t understand the significance of a change of measuring equipment and the increase in definition of 180 to 1.

      KK

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        observa

        Yeah not hard to see how they’ll homogenise and pasteurise the outcomes with that optimistic snow job masquerading as science. I’m old enough to know that even if the weather station was always left in the West Parklands it wouldn’t be measuring the same environment I grew up in.
        As for moving it to Kent Town east of the CBD and further from the coast, what on earth were they thinking at the time? We won’t be out of the aircond new office for long with it in the carpark right here eh guys?

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  • #
    Kinky Keith

    If you want to be tormented a bit more about abuse of trust just go back up to No 13 where Bob starts the series of comments about “our Super”. I suspect that the reps would still get paid their due even if the funds take a big hit when it all collapses.

    I don’t trust either extreme of politics.

    KK

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      Another Ian

      KK

      “I don’t trust either extreme of politics.”

      Well that accounts for 97% of politicians so how do you rate the remainder?

      10

    • #
      Kinky Keith

      The remainder, unfortunately, are only slightly less connected to the extremes than the core of those major parties.

      The only solution seems to be to expand the centre by voting for independents and encouraging more like Cory Bernardi.

      At the moment there is no difference between S Horten and M Trumble.

      00

  • #

    STOP IT , STOP IT NOW , YOUR STILL ALL ARGUING AGAINST A HYPOTHESIS that was ‘still born ‘ , it never made it to theory level because you have to support your idea with EVIDENCE from real world Observation , which they have not ,IT’S JUST PART OF A SOCIAL ENGINEERING PROJECT THAT’S ALL IT EVER WAS , IT HELPS THEM CREATE A NEW GLOBALIST FEUDAL SYSTEM , AND ALL YOU ARE DOING BY ARGUING WITH THEM ABOUT DATA SAMPLES , IS ‘ as my Grandmother would say ‘ ARGUING ABOUT THE PRICE OF FROZEN CHICKEN ‘

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    • #
      PeterS

      Or today arguing about the price of electricity. I get you. There is more to all this than just the price of electricity. It’s all about power and control. The only question is whether it’s all so cleverly planned to create diversions and the illusion we need to have a NWO to save us from ourselves, or whether it’s all just happening due to mankind’s relentless stupidity to keep repeating the same mistakes over and over. In the end it makes no difference as the outcome is always the same.

      10

    • #
      Kinky Keith

      Good point Dave, but the discussion does lead to side issues like the point mentioned above about investments in dodgy things like “renewables”.

      Involved with hard earned cash invested/entrusted to various,self appointed managers are:

      Politicians
      The union mooment, and
      Banks.

      Exposing these connections to the community’s cash is necessary and highly relevant.

      But where do we go now.

      The monster seems to be unstoppable.

      KK

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        OriginalSteve

        SA will collapse and it will be a smoking ruin, a warning for at least a generation….

        Challenge the govt of SA to switch off its deisel gennies and see what happens….

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    UHI effects are the chief ally of the Warmistas. They exploit them relentlessly with homogenisation. Before about 1980, the BOM might have cared to correct for UHI, but after 1980, no way. UHI is piled on UHI.

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    • #

      It’s not just urban heat island effect , it’s some Scandinavian in VIctorion times that proved that in a vacuum if you bombard C02 with Ultra violate light it causes a so called green house effect , but the Earth is Not a vacuum , it’s an open ended system . To take a hypothesis and turn it in to a full blown theory you need to produce EVIDENCE from real world Observation , which the proponents of man made global warming have yet to show us , it’s a still born hypothesis , so what is the real reason behind it ? is it scientific or political ideology , and by ARGUING the science are we not helping give there so called science undeserved credibility

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  • #

    Here is a different more realistic way of looking at it , the West is built on Judao Cristian values , since Henry the 8ths Reformation , when we began to leave behind the Roman Catholic feudal system , the modern day Pope wants open borders between Mexico and America so America can be flooded with Catholics compliant with a FEUDAL system and displace Conservative Christians that are not . Think about it ???

