THE Australian Bureau of Meteorology now acknowledge that they change the temperatures at most, if not all, the weather stations that make-up the official station network from which national temperature trends are calculated. Indeed, earlier in the week, 28 pages of ‘adjustments’ were released online following a series of articles in The Australian and The Weekend Australian by Graham Lloyd. Scrutinise the detail in this document of adjustments and not only is the rationale and methodology indefensible, but it contradicts information published in the official Station Catalogue which is meant to be the go-to document for understanding this official network known as ACORN-SAT (Australian Climate Observations Reference Network –Surface Air Temperature).
That the Minister has not yet intervened, and that many within the Australian scientific community attempt to justify the practice of homogenisation that creates these ‘adjustments’ that changes cooling trends to warming trends at a whim, is reason for national shame. It all amounts to corruption of the scientific process on a grand scale, with significant economic implications. But not even a whisper about the scandal can be heard from the Australian national broadcaster or the many other typically righteous institutions and individuals that claim to be motivated by the truth.
Yet the deceit is increasingly in plain view. Consider, for example, that the official ACORN-SAT Station Catalogue clearly states on page 6 that in the development of the temperature record for Bathurst Agricultural Research Station (Station No. 063005) data from the longer Bathurst Gaol (Station No. 063004) record was not used. Now go to the 28-page ACORN-SAT Station Adjustment Summary and it lists eight occasions when the Bathurst Gaol record was used to make changes to the Bathurst Agricultural Station Record, which cumulatively have changed the temperature record by 4.65 degree Celsius in different directions at different times.
Also note amongst the changes made to this temperature series the addition of 0.6 degree C to the maximum temperature series (applied to all data prior to 1971) following the installation of a Stevenson screen. That’s right. While the Bureau has been claiming it must discard all data prior to 1910 because until this year stations didn’t have Stevenson screens, in fact we can now see that it has accepted post-1910 data from stations that did not have screens installed until later, in some cases not until 1971.
Moving across the border into Victoria: the Bureau released the ‘adjustments’ used to homogenise the temperature series from the Agricultural Station at Rutherglen (also part of the ACORN-SAT network) about a week earlier than for everywhere else. This followed the series of articles in The Australian newspaper questioning why a cooling trend in the original record from Rutherglen had been turned into a warming trend in the official record.
Ken Stewart has already attempted to use the data for Rutherglen that was released last week to understand how and why the Bureau homogenised the temperature series at Rutherglen. After several days work he came to the conclusion that either the wrong list of 17 stations (against which the Bureau claimed it has made comparisons) was provided and/or their percentile-matching algorithm produced an error. In short, the method when applied as per the newly provided information produces an altogether different result to that documented by the Bureau, at least for Rutherglen.
But why even bother with the homogenisation when there was no good reason in the first place to apply it to Rutherglen?
After Graham Lloyd first brought the issue of homogenisation at Rutherglen to the nation’s attention the Bureau replied that the process had needed to be applied because there had been a site move. But it has since been unable to provide any evidence, and the claim contradicts its own station catalogue.
It is the case that when weather stations are moved, for example, from post offices to airports, discontinuities can be created in the data that may need to be corrected. But in fact there is no evidence to suggest that the weather station at Rutherglen has ever moved. For the last 100 years it has been sitting in a flat paddock, creating a near perfect temperature series. In fact, all that seems amiss with the temperature series is that the minimum temperatures show a cooling trend, contrary to global warming theory.
Statistician David Stockwell had tested the original minimum temperature series for Rutherglen for discontinuities and found none. Agronomist Bill Johnston has run his own very fine-scaled ‘ruler’ over the same dataset and found step-changes that could be attributable to shifts in the climate, the equipment or something else. But nevertheless when all of these micro-lumps and bumps are accounted for, Dr Johnston concludes that the residual trend is no different to zero-trend. In other words, no need to make any adjustments.
