A team of independent auditors, bloggers and scientists went through the the BOM “High Quality” (HQ) dataset and found significant errors, omissions and inexplicable adjustments. The team and Senator Cory Bernardi put in a Parliamentary request to get our Australian National Audit Office to reassess the BOM records. In response, the BOM, clearly afraid of getting audited, and still not providing all the data, code and explanations that were needed, decided to toss out the old so called High Quality (HQ) record, and start again. The old HQ increased the trends by 40% nationally, and 70% in the cities.
So goodbye “HQ”, hello “ACORN”. End result? Much the same.
That meant the ANAO could avoid an audit, since the BOM had changed data-sets, the point of auditing the old set was moot.
For me, this version is so much worse than the previous one. In the HQ data set the errors could have been inadvertent, but now we’ve pointed out the flaws, there can be no excuses for getting it wrong. Instead of fixing the flaws (and thanking the volunteers), it’s almost as if they’ve gone out of their way to not solve them. Instead it’s been complexified, rushed, has many typo’s and gaps, and the point (see below) about the “adjustments having no impact” — when they obviously do — begs to be audited by the Auditor General, the ACCC, Four Corners (ha ha) and 60 Minutes.
To make it all look o-so-convincing, the BOM asked three experts (from NOAA, NZ, and Canada) to look over it all, and score the BOM against its peers. But the peers standards are not too high in the first place: NOAA was caught with 89% of it’s own thermometers in the wrong spots near air conditioners and whatnot, and NZ’s records were so bad, they disowned them themselves. (NZ adjustimongered their temperature trends from 0.06C right up to 0.9C, got caught, and their response under legal pressure was to say but it’s ok, “There is no “official” or formal New Zealand Temperature Record”.)
How useful is it when a team of substandard institutions is asked to evaluate whether the BOM practices are “amongst international best practice” when it is international best practice to ignore concrete, car-parks, tarmac, and lose the data too? We aren’t impressed if the BOM is as bad as the rest of the world, we want open data, transparent methods, and reproducible results. We want high quality to mean, well, high… quality.
So how good is the new ACORN (Australian Climate Observations Reference Network — Surface Air Temperature) set?
Because it covers a vast area, Alice Springs contributes 7-10% of the national signal.
ACORN and the BOM claim that since the new results are pretty much the same, really they give more confidence than ever that Australia has warmed since 1960.
Ken Stewart and the independent BOM analysts team have sliced and diced through the ACORN data.
They conclude:
- Like the old HQ series, the Acorn record is also still impossible to replicate.
- The record is much shorter than 100 years for many sites. It’s supposed to be high quality, but it has many gaps and spurious errors. If volunteers can write code on laptops to check for errors — and find, for example, that one 36.8C was accidentally changed to a 26.8C (and there are many) why can’t the Australian BOM?
- Like the old series, Acorn’s trends are very different from what the raw data shows. (Why do we bother with thermometers?)
- Hot and cold extremes have been adjusted, for the most part warming winters and cooling summers, and at some sites new and more extreme records have been set.
Too tricky by half? The BOM tries to hide the effect of adjustments
Here’s a piece of sleight of hand — ACORN, they claim, has a random set of a adjustments of both up and down (which is what we’d expect).
The official CAWCR Technical Report No. 04:
“There is an approximate balance between positive and negative adjustments for maximum temperature but a weak tendency towards a predominance of negative adjustments (54% compared with 46% positive) for minimum temperature.”
But the independent auditors point the positive adjustments are larger than the negative:
While there may be a numeric balance of positive and negative adjustments, analysis of a representative sample indicates that adjustments predominantly increase warming.
This is for me the most sinister point. Recall that Dr David Jones, Head of Climate Monitoring and Prediction, National Climate Centre, Bureau of Meteorology, stated clearly that the adjustments made “a near zero impact on the all Australian temperature”. Knowing that critics were drawing attention to that statement and pointing out it was not so, the BOM apparently paid attention themselves to this matter. That’s fair enough, perhaps it was an honest oversight. But having been notified of the bias, they then went on to create a situation where they can state a half-truth which makes it appear his statement is true, while in reality is it still not. Is it just incompetence, or something worse? Did they not check the overall effect of their adjustments? Did they think that no one else would do that?
ACORN’s complicated methodology
Ken Stewart points out that in the CAWCR Technical Report No. 049 by Blair Trewin, it appears that the BOM are using a new technique to homogenize and “correct” the data which involves comparing the data to the 40 nearest neighbors. But the stations are still very far apart. As many as 20% of them are more than 100km away from their closest neighbor. Just how far apart are some stations which are being compared?
It’s an international standard that temperature stations should not be more than 100km apart.
Acorn’s lead author Blair Trewin admits this in a technical paper, saying “Even today, 23 of the 112 ACORN-SAT locations are 100 kilometres or more from their nearest neighbour, and this number has been greater at times in the past, especially prior to 1950.”
Locations of the Temperature Stations show large empty spaces. Australia is 4000 km wide.
The mystery of Alice Springs
In the Alice Springs graph (shown at the top) Ken notes that it is an important record because it covers a vast area. Yet it’s very adjusted using the “40 nearest stations”, and there are no sites close to it.
What neighbouring stations were used to make adjustments before the 1950s? There are no sites with overlapping digitised data within cooee of Alice Springs. Oodnadatta and Tennant Creek are about 460km away; there are only very few sites for periods after this. Yet Alice Springs contributes 7-10% of the national warming signal. How much do Giles, Tennant Creek, Birdsville, and Horn Island contribute?
See for your own eyes the before and after versions of Australian temperature data:
Brisbane’s long records that show hardly any warming are ignored
There is a long record from the regional office in Brisbane, but the BOM does not even mention it. Instead they chose the shorter Eagle Farm Airport that starts in 1948 and shows a warming trend.
The hottest day in Brisbane was 43.2 on 26th Jan 1940 (recorded at the forgotten Regional Office), but in the ACORN records it is apparently 40.2C on 22 of Feb 2004. Even that figure itself was adjusted — in the original Airport records from Brisbane the hottest day was 39.6C in 1968.
On the Brisbane maxima record Ken shows that there was no attempt to splice the move from the old airport to the new airport — ACORN simply cuts straight to the new record on the day it starts and ignores the continuous data from the old airport. This is sloppy and suggests ACORN was a rushed, half-baked effort with little attempt to ensure the data was accurate and high quality.
…
Rutherglen: cold mornings 100 years ago were just discovered to be a whole lot colder. Really?
In Rutherglen in Northern Victoria, the maxima trend was slightly cooled, but the minima was warmed so much that the overall trend increased. Again there are large unexplained corrections as well. For example, on October 13 1926 apparently the thermometer record of 6.9C was really meant to be -1.2C. What were those 1920’s thermometers doing?
Between 1920 and 1948 large slabs of ACORN data were also shifted by one day — a sloppy move that suggests the data was not cross checked, and staff were in a hurry. Even the most basic tests of reliability and accuracy ought to have turned up mistakes like that. Where is the quality control?
…
The record minima were also changed. Thermometers tells us the coldest day was quite recent: a chilly -7.5C in June 2006. But ACORN concludes that the coldest day was in 1913 (-7.9C). Are they rewriting history, or was there an artificial warming effect in the early mornings of WWI-era Rutherglen that affected thermometers and that they have only just discovered?
Since “hottest” and “coldest” records often score media attention, it is significant that these official statistics are now quite different from what would have been recorded at the time.
Where are the explanations for these adjustments? Surely the BOM team wrote them down and discussed them, why don’t they just release their notes?
The Bottom Line
Australians are paying the BOM to give them an accurate unbiased analysis of the climate, yet volunteers repeatedly find errors that show the reports are sloppy, and inexplicable adjustments which increase the trend, while the BOM continues to claim the adjustments have zero effect, and the data is “high quality”. These trends are part of the information used to justify taxes that divert around $10 billion per year from Australian workers to projects that have little or no value if indeed the Australian climate is not warming as fast as is claimed, and if the models which project catastrophe, are “tuned” with exaggerated trends to begin with. Our climate records are not independently audited or assessed by any professional group, as financial data of this importance would be. If the BOM is so “confident” of their work, why are they so reluctant to explain it, or encourage it to be independently checked?
Furthermore, other scientists all around the world rely on this data. Groups like climate modelers, and those trying to reconstruct the past (eg. Gergis et al) use BOM official data to calibrate models or other temperature proxies, meaning that if the BOM data overstates the trends, other scientific conclusions will likewise overstate the trends. It’s a cascade of errors and it starts at the BOM.
We are asked to believe that climate models today can accurately predict the future, but that in the first half of the 20th Century simple equipment like thermometers systematically overstated temperatures, and that those errors were only just “discovered” recently. Scientists have been using thermometers for 300 years, yet the flaws in most Australian historical thermometers apparently cannot be explained even to people with qualifications in engineering, statistics and maths. Furthermore, historic thermometers are well known to be placed in sites that now are surrounded by concrete, bitumen, and sometimes have electronic heat pumps warming the locale as well (in the form of air conditioners). In some places, tens of thousands of internal combustion engines pass by daily. When common sense suggests that modern thermometers are more likely to have artificial warming sources close by and ought to be adjusted down to compare with historic ones, the BOM adjusts the older historic and better placed thermometers downwards instead.
It defies common sense.
You don’t need to have a PhD to know Australians deserve better.
Thanks to the Independent BOM Auditors who, unpaid, have spent the hours to go through the data in detail, writing algorithms and code to check the data and trawling through massive amounts of information with little help from the officials who are paid to serve the public.
UPDATE #1: The sloppiness of observers who couldn’t be bothered with decimal places…
As with the previous HQ network, many observers didn’t bother to record temperatures in fractions of a degree. Around 30% of all readings in the Fahrenheit era (before 1972) were whole numbers, and about 18% afterwards. (It should have been 10% if the observers were following the rule book). This effect shows us that the measurements were much more slap dash than the BOM would like us to believe, and the issue may introduce a spurious warming trend — it’s not obvious, because we could assume that accurate rounding doesn’t have a strong effect, but we don’t know how many of the observers flatly truncated the number. Since the whole number sloppiness was more common with minima, rather than maxima, and cold mornings being what they are, it’s possible that the effect of truncating readings could have made earlier records cooler than current ones, since earlier records had more whole numbers. See WAClimate for all the details, indeed, check it out just to get an idea of the level of detail the volunteers went too. There are some 6.5 million temperature recordings to go through.
I would echo your thanks to the Independent BOM Auditors. Looking at the quality assessment by them of both the old and new data sets, only one of two inescapaple conclusions are possible. The BOM are either totally incompetant or they’re deliberately creating significantly upward trends in temperature, where none exist. Given that their lavish budget depends on a rising temperature, my money’s on the latter conclusion.
Pointman
60
Spot on Pointman! The same vested interest underpins a lot of the climate “science”, I suspect. Blokes with careers, jobs and mortgages that rely on the scam going on a little bit longer.
Candidate organisations in a similar boat include the CSIRO, the Dept Climate Change, World Vision, and most of the academic institutions with their snout in the trough.
Cheers,
Speedy
30
“He who pays the piper, calls the tune”. This is not incompetence, the BOM are obviously working under instructions.
Corruption is not a charge I level very often, because the concept lies at the furthest reaches of a sliding scale (with “largesse” is at the other), and once used, you can go no further. But in this case, this obviously rushed and unprofessional rehash of data, in the shadow of an audit, is certainly accompanied by the stench of corruption.
They need an independent review, by known sceptics, with the mission of uncovering as many errors and questionable practices as possible. The differences brought to light by such a process can then be independently audited, and each issue addressed in isolation.
That won’t happen of course, too many heads would roll; both scientific and political.
20
Fire the whole lot and put them on a government-do-not-hire list. Let them try to find honest work. Task their replacements with explaining the records, whether by figuring out ACORN or starting fresh.