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      PeterS

      Interesting observation. It goes to show that humans are not infallible. The Pope has made many big mistakes of judgement that many would call into question whether he is a true Christian. Needles to say none of us are in a position that definitely can make that judgement call. What we can say though is he is repeating the same mistakes that were made in the past – yet again proving that history repeats.

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        So why did the Pope side with the Globalist Nwo when he made his encyclical couple of years back on global warming , after getting a visit from Nancy Oreskies and other disciples . Maybe he looked back to his predecessors with rose coloured spectacles that actually ran a feudal system , and fancied a seat at the big table for a modern version of it in order to return his church to its former glories

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        Another Ian

        Re history repeating.

        Somewhere recently there was a Mark Twain quote to the effect that it “actually doesn’t but it rhymes occasionally”

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    Sorry for spelling errors , but give it some thought

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      Extreme Hiatus

      Good thinking Ddave.

      With all due respect for the office, in the case of the person now holding it, you did spell Poop wrong.

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    Mark M

    Your taxes at work produce a crystal ball even Madam Zenda would avoid …

    The CSIRO has launched a tool that will help predict climate changes in particular geographical locations into the future

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-04-08/what-will-your-towns-climate-be-like-in-20-years-time/6378054

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    pat

    a never-ending? heatwave!

    8 Feb: ABC: Heatwave to hit Queensland this weekend, BOM warns ‘no relief in sight’
    By Gail Burke
    Temperatures will start to build from Friday, soaring above 40 degrees Celsius in some western, central and northern parts of the state on Sunday and to between 35C and 40C along the eastern coast.
    The severe heat will linger for most of the week and records could tumble, forecaster Sam Campbell said.
    “So really hot overnight temperatures up to 8C above average,” he said.
    “For many people they won’t see overnight temperatures dropping below 30C overnight and then the daytime temperatures getting up into the 40s and approaching, say, 45C around Longreach.”
    “So it is actually going to be a significant heat event for Queensland.

    “It’s going to come with a risk for people who are vulnerable to heat as well, so it’s a pretty serious message there for elderly people, you know people who are unwell and people who are more exposed to the heat … and don’t have air-conditioning.”
    Mr Campbell said a hot air mass would start to build in the south-west of the state from Friday, spreading further east and north over the coming days.

    ‘No relief in sight’
    The BOM predicted temperatures in the major south-eastern metropolitan areas would reach around 35C, with a top of 36C around Toowoomba, 43C around Longreach and 45C at Birdsville.
    Rockhampton could reach a maximum of about 35C, while areas around Mount Isa in the north-west were expected to hit the low 40s, Mr Campbell said.
    “In fact there’s no real relief in sight,” he said…

    Mr Campbell said residents in affected areas should pay attention to advice from the Queensland Ambulance service and Queensland Health.
    The Queensland Ambulance Service (QAS) is warning people could be struck down with a heat-related illness if they do not take necessary precautions in high temperatures.
    A spokesperson said warning signs included headaches, nausea, cramps, fainting, excessive sweating, tiredness and dizziness.
    Residents should stay hydrated, wear cool clothing, stay out of the sun and watch out for vulnerable friends and neighbours…
    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-02-08/severe-heatwave-conditions-set-to-hit-inland-queensland/9407436

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    Firey

    There is a Royal Commission into Banking coming, there has been one into the Unions. What can be so hard about conducting an audit of the BOM. Do the politicians not understand the issues or are they frightened of what might be found? Are they concerned that an audit
    may show that the dire consequences have been over-hyped? If this was to occur the public would take a heavy toll of all parties at the next election.

    As I have said before there should be two data bases.

    1. A complete record of raw temperature records from the time they began. This is a National asset & should not be destroyed or
    adjusted. It should be treated like other National assets. It should be kept in a pristine condition & anyone meddling with it
    should be charged as they would be if they impacted financial assets.

    2. A complete record of adjusted temperature data. This should be a separate record.

    Analysis of both records can then be undertaken and where differences occur full disclosure of why the differences occur can be shown.