Drs Stockwell, Johnston and myself have all been called deniers by the mainstream climate science community for drawing attention to the logical inconsistencies obvious in the homogenisation of Rutherglen. But at the same time none of the same name-calling scientists, who draw a government salary for their apparent expertise in this area, have been prepared to actually mention the word ‘Rutherglen’ in public – let alone discuss the data.
I’ve come to the conclusion that those who have so far defended the homogenising of the temperature series at Rutherglen, Amberley, Deniliquin and Bourke, as the first example that I have thrown up over the last few weeks, are acting either on faith, ignorance or the new morality being preached by technocrats who believe it is wholly legitimate to change received evidence when it does not accord with theory. In the case of the Bureau it’s called homogenisation. Ansley Kellow in his book Science and Public Policy refers to the phenomenon as noble cause corruption.
With the release of the 28-pages of adjustments earlier in the week it should be crystal clear that the practice of homogenisation is indefensible and widespread, affecting virtually all the stations that comprise the ACORN-SAT network. This must have significant ramifications for government policy in so many different areas, because the temperature trends created by the ACORN-SAT network underpin the notion that we have man-made global warming.
In a democracy it is the role of government to oversee the correct function of institutions like the Bureau of Meteorology. Greg Hunt is the Minister ultimately responsible. So far he has been silent on the issue. This is in effect condoning what until recently would have been considered a totally unethical practice: changing received evidence to fit a preferred storyline. It’s unacceptable, but will Minister Hunt do anything about it? Will the national broadcaster even report on it? What can you do about it?
Postscript:
Over recent years the Australian Bureau of Meteorology has been given increasing responsibilities and more and more funding. For example, with the Water Act 2007, it has taken over responsibilities for provision of information that determines water allocations within the Murray Darling (essentially the size of the rice and cotton crops), in October last year an initiative of the National Plan for Environmental Information established the Bureau of Meteorology as Australia’s central coordinating authority for all environmental information.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
To help you keep the ball rolling, can you publish Greg Hunt’s official email address? And all ask all readers to politely petition Greg to initiate and independent enquiry into the the BOM’s homogenisation program, reasons for it and the means employed to achieve it to establish if the results are correct or flawed, and if flawed the reason for the flaws.
Hi Peter
Greg Hunt is notorious for polite replies to the many emails people send him. While doing absolutely nothing. As far as I can tell he condones the corrupt activities of the BOM.
This perhaps needs to be brought to the attention of others?
I think it would be more useful for people to contact their local member of parliament and local newspaper and/or TV station… and explain the lack of oversight of the activities of the Bureau by the Minister. I have been writing to him since March and he hasn’t replied… you may provide a link to this correspondence here… http://jennifermarohasy.com/correspondence/
But more importantly provide an example of homogenisation to someone in a position of power within your local community who should/might care.
Keep up the outstanding work. Hopefully Greg Hunt is keeping his powder dry to fire off when he can do the most damage and has the most to gain. Would be nice to see the ABC eat a little humble pie at the same time as the BoM get dragged back into line.
Peter,
Greg Hunt Member for Flinders, Minister for the Environment
PO Box 274 Hastings VIc 3915.
http://www.greghunt.com.au/ContactGreg.aspx
‘This perhaps needs to be brought to the attention of others?’
Dennis Jensen is our most vocal supporter in high places, if he could get a splash in the MSM he might shame them into doing an audit
A brilliant post Jennifer; one just stands aghast at the obvious nature of BOM’s incompetence [sic]. Bathurst! They can’t even apply their own criteria.
I only wish you would submit something like this article to the SMH in reply to Brown’s atrocious agitprop.
Well Jennifer, Jo , Ken etc have done the hard yards, but where do you go from here? Putting the pressure on Hunt is the obvious choice, but failing that perhaps Jensen is the best bet.
Most Aussies haven’t got a clue about the problems with BOM and our temp records and you can be sure their ABC and Fairfax will use every trick and pull every stunt to keep them in the dark.
But these problems are probably a world wide phenomena and somehow we must stop these con merchants from pouring hundreds of billions down the drain for a zero return.