20
If the ABC was Relevant Part 53….
(Jet-lagged edition)
[Scene: A typically chaotic teenager’s bedroom. BRYAN is discussing career options with his son, JOHN.]
Bryan: So, John, what are you going to do when you leave school?
John: Actually, Dad, I’m looking at organised crime.
Bryan: Private or Public sector?
John: Whaddya mean?
Bryan: Private sector is like your garden variety Bikie gang member. Their job is to cause misery and harm to society through violence, extortion and drugs.
John: And the Public sector?
Bryan: Climate Science, mostly.
John: What do climate scientists do?
Bryan: Their job is to only cause misery and harm to society through extortion and fraud.
John: Where’s the money come from?
Bryan: Bikies beat up the people who owe them money, but Climate Scientists just get the government to do it for them.
John: How?
Bryan: With Renewable Energy Targets, Carbon Taxes, Electricity bills etc. That sort of thing.
John: What’s the pay like?
Bryan: Bikies get a lot of money, but most of it goes to the government when they get caught. Think of the “Proceeds of Crime” provisions as an industry super tax.
John: What does a climate scientist get?
Bryan: An indexed salary, paid fortnightly, with holidays, super and perks.
John: Perks?
Bryan: Junkets to exotic locations and the opportunity to lecture the Western world on the need for simpler, low intensity lifestyles.
John: Where do they go?
Bryan: Rio, Bali, Can-Cun…
John: Copenhagen?
Bryan: Not any more.
John: And the Bikies?
Bryan: They get to go to gaol. Also at taxpayer expense, but definitely not a junket. More an occupational hazard.
John: What’s job security like?
Bryan: In the Bikie world, if you stuff up, they beat you up and kill you.
John: What happens to climate scientists?
Bryan: No climate scientist has ever been sacked on grounds of incompetency.
John: Sounds great – how do you get in?
Bryan: It’s all about being seen and making an impression. Bikes only get their colours after a grueling probation period, during which they must perform no less than three acts of conspicuous thuggery.
John: How do you make a climate scientist?
Bryan: Usually, it’s a high fibre diet.
John: Don’t get it.
Bryan: A small joke on my part. Again, it’s a case of making an impression. Wannabe climate scientists hang around academic institutions producing scary, convoluted and semi-plausible scientific papers. The more conspicuous ones get picked up by the peer review system and, after that, they’re in.
John: Sounds great Dad. Thanks for your help.
Bryan: So what are you going to do?
John: I think I’ll be a Bikie. Climate science sounds dishonest.
Bryan: I’m proud of you, Son.
30
Morning all
Question for you. At which point does the BOM stop being incompetant and start being corrupt?
Probably about now…
Cheers,
Speedy
20
Corrupt speaks for itself…corrupt is as corrupt does. This doesn’t pass the smell test.
20
Proof that once again California leads the way! With our groundbreaking Air Resources Board we have shown how to conjure and manipulate ” science” to achieve the results. We apparently have world wide followers!
I am less than proud that our slimy methods continue. I am also not surprised.
10
Joanne and Ken,
Thanks. Very interesting. Maybe it is time for the BOM to adopt the First Law of Holes.
Perhaps far down in the list of things to watch out for is that when you name something, expect people to use the acronym. Cross associations are often not helpful. ACORN is used in the USA for a group named Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. This is the group featured in a video –
QUOTE:
“But when two undercover, enterprising young people equipped with a hidden camera walked into an ACORN office, posing as an over-the-top pimp and prostitute wanting to establish a brothel dealing in enslaved children from other countries, ACORN employees offered them advice: how to get on welfare; how to cheat the tax system; how to get housing from the government; how to hide the criminal profit (a tin in your backyard, natch).”
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/228275/acorn-scandal-has-deep-roots/kathryn-jean-lopez#
Australian Climate Observations Reference Network = ACORN
ACORN = Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now
ACORN = SCANDAL
Priceless!
10
I’ve just added an extra note to the post. It’s really only on Kens site and on this link below (WAClimate) that you can appreciate just how much work the independent auditors have done.
–Jo
UPDATE #1: The sloppiness of observers who couldn’t be bothered with decimal places…
As with the previous HQ network, many observers didn’t bother to record temperatures in fractions of a degree. Around 30% of all readings in the Fahrenheit era (before 1972) were whole numbers, and about 18% afterwards. (It should have been 10% if the observers were following the rule book). This effect shows us that the measurements were much more slap dash than the BOM would like us to believe, and the issue may introduce a spurious warming trend — it’s not obvious, because we could assume that accurate rounding doesn’t have a strong effect, but we don’t know how many of the observers flatly truncated the number. Since the whole number sloppiness was more common with minima, rather than maxima, and cold mornings being what they are, it’s possible that the effect of truncating readings could have made earlier records cooler than current ones, since earlier records had more whole numbers. See WAClimate for all the details, indeed, check it out just to get an idea of the level of detail the volunteers went too. There are some 6.5 million temperature recordings to go through.
00
I think we’d be well jutified in assuming mostly truncation. It’s the natural tendency, as in making the price $19.99 instead of an honest $20.00. People read $19 every time and the retail trade has proven it beyond any doubt. Human nature is what it is.
00
Many of the Fahrenheit thermometer readings were to whole degrees because a lot of the older thermometers were only graduated in whole degrees. No, not a conspiracy but probably a matter of the cost of replacement with more finely graduated ones when machine made thermometers became available. I know personally of one max/min thermometer supplied in the early 1900’s that was still in use in the 1950’s.
The whole idea of treating early temperature readings as gospel is somewhat flawed as the hand made thermometers used were only accurate to around +/- 0.5 degrees (refer ASTM standards)and, especially in country areas, siting of thermometers was pretty slapdash to say the least, with hanging them on a nail on the Post Office verandah current into the ’50’s in some locations. Not unusual for the Postmaster’s wife to forget to read the temperature or to ring it through to the Weather Bureau! GIGO still applies!
01
Corruption indeed. BoM is a public service. BoM staff are public servants. Do it once, it is maladministration. Do it more than once, it is official misconduct.
00
Trouble is public servants expect at least three slaps on the wrist before anything serious happens to them. Would be nice to think that jail awaited those who delibertely perverted the course of climate science together with the loss of any benefits they were due. It would be easier to assume incompetence but when it happens repeatedly at multiple organisations in a multitude of countries it does appear to be more likely corruption / conspiracy on a grand scale. Those involved must think they will be okay when it all unravels just because they can point the finger at someone higher up the chain who gave them orders. Hopefully they are wrong.
00
As Sir Walter Scott wrote in Canto VI, Stanza 17 of “Marmion” (1808): “Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive”.
I would add: “The more you practice to deceive, the more tangled the web.”
I suggest this tangled web is being created by willful intent and purpose. The hope is that when the web becomes sufficiently tangled, We the People will give up and accept the rape of our rights and our lives rather than do the work necessary to untangle the web of deceit.
Fortunately there are those among us who value their rights and their lives enough to do the work. The prize is well worth the effort and nothing less than full restitution of our rights and lives will suffice.
He who is free, never submits. He who submits, was never free. Stay free!
00
I call it the 1950 see-saw. Everything rotates around 1950, but everything before goes down and everything after goes up.
NOAA does it. CRU does it.
00
I gotta believe this is because “climate” = 30 years and they started working on this early in the 80’s.
00
The world needs the people who created the rising series from a flat series to be on TV explaining how this happens.
Can we not get to the people who did this work, or have retired from doing this work, and get them on camera explaining what is going on?
If there really is a conspiracy to create a CAGW where there is none, there should be a whistle-blower or two in the wings. If there are no whistle-blowers, then can we not wonder if it is us, not them, that mistaken?
00
You can try.
But speaking out in public (or even discussing the possibility of doing so), when so much money is a stake, tends to shorten the life expectancy of the family pet dog. And that will only be the first warning.
00
Doug
I agree – these guys should be up in front of a camera explaining how and why the data was modified. But if none of them seem willing to do so, I wouldn’t take it as proof of AGW. Absence of proof does not equate to Proof of absence.
Cheers,
Speedy
00
Even the raw data from the BOM does not seem to be that good. How can the ever changing fad sets like ACORN ever replace real raw data? does anyone know how to get raw data from old towns like Goulburn from 50 to 100 years ago? Why is it not easy?
00
I know people look upon Long Range Weather Forecasting as Mumbo Jumbo, and I’ll actually come back to that.
However, I know who does have accurate weather data going back to the mid 1800’s.
Hayden Walker.
He has the records of his father, Lennox Walker, and the two generations of forecasters before him, Inigo Jones and Clem Wragge. It was Wragge who had a setup of 100 meteorological stations just in Queensland alone, as early as the mid 1880’s, along with 400 rainfall stations across the State. He also had weather data going back even further than that.
Here’s some of that history.
Walkers Weather History
So, long range weather forecasting has for so long looked upon as guesswork and mumbo jumbo, almost in the category of voodoo magic, even though Lennox Walker and now his son, Hayden have an almost 90% accuracy rate.
So then, what makes this any different from Climate Modelling, and long range climate predictions.
Sometimes, all you can do is lol.
Tony.
00
Hi Tony.
You say Walker has a success rate of “almost 90%: he says it’s only 80%. I can’t find any evidence of his previous forecasts so we can’t validate his accuracy.
He also states this on his website :
“Disclaimer:
In the present stage of this research no guarantee can be given as to the accuracy of our forecasts.”
Hardly the words of a man boasting an 80% success rate. So I think you and he have pulled the figures out of thin air.
Anyway, I did find an article here : http://www.news-mail.com.au/story/2011/01/19/bundaberg-to-face-more-wild-weather/
On the 19th Jan 2011 he predicted three cyclones making landfall in Queensland by early March : there were only two. And you would think he would have known about Anthony which was only two days away, and Yasi, the largest cyclone seen for many years, only eleven days away. Yet he made no mention of either. There was some minor solar activity a short time later, but he would have known that, so how did he miss Yasi?????
He also predicted cyclones near the Qld-NSW border. That didn’t happen either.
And that’s not a 90% or even an 80% success rate for what was essentially a four week forecast.
It seems his forte is predicting floods in the rainy season and cyclones in cyclone season (but not all that accurately).
Sometimes all you can do is LOL.
Cheers.
00
Siliggy
This might help – Goulburn from 1858 – 1960s.
http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/ncc/cdio/weatherData/avp_nccObsCode=36&p_display_type=dataFile&p_startYear=&p_c=&p_stn_num=070037
Goulburn AWS from 1992
http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/ncc/cdio/weatherData/avp_nccObsCode=36&p_display_type=dataFile&p_startYear=&p_c=&p_stn_num=070330
The raw data shows that the 1880-1900 period and 1940s were warmer than today. The stations are about 6kms apart and a difference of 60m in elevation. The old Goulburn station is higher so would be slightly cooler and should be adjusted upwards against the AWS at the airport.
Taralga has data from the 1960s but can’t find any Goulburn data from 1960 odd to 1992.
00
Thanks Ian but the links did not work for me.
00
Sorry. Reposted at #17. Should work this time.
00
It is improbable, but possible that the adjustments have a modicum of statistical justification, but only for someone who would believe computer model projections before they would believe actual empirical records. My own statistical analytical skills have only ever been applied in the areas of finance and economics. I have built many models to help project inflation, asset prices, exchange rates, commodity prices, efficient portfolio construction and so on.
Of course you can back-cast these models to see how well their projections would compare to actual results over recent years. The back-caste model projections rarely match the actual empirical results. So you look to theorise as to why the model hasn’t worked. You may find if you add another variable to the mix in the model, you can get closer to the data, or you might theorise that your model is actually still accurate for the future, but there are reasons why the past didn’t act in accordance with your model.