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      Kinky Keith

      That is the bare minimum to be expected but we can’t even get that.

      As the ongoing U.S. drama shows, their highest offices have been infiltrated, corrupted and compromised to the point that you have to ask not “where does the buck stop” but “is there any point passing the buck”.

      The entire system of governance seems to lack integrity.

      That’s a bad place to be.

      KK

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      Dennis

      The Trade Union Royal Commission into governance and corruption was not allowed to continue despite having exposed many problems and issues and the Commissioner having referred many witnesses to legal agencies federal and state. Many of whom have not been contacted since.

      As with the opposition PM Abbott experienced when he proposed an audit of the BoM from a majority of his cabinet members when he stood down from the leadership the new PM abandoned Abbott’s TURC.

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        Kinky Keith

        The Trumble _ Freudenberg partnership is very strong but not something I admire.

        Sad and full of self interest, and ultimately doomed to a reaction from fed up Australians that echoes the Brexit and Trumpit experiences.

        KK

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    pat

    nice accompaniment for Qld’s imminent heatwave!

    ABOVE HEADLINE: VIDEO: Australians disappointed with government’s climate change efforts (smoking chimneys etc)

    8 Feb: Courier Mail: Vanessa Marsh: Queensland weather: Tourism ‘unfavourable’ due to extreme weather
    QUEENSLAND could be deemed “unfavourable” for tourism with extreme weather events, such as heatwaves, storms and bushfires, predicted to affect the viability of the state’s booming tourism industry.
    The United Nations has identified Australia as one of five tourism hotspots vulnerable to climate change. The nation’s top attractions, including beaches, wildlife, the Great Barrier Reef and national parks, could be at risk from changing weather patterns.

    The Climate Council will today reveal the extent of the threat to Australia’s tourism industry from climate change, warning northern states such as Queensland are at highest risk of becoming “inhospitable” during peak tourism times.
    Analysis for the United Nations found Australian tourism was particularly vulnerable due to hotter summers, warmer winters, water scarcity, marine biodiversity loss, sea level rise, an increase in disease outbreaks and an increase in extreme weather events.

    “Analysis indicated that … much of Queensland, including key access points to the Great Barrier Reef such as Cairns and Townsville, could become inhospitable during substantial parts of the year, especially in the summer months, the peak season for international visitors,” the report said.
    “Brisbane and the Gold Coast are also projected to suffer substantial declines in climate attractiveness during the high season.”

    VIDEO: ‘We are losing the battle’ on climate change: (Emmanuel) Macron

    Lead author Professor Lesley Hughes said the effects were already being felt in Queensland as evidenced by coral bleaching, beach erosion, rising temperatures and the southern movement of Irukandji jellyfish.
    The report said more than 60 per cent of Queensland’s 12,276km of open coastline was susceptible to rising sea levels. Surveys revealed up to 23 per cent of travellers would respond to beach damage by switching destinations, a move that could strip $56 million a year from the Sunshine Coast.
    “Both from a jobs and dollars perspective, tourism is a hugely important industry that we can’t afford to risk,” Prof Hughes said.

    Researchers warned rising sea temperatures would see the deadly Irukandji jellyfish continue its spread further south, potentially as far as the Gold Coast.
    “Climate change is not a future problem, it’s a now problem, and it’s just going to accelerate over the next few decades if something isn’t done,” Prof Hughes said…

    Tourism Minister Kate Jones said the Queensland Government was addressing climate change with $20 billion of projects under construction, planned and proposed and $247 million invested in improving Reef water quality…
    “The Prime Minister needs to get serious about climate change and the risk to the Reef.”

    VIDEO: Doomsday Clock Moved to Two Minutes to Midnight Amid Global Threats From Climate Change and Nuclear Tension.
    http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/queensland-weather-tourism-unfavourable-due-to-extreme-weather/news-story/0f469941adf080c275fc9a1058ec5b64

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    pat

    NSW too!

    Iconic Byron beaches listed as ‘at risk’ from climate change
    Echonetdaily – 1h ago

    great timing, given the Australian tourism ad aired in the US during the Superbowl!