Took guts to keep going out on that limb. Well done, Jen, Ken, Bill, Graham, Jo and others.
Great work! A wee note. First paragraph; the word is spelt ‘rationale’ not ‘rational’.
Jen,
That bit about Stephenson screens at Bathurst only in 1971? Maybe a replacement?
Seems to me you need to talk to someone who was there.
Congratulations Jennifer, you have the admiration and gratitude of many, many Australians for your courage and dedication.
The ABC & Jonathan Green today:
“The Gillard AWU saga may have begun as a legitimate question mark over potential fraud and impropriety, but having failed any test of substantiation, the claims against Gillard became an elaborate conspiratorial fantasia, articles of ardent faith that might be filed with allegations of temperature fudging by the Bureau of Meteorology and the 17-year pause in global warming; and promulgated as eagerly as fact.”
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-09-11/green-emptiness-of-gillard-accusations-laid-bare/5735618
Even the ABC has quoted doomsday ‘climate scientists’ attempting to explain ‘the pause’, or hiatus, that Green denies:
“It will be difficult to predict when the Pacific cooling trend and its contribution to the global hiatus in surface temperatures will come to an end,” says co-author Matthew England, also from the University of New South Wales.
http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2014/08/04/4060187.htm
That’s 3 denials from Green & ABC.
(If Gillard & Murphy knew about the ‘slush fund’ eventually, why didn’t they notify the police?)
In the UK the press and politicians demanded that bankers were jailed for fixing an interest rate called LIDOR by something like 0.25%. I can’t recall if government ministers were forced to resign but it was a massive scandal.
This was an inter-bank lending rate. It did not affect government policy. In contrast, the global temperature directly affects government policy and directly hits us all in the pocket as the scamsters use any apparent rise to line their pockets.
At the very least the head of the organization responsible should go and if this is a government department, then the minister should be forced to resign.
Another Ian, Its even in the Station Catalogue that the Bathurst Ag Station had a non-compliant screen until 1971. Now in the 28-page ACORN-SAT Station Adjustment Summary it explains they’ve made a 0.6 degree adjustment to all temperatures back from 1971.
Of course the argument that they need to start the temp record in 1910 because that’s when every station got a Stevenson screen has always been a lie. This note in the newly released 28-page document is just another reminder of the same.
The next really big break through will come when we get the temperature record from 1880 to 1910 reinstated. Jo Nova is onboard with this one now… see two of her latest posts…
http://joannenova.com.au/2014/09/the-lost-climate-knowledge-of-deacon-1952-australian-summers-were-hotter-from-1880-1910/ and
http://joannenova.com.au/2014/09/1953-headline-melbournes-weather-is-changing-summers-getting-colder-and-wetter/
Neville writes:
“But these problems are probably a world wide phenomena and somehow we must stop these con merchants from pouring hundreds of billions down the drain for a zero return.”
Sure it is world wide: We have the same in European Union, especially in Scandinavia.
I have been following this since around 1994 when I come across a book by Bert Bolin.
“Hotet om Klimat Förändring” (In Swedish in a series about “the front lines of science”)
When I look at politics in EU on the subject today, I see a slow change away from climate change towards energy security as motivation for energy conversion and environmental politics.
You can speed up that process by making your voice heard in international papers and organisations focused on economics.
My focus is on Electricity and Clean Water for the poorest women and children in SS Africa.
One example is commenting in Financial Times at the Energy and Power blog by Nick Butler when he mention emissions.
All these data manipulators shall be immediately fired from their respective orgabizations and sued for “Attempts to mislead Governmental actions” as well as further police investigations to identify which personal benefits they have drawn from their misconduct.
Without a society clear hammering upon, Sciences in Australia will no longer be trusted neither domestically nor abrod.
It is self cleaning process.
The language seems to have hardened in line with the evidence of un-scientific behaviour. I hope that this will promt a glaring search light to be shone on this matter. We have seen a couple of decade of ‘best available science’ lead to the MD Basin Plan. The cost to the Nation would require a super-computer to calculate. My rarely wrong,( It has been calibrated a thousand times ) 40yr old calculator only has eight zero’s.