What you do then is build a formula based on your theory which helps adjust the back-caste model so it actually fits past empirical data. This gives your model a very high level of certainty which is used to then make projections into the future. Typically the models tend to be a very poor guide to actual future outcomes simply because there always seems to be at least one variable, which turns out to be really important, which is not accounted for in your model. It’s something I called the ‘X’ factor.
We have to remember that so called Climate Scientists at BOM are starting from the position of believing the earth has warmed at an increasing rate since industrialisation because of human greenhouse gas emissions. They believe that the catastrophic global warming theory means that as human greenhouse emissions increase so should the rate of temperature increase.
So when they look at the empirical data and see that it has not reflected the temperature increases they ‘know’ should have been recorded, and which they have modelled, then they know that the deviant data must be ‘adjusted’ to make it ‘correct’. It could for instance be done simply by adding an extra weighting to any temperature record which does show a trend which they like. They apply that weighting to all temperature records in the vicinity, and that would have the desired effect of changing the data record to become the desired output.
These BOM people are looking for reasons why the data doesn’t match their models, rather than keeping an open mind that the data may actually be correct. This means they could easily theorise that certain thermometers or temperature station set-ups, tend to record a warmer than actual temperature in the early years of it’s life, then due to upgrades, or changes, it moves to recording temperatures more accurately. Therefore they can simply build a small adjustment programme to scale temperatures to a desired warming gradient leading to the current average temperature.
It is interesting to note that virtually all of the temperature record changes keep the current temperatures the same, but cool earlier temperatures – thus showing a warming trend which was not previously there, or a trend which was not as steep as the adjusted one. It would of course have been impossible to change the most recent temperature records without claiming that the recording equipment is faulty and must therefore all be replaced.
I admit that if you were a ‘climate scientist’, meteorologist or statistical administrator who made such simplistic adjustments to data thinking it was justified based on scenarios such as those suggested above, you would say they are at least not dishonest, just unscientific, clumsy people trying to get the data to match what they think it should be, just like an economist trying to build a model to predict share prices!
How could they fall into such basic undergraduate traps you may ask?
Well it is a fact that the Environmental Science degrees being spewed out by universities nowadays do not involve a great deal of rigour. Some readers may even recall world renown IPCC Climate scientist Phil Jones of the Climatic Research Unit at East Anglia university admitting he didn’t know how to use Excel Spreadsheets. We also know that Michael Mann has been able to make rookie mistakes in data analysis to come up with his Hockey Stick Graph which made the MWP and LIA disappear! So it is not inconceivable that errors in the BOM data could simply be from lack of knowledge and skills rather than a deliberate attempt at fraud.
It is an anecdotal observation of mine, having read hundreds of papers on climate science and climate change, that those scientists who are most confident that human CO2 emissions have a negligible impact on climate change tend to be Astrophysicists. Whereas it is the ‘Environmental Scientists’ who appear to be the most strident believers in human caused catastrophic climate change.
It is instructive to research how much physics, mathematics, statistical analysis, astronomy and thermodynamics and so on you have to cover to become an astrophysicist. In fact an Astrophysicist is a title you can only achieve at post graduate level. On the other hand, a climate scientist can include someone with a basic Environmental Science or Meteorological undergraduate degree. I’m not demeaning ‘Climate scientists’ but I guess it’s like comparing light aircraft pilots with astronauts. When comparing the average ‘climate scientist’ to an astrophysicist.
The Astrophysicist can calculate the precise moment when Venus will start crossing the face of the sun as viewed from any point on Earth, or when the impact of a solar flare will be felt by the earth’s magnetic field. They can calculate what is required to ensure the Voyager can successfully navigate through the solar system and beyond while collecting invaluable data. Climate Scientists can only guess what track a cyclone may take based on various modelling tools. This is not a criticism, just a statement of fact.
Climate scientists use models with many smoothing and ‘balancing’ variables to allow for the many unknown or as yet unmeasurable variables. Their models are more like the ones used by economists to predict exchange rates, stock markets etc. Not very accurate! Astrophysicists on the other hand, who have to predict the impact of every magnetic tug on say the Voyager space vehicle as it hurtles beyond our solar system, have to be far more precise – they do calculations – not models!
20
in a submission to senate inquiry July 2009 aust. academy of e then president Kurt lambeck sd:
Out-of-date observation systems need updating The Australian systems for observing, monitoring and modelling climate systems, principally through the facilities of the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) and the CSIRO, require significant upgrading and expansion. Many of the present observing systems were originally set up for different purposes. With increasing demands for improved data resolution and quality, and with new technologies becoming available, a creaking system needs major upgrades…
How much upgrading has occurred since 2009?
00
Should read Australian academy of science then president Kurt…
00
Jo, thanks for the informative post. Very interesting what volunteers have uncovered in such short order. Looks like there may be a lot more in this ACORN dog’s breakfast still to be uncovered.
00
Gunnedah is another interesting case. Here is the record from the same site since 1878 to the present.
http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/ncc/cdio/weatherData/av?p_display_type=dataGraph&p_stn_num=055023&p_nccObsCode=36&p_month=13
Note the cooling trend. For instance, from 1881-1910 the average max temp was 26.2C and for the past 30 years it dropped to 25.2C.
The ACORN data for Gunnedah starts at 1948. Thus, with a bit of adjustment, they can claim that Gunnedah has warmed since the 1950s (although there is little evidence of this in the raw data) without admitting that it has cooled over the past 120 years.
00
Make sure you get screen captures of as many of these as possible.. before they disappear.
00
[…] JoNova posts on ACORN. […]
00
Jo,
FYI
“This is an example of the Airport Heat Island effect. From Wunderground, I’ve done a capture of the data from SJC San Jose International Airport along with the nearby stations that it reports from that area.”
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2012/06/15/an-example-airport-issue/
00
Sorry, off topic but a great presentation by Lord Monckton.
Related to the LOST Treaty:
Agenda 21: How the UN intends to use treaties to undermine Individual Rights in the USA at COP+20.
http://youtu.be/hN7mQ1u230I
00
s/b Rio+20
00
Siliggy
Try posting links re Goulburn data from #11 again.
http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/ncc/cdio/weatherData/av?p_display_type=dataGraph&p_stn_num=070037&p_nccObsCode=36&p_month=13
http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/ncc/cdio/weatherData/av?p_display_type=dataGraph&p_stn_num=070330&p_nccObsCode=36&p_month=13
00
Thats great news about Rutherglen. Now my 2006 Bobby Burns Shiraz will now have superior fruit flavors as it didn’t get so bloody cold.
00
“There is an approximate balance between positive and negative adjustments for maximum temperature but a weak tendency towards a predominance of negative adjustments (54% compared with 46% positive) for minimum temperature.”
Agreed : 50% of the cooling is cooling of the historic records and 50& of the warming is warming of the recent records to produce the appearance of the beloved Global warming….(see Alice Springs above).
00
I have analysed 10 representative sites at kenskingdom. Gunnedah is one. It’s a long and detailed post, and Jo has distilled the essence of it. Plenty of interesting things there though. It’s not just the adjustments, it’s the sloppiness that gets up my nose too. Definitely not world’s best practice temperature record.
Ken
00
There seems to be a blatant in-your-face attitude by the data custodians.
I can’t believe they are naive enough not to realize their work will be scrutinized in detail by people with probably more skills than they possess.
Instead, I think they know full well that although they’re creating a falsehood, they know that they have to stretch out the time their falsehood is taken as read by most people for as long as possible.
It’s bit like a casino. They know they might lose at a couple of tables now and then but they win the overall game so suck it up – that is until someone discovers the croupiers are all dodgy and the Feds walk in.
10
CAGW is a fraud for frauds!
17 June: AP: ALEX DOMINGUEZ: Md. man accused of selling bogus energy credits
BALTIMORE (AP) — A Maryland man faces trial in a $9.1 million fraud case that is shedding light on problems in a renewable energy credits program run by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Federal prosecutors accuse Rodney Hailey of Perry Hall of selling renewable fuel credits even though his company, Clean Green Fuel LLC, did not produce any renewable fuel. Instead, prosecutors say he pocketed the money and bought Ferraris and other luxury cars, as well as tractor-trailers, homes, jewelry and computers…
The case is one of several nationwide, including similar fraud cases in Texas and Alabama, that have led to calls in Congress for a review of the program. It has also prompted a lawsuit against the EPA by those defrauded by the Maryland company because the federal agency is not recognizing the credits they thought were genuine.
Companies that market petroleum in the United States are being required to produce renewable fuels such as biodiesel made from vegetable oils or purchase credits, known as renewable identification numbers, or RINs, from producers of those fuels to satisfy the requirement designed to increase clean energy…
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_RENEWABLE_ENERGY_FRAUD?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2012-06-17-08-43-41
00
some more of the gas-guzzling vehicles Hailey bought than the AP report bothers to mention!
16 June: Baltimore Sun: Timothy B. Wheeler: Maryland biofuel fraud case rattles industry
As Rodney R. Hailey accumulated a string of vehicles, including a Rolls-Royce, two Bentleys and a Lamborghini, the Perry Hall man’s neighbors became suspicious. They contacted Baltimore County police, who passed the tip to federal agents…
According to court records, the inspectors asked to see records of his sales, and he said he didn’t have any because he gave the fuel away.
Hailey told investigators, according to pretrial court documents, that he produced biodiesel to match the credits, but gave it away at truck stops. When they asked about his renewable fuel credits — known as “renewable identification numbers” or RINs — he said he sold them to a New York brokerage firm. He led them to a warehouse on Pulaski Highway, where the inspectors found three empty tanks. He told them he’d sold the production equipment, but couldn’t say to whom.
http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2012-06-16/features/bs-gr-biodiesel-fraud-20120616_1_biodiesel-hailey-renewable-fuels
00
Let me see if I’ve got this right.
1. David Jones as the Head of the BOM divison that is responsible for this, says in a published document that the corrections are in the main evenly +/_.
The evidence is that this is not so, and many more sites have been adjusted upwards by a significant amount in a way that doesnt pass a smell test.
2.The document which published Jones claim has not been withdrawn or corrected… ipso facto Jones is guilty of mis representation and / malfeasance.
3.The audit has revealed that that there are still major errors and deficiencies and accoording to KenS, a lot of sloppiness.
4. Jonova is saying that the corrections that increase the later temperatures are lacking in common sense ,in that one would have expected them to be lowered.
It would seem to me that we still have dud no matter how many mega Reports the CAWCR turns out
00
tax-exempt CAGW fanatics, mongabay, report that self-interested orgs will play the game:
16 June: Mongabay: In Rio, 5 big companies to launch initiative to boost demand for REDD+ carbon credits
Insurance giant Allianz, French retail conglomerate PPR, energy companies Eneco and Entega, and South African bank Nedbank have pledged to buy millions of dollars in emissions reductions credits generated by REDD+ projects that have been certified under both the Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) and the Climate Community and Biodiversity Standard (CCB)…
While the concept of reducing deforestation is widely supported, the details of REDD+ remain contentious, including concerns about shady land dealings, subsidies for logging, corruption, social conflict, finance sources, and the very premise of carbon offsets, among others. Code REDD is attempting to avoid some of the controversies by promoting voluntary (non-compliance) credits linked to basic social and environmental safeguards.
http://news.mongabay.com/2012/0615-rio20-code-redd.html
00
read for further detail:
18 June: Tehelka India: Gopal Krishna: Carbon trade, a free trade scam
(Gopal Krishna is the convener of the NGO Toxic Watch Alliance)
Being complicit in the business of carbon trade even in the second commitment period is akin to being complicit in the opium trade. The fact is environmentalism of any sort that supports carbon trade has been hijacked by ungovernable corporations and financial institutions. Carbon trade is emerging as the biggest free trade scandal that entails commerce in pollutants in the name of stopping dangerous interference in the atmosphere and in improving global ecosystem. Genuine environmentalism holds that carbon trade is a fake solution for climate crisis. In fact, it is part of the problem.