    Tourism is the Australian industry least prepared for climate change, report says
    The Guardian· 7h ago

    ‘$40bn at risk’ as climate change threatens tourism
    The Australian – 11h ago

    Climate change threatens natural wonders
    SBS – 5h ago

    The United Nations has identified Australia as one of five tourism hot spots vulnerable to climate change
    Townsville Bulletin – 10h ago

    more PR!

    7 Feb: BBC: Great Barrier Reef: Swimming deaths prompt new safety rules
    Visitors to Australia’s Great Barrier Reef will be forced to wear life vests if they are deemed to be “at-risk” swimmers, a new safety code says.
    The rules are a response the deaths of 10 people – including at least four foreign tourists – on the reef in 2016.
    Under the Queensland state code, tourism operators will be required to identify swimmers who are potentially vulnerable before they enter the water.
    They may include elderly, inexperienced or unfit swimmers, authorities said…

    LINK: ◾Diving deaths raise safety questions in Australia
    Operators will now be required to pair some swimmers with a partner, and carry defibrillators on their vessels…
    http://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-42969375

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    pat

    subscriptions required for these two:

    James Cook University and climate change sceptic Peter Ridd in court battle over Great Barrier Reef science
    The Cairns Post – 4 hours ago
    JAMES Cook University physics professor Peter Ridd is locked in a battle over free speech and scientific inquiry that brings into sharp relief the lengths institutions will go to protect the rivers of gold coming from governments hoodwinked by global warming alarmism…

    Climate sceptic Professor Peter Ridd challenges academia at his peril
    Courier Mail-4 Feb. 2018
    James Cook University Professor Peter Ridd has dared to question the reliability of climate change science. Picture: Cameron Laird. But the plot thickens when his bosses try to silence him, and he quickly realises he is up against a cabal of politically-correct academics and professors who are desperate…

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    pat

    worser and worser:

    subscription required:

    Hobart beaches face 100-fold increase in flood risk as climate change hits
    The Mercury· 4h ago

    8 Feb: SBS: AAP: Climate change threatens natural wonders
    Climate change is threatening Australia’s natural attractions and could decrease the number of tourists travelling to the country, a report says.
    The not-for-profit group says Australia’s tourism is in the firing line as rising sea levels threaten more than half of Australia’s coastline, heatwaves keep people out of our cities and coral bleaching kills the Great Barrier Reef…

    “Tourists travel across the globe to see Australia’s remarkable natural wonders. But these icons are in the climate firing line as extreme weather events worsen and sea levels continue to rise,” ecologist Professor Lesley Hughes said in a statement on Thursday.

    “Some of our country’s most popular natural destinations, including our beaches could become ‘no-go zones’ during peak holiday periods and seasons, with the potential for extreme temperatures to reach up to 50 degrees in Sydney and Melbourne.”
    The report, released on Thursday, said Melbourne and Sydney could reach those extreme temperatures even if the government meets its global target set by the Paris Climate Agreement…

    The group warns that without effective action by the government to address climate change, the entire northern half of Australia could be deemed “unfavourable” for tourists within the next 20 years…

    “Without credible climate policy that cuts Australia’s rising carbon pollution levels, the impacts of climate change will only intensify and accelerate across the country over the coming decades,” Climate Council acting chief executive officer Dr Martin Rice said in a statement.

    While Australia has never been famous for its ski resorts, the industry has already experienced a decline in domestic tourism, the report said.
    Further declines in snowfall are projected for all resorts over the rest of this century meaning only the highest peaks such at Mount Perisher and Falls Creek would experience any snow, the council said…
    https://www.sbs.com.au/news/climate-change-threatens-natural-wonders

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      Dennis

      I was recently (January 2018) in Perisher Resport in the NSW Snowy Mountains and observed pockets of snow around the mountain tops surrounding.