Cheers, D Mac.
Here is the link to the 28 pg adjustment summary http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/change/acorn-sat/documents/ACORN-SAT-Station-adjustment-summary.pdf
“will Minister Hunt do anything about it”
How long can you hold your breath?
Speaking from first hand experience, forget it!
Thanks Paul Clark. After writing the piece I was too plain tired to add in the links. And now I’m busy with other work.
Perhaps tomorrow I shall get the important links into the piece.
Well said, Jennifer.
Yours is an excellent summary in content, style and tone.
On climate, Greg Hunt is behaving dishonestly.
I have stated that to him. His replies repeatedly fail to refute it and they repeatedly fail to provide the empirical scientific evidence needed for his climate misrepresentations.
Page 2 of my letter to him dated Wednesday, March 19th, 2014 summarises:
http://www.climate.conscious.com.au/docs/letters/20140321/GregHunt,March2014.pdf
He has been given the empirical scientific evidence that proves his position is false, unscientific and unfounded. He has been given the extensive documented evidence of the corruption that he supports.
More letters here: http://www.climate.conscious.com.au/letters.html#Hunt
Greg Hunt’s climate alarm is unfounded. It’s dishonest. Perhaps the courts or the people’s court will determine it fraudulent? That day could be sooner than he thinks.
His politeness is not camouflaging his deceit.
Many people appreciate your fine work and strength of character. Thank you
Malcolm Roberts
This man is a disgrace.
http://www.senatorbirmingham.com.au/Latest-News/ID/2541/Bureau-of-Meteorology-goes-to-market-for-new-supercomputer
[Hey Egg, if you post this URL with comments about the issue rather than the person at the Open Thread… I may make some comment about supercomputers and forecasting extreme weather events. But you are in the wrong thread… and bit too focused on the man rather than the ball. With the new moderator, Ray, this blog is becoming very tidy and orderly. And I approve. Jen]
Getting this information to and having it published by foreign MSM would be a huge embarrassment to the BOM and also to our government. Perhaps this would provide a spur to an official investigation.
Hi Jennifer, this work on BOM is great stuff. What I am wondering is whether it is likely that, as a result of properly adding in all missing temp data, BOM will have to redact their ‘2013 hottest year ever in Australia’ declaration. A retraction of that would be a very big deal in my opinion.
Some free advice FWIW – lawyer is my day job – ‘corruption’ and ‘condoning corruption’ is not legally defensible language cos there’s no evidence of either at this time and it would be a real waste of time and money for you to have to ever defend that language. Much easier to change language to a form of words that conveys what is true. Seems to me the better form of words is ‘there is mounting evidence of incompetence in temp data usage and temp trend creation at BOM’ and ‘Hunts silence to date, given the matter is now in the mainstream media, does indicate neglect on his part’.’
Keep up the good work.
WB,
There is no doubt in my mind that if the years 1880 to 1910 were reinstated, well it would be obvious that the late 1800s were much hotter than anything since for Australia.
The overall trend, when the entire record, unhomogenised and not truncated, is considered, well it is one of cooling. I explain this in my piece to the Sydney Institute with a consideration of just the data for NSW… see Table 1, here… http://jennifermarohasy.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/Changing_Temperature_Data.pdf
As regards use of the word corrupt… it can aptly be applied to what the BOM has done to the temperature data… from my Apple online dictionary…
Corrupt… 2 the apostolic writings had been corrupted: alter, tamper with, interfere with, bastardize, debase, adulterate.
I haven’t accused a single individual of being corrupt.
Thanx Jen I’ll be more focussed in future.
Now that I’m in Ray’s good graces again, I can use the 5-letter F-word, without being sent to cyber Siberia. 🙂
That said, there’s a fraud-detection method that nobody has brought up here — partly because it may be tricky to apply to suspect temperature data. (However it’s easy to apply to suspect financial data, if the data sets are sufficiently large.)