The recent frauds in the world’s largest emissions trading programme of EU and elsewhere has damaged and discredited the carbon trade regime beyond repair…
Carbon trade is akin to trading of securities or commodities in a marketplace. Emissions trading instruments draw their legitimacy from Article 12 of the Kyoto Protocol. It was/is simply an ill-advised aid for 38 industrialised countries to reduce their emissions between 2008 to 2012 to levels that are 5.2 percent lower than those of 1990. Financial instruments like Certified Emission Reduction (CER) that represents 1 tonne of Co2 equivalent of reduction in greenhouse gas emissions…
It is about creating a purchasable commodity. In such a backdrop, the Indian government’s claim that carbon trade helps in poverty eradication is completely misplaced…
Ahead of the 18th session of the Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC and the 70th Meeting of the UN CDM Executive Board in November-December 2012 in Doha, there is a compelling logic for India to come out with a white paper on the impact of carbon trade on global and local ecosystem. Given evident financial insecurities and the current collapse in the carbon market, India should consider withdrawing from carbon trade.
http://www.tehelka.com/story_main52.asp?filename=Ne090612Gopal.asp
00
The Liberals should let it be known that one of the first thing they will do is get an independent audit of all “facts” (lol) used to justify the CO2 tax fraud.
And if these sort of massive anomalies are found, people could possibly face jail time.
00
I have to ask,what on earth did they (BOM) do to the Alice Springs data?
http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/graphs/australia/alice-springs-minima.gif
The 1972ish 15.3 has been lopped off to 14.5 and the 1976ish 9.6 got stepped up to 10.5. That cannot be anything to do with station changes surely. The early 90s got 0.5 C warmer somehow, even NIWA’s NZT7 adjustments didn’t effect the latter half of the 100 yr series but BOM is cranking up the latter half as well as cranking down the early half.
2001ish has gone up from 11.1 to 11.7, that is bizarre. There should be no reason whatsoever for recent records to be adjusted if they’ve been steadily improving the record but here they are adjusting data from just 11 years ago.
Such major recent adjustments to a series like Alice Springs require datapoint-by-datapoint reasons. The problems in the NZ series are in the early part of the record but there’s a radically different situation in Australia when it is evident that BOM have made substantial changes to recent data.
Astounding doesn’t even begin to describe this before and after Alice Springs series.
00
Oops, should be:-
“The early 90s got 0.5 C [cooler] somehow”
I’ve got so used to GISS-type warming that a recent cooler adjustment trips me up.
00
Bolivia and other poor nations may still believe in CAGW, but hopefully, like Bolivia, others will wise up to the financial scam:
Position of the Bolivian Climate Change Platform on Rio+20 and the Green Economy
In the context of the financial, energy, climate, environmental and food crises the United Nations
seeks to impose a new strategy to save the capitalist system using the “Green Economy” to open up
new frontiers for business by turning all natural resources, and nature´s functions and cycles into
commodities. This will further deepen the social, economic and environmental crises.
The proposals of the “Green Economy” expressed in the “Zero Draft” are not an answer to the current
environmental and climate crisis. Putting a price on nature is not the solution and will only benefit big
capital…
1) We reject the transformation of Mother Earth and the functions of nature into commodities
through the Green Economy. We reject speculation based on new fictitious financial products
called “environmental services” and “natural capital”.
2) We reject the attempt to save the capitalist system by imposing the Green Economy.
3) We condemn the Green Economy because it continues to pursue the false idea of limitless
economic growth. Infinite growth is not possible in a world that has limits.
http://www.cambioclimatico.org.bo/derechosmt/052012/100512_2.pdf
00
still making it up as they go along:
18 June: ABC AM: Carbon tax countdown: Windsor pushes for last minute changes
TONY EASTLEY: With just two weeks to go before the start of the carbon tax one of its architects, independent Tony Windsor, is pushing for some last minute changes.
In an indication of just how hard fought this fortnight’s sitting of Federal Parliament will be the Environment Minister Tony Burke has had to cancel his trip to the United Nations Rio summit because the Opposition has insisted he must be in Canberra to answer their questions…
ALEXANDRA KIRK: The Coalition’s also vowing the keep the heat on the Government in the countdown to the start of the carbon tax.
Independent MP Tony Windsor, who helped design it, says the Opposition’s “fear campaign” has had some success and thinks the Government needs to do a better marketing job.
TONY WINDSOR: Well I think there’s a few too many people in the Government that are tending to apologise for the policy and they’re a bit defensive about it. I’m very proud to have been involved.
ALEXANDRA KIRK: He’s pushing for some last minute changes, firstly on landfill.
TONY WINDSOR: Well we’re working on that at the moment and I don’t want to get into too much detail on it. But there are some issues in terms of measurement of methane in landfill, some of the additionality issues that come into play with the carbon farming initiative.
So once it’s explained to them and potentially the landfill issue some minor tweaking made I think you’ll see people embracing it rather than being afraid of it…
ALEXANDRA KIRK: Tony Windsor reckons in the next few months “when the sky doesn’t fall in” businesses will start to come round to such an extent that if the Coalition wins the next election they’ll be lobbying for carbon pricing to stay.
TONY WINDSOR: And Tony Abbott has the ideal pathway out of this, where he can sort of kill two dogs with one snake in that he can convert the great big tax issue that he says that he won’t support. He can convert that back into an emissions trading scheme of some form.
*** And I think he’d get support from a lot of his Coalition members…
http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2012/s3527071.htm
*** and there’s the rub!
00
The BOM say this:
That 3 months begins from the release of ACORN.
“not user friendly” resonates.
00
I have just seen the GISS temp chart for May, 2012. Note the Arctic temps – 0.2C+ above average.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/do_nmap.py?year_last=2012&month_last=5&sat=4&sst=1&type=anoms&mean_gen=05&year1=2012&year2=2012&base1=1951&base2=1980&radius=1200&pol=reg
Now look at the DMI for Arctic temps.
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php
Below average.
I realise they use different anomaly starting bases nut surely they can’t be that different.
00
ACORN ?
That’s about the aggregated size the brainpower at the BOM … how do these frauds think that they can get away with this behaviour.
Don’t they appreciate that when the national audits get into gear once the feral government is disposed, there could be serious consequences for bureaucrat fraudsters?
00
Jo and Ken and all the other volunteers thanks for all the work you have so unselfishly done to keep us informed. I have been keeping an eye on Ken’s website and have noticed his recents ACORN posts
I’ve had a quick look at the BOM docs and note in relation to the adjustments and note the Review Panel’s recommendation was that
see page 11 of http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/change/acorn-sat/documents/ACORN-SAT_IPR_Panel_Report_WEB.pdf
BOM in its response agreed:
see http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/change/acorn-sat/documents/ACORN-SAT_Bureau_Response_WEB.pdf
I don’t see those items available yet (but they may be and I don’t have the expertise to find them.) As to the second someone mentioned above that the current code is not ‘user friendly’ and needs some work before release to the public but surely the first could now be released. Have you Jo or Ken asked the BOM.
I was curious because of what RichardC mentions above in relation to recent adjustments.
Anyway a tremendous vote of thanks to all Jo’s volunteer team for the huge amount of work you have done and I’ll try to get some more of those ‘big oil’ payments to you Jo
00
Interesting Val
In view of Alice Springs, these are a must see.
00
Richard totally agree
I’ve linked this post to Warwick Hughes http://www.warwickhughes.com/blog/?p=1584&cpage=1#comment-33947
who has been examining with puzzlement ACORN’s Canberra Airport 070014 classified non-urban
Warwick says
Warwick says he is working on station by station comparisons of the various BoM adjusted versions over the last 2 decades. I don’t know where he’s at in regard to that or indeed to what stations that work includes. Warwick has a previous Canberra airport post http://www.warwickhughes.com/blog/?p=1584&cpage=1#comment-33947 with some interesting comments
00
ACORN? Someone’s nuts!
… and it looks like the BoM who yet again seem to have used sawdust and banana peels to hide a clapped out car, an old bomb if you prefer.
00
What I love most about these posts is scrolling through the comments looking for the usual warmist crowd and their justifications and explanations.
Safely, jb, matt, Maxine and co are no where to be seen.
00
*saddly, not safely.
Damn phone auto correct.
00
Being of cyclic mindset I find the linear trend (coveted by warmists) to be a specious waste of time.
Has anyone bothered to place a best fit polynomial or even moving average on the Alice Springs series before and after? That would be the most revealing comparison I think.
I say this because there is no dispute over data in the recent half of the NZT7 series (except for UHI contamination in the Auckland record) and a cyclical trend in either methodology (R&S vs NIWA) is little different over the last 30 years, actually showing that we are entering a cooling phase. Even a linear trend in either is dead flat (no warming) this century http://www.climateconversation.wordshine.co.nz/pics/nz-temp-2001-2012-niwa-977.png
Here’s comparative plots of the NZT7 with the competing methodologies (R&S vs NIWA) and a 3rd order polynomial fitted to each courtesy of Bob D at CCG:-
http://i54.tinypic.com/27xjm0k.png
Last 30 – 40 years are almost identical, Alice Springs would look nothing like that
00
I don’t get it. What possible reason is there for adjustments using 40 nearest stations except for station changes at Alice Springs.
How many station changes have there been at Alice Springs? If a new Stevensons Screen was set up on the other side of town, surely there was a time overlap if it was a recent change because there’s been recognition in recent years of problems caused when there’s no overlap. It is understandable if a change occurred 60 – 100 years ago and there was no overlap but there’s little excuse for a change over the last 30 years that requires recourse to a “nearest neighbour”.
And what sane reasons are there for moving the station around Alice Springs? Flooding? Urban/commercial/industrial development? Roading realignment? Foliage? What?
If on the other hand, the station has remained in the same place over the entire time span (long-lived site), there’s no reason to adjust except for minor screen modifications (if any) and that shouldn’t require recourse to nearest neighbours.
I don’t get it, why the radical adjustments with recourse to nearest neighbours over the entire time span?
00
Richard, there is a Station Catelogue listing all stations at the Acorn site. The original station was at the Old Telegraph Station, then (I think) the Post Office, there was also a site at Connellan’s Airfield, and the present Airport started operating during WWII. There were numerous small moves around the airport. All moves were for convenience. Trewin says tall grass during wet years and no grass in dry years affected air flow and temperatures, which justifies the adjustments. The point remains: what sites were used for comparison to justify these?
00
Brilliant Ken, thanks for the response. I’ve got the Station catalogue here http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/change/acorn-sat/documents/ACORN-SAT-Station-Catalogue-2012-WEB.pdf
For Alice Springs:-
OK, Alice Springs site changes
******************************************************
1910 – 1932 (22 yr span) Telegraph Station,
No overlap
1932 – 1944 (12 yr span) Post Office,
12 yr overlap
1944 – 1974 (30 yr span) Airport
Minor 550m site move at same site
1974 – 1996 (22 yr span) Airport
Automatic weather station (AWS) installed at same site, 5 yr overlap.
1996 – 2002 (6 yr span) Airport
Site moved a few metres
2002 – present (10 yr span) Airport
102 yr series.
******************************************************
So since 1944 the Alice Springs location has had the same site (Airport) for 68 years. In those 68 years there has only been one major change (AWS installed) that might have required recourse to a neighbour but that was not necessary because there was a 5 year overlap (at least).
This is what I expected and also expected that there would have been the 2 site changes in the earliest 34 years that might require recourse to a neighbour except 1 of those (1944) had a 12 year overlap so that wasn’t necessary for that site change.