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        Greg in NZ

        http://www.mountainwatch.com/snow-news/37521756/Buller-X—Proof-of-Big-Mountain-Freeriding-in-Our-Backyard—Event-Recap

        22 September 2017: “I don’t think anyone at Mt Buller will look up at these chutes in the same way again after seeing what these skiers and boarders were able to do in there… I think people watching around Australia and overseas will be awestruck by the extreme terrain here… World Champion snowboard Halfpipe athlete, Olympian and Buller X Champion Nate Johnstone exclaimed ‘It’s unreal, I’ve only been to Mt Buller a handful of times and to ride this terrain is so much fun, especially in these kind of conditions’.”

        And those ‘conditions’ were? Look at the photos – almost as good as NZ’s alpine chutes (I repeat, almost) – not bad for a sunburnt country, a land of sweeping plains, of ragged mountain ranges, of droughts and flooding rains. With apologies to Dorothea Mackellar.

        2017 – 3rd-hottest year EVAH™ or snowiest year ever (well, at least since 1979)?

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      Kinky Keith

      This scam is unbelievable.

      As has been stated by many on this blog; it’s the scam that keeps on giving”.

      The core mechanism of CO2 heat “entrapment” and retention is a scientific nonsense.

      How is this monstrous lie able to continue in a supposedly aware and “educated” world?

      The likes of Dana Nuccittelli and her poster boy Jon Cooke are riding the crest of this nonsensical wave of non_science.

      How is this possible?

      KK

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        Extreme Hiatus

        “How is this possible?”

        Long term planning. The combination of a deliberately dumbed down education (=indoctrination) system that now includes universities, the techno-fueled shortening of attention spans, a massive non-stop propaganda campaign plus tons of cash going to useful idiots all helps.

        I see it as modern Lysenkoism at work.

        The only thing that can fix it is reality but I’m starting to wonder if even that will penetrate the Green fog. How many fell for the insane excuse that recent power problems were caused by coal plants? Far too many unfortunately.

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    Sorry, off topic, but forgive me, I just COULDN’T resist.

    AGL has just announced a 6 Month profit of $622 Million, mainly due to the increase in the cost of Wholesale electricity. (shown at this link)

    AGL owns Loy Yang A, Bayswater and Liddell, three coal fired power plants with 12 Units and a Nameplate of 6820MW.

    Currently all Units are running, even at the ancient Liddell plant.

    Just in the LAST 24 HOURS alone, the sale of electricity (at wholesale) from just those three coal fired plants has seen an income for AGL of close on $12 Million.

    Now why oh why would a company with sane bosses even consider getting out of coal.

    That’s selling their electricity at wholesale before costs and profit margin.

    Incidentally, only ONE of 49 coal fired Units across the AEMO coverage area is currently off line, and that one Unit is at the Gladstone plant. (280MW)

    Tony.

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      PeterS

      Now why oh why would a company with sane bosses even consider getting out of coal.

      Perhaps they very clever and have a short term objective to milk us of as much money as possible through the renewables scam with a long term objective to milk us even more when they have closed the coal fired plants. They are not to blame when our elected governments promote such a lucrative environment for companies to milk us that way. Much of the blame rests on the voters.

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    pat

    8 Feb: Bloomberg: Oil World Turns Upside Down as U.S. Sells Oil in Middle East
    By Sheela Tobben and Wael Mahdi; With assistance by Anthony Dipaola, and Javier Blas
    The United Arab Emirates, a model Persian Gulf petro-state where endless billions from crude exports feed a giant sovereign wealth fund, isn’t the most obvious customer for Texan oil.
    Yet, in a trade that illustrates how the rise of the American shale industry is upending energy markets across the globe, the U.A.E. bought oil directly from the U.S. in December, according to data from the federal government. A tanker sailed from Houston and arrived in the Persian Gulf last month…

    The cargo of American condensate, a type of very light crude oil, was preferred to regional grades because its superior quality made more suitable for the U.A.E’s processing plants, a person with knowledge of the matter said, asking not to be identified discussing a commercially sensitive matter…

    The end of a ban on U.S. exports in 2015 coupled with the explosive growth of shale production, has changed the flow of petroleum around the world. Shipments from U.S. ports have increased from a little more than 100,000 barrels a day in 2013 to 1.53 million in November, traveling as far as China and the U.K…

