Manticore
Feb 16th, 2011, 4:40 PM
Here is an interesting read.........it would appear the the Australian Bureau of Meterology has 'adjusted' weather station readings to iron out 'bugs' in the database......temperature readings appear to have been adjusted down over the last century "to improve data quality"; as they put it. They are also providing 100 years of temperature data from some stations, based on only 12 years of actual raw data. It will be interesting to see if the Audit ever takes place.
Artificial adjustments exaggerate the warming
A BOM spokesman has claimed that the adjustments make little difference to the overall trend reported for Australia and are simply made to improve data quality. Yet independent checks suggest that the adjustments may account for as much as a third of the reported warming trend in Australia.
Some questions that would be answered by the audit are:
Why have raw temperature records from the middle of the last century been artificially reduced? Are we to believe that 50 years after the measurements were recorded BOM officials realized they were artificially too high?
Why were so many thermometers believed to be overestimating temperatures in the first half of the 1900′s?
Where are the records detailing the justification for altering the historical record for each station?
Does the lowering of temperature records from the middle of last century result in an artificially exaggerated warming rate of the temperature record?
Independent checks also suggest:
The BOM temperature record includes sites with 100 year long “records” which are based on just 12 years of actual data. An undisclosed method was used to construct an extraordinary 85% of the graph. (Appendix I)
The BOM database appears ‘buggy’ with averages for an entire month across a large state suddenly changed upwards three months after the readings came in. The “bug” in this case produced a change comparable in size to the entire reported warming trend over the last hundred years. (Appendix I).
It has been shown that nearly 90% of temperature stations in the US are sited too close to artificial heating sources. There has been no independent auditing or checking of Australian temperature station sitings. It is reasonable to assume that some similar siting problems may exist in Australia. Predominantly, poor sitings lead to an exaggeration of warming trends. If an audit is done and changes are made to the temperature record, it must be done so on a site by site and transparent basis to ensure the changes can be checked and justified.
The US Goddard Institute of Space Studies has produced graphs with copies of the BOM data which are missing values which materially affect the results. BOM apparently does not notice, or is not checking, or does not report errors in order to make sure that international agencies are using accurate Australian records. Scientific conclusions are drawn by Australian, International and IPCC scientists based on the GISS presentation of Australian temperature records.(Appendix I).
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Given the acknowledged national importance of our climate data the Australian people should not have to rely on volunteer members of the public to identify these errors and omissions. The Hadley Centre of the British Meteorological Office has accepted the need for a checking and revision of the HADCRUT global temperature record that they supply to the IPCC. So too, an independent audit of BOM climate data records is needed now.
I also had no idea that New Zealand has an ongoing, similar issue that has resulted in the National Institute for Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) being forced to disavow it’s own National Temperature Records.
The NZ equivalent to the Australian BOM is under an official review
The New Zealand Climate Science Coalition found adjustments that were even more inexplicable (0.006 degrees was adjusted up to 0.9 degrees). They decided to push legally and the response was a litany of excuses — until finally The National Institute for Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) was forced to disavow it’s own National Temperature Records, and belatedly pretend that it had never been intended for public consumption. But here’s the thing that bites: NZ signed the Kyoto protocol, arguably based very much on the NZ temperature record, and their nation owes somewhere from half a billion to several billion dollars worth of carbon credits (depending on the price of carbon in 2012). Hence there is quite a direct link from the damage caused by using one unsubstantiated data set based on a single student’s report that no one can find or replicate that will cost the nation a stack of money. NIWA is now potentially open to class actions. (Ironically, the Australian BOM has the job of “ratifying” the reviewed NZ temperature record.)
Details here (http://joannenova.com.au/2011/02/announcing-a-formal-request-for-the-auditor-general-to-audit-the-australian-bom/)
Amazing piece of work, which could add another variable to temperature records:
Surface temperature Stations (http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/surfacestationsreport_spring09.pdf)
Artificial adjustments exaggerate the warming
A BOM spokesman has claimed that the adjustments make little difference to the overall trend reported for Australia and are simply made to improve data quality. Yet independent checks suggest that the adjustments may account for as much as a third of the reported warming trend in Australia.
Some questions that would be answered by the audit are:
Why have raw temperature records from the middle of the last century been artificially reduced? Are we to believe that 50 years after the measurements were recorded BOM officials realized they were artificially too high?
Why were so many thermometers believed to be overestimating temperatures in the first half of the 1900′s?
Where are the records detailing the justification for altering the historical record for each station?
Does the lowering of temperature records from the middle of last century result in an artificially exaggerated warming rate of the temperature record?
Independent checks also suggest:
The BOM temperature record includes sites with 100 year long “records” which are based on just 12 years of actual data. An undisclosed method was used to construct an extraordinary 85% of the graph. (Appendix I)
The BOM database appears ‘buggy’ with averages for an entire month across a large state suddenly changed upwards three months after the readings came in. The “bug” in this case produced a change comparable in size to the entire reported warming trend over the last hundred years. (Appendix I).
It has been shown that nearly 90% of temperature stations in the US are sited too close to artificial heating sources. There has been no independent auditing or checking of Australian temperature station sitings. It is reasonable to assume that some similar siting problems may exist in Australia. Predominantly, poor sitings lead to an exaggeration of warming trends. If an audit is done and changes are made to the temperature record, it must be done so on a site by site and transparent basis to ensure the changes can be checked and justified.
The US Goddard Institute of Space Studies has produced graphs with copies of the BOM data which are missing values which materially affect the results. BOM apparently does not notice, or is not checking, or does not report errors in order to make sure that international agencies are using accurate Australian records. Scientific conclusions are drawn by Australian, International and IPCC scientists based on the GISS presentation of Australian temperature records.(Appendix I).
####
Given the acknowledged national importance of our climate data the Australian people should not have to rely on volunteer members of the public to identify these errors and omissions. The Hadley Centre of the British Meteorological Office has accepted the need for a checking and revision of the HADCRUT global temperature record that they supply to the IPCC. So too, an independent audit of BOM climate data records is needed now.
I also had no idea that New Zealand has an ongoing, similar issue that has resulted in the National Institute for Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) being forced to disavow it’s own National Temperature Records.
The NZ equivalent to the Australian BOM is under an official review
The New Zealand Climate Science Coalition found adjustments that were even more inexplicable (0.006 degrees was adjusted up to 0.9 degrees). They decided to push legally and the response was a litany of excuses — until finally The National Institute for Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) was forced to disavow it’s own National Temperature Records, and belatedly pretend that it had never been intended for public consumption. But here’s the thing that bites: NZ signed the Kyoto protocol, arguably based very much on the NZ temperature record, and their nation owes somewhere from half a billion to several billion dollars worth of carbon credits (depending on the price of carbon in 2012). Hence there is quite a direct link from the damage caused by using one unsubstantiated data set based on a single student’s report that no one can find or replicate that will cost the nation a stack of money. NIWA is now potentially open to class actions. (Ironically, the Australian BOM has the job of “ratifying” the reviewed NZ temperature record.)
Details here (http://joannenova.com.au/2011/02/announcing-a-formal-request-for-the-auditor-general-to-audit-the-australian-bom/)
Amazing piece of work, which could add another variable to temperature records:
Surface temperature Stations (http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/surfacestationsreport_spring09.pdf)