That leaves just 1 site change (1932) requiring recourse to a neighbour because there was no overlap and a possibly the resulting adjustment would be exaggerated unnecessarily by selection of an inappropriate neighbour. However that would only effect the first 22 years of data. This is the dispute (NZCSET vs NIWA before a Judge at present) in the NZT7 – early adjustments not recent.
I cannot see from this analysis why the before and after Alice Springs series are so radically different over the entire span of the location series.
It would take some irrefutable statistical proof to justify adjustments due to this note:-
Where is the proof of that?
00
Check which neighbouring stations were available around and before 1932! Oodnadatta is about 450km away, same with Tennant Creek. After that the distance blows out.
Ken
00
Oodnadatta and Tennant Creek may be acceptable if they are statistically correlated with Alice Springs i.e. as per R&S (don’t quiz me on that – not an expert). The NZT7 dispute is that there were near neighbours better correlated than the remote stations that NIWA used.
I think that the issue goes far deeper with Alice Springs (and the entire AU series) going by the across-the-board individual datapoint adjustments evident in the before and after Alice Springs plot than what the NZT7 dispute is about. Quoting myself from last comment:-
I should add to that the word “equally”.
This is the major difference between the adjustments in the two series (NZT7 & Alice Springs). The NZT7 adjustments at each site change (steps) move the ENTIRE series of data prior to it up or down so that the series retains basically the same shape albeit with different linear trend pivoting about the latest datapoint. A cyclic trend (polynomial say) only departs from its comparison for about the first 2/3 of the series if early step changes are significant (as in the NZT7). The result being the NZT7 plots are like this http://i54.tinypic.com/27xjm0k.png
That is not what I see in Alice Springs where before and after looks like this http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/graphs/australia/alice-springs-minima.gif
The “after” series has NOT retained the shape of the “before” series; there are different adjustments at virtually every datapoint (dozens of them) IN ADDITION TO the step change adjustments (as I see it or haven’t BOM made conventional step adjustments as in the NZT7?).
That is my first impression from just eying the before/after Alice Springs comparator plot. A static comparison might be useful or tabulated adjustments for each individual datapoint alongside the step adjustments that raise or lower an entire range of data would better identify how many adjustment BOM has actually done across the series.
00
All adjustments are DAILY- there are thousands. Every single minimum reading from 1/1/1910 to 31/12/2004 was adjusted by a varying amount. That’s 34,698 separate adjustments, less a few missed readings. Try making sense of that. That’s why I did a 365 day running mean.
For maxima, they start adjusting from 9/1/1910 and go to 31/12/1931, then adjust again for February 1944, then no more adjustments at all.
Ken
00
Ken, I am astounded. You say:-
I can’t make sense of that at all. I understand that there’s a need for individual adjustments when QC turns up errors and NIWA has done that on all 7 locations of the NZT7 but the effect is negligible and there’s no dispute over them from NZCSET to my knowledge.
But EVERY SINGLE MINIMUM READING FROM 1/1/1910 to 31/12/2004 ???
I don’t think so.
Ken and Jo, have BOM made cumulative step adjustments for site changes in the Alice Springs series?
If so, can you post them up as an update to this post please?
The early step adjustments are the adjustments in dispute by NZCSET because they make the most difference to a linear trend.
Ken and Jo again, can you also list the 34,698 separate adjustments to Alice Springs that Ken describes please?
I know it will make the post awful long but these adjustments (both sets) need to be brought out into the light of day for everyone to see.
This comment cross-linked at CCG here http://www.climateconversation.wordshine.co.nz/2012/06/if-it-was-settled-science-how-did-you-improve-it/#comment-101410
00
Richard:
No.
You’re kidding! Jo’s site will go bum up again. Can I suggest you download raw data from BOM’s Climate Data Online, then Acorn’s data, and subtract one from the other. Caution: you have to clean up Acorn first by removing blank lines (I do it by sorting the date column) and removing null data (Find and replace 99999.9 with “”.) It’s messy and tedious. But that’s Acorn for you.
Ken
00
Richard, go to my post at kenskingdom and check the screenshots of comparisons between raw and Acorn.
Ken
00
Ken thanks for the link to your blog and the plots there. The key document is obviously CAWCR Technical Report No. 049 linked below.
First the step changes.
I haven’t been able to check your “No” response to cumulative step adjustments in regard to Alice Springs but a first skim of CAWCR Technical Report No. 049 http://cawcr.gov.au/publications/technicalreports/CTR_049.pdf I see Table 6 page 72 and Fig 10 page 73 that says to me that step adjustments were made across ACORN – SAT and possibly cumalative although they don’t say so explicitly (I don’t know how they would do it otherwise).
7.4 The percentile-matching (PM) algorithm on page 49 details the overlap and non-overlap cases both of which occur in the 5 site changes at Alice Springs (2 overlaps at 1944 and 1996, 1 non-overlap at 1932, and 2 minor changes). These would be included in the 660 total adjustments Table 6 page 72 and should be accessible somewhere.
Now the individual adjustments
I’m NOT kidding about exposing these adjustments to the max. If it’s impracticable to list all 34,698 separate adjustments then at least list a representative sample of the adjustments that make the most difference to the linear trend. From what I can gather from your blog, the following plot shows the Acorn vs Raw individual differences for the Post Office and Airport sites in graphical form https://kenskingdom.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/alice-acorn-raw-min.jpg?w=450&h=217
I urge everyone to study and analyze for yourselves the (seemingly non-methodological) adjustments. I see:-
0.1 ABOVE 0 anomaly late 90s early 00s (lifts trend)
A PIVOT 0.1 BELOW 0 anomaly 60s mid series (lowers trend)
NEUTRAL 30s and 40s (no effect on trend)
1910 – 1930 2 periods 0.1 BELOW 0 anomaly, 1 period ABOVE 0 anomaly (lowers trend)
So the linear trend is lifted (warmed) in the most recent years and lowered (cooled) in the rest of the series – voila! A pronounced linear warming trend.
This is IN ADDITION to step changes if they have in fact been made at Alice Springs.
But what is the justification for all these individual adjustments? I will have read more of CAWCR Technical Report No. 049 in order to find out (or not) but I’ve just about run out of Tuesday here in NZ so that will have wait until tomorrow (looming all too quickly).
00
Richard I can’t get on to this for most of the day and I’m going away tomorrow. Make a comment at kenskingdom and I will contact you from there. I see your point about publicising this- most Acorn adjustments appear to be like Alice (see Rutherglen) although a few may have step wise adjustments I think but I haven’t got time to check. There are lots of month by month and season by season step wise adjustments when averaged, but the daily adjustments are all variable still. I will try to post next week with a sample of some of the poor adjustments at Rutherglen (it’s worse than The Alice), and that whole region has been adjusted from sizeable cooling to sizeable warming. I thought Jo had summarised that bit quite well. There are about 20 isolated sites like Alice that have a large influence on trends and few neighbours.
Ken
00
What the hell does the world average sea level temperature mean anyway.
I wonder how many people here know what the actual figure is in degC anyway.
There is only one place that I know of where it is displayed on the net which I will reveal a bit later.
So the question is what is the worlds current average sea level temperature.The temperature that has got the world so terrified that we are going to heat up and explode in the next 90 years.
00
meanwhile, back in the real world, where coal is king:
17 June: Hindu Business Line: Coal India may be asked to go for import of 45 mt
The Union Government may ask Coal India Ltd to import 45 million tonnes (mt) of thermal coal in 2012-13 to meet the projected demand of 393 mt from the power sector during the year…
http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/companies/article3539966.ece?homepage=true&ref=wl_home
18 June: Wall St Journal LiveMint: Tata Power explores Africa for coal and natural gas assets
In a bid to hedge its bets at a time when the viability of its 4,000 megawatts (MW) power project in Mundra, Gujarat, hinges on regulatory clearance for higher tariff, Tata Power Co. Ltd is scouting for coal mines and natural gas assets in Africa to ensure feedstock supplies.
“Investments in India and internationally will stay on course. It all depends on where the clearances come across to us faster,” said Anil Sardana, managing director of Tata Power, the country’s largest private power generator. “We are looking at Africa for coal mines and gas assets. But we are not looking aggressively at Australia and we already have investments in Indonesia.”…
The Mundra plant depends on imported coal from Tata’s mines in Indonesia. But prices of coal spiralled nearly four times in the past four years due to rising demand from countries such as India and China…
While Indonesia imposed market linked-benchmark pricing, Australia resorted to a 30% carbon tax, which had a similar impact of making coal imported from its shores costlier.
All affected companies such as Tata Power, Reliance Power, JSW Energy, along with industry lobby group Association of Power Producers (APP), have petitioned the Indian government for a tariff revision…
http://www.livemint.com/2012/06/17222856/Tata-Power-explores-Africa-for.html?atype=tp
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***meanwhile back in CAGW dreamland:
18 June: EnergyMatters: Australia A Coal Drug Dealer, Its Citizens And The World Its Junkies
The BP Statistical Review of World Energy June 2012 states fossil fuel still makes up 87% of energy consumption and while oil has lost market share for 12 consecutive years, coal is still the fastest growing fossil fuel.
In 2001, 2381.1 million tonnes oil equivalent (MTOE) of the fossil fuel was consumed globally. In 2011, that had jumped to 3724.3 million tonnes oil equivalent…
In 2001, Australia produced 180.2 million tonnes oil equivalent of coal. By 2011, that had jumped to 230.8 MTOE. While experiencing a 2.2% drop between 2010 and 2011, this was due to – perhaps ironically – severe weather related events.
The consumption picture for Australia also looks grim and grimy. In 2010, we consumed 48.2 million tonnes oil equivalent and while by 2011 that had only grown to 49.8 MTOE, there was a whopping increase of 13.6% between 2010 and 2011 as we shook off the effects of the global financial crisis.
There is a huge gap between Australia’s consumption and production. All of that coal isn’t sitting in massive warehouses somewhere ready for when we need it in the future. Much of it is being shipped all over the world; spreading its ills like a disease-carrying globe-trotting tourist…
The International Energy Agency’s (IEA) Energy Technology Perspectives 2012 states nine out of ten technologies that hold potential for energy and CO2 emissions savings are failing to meet the deployment objectives needed to achieve the necessary transition to a low-carbon future.
***The IEA says to halve carbon dioxide emissions by 2050, coal demand in a scenario where average global temperatures did not exceed a 2C increase would need to fall by 45% compared to 2009 levels.
Achieving this is not impossible says the IEA, but decisive policy action is needed now…
http://www.energymatters.com.au/index.php?main_page=news_article&article_id=3255
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PhD = Piled high and deep.
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I purchased three data sets from the BOM that are supposed to be the real raw data, can someone tell me if they are in fact the original raw data?
Precipitation data set Product reference IDCJHC02.201106
Air temperature, humidity and pressure data Product reference IDCJDC04.201106
Daily maximum and minimum air temperature data Product reference IDCJDC03.201106
I have put together an analog weather forecast for Australia from the data sets, it currently is posted with .05 degree grid resolution with the 8 nearest neighbors averaged together, as I wanted, but the default program setting was for a search radius of 20 degrees which has (overly smoothed) washed out the data, just like the 40 nearest neighbors they used to homogenize the ACORN data. When I get it up on the new server Monday usa time or Tuesday Aus time, I will begin remaking the maps from the same csv files with a maximum search radius of 6 degrees, to improve the detail and improve the local temperature and precipitation graduations
http://www.aerology.com
It should be apparent by the change in resolution what happens when stations that are widely separated are smeared together. The csv files the maps are based on contain all of the (supposed raw) data with any gaps or overlaps in stations changes with no modification or homogenization. The denser the stations reporting data for each day determines the resolution of the forecast available for the area, for instance along the East coast the detail is finer.
The snow fall and snow on ground data is rather limited as to original reporting cases, so the forecast it produces are a lot spottier. The precipitation maps currently on site show precipitation in the central and just South West of Alice springs area as wetter than it should be due to the 20 degree smearing the default settings chose, pulling in coastal rainfall amounts to include in the averages.