    With rising crude exports and already booming overseas sales of refined petroleum products such as gasoline, the U.S. net oil imports have plunged to below 3 million barrels a day, the lowest since data available starting 45 years ago, compared with more than 12 million barrels a day in 2006. The U.S. could become a net petroleum exporter by 2029, the EIA said this week…
    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-06/u-s-oil-heads-to-middle-east-in-latest-sign-of-shale-s-spread

    8 Feb: Reuters: California says will block crude oil from Trump offshore drilling plan
    by Sharon Bernstein; additional reporting by Jessica Resnick-Ault; editing by Richard Valdmanis, David Gregorio and Clive McKeef
    California will block the transportation through its state of petroleum from new offshore oil rigs, officials told Reuters on Wednesday, a move meant to hobble the Trump administration’s effort to vastly expand drilling in U.S. federal waters.
    California’s plan to deny pipeline permits for transporting oil from new leases off the Pacific Coast is the most forceful step yet by coastal states trying to halt the biggest proposed expansion in decades of federal oil and gas leasing.

    Officials in Florida, North and South Carolina, Delaware and Washington, have also warned drilling could despoil beaches, harm wildlife and hurt lucrative tourism industries.
    “I am resolved that not a single drop from Trump’s new oil plan ever makes landfall in California,” Lt. Governor Gavin Newsom, chair of the State Lands Commission and a Democratic candidate for governor, said in an emailed statement…

    The proposal also comes amid low U.S. oil industry demand for new offshore leases, as drillers focus on cheaper and highly-productive wells onshore that have pushed U.S. production over 10 millions barrels per day for the first time since 1970…
    Environmentalists and some elected officials plan to protest the drilling plan at a public meeting on Thursday in Sacramento.
    https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-drilling-offshore/california-says-will-block-crude-oil-from-trump-offshore-drilling-plan-idUSKBN1FR2UY

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    Geoff Sherrington

    This graph shows the hottest day each year for Sydney Observatory, up to when raw temperatures and Acorn adjusted remained the same.
    I note that the biggest Acorn adjustments are generally for the hottest days, reducing the apparent severity of past heat waves; that this is another way to show that Acorn adjustments have cooled the past and warmed the recent; and that there had to be something rather wrong with the temperature recording system overall for the old readings to need adjustments of 2 deg C or more.
    Unless this is urban heat island effect, UHI, that the BOM says were over for Sydney before 1910. Geoff.
    http://www.geoffstuff.com/cool_sydney.jpg

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    Bob in Castlemaine

    Experienced gardeners will tell you that if you want to grow tropical plants in a temperate climate the best method is to plant near a brick or stone wall that faces the sun.
    Could it be perhaps that if you want to grow your temperatures the same advice applies? Pathetic BoM!

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    pat

    hilarious. read it all if you can bear it:

    7 Feb: AP: AP FACT CHECK: EPA chief sees good in warming, experts don’t
    By MICHAEL BIESECKER and SETH BORENSTEIN
    The head of the Environmental Protection Agency is again understating the threat posed by climate change, this time by suggesting that global warming may be a good thing for humanity.

    EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt has championed the continued burning of fossil fuels while expressing doubt about the consensus of climate scientists that man-made carbon emissions are overwhelmingly the cause of record temperature increases observed around the world.
    In an interview with KSNV-TV in Las Vegas on Tuesday, Pruitt made several statements that are undercut by the work of climate scientists, including those at his own agency.

    The Associated Press shared a transcript of Pruitt’s remarks with top U.S. scientists, and a dozen of them faulted his understanding of science…

    PRUITT: “We know that humans have most flourished during times of what? Warming trends. So I think there’s assumptions made that because the climate is warming, that that necessarily is a bad thing.”