In the late 19th Century, Simon Newcombe was the first scientist to investigate the distribution of first digits in measurement-based data. And no, that distribution is not uniform.
However flim-flam artists tend to assume that it is. And that can be their undoing.
For historical reasons, the distribution of first digits is called (Frank) Benford’s Law. The Wikipedia article on the subject has a section on the forensic use of BL.
Benford’s Law is a bit of a head-scratcher. I’ve written and posted an article about that at HubPages. The mathematics in my post is not overly ferocious — especially for graying scientists and engineers who have used slide rules in their student days. If anyone is interested, I’ll provide a link.
Hi Jen, I have been looking at the records of Gayndah for some years. I picked that because I had some work interest at Biggenden which is not far away and also because Gayndah would be a typical rural location for South East Qld.
In my earlier search i found a) the rainfall record goes back to 1870 b) max &min temps from 1893 c) Stevenson screen installed 1899 c) automatic weather station at airport (1km out from town) on an open grass site operational 2003 d) station at post office closed 2009 (ie six years overlap)
The ACORN record shows that there was no recorded move of the station at the PO
The nearest ACORN stations are Bundaberg (106 km) which is on the coast, Miles (184km) inland and on the other side of the range, and Cape Morton (243 km) on the coast. These 3 have completely different climates.
The adjustments are in order 2003 (merger) =-0.24 min(I found -0.2 for overlap AP from PO), 1979 (statistical) =-0.41 max, 1960 (statistical) =+0.36 max, 1945 (screen) -0.37max, 1932 (statistical) 0.78 min and 1993 (move) -0.36 min but there was no move then and it was a recent adjustment.
I need a closer look at the daily data but I see no reason for any of the adjustments in the monthly data except for UHI at the PO from around 1975 to 2009
In everyday language, corrupt means that it lacks integrity – whether a corrupted computer file, a fraudulent accountant, an academic pushing a line to support a ‘theory’ in which he/she is emotionally invested – whether the corruption be deliberate and dishonest and therefore fraud, or simply misjudged. Corrupt simply means that it cannot be relied upon.
The BOM’s climate claims are corrupt. Of that there is no doubt. BOM has never published any empirical scientific evidence for its claim that HUMAN CO2 caused Earth’s latest modest cyclic globalATMOSPHERIC warming from 1976-1998 (some say 1995).
BTW, Jen, the late Prof Lance Endersbee provided empirical scientific evidence almost a decade ago that rural temperatures in Australia were warmer in 1880/90’s than today.
See page 18, here: http://www.climate.conscious.com.au/__documents/Thriving%20with%20nature%20and%20humanity_single.pdf
Scientist David Archibald showed the same for USA rural temperatures.
More on BOM in Appendix 7, here: http://www.climate.conscious.com.au/CSIROh!.html
It includes correspondence with two directors of BOM. Note that they rely on appeal to authority. It does not cover for their repeated failure to provide empirical scientific evidence.
And Freedom of Information requests showed that from 2005-20113 BOM provided no empirical scientific evidence for its claim to federal MPs.
FOI requests showed CSIRO Chief Executive provided no correspondence to relevant PM’s and ministers at all on climate during those years.
FOI correspondence with BOM and CSIRO here: http://www.climate.conscious.com.au/letters.html
Where is Greg Hunt getting the advice he claims to be getting from BOM and CSIRO?
He claims he relies on UN IPCC. Yet it has never provided any evidence.
[Last few lines deleted, because of direct accusations made against individual. cheers, Jen]
Malcolm Roberts
Thanks Larry, very interesting.
As to the ‘Taming the NNP Monster’ I simply can’t remember the explanation we had when I was in high school but it must have been a good one!