I will be watching this thread to see if some one can assure me that the data sets I bought are actually the raw data.
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Hi Richard, I had problems connecting to http://www.aerology.com but to be honest, how would we really know what BOM gave you was accurate unless we have the original logs? Given the adjustments and modifications they have been prepared to make in the past. However one way of checking is that if they show little or no warming, then it is probably raw data!
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[…] manipulation paid for by OUR taxes, that allows these charletons to make careers out of lying. Threat of ANAO Audit means Australia’s BOM throws out temperature set, starts again, gets same… No warming? Well, just make up your own: To view links or images in signatures your post […]
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.
Hi Jo and mods.
I made a post this morning that still hasn’t shown up yet.
Have I offended somebody?
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Yes – anyone who believes in the dogma of CAGW …
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.
That probably explains why half my rellies avoid me.
But not why my post got sin-binned here.
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Amusing to see that whenever unarguable duplicity and fraud on some aspect of climate change(and there is a lot of that)is uncovered, then the smug naive teenagers and the tedious old farts from the CAGW cult, who comment on Jo’s blog, are notable by their absence.
The first lesson of Climate Science 101 remains: “When the data does not fit the theory, then the data must be wrong and therefore needs adjustment to support the theory. The use of data, which has not been suitably adjusted, is forbidden.”
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Oh, I dunno.
I half expect Maxine to show up any moment now and explain it all with reference to melting Arctic ice and the subsequent release of methane from clathrates.
I’ve come to accept that Maxine could explain anything – to her own satisfaction – even the ingredients in a Masterchef Mystery Box – with reference to melting Arctic ice and the subsequent release of methane from clathrates.
I have this recurring mental image of Maxine explaining to her beau that she is pregnant because of melting Arctic ice and the subsequent release of methane from clathrates.
.
It’s filed away with a mental image of MattB wearing 20 jumpers.
And one of Ross James having a nervous breakdown over his keyboard because he can’t find anything new to cut and paste as his own opinion.
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memoryvault, you say here:
I hesitate to say that if Maxine got pregnant, then seriously, the whole World would know about it.
The link that the screen name ‘Maxine’ takes you to is a Forum, and I feel sure Maxine would not link to any site other than Maxine’s home site.
If that is the case, then Maxine is the founder of that site, and is in fact Jovial Monk, who comments at his own site under the screen name HBS Guy. Note how the gravatar Maxine uses here is somewhat similar to the head placed on the shoulders of Jovial Monk.
The forum has been operating for just under three years. It has 59 Members, and of all the comments there HBS Guy has contributed almost 60% of those comments.
As much as I thoroughly detest linking into that site, I want you to keep in mind the outrage some from the left felt when some people slagged off at PM Gillard, and then look at the image that HBS Guy uses for all his comments. At the link, just scroll down and see HBS Guy’s comments, and that image is at the right.
If this is indeed Maxine, it gives startling insight as to where he is coming from.
Link To Forum site
Tony.
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Yeah – been to the site before.
But heck, if HBS guy wants to explore his feminine side here, who am I to get in the way?
As long as he doesn’t start posting links to his sissy pics, I don’t mind.
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Agreed … just so long as “Maxine” doesn’t wan’t to get pregnant … ROTFLMAO !
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.
Maxine on cold winters day: Texts MattyB with problem :-
Maxine: Windows frozen!
MattyB: Pour some luke warm water over it! 🙂
Maxine: Computer really FU&%ed now!!! 🙁
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.
Priceless.
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Thank God my Earl Grey is still out in the TV room.
Tony.
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It does not end there MV,
Saw on the TV the other night some old pensioner had a lung transplant many years ago and all was well when suddenly his body has started to reject it. Therefore he has to be on a ventilator (especially over night) as he suffers from hypoxia.
Unfortunately he cannot afford the power bill to run this equipment so he went to the Government for help but alas they turned him away, he then went to the power company and they said they would give him a discount on his bill but only if he paid it before the due date………..but thats the whole problem he cant afford the bill.
He is just another useless eater that will fall by the wayside as this government marches to the beat of the greens drum.
Arseholes like Matt “the jumper puncher” B and Max and the “virginal conception” could not give a stuff.
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What the heck does the greens drum have to do with governments having lousy health policy and absurd rules?
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.
MattyB
Green – Drum – Hospitals – all started being reported back in 2008!
Get with it MattyB – elections coming up for you soon!
Can Australia’s Hospitals Go Green in 2008 Green Drum Health?
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ACORN persists in using minimum and maximum temperatures, even though almost half the warming from this dataset is spurious and doesn’t exist in the fixed time temperature dataset. The spurious warming results from increased solar insolation increasing minimum temperatures, as I document here.
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2011/11/4/australian-temperatures.html
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Thanks.
Most revealing!
“pHd” is meant to be “PhD”, I suppose.
—
Ta. Of Course. Spellchecker?! Fixed. — Jo
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When I tried to compare the maximum temperature graphs against the graphs for rainfall, I was surprised at how few of the BoM’s high quality temperature sites were also high quality rainfall sites. I would have thought the same skillset was required to read a thermometer and a rain gauge.
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Well you see short people routinely overestimate how much water is in the gauge due to parallax error. Since people have generally been getting taller over the last 50 years, there were a lot more overestimates of rainfall before the 1960s than afterwards, so we needed to… correct the rainfall gauges by lowering the old records. The resulting upwards trend in rainfall is an unambiguous sign of global warming and… it’s worse than first thought.
So how did I do? Am I on the gravy train yet?
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I’m speechless. What’s happened to Australia the land of my grandfather? Thank goodness for the internet and very sharp bloggers.
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“As with the previous HQ network, many observers didn’t bother to record temperatures in fractions of a degree. Around 30% of all readings in the Fahrenheit era (before 1972) were whole numbers, and about 18% afterwards. (It should have been 10% if the observers were following the rule book).”
In fairness, put yourself in the shoes of the poor guy who was taking temperatur measurements in ca. 1930. He would have had no clue that these things would be scrutinized so much in the 21st century. And he would also know that a little error here and there won’t hurt anything, since ultimately the whole thing would be averaged over time and most errors would be smoothed out.
—-
Absolutely. The problem is not the observers but the people who tell us they have high confidence in the trends. — Jo
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Here’s some evidence of the same skulduggery in the Arctic:
http://endisnighnot.blogspot.com/2012/03/giss-strange-anomalies.html
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When checking the raw data against the HQ data, you can see the adjustments between the sets. These are the data sets for Lismore (Centre St).
Raw data set
http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/ncc/cdio/weatherData/av?p_display_type=dataGraph&p_stn_num=058037&p_nccObsCode=36&p_month=13
High Quality data set
http://reg.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/climate/hqsites/site_data.cgi?variable=maxT&area=nsw&station=058037&dtype=raw&period=annual&ave_yr=4
There is definitely a downward adjustment for higher temps, especially prior to 1950. And I believe there has been further adjustments in the ACORN audit.
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mmmm…
Newcastle (Nobbys lighthouse);
mean max temp;
http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/ncc/cdio/weatherData/av?p_display_type=dataGraph&p_stn_num=061055&p_nccObsCode=36&p_month=13
HQ max temp;
http://reg.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/climate/hqsites/site_data.cgi?variable=maxT&area=aus&station=061055&dtype=raw&period=annual&ave_yr=4
Now, slide the bar at the top over to ‘T=linear trend’….interesting???
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Two different time series CDO vs HQ at Newcastle. The CDO data pre 1890 looks a bit dodgy.
If the CDO series started at the same date as the HQ series I think you would get the same 0.11 C/decade linear trend.
Doesn’t mean it will keep going up on the same trajectory though. I suspect if a curve was used instead of linear trend that the cycle has topped out. Has in NZ, see this plot http://i54.tinypic.com/27xjm0k.png
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why isn’t the thumbs up working; I wanted to give some but no go
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Our thumbs have been broken as a warning from the Climate Science Bikie Gang. Possibly by the Acton Choppers. Oi! Didden your muvva evva tell yous, if ya can’t give thumbs up to da Guvment, don’ give any thumbs at all!
alternative theory:
The Thumbs have been confiscated by the Finkelstein Media Commission due to their frequent use in
telling it how it isexaggerating the impact of the carbon tax. The ACCC’s allegations against JN of “Thumb fixing” in the carbon pundit market were investigated by the Green Left’s favourite judge and after careful deliberation the Government exonerated itself.The ACCC also recommended the creation of a Thumb Trading Scheme in which an Emitting Entity could only emit Green Thumbs in large quantities if they also purchased an equal quantity of Red Thumbs from an approved list of government accredited Green Thumb Offset Projects. The fact that Red Thumbs are not produced reliably in quantities large enough to offset present day green thumb consumption was dismissed as being merely due to lax investment in the Red Thumb industry and with sufficient redistribution of taxation any physical barrier could be overcome.
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49.1.2.2 applies.
Tony.
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Touching on what I said earlier. . .
Its amusing when Jo posts a news article like this, where the data has been triple cross checked and theres absolutely no denying there was fudging and tampering to further promote the warmists cause, theres still no response from our resident warmists.
You know what this means?
It means that Jo, once again, has done an outstanding job at bringing us the cold hard facts.
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Yes, craven cowards, each and every one of them.
After I read and commented on Peter Miller’s post at 49, I went back to the previous thread to see if any of our trolls were around and active, just not willing to show their faces here on the current thread, given its subject matter.
It transpired that MattB had been posting throughout the day. So I left an insult I felt he wouldn’t be able to let pass without commenting on. Sure enough MattB took the bait and replied a bit over an hour ago, right in the middle of us discussing the cowardly absence of trolls on this thread..
http://joannenova.com.au/2012/06/the-un-defines-climate-change-as-being-man-made-orwell-could-not-have-done-it-better/#comment-1070471
So, not just a wannabe mass-murderer, but a cowardly wannabe mass murderer to boot.
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MV I’d not even read this page. You really are a nutter. My comment on a cursury glance… wow if the unpaid auditors are right then the BOM has some explaining to do. If the unpaid auditors are a bunch of nut jobs on a mission to abuse statistics then the BOM should be ok.
Unlike most here I don’t see any point posting unless I’ve examined both sides of the analysis, and that would take a long time no?
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Isn’t it strange that MattB says
about topics where the evidence proves that the Warmenista crowd are deliberately fudging evidence, and yet he is often among the first to comment on everything else that gets posted here?
Obviously some analyses (read: waiting for instructions on which rebuttal meme to cut&paste) take longer than others, eh Matty?
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yes that’s right waiting for instructions from climate HQ.
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So do we ask for another audit?
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From little acorns BIG CLIMATE grows!
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They are re-writing history. This beggars belief. I cannot believe that those in the BOM who are responsible are not committing criminal acts.
Who are the deniers when the believers must rewrite history in order to justify their belief?
Comments please Maxine and MattB?
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(crickets)
(tumbleweed rolls by)
(warmist pillar topples in the deserted forest)
The scale of the fraud brings a whole new Orwellian connotation to the Prime Minister’s challenge to “be on the right side of history”.
“Smile, feverish forties, you’ve just been erased.”
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According to Federal Law for the charge of Obtain benefit by deception,
Section 178BA of the Crimes Act states:
(1) Whosoever by any deception dishonestly obtains for himself or herself or another person any money or valuable thing or any financial advantage of any kind whatsoever shall be liable to imprisonment for 5 years.
(2) In subsection (1): deception means deception (whether deliberate or reckless) by words or conduct as to fact or as to law, including:
(a) a deception as to the present intentions of the person using the deception or of any other person; and
(b) an act or thing done or omitted to be done with the intention of causing:
(i) a computer system; or
(ii) a machine that is designed to operate by means of payment or identification, to make a response that the person doing or omitting to do the act or thing is not authorised to cause the computer system or machine to make.