    THE FACTS: While it is true that early human civilizations flourished in warm climates such as the Middle East and South Asia, the Earth has not been as warm as it is now for about 11,000 years, according to several studies. That was toward the end of the Stone Age, before humans had invented math, science or written language.
    And a 2017 draft federal report that Pruitt’s agency helped write says that by the end of the century global warming will add 4,500 to 9,000 deaths a year in the U.S. because of heat, with costs being $60 billion to $140 billion a year, depending on how much carbon pollution is emitted globally in the coming decades.
    Pruitt’s statement appears to draw from an argument by pro-fossil fuel groups that global warming will be a positive for some colder areas, bringing milder winters and longer growing seasons. While that may be true for a few areas of the United States, climate scientists say they will be the exception.
    For most of the country, climate change will be disruptive — bringing more severe heatwaves and droughts, stronger tropical storms and increased coastal flooding…

    “One theme from studies that look at the full range of impacts from climate change is that there are a few winners, but there are lots and lots of losers,” said Stanford environment professor Chris Field, who oversaw a United Nations and World Meteorological Organization scientific report on climate change impacts. “And, the fraction of losers grows dramatically with the amount of warming. We need only look to the damage from hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria or the California wildfires of 2017 to appreciate the power of the climate system.”

    A hotter climate will also have negative overall health consequences, said Dr. Howard Frumkin, an environmental health professor at the University of Washington School of Public Health.

    “While milder climates in cold places may bring some local benefits, a warmer world overall is clearly bad for health,” said Frumkin who was appointed to head the National Center for Environmental Health by Republican President George W. Bush. “Hot weather promotes the spread of infectious diseases, reduces work capacity, increases rates of injuries and violent crimes, impairs sleep, reduces agricultural production, worsens air quality, and prolongs the allergy season.”…

    PRUITT: “No one disputes the climate changes, is changing, we see that constant. We obviously contribute to it, we live in the climate, right? So our activity contributes to the climate changing to a certain degree. Now, measuring that with precision … is more challenging than is let on at times.”

    THE FACTS: A “certain degree” vastly understates the science. Recent studies leave little doubt that human activity is the overwhelming cause of climate change.

    The National Climate Assessment’s Climate Science Special Report, published in November 2017 from a consortium of government agencies that included EPA, calculated that the human contribution to global warming since 1950 has been 92 percent to 123 percent.

    It’s more than 100 percent on the higher end because some natural forces — such as volcanoes and the Earth’s orbital cycle — are working to cool the planet, but are being overwhelmed by the effects of greenhouse gases, said study co-author Katharine Hayhoe, director of the Climate Science Center at Texas Tech University…

    PRUITT: “Do we really know what the ideal surface temperature should be in the year 2100, in the year 2018? That’s somewhat fairly arrogant for us to think we know exactly what it should be in 2100.”

    THE FACTS: What he calls arrogant is established science. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says if fossil fuel emissions continue on the current trajectory, temperatures by the end of the century will be around 6.5 degrees warmer than now (3.7 degrees Celsius)…
    https://apnews.com/6698295a317b4124950e76ab2cc660ff/AP-FACT-CHECK:-EPA-chief-sees-good-in-warming,-experts-don't

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    Ken Stewart

    Excellent post. Well done Bill and Jo. The Bureau cannot allow your work to be published (except by Jo Nova) as it would destroy all faith in their product. And the BOM is like a bank that is ‘too big to fail’.

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    pat

    6 Feb: ClimateChangeNews: Europe’s biggest fossil fuel project gets €1.5bn public loan
    The European Investment Bank has approved a loan to the Southern Gas Corridor, in a move environmentalists described as a “historical mistake”
    By Karl Mathiesen
    The European Investment Bank (EIB) approved loans worth €1.5 billion ($1.86bn) on Tuesday to a pipeline project to ship gas from Azerbaijan to Italy.

    The loans went to the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (Tap), a section of pipe that will complete a 3,500km continent-joining conduit known as the Southern Gas Corridor. The Tap starts in northern Greece, traverse Albania and run beneath the sea to southern Italy.