Since Johnathan expressed some interest, here’s a link to my article about Benford’s Law.
http://larryfields.hubpages.com/hub/Frank-Benfords-Law
Cementafriend
Around Gayndah there might also be records from the DPI research station at Brian Pastures
After NIWA was exposed, now we have this in Australia, one begins to wonder just how many countries around the world are using fudged temperature records. Certainly we know that NASA and NOAA are constantly revising old temperature records to show greater warming. These fiddled figures are what goes to make up the NASA and NOAA records. If the truth be known the real global warming that has occurred in the last 150 years is probably only half what we have been told, with the other half being conjured up by homogenisation aka fiddling.
In the context that Jen uses it. . .’ corrupt’ is entirely valid.
However, the word can be used in other contexts and it is one of those words that have other connotations related to human behaviour.
Hence we have entities like ICAC.
Good morning Cementafriend
Biggenden? I was born there. Family farm sold 1976. Gayndah? Went to high school there for Senior (1968-69). I know the area very well. We go back for a visit every now and then but the place has changed in 40 years.
Gayndah Tmax has been warmed (early high temepratures cooled), Tmin has been cooled ( pre 1931 warmed by 0.7-0.8). So it does work both ways.
Hi Ken, by email I asked the local museum at Gayndah if the Stevenson screen was still at the PO and if there was some photos of it in their collection. It seems that the screen was pulled down when the station closed and they had no photos. Maybe you will have some memory of changes in the town such as bitumen in the main street
As an engineer i have some interest in Earthquakes (experienced some in Japan -over 5 on RS, experienced minor tremors around Robertson NSW -including underground, felt the Newcastle one in Sydney,and have seen the damage in Christchurch just after both recent ones) Gayndah is one of the few places inland on the east coast to experience major quakes. One in 1883 of 5.9 on the Richter Scale did major damage in the town and there was a fatality from a quake of 5.4 on the RS in 1935. A house on piers (Queenslander style) is not a safe construction in any area of SE Queensland- also not too good in floods and coastal storm surges from cyclones (eg damage from cyclone Yasi)
Derek Colman
When the truth is told, there may well have been absolutely no global warming over the last 150 years. Rather, there may have been net cooling since the very hot years of the late 1800s.
Larry Fields: nice idea to use Benford’s Law but I doubt if it would prove anything. Benford’s law works when people are making numbers up as when cooking the books in an accounting sense. I suspect BOM has some sort of algorithm for making these readjustments and this would not be detected by Benford’s Law.
They do have an algorithm. . . but seem to have little understanding about when it is & isn’t supposed to be applied ?
Redirected here from a Catallaxy File link having not checked your blog for some months Jennifer.
Nice work, and congratulations on the years spent on and in this field of study.
SAS was selling software to many fed and state, later local govt departments. Might be worth checking with them on inbuilt algorithmns used for inhouse analyses.
Or UNSW maths/stats dept which I recall was the national powerhouse for SAS software and usage.
BOM’s algorithm appears to be: ‘do whatever is needed to fabricate the perception of warming’.
Appendices 7, 6 & ^a here: http://www.climate.conscious.com.au/CSIROh!.html
BS AGW is human made after all – fabricated by humans.
The BoM has put up an analysis of old documents making quite a good circumstantial case for the existence of one and perhaps two station changes at the expected times. You can read it here: http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/change/acorn-sat/rutherglen/rutherglen-station.shtml
Strangely, no comment from Jennifer, perhaps a ‘Hmm, maybe I was wrong…..’
Glenn, not surprisingly Jen has a comment about Rutherglen on her new Rutherglen thread. She’s funny that way.
She also wrote a comment at HotWhopper, on a thread which began yesterday on this very subject and which named and discussed her. Sadly, her comment’s not published there yet.
Maybe it’s been moved to a different paddock.
Similar fudging of data has been done in the U. S. by NASA-GISS and USHCN. These are criminal activities and have cost taxpayers billions in their countries and trillions on a global basis. The offenders should be prosecuted and harshly punished.
James H. Rust, Professor of nuclear engineering
if they added .6 degrees to the pre 1971 Bathurst figures, and temps haven’t gone up since, wouldn’t that make the adjusted trend line slope down?