(3) For the purposes of and without limiting Part 1A, the necessary geographical nexus exists between the State and an offence against this section if the offence is committed by a public official (within the meaning of the Independent Commission Against Corruption Act 1988) and involves public money of the State or other property held by the public official for or on behalf of the State.
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….well well well.
It seems we are fu%&d.
Matt B, Catamon and JB will see to that!
I`m off to watch repeats of Bluey….
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“Climate change is defined by the Convention as “change of climate which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed over comparable time periods” (article 1 (2)).”
Let’s be honest…
“Climate change is defined by the Convention as “change of climate which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity such as altering local and by extension, global temperature records and which would otherwise show the dominance of natural climate variability observed over all time periods” (article 1 (2)).”
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Sonny: “Let’s be honest”.
Ha Ha!
By the first definition, I am a “Climate Change” denier.
By the second definition, I am a believer.
MODS: The thumbs don’t seem to be working.
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Amazing.
Austrailia’s ‘ACORN’ sounds an awful lot like the US’s ‘ACORN‘ when viewed ethically.
We (the US) defunded ours and sent the idiot cockroaches scattering; here is to y’all Down Under doing the same!
Good Luck!
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[…] Read the source article here. […]
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Actually i would not worry because it aint warming especially in Australia. Over time people are noticing. This posting will be used in the future and some people may lose their jobs?
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If Sceptics are labelled “Deniers”
Then warmists are labelled “Collaborators”
Its a word that should be used – I dont know why no one has thought of it yet.
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good to see the site back up, jo.
all the more reason to make sure your Super funds don’t get into the wrong hands:
18 June: NY Post: Gore’s eco-friendly firm lands $16M contract to manage city pension funds
Here’s an inconvenient truth: New York is greening the wallet of Al Gore.
Embattled city Comptroller John Liu has delivered a $16.56 million contract to the former vice president’s environmentally friendly investment firm, Generation Investment Management, to help manage hundreds of millions of dollars in city pension funds, The Post has learned.
The Comptroller’s Office had previously awarded Gore’s firm $12.8 million in pension-fund business under Liu’s predecessor, Bill Thompson.
Since 2009, state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli has approved $6 million in contracts to the firm, co-founded and chaired by Gore. Generation now manages nearly a half-billion dollars of state pension-fund investments, records show…
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/city_deal_core_for_gore_XAN5WntX6MJPP3vQX6JcNL
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more proof the rest of the world is catching on:
AFP: Women march in Rio to protest ‘green economy’
Thousands of women representing social and farm movements marched in central Rio Monday to rail against the “green economy” advocated by the Rio+20 conference on sustainable development.
Behind a large banner from the international peasant movement Via Campesina proclaiming “the peoples are against the mercantilization of nature”, they marched several miles to the Flamengo park, the venue for the “People’s Summit” organized by civil society groups on the sidelines of the Rio+20 event…
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5g_kkmzTnLpb4R5oCbd21VTmju5_w?docId=CNG.6e8cb246738bfc1e0c48f4ac564e68fa.2e1
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Glad to see you are back online after yesterday’s problems.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/06/18/skeptic-jo-nova-website-offline/
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[…] Jo Nova Share this:PrintEmailMoreStumbleUponTwitterFacebookDiggRedditLike this:LikeBe the first to like this. This entry was posted in Climate Change and tagged climate fraud, climate research. Bookmark the permalink. ← Robert Bradley Jr.: “Wind Farms Canceled, Layoffs Starting” (government dependence is risky business) […]
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Richard- I can’t post another comment above and I lost a large one- it just disappeared- I’m busy today, away tomorrow for a few days. Make a comment at kenskingdom and I’ll contact you. Will post asap with a sample of adjustments from some sites incl Alice, Rutherglen, and hopefully some other remote ones.
Ken
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As a Queenslander and one who has been following the global warming science of increasing CO2’s influence on climate for some six years now, there is ample evidence of an expanding sub tropical belt.
There are definite signs it is warming as QLD’s winter period gives way to less cold snaps and stays essentially warm even on clear nights with minimum temperatures only holding there lows for a fraction of the time before temperatures start to climb again.
1. Tropical East coast based Paralytic Tick. This tick normally dies off after a duration of cold nights or frost snaps. A semi-mature tick was found on on one of my pets for the first time this Winter. They can survive sometimes over Winter. But the evidence of last year and now this year with Vets all over South East QLD are reports of a huge upsurge with this scourge on pets – namely dogs and cats. Anyone who has experienced this scourge will find them more prevalent as there life cycles are prolonged through our warming winters. Diligence is the word with protective products like Frontline for both cats and dogs. You have a window to get them killed/removed from your pet. The first 24 hours in sighting them are crucial. Other breeds can simply die with a few bites whilst other breeds will be more resilient.
2. Anyone who has studied ENSO will find that the minimum temperature of La Nina’s are getting “shallower” and that La Nina’s that commonly caused severe cold Winters in QLD in the past – 1960s period to the 1980 periods do not happen.
3. There is a increasing activity the tropical termite (the fly in type). The worrying pest invades a house not through breaches or opportunities at ground level but by flying in of the queen ant into the roof cavity! Pest controllers are seeing the slow migration of this pest southward as the QLD Winters are getting much milder and do not kill them off.
These are plain and simple observations. To suggest we are not trending to warmer climates over a period of a time defies those observations. Further we not really into any dramatic warming as yet but the signs of a changing climate are there for all to see. We are not standing in as yet. The process of concern may not develop in us as it is slow and insidious like the frog in water with the slow rises in temperatures. Climate variability as opposed to the REAL trend confuses us all with a false hope and that the warming climate will never be a serious threat.
What will it be like in another 20 years?
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You are such a bloody liar Ross. I too am a Queenslander and I and many others have been freezing our proverbials off for weeks now barely 3 weeks into winter.
Stop this bare faced lying Ross. You are such an embarrassment.
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Yep Ross has vested interests in perpetuating the warming myth. Don’t you Ross old boy old chap?
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Have you forgotten the big Winter freezes of the 1960s (La Nina dips in temps over Winter were severe) in METROPOLITAN BRISBANE – not Stanthorpe?
Clothes froze on the line.
Water pipes froze.
The Frost was so thick it remained on the ground till much after 8am in coastal Brisbane suburbs slightly inland.
What happened to those freezing Westerlies?
I can observe over those 50 years and by all accounts my pants aren’t freezing or on fire.
This has relevance as BOM clearly have determined Australian temperatures are climbing as a trend. Such is true for QLD.
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/environment/weather/australias-warmest-end-to-july-in-decades-20110801-1i7be.html
Ross J.
—————
REPLY: Well that’s it then. Anthropogenic Global Warming is real — Ross’s pants are not frozen any more. Jo.
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The 1960’s was during a global COOLING trend.Then the great climate shift of 1977 went into a warming trend that appears to have stopped in late 1998.
It is all about the natural climate cycle you keep overlooking.The one where it warms for around 25-30- years then cools the next 25-30 years and back to warming again …… We are in the early stages of a cooling trend that should last another 20 years or so then back to a new warming trend.
You are babbling with misleading dishonest baloney again.
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Will try again
More evidence of
global warclimate change Ross James style part 1http://iceagenow.info/2012/06/video-nz-locomotive-plows-heavy-snow-tracks/
http://iceagenow.info/2012/06/hard-freeze-expected-utah/
http://iceagenow.info/2012/06/sweden%e2%80%99s-reindeer-verge-extinction-cold/
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Part 2
http://iceagenow.info/2012/06/record-snowfall-gillam-manitoba/
http://iceagenow.info/2012/06/southern-argentina-biggest-snowfall-1995-video/
http://iceagenow.info/2012/06/swiss-valley-engadin-blanketed-snow/
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Part 3
http://iceagenow.info/2012/06/blizzard-kills-200-cows-nz-west-coast/
http://iceagenow.info/2012/06/uk-forecasters-predict-once-50-years-storm-worst-june-records-began/
http://iceagenow.info/2012/06/vancouver-bc-pace-coldest-%e2%80%98junuary%e2%80%99-record/
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Part 4
http://iceagenow.info/2012/06/unseasonal-cold-snow-montana/
http://iceagenow.info/2012/06/record-north-florida/
http://iceagenow.info/2012/06/mt-washington-b-c-ski-area-open-today-tomorrow/
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I wanted to save the best to last
http://iceagenow.info/2012/06/flat-declining-temperature-trend-1998/
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Skeptical MODEL plots prove nothin’. I’ve got Photoshop too. Latest version at that. Doctoring up some hypothetical graphs without proper science investigation of context of climate variability is like me proving by graph models global warming is real.
You are have nullified your argument already by using your skeptical models.
Doubt my friend is your weapon of choosing not mine.
Science is not dependent on belief or just graphs which is your end game – it is based on factual and contextual analysis and trends.
Ross J.
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http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/service/global/extremes/201205.gif
The result of a pressure heat wave gradient caused by continental USA RECORD heat waves (May 2012) creates swift convergences of cold and heat migration from sea to land in coastal areas. That’s climate equilibrium taking place all the time.
It’s the trends, records and the migration of tropical pests not permanently localised all year round I’m soundly observing as a warming climate. This is not about cold breezes blowing over a beach! We put our jacket on for those events.
Ross J
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So Ross, just to humour you, you say how cold the 60s were in Brisbane, and you’re probably right, it was cold where I lived too. Have a look at the graph of Brisbane’s minima above- can you see how the original raw data from Eagle Farm airport has been adjusted down in the 1960s? By about a degree C? It must have been even colder then than you thought hey!
Who needs global warming to thaw our pants when we’ve got Acorn!
Ken
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As we see very clearly in this graph, my observations are backed up by this historical graph.
http://www.bom.gov.au/tmp/cc/tmean.aus.0112.24880.png
Either this is blatant fraudulent stuff or the trends concur with global evidence?
Which would it be?
I do not care if you hit on decimal calculations up or down – it means nothing when you consider this overwhelming trend over 30 thirty years.
The debate is not about absolutes in accuracy and positioning of thermometers. Empirical evidence is much broader then that.
The debate is ultimately thus:
Is there sufficient proof that the Australian climate is in a warming phase?
The question to ask: What is causing it?
No it is the sun. Where’s all this cooling expected from your “famous” WA skeptic. It isn’t there. Skeptics of your kind are giving the Australian people false hope that the global warming threat has ended.
Ross J.
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As expected your BOM link is busted
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Ross, what has your comment got to do with this thread,about ACORN?
Ross, even if your comment is relevant, what has it got to do with Anthropogenic Global Warming?
Ross, even if your private anecotal observations or even scientifically proven evidence are creditable, you think Queensland is typical of the world/Australia? (Thank God we’re not, but not in that way!)
Ross, if your comment is based on scientific evidence, please provide sources/ links, as we would love to read more about this.
But my first remark applies: stick to the thread.
Ken
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[…] is a great piece over on Jo Nova, which tackles the Australian temperature record. This is a quote from the start of […]
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How many links per comment? I just lost a comment with about 7 links in it is it gone forever or just in moderators in box?
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Ken, Part 1 of 2
I’ve been reading CAWCR Technical Report No. 049 by Blair Trewin (Trewin049) http://cawcr.gov.au/publications/technicalreports/CTR_049.pdf almost word-for-word and have revised my first impression re possible effects on trend by the daily adjustments. On reflection, my previous comment on this was a load of rubbish and I now do not think the daily adjustments have any effect beyond negligible because they seem to be (for Alice Springs) equally up and down on what must be a data series that has already been adjusted for step changes (aka “breakpoints”). My suspicions were correct however wrt daily adjustments, BOM has implemented a methodology that has not been carried out anywhere else. From Trewin049 page 52 pdf:-
That explains the 34,698 separate daily adjustments but see Part 2 in regard to the sequence of adjustments i.e. step changes then daily?