    The announcement by the EIB board brings the total public backing for Europe’s biggest fossil fuel project to $3.5bn. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, World Bank and Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank have already committed loans…

    Environment campaigners responded with dismay, arguing that large investments in fossil fuels would discourage investment in cleaner forms of energy…
    http://www.climatechangenews.com/2018/02/06/europes-biggest-fossil-fuel-project-gets-e1-5bn-public-loan/

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    The BoM had a draft report in 1990 demonstrating the UHI in Oz cities.
    http://www.warwickhughes.com/cru86/
    see under Past Reviews
    [1] The 1990 BoM draft Paper, M.J. Coughlan, R. Tapp and W.R. Kininmonth; 1990, “Trends in Australian Temperature Records” by three senior BoM staff, defined urban heat island (UHI) magnitudes by various comparisons between central city sites in all the Australian state capitals and their respective airports, more than one satellite site in the case of the larger cities.
    The BoM found substantial urban warming greater than the scale of global warming. Extracts from Coughlan et all 1990 are in italics below. View first page of Coughlan et all 1990;
    Download 300KB zip file of 18 gif images of Coughlan et al

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    Graeme#4

    The Perth BOM has just announced the “coolest ever” Perth summer in 25 years, but then they say that their records only go back 25 years. Eh? Perhaps they are referring to the two moves of the official measuring site, each time to a warmer location. It’s interesting that when it’s hot, then the BOM refers to records across all three sites, when there has been an obvious step-change in the temp records after each move.

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    Very well researched Bill. The 1966 photo shows a clear patch of ground up to the left. I wonder what the red tape is that stops the site being there. In the wall photo background just behind the wall is a white roof 25M to the south west, with a bright reflection causing the camera to overload a little. I wonder what effect it and the light reflecting at different times of day from the tall buildings far away does. The photo of a crazy big shade screen over grown with bushes in your “full report” shows that for a good old Australian city record Adelaide would be a better example. It had a well sited and exceptionally well driven (sir Charles Todd) Glaisher screen in the same spot from 1856ish to something like 1937 and had a Stevenson or two and a round house screen beside for many decades of over lap and is back in use with screens close to the original spot today. The data before 1887 is not there on the BoM site though. I suspect it shows rapid warming during a politically incorrect time period and none since. A hockey stick with the blade at the wrong end.

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    Richard Greene

    Excellent analysis by Bill Johnson.

    This is real science at its best !

    The surface measurements
    should have been replaced
    by satellite data in the 1970’s.

    This analysis is more evidence that
    economic growth affects
    temperature measurements,
    (along with Anthony Watt’s
    weather station survey in the US
    published around 2009).

    Of course even “perfect”
    surface station data would mean
    little, for several reasons:

    (1)
    Most surface grids have wild guessed
    temperatures (no actual measurements!),

    (2)
    71% of surface measurements are of ocean
    surface temperatures — mainly wild guesses —
    some actual measurements
    made with sailors and wood pails,
    not exactly high tech., or accurate!

    (3)
    The smarmy leftist government
    bureaucrats with science degrees
    are PAID to predict a climate catastrophe,

    (who would need them if the obvious
    was admitted — the climate in 2018 is
    wonderful, and has been getting better
    since the Maunder Minimum cold era
    at the end of the 1600s?)

    What the many site changes show us
    is the surface temperature record is
    meaningless … and the people who own the
    data don’t care about accuracy … they
    only care about reporting
    continuous global warming,
    and they can make sure that happens
    because they own the surface data
    for their nation —
    and their “friends”
    compile the global average
    in the US and Great Britain.

    It’s easy to predict the future average
    temperature when you own the actuals
    and are responsible for wild guessing
    the temperatures of a majority of the
    planet’s surface.

    If you own the historical temperature data
    you can make sure there is never
    any cooling by “adjusting” your data
    until you get the desired result.

    And re adjusting !

    And re-re-adjusting !

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    Ann Bacon

    BOM used to record Geelong’s weather at the Geelong Airport which was an open paddock directly in line to Torquay and southerly winds. The weather station was moved a few years ago to Geelong Racecourse which is in a built up area. Guess what? Geelong temperatures have increased.

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