Think of the BOM as an advertising agency for big-government programs, and it all makes sense…
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Apparently, after the stinging criticism about them, the Bureau of Meteorology is telling journalists and academics that “they publish all the data”. Jennifer Marohasy has been fielding calls and correcting journalists on air who are fooled by this claim. Clearly this isn’t true, or she wouldn’t have needed to spend three years on FOI applications just to get a tiny part of it, (and in the least helpful form possible , like 1,000 sheets of paper). The Bureau not only don’t publish this data, they actively work to hide it and fight FOI’s.
The BOM are not only hiding national temperature data, now they are trying to hide that they are hiding it too. There is some dynamite secret here. Why is it so important — perhaps because it shows that the BOM installed new thermometers that register artificially higher temperatures than the old glass thermometers do? Thousands of “hottest ever records” have been set by new electronic thermometers that might not have been set if we still used traditional thermometers.
If the Bureau can’t be bothered giving us the data, the country shouldn’t be bothered with the “transition” to unreliable expensive energy either (or with paying for the BOM a million dollars a day to study our climate).
Do the Bureau even care about Australia’s climate?
Climate is the biggest threat the world faces they say, but the Bureau of Meteorology aren’t so worried about it that they care whether their new electronic thermometers are correct. After the old glass thermometers were replaced with electronic ones, you’d think the bureau would want to check that the new style was recording the same temperatures as the old style would have. I mean, how could anyone compare temperatures in 1896 with 2016 if the equipment changed and the two instruments were not the same?
It’s easy to show whether the thermometers are equivalent, just put them both in the same box at the same time in parallel, and publish that data, then we’ll all know. The BoM set up the experiment, but the data from it is a national secret. The only conclusion anyone can draw from this behaviour is that the new electronic thermometers are reporting artificially higher temperatures than the old glass ones, and the BoM knows it.
As Jen Marohasy says, Australia is the only place in the world where it only takes one hot second to set a new maximum temperature record:
In his letter to The Australian on April 19, the bureau’s chief executive, Andrew Johnson, explains that they follow all the World Meteorological Organisation rules when it comes to measuring temperatures. This is as absurd as the bureau’s Peter Stone claiming that all the parallel data is online.
The bureau is unique in the world in taking instantaneous readings from the probes and using the highest in any 24-hour period as the maximum temperature for that day. In the US, one-second samples are numerically averaged over five minutes, with the highest average over a five minute period recorded as the daily maximum temperature. This is to achieve some equivalence with traditional mercury thermometers that have a slower response time, more inertia.
The BOM appears to be tacitly confirming Jennifer Marohasy’s findings, but saying even though the temperature differences are real, they’re small enough to be within tolerances. Skeptics say that same thing about the Planet.
Marohasy: The bureau does not dispute my findings. It has not provided its own analysis of the data beyond claiming that its own assessment of the full 2019-2022 period finds “no significant difference between the probe and mercury thermometer”.
It seems that some Australian academics are, on the one hand, quite prepared to claim that we should be fearful of temperatures exceeding a 1.5C tipping point, yet at the same time be unconcerned about the accuracy or otherwise of measurements from official bureau weather stations.
Until they give us the data it seems fair to say:
- The BoM have the data, therefore they know the new thermometers are creating artificial warming in the records. If these new thermometers were creating artificial cooling we’d know all about it.
- The Minister in charge, Tanya Plibersek, needs to take responsibility for either releasing the data or appointing a new CEO who has higher scientific standards. Does Tanya Plibersek care about the Australian climate? Does she care about science, and when will the ABC start grilling her “on behalf of the environment”?