Now to the 660 step changes (breakpoints). You have previously answered “No” you did not think BOM carried out cumulative step changes. I should have asked “accumulated” step changes because there is a plot in Trewin049 on page 96 pdf Fig. 29. Accumulated annual mean adjustments (°C) for minimum temperature at Alice Springs, relative to 2009 (more in Part 2). There are definitely 660 step change adjustments in Table 6 page 72 Summary of adjustments (more in Part 2). From Trewin049 reference to these step adjustments:-
Page 20 pdf
And page 27 pdf
And page 53 pdf
These “appropriate adjustments” are specific to step changes and are ill-defined but alluded to later in Trewin048 (see Part 2). It is also the early step adjustments that can change a linear trend radically and are disputed in the NZT7 by the NZCSET (before a Judge right now).
Part 2 follows.
Cross posted JoNova ‘ANAO Audit’, kenskingdom ‘Acorn-Sat’ and Climate Conversations Group ‘If it was settled science’ posts
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Ken, Part 2 of 2
From Trewin049 page 54 pdf
7.2 goes on in considerable detail.
And page 57 pdf
This gets us approx half way through Trewin049 and is a good place to stop for now. I’ve skimmed the rest of the report and cannot find a reference or link to a tabulation of the step change adjustments. It is imperative that they are found. 10. CASE STUDIES OF SOME SPECIFIC INHOMOGENEITIES on page 87 does however provide a plot of Accumulated annual mean adjustments (°C) for minimum temperature at Alice Springs, relative to 2009 as mentioned above.
Trewin049 goes on with the following wrt step adjustment methodology:-
7.4 The percentile-matching (PM) algorithm
7.4.1 The overlap case
7.4.2 The non-overlap case
7.5 Monthly adjustment method
7.6 Evaluation of different adjustment methods
Then the most important on page 70 pdf:-
7.7 Implementation of data adjustment in the ACORN-SAT
Note that on page 71 pdf Trewin049 says:-
So step step change adjustments were made in the “first round” of adjustments. I suspect that daily adjustments were made subsequently but haven’t found any confirmation yet.
More at a later date.
Cross posted JoNova ‘ANAO Audit’, kenskingdom ‘Acorn-Sat’ and Climate Conversations Group ‘If it was settled science’ posts
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I should detail “cumulative” and “accumulated” step change methodology for those not up to speed on this.
As the Trewin report describes, the accumulation can run from the latest step in time to the beginning of the series or from the first step in time to the most recent data (the last “open” or “reference” site). If the process had been done progressively over time, the accumulation would start from the very first site change but because the process is being done in retrospect, BOM have accumulated back in time for ACORN – SAT (and NIWA same for NZT7) from the last “open” “reference” site. There are variations on this but that is the basic method.
Using some fictitious steps for the site changes at Alice Springs (in reality these site changes don’t require steps from whay I can gather – odd), the sequence is as follows (steps in degrees celcius):-
2002 – present (10 yr span) Airport AWS (last “open” “reference” site, a bit like a benchmark)
2002 Minor move. No step.
1996 – 2002 (6 yr span) Airport AWS.
1996 Automatic weather station (AWS) installed at same site, 5 yr overlap. Step +0.3. Cumulative step +0.3
1974 – 1996 (22 yr span) Airport.
1974 Minor 550m site move at same site. No step. Cumulative step +0.3.
1944 – 1974 (30 yr span) Airport
1944 12 yr overlap. Step -0.2. Cumulative step +0.1.
1932 – 1944 (12 yr span) Post Office,
1932 No overlap. Step -0.7. Cumulative step -0.6.
1910 – 1932 (22 yr span) Telegraph Station,
So,
+0.3 is added to EVERT datapoint over 1974 – 1996 (22 yr span) Airport.
+0.3 is added to EVERY datapoint over 1944 – 1974 (30 yr span) Airport
+0.1 is added to EVERY datapoint over 1932 – 1944 (12 yr span) Post Office
-0.6 is added to EVERY datapoint over 1910 – 1932 (22 yr span) Telegraph Station
Readers should be able to see that the magnitude of the cumulative step and the span of years to which it is applied has a significant effect on a linear trend and therefore, the statistical criteria for determination of step values are VERY important as are the actual values determined.
What I find weird is that there is no similarity between steps in the ACORN series and steps in the NZT7 that BOM “audited”.
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Afterthought.
This adjusts the series into “terms” of the last “open” (or “reference”) site similar to the way land survey or construction levelling readings are in “terms” of a benchmark.
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Alex S. Gaddes corresponded research on his book ‘Tomorrow’s Weather’,(1990)to the Australian BoM in 1979. Because it debunks ENSO/La Nina and defines a colder and drier future, based on exactly predictable Solar induced orbital ‘Dry’ Cycles (thirty degrees longitude/ month with the westward orbit of the Earth’s Magnetic Field,) this work continues to be ignored by the BoM to the present day. Yes, they have a copy.
Perhaps the probe into the BoM should include the ‘export’ and propagation of ENSO indoctrinated personnel from the University of East Anglia to the Australian BoM from mid-1970s to the present. The current BoM personnel ’embedded’ in the Weather Reporting capacity of the mainstream media, is offering only blatant bias toward the ENSO/AGW doctrine,with the attendant lack of verification,empirical sustainability and forecasting function. (I note the strange,slightly triumphant ‘soapbox’style of Joe O’Brien (ABC News 24,) who seems to have a ‘close’ relative in the BoM feeding him ‘exclusive’ information.
An updated version of ‘Tomorrow’s Weather’ (including ‘Dry’ Cycle forecasts to 2055,) is available as a free pdf from [email protected]
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Given that no-one has yet identified what specific adjustments (accumulated or daily) have brought about the radical “before” and “after” transformation (B&A plot) in the Alice Springs case study (as good as any since Ken/Jo have done the plot and Alice Springs features in a Trewin049 case study also), I think it is useful and sensible to look at the information readily available for Alice Springs step-by-step starting at the last “open” site and working back in time.
For now, only the period 2009 – 2000 will be looked at where 2 steps (2 of 345 total ACORN – SAT adjustments to Minimum) can easily be identified and coped with in discussion (if anyone is still even interested)
The B&A plot (365d Minimum) is here http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/graphs/australia/alice-springs-minima.gif
Tremin049 (CAWCR Technical Report No. 049, Blair Trewin) is here http://cawcr.gov.au/publications/technicalreports/CTR_049.pdf
Refer Trewin049 10.6 Changes in surrounding vegetation – Alice Springs on page 96 pdf and Fig. 29. Accumulated annual mean adjustments (°C) for minimum temperature at Alice Springs, relative to 2009.
“2009” is the 2009 – 2005 portion of the current “open” site Airport AWS that has been in the same site since 2002 after having been moved a few metres from the 1992 – 2002 site. In Fig 29, this period is fixed at the “reference” datum value of 0 (i.e. the benchmark).
Fig 29 shows the first step change at 2005, this can also been seen in the B&A plot. The reason given in Trewin049 10.6 is “Changes in surrounding vegetation”. The step change is +0.8 and EVERY datapoint in the range 2002 – 2004 has been adjusted UP by that amount ecause Airport AWS 2002 – 2004 was comparatively LOWER than Airport AWS 2005 – 2009 (a “breakpoint” occurred).
Fig 29 gets tricky moving to the second step because the caption says “Accumulated annual mean adjustments….relative to 2009“.
The 2002 to 2000 second step “relative to 2009” (2009 -2005) is +0.5 and can also be seen in the B&A plot. The step relative to 2004 – 2002 is -0.3 and EVERY datapoint in the 1997 – 2000 range has been adjusted DOWN by that amount because Airport AWS 1997 – 2000 was comparatively HIGHER than Airport AWS 2002 – 2004 (a “breakpoint” occurred).
The running cumulative step total “relative to 2009” for the first 2 steps in the post 2000 period is therefore:-
2005 step +0.8, cumulative step +0.8.
2002 step -0.3, cumulative step +0.5.
The first +0.8 step is VERY LARGE and has the effect of lifting a linear trend dramatically in the latter half of the series (a warming trend). Similarly, if a -0.8 step occurred early in the series it would dramatically lower a linear trend on the early half of the series (also contributing to a warming trend).
The reason given for the 2002 step in Trewin049 10.2 is also “Changes in surrounding vegetation”, however, 2002 also coincides with a minor Airport AWS site move “a few metres west” as documented on page 3 pdf of the ACORN Station catalogue http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/change/acorn-sat/documents/ACORN-SAT-Station-Catalogue-2012-WEB.pdf.
In summary after having looked at only the first 2 steps of the first case study, there are 2 major issues that arise already:-
1.) The inordinately large (to my mind, Trewin049 describes it as a “relatively small shift” – he has GOT to be kidding) +0.8 step at 2005.
2.) A reason given for the 2002 step (breakpoint) occurring of “Changes in surrounding vegetation” when that step coincides with a site move.
The VERY FIRST STEP (1.) out of a total of 660 must have indisputable statistical support because if it doesn’t, the linear trend will have been skewed upwards unnecessarily at Alice Springs. If seems very strange that such a large adjustment can arise from such benign conditions – I don’t buy it at this stage until I’ve seen the justification.
Issue 2, is not a question of the size of step but of the reason for it. It seems to me that a site move is more likely to be the reason at an airport than the length of grass.
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The total cumulative step change at the last Alice Springs Min step which is at approx 1917 and applied to every datapoint over the period 1910 – 1917ish is -1.7 (14.3 – 12.6 = 1.7 using the 1910 before and after values).
So the first step (working back in time) at 2005 is +0.8 and the last (cumulative) step is -1.7, an absolute difference of 2.5 C over 100 years. Herein lies the radical linear warming trend for Alice Springs Min.
There would have to be indisputable statistical justification for EVERY step making up the cumulative -1.7 total ESPECIALLY for a step such as -1.6 C at 1975. That is a VERY LARGE adjustment.
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An important distinction.
The 1st +0.8 C Alice Springs Min step at 2004/05 is due to CLIMATE (seasonal vegetation change)
The 2nd -0.3 C Alice Springs Min step at 2001/02 is due to SITE MOVE (“a few metres west”).
Therefore, BOM has adjusted local climate OUT of ACORN – SAT. This is unnecessary, NIWA did not do that in the NZT7.
The -0.3 site move step at 2001/02 is perfectly acceptable however.
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[…] hope this whets the appetite. Jo Nova covers it in detail <HERE> Share this:TwitterFacebookLike this:LikeBe the first to like […]
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[…] […] Not only are modern thermometers more likely to suffer from artificial heat sources, the BOM inexplicably makes adjustments that push modern records up, and older records down. The BOM will not explain on a station-by-station basis why it makes these inexplicable adjustments. Modern data has not been audited independently in Australia despite many requests. See Brisbane below and others here.[…] […]
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[…] dataset and found significant errors, omissions and inexplicable adjustments, read more here… http://joannenova.com.au/2012/06/threat-of-anao-audit-means-australias-bom-throws-out-temperature-se… 3. Figures 1 and 2 are courtesy of Ole Humlum, Professor of Geosiences at the University of Oslo, […]
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[…] Stewart, John Sayers, Jo Nova and others have shown up many issues with this database, for example, http://joannenova.com.au/2012/06/threat-of-anao-audit-means-australias-bom-throws-out-temperature-se… . It nevertheless remains a useful source of information. For the Bathurst agricultural station the […]
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[…] Stewart, John Sayers, Jo Nova and others have shown up many issues with this database, for example, http://joannenova.com.au/2012/06/threat-of-anao-audit-means-australias-bom-throws-out-temperature-se… . It nevertheless remains a useful source of information. For the Bathurst agricultural station the […]
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