THROUGH his ongoing study of US weather stations, Anthony Watts has uncovered some remarkable examples of poor placement resulting in a warming bias. I am increasingly of the opinion that the problem in Australia is not so much placement of weather stations, but rather how the data is manipulated post collection. It is also difficult to reconcile the increasing interest in, and funding for, climate related research in Australia with the extraordinary deterioration in the actual recording of data. The important official weather station at Willis Island, off the north east coast of Australia, is a case in point with no recordings made for long periods over recent years.
The following note from Steve Jones explains in some detail his concerns regarding the quality of data collection and processes at the Australian Bureau of Meteorology.
Hi Jennifer,
It is my view that the Australian Bureau of Meteorology is currently tampering with its climate data to fit in with the global warming theory.
Here is a very simple exercise you can do yourself to judge the truth (or otherwise) of my claim:
Go to: Weather Station Data:
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/data/weather-data.shtml Long record temperature sites,
Open (in Microsoft Excel), Click top left box between 1 & A which will highlight all boxes,
Choose: Data, Sort, Column F, OK which will sort them from oldest to newest. Note some have closed so chose ones with the most complete datasets. Also chose ones which are most remote or which you know or figure have been subject to the least change over time e.g. population growth, land clearing etc.
Then go and find them here:
Go to: Climate statistics for Australian sites:
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/averages/tables/ca_site_file_names.shtml
Choose e.g. (in Monthly Statistics when you go back to chose another one), New South Wales, Gunnedah Pool, Monthly statistics, Click (VERY IMPORTANT)under map All Available, then notice Highest temperature, Lowest Maximum Temperature, Lowest Temperature, Highest Minimum Temperature for each month and also note the date in Column ‘Annual’ when the record occurred.
You will notice for Gunnedah that even though the 19th century comprises only 24 out of 132 years of data that (counting 1900) it includes 6 out of 12 of the hottest days and 8 out of 12 of the coldest days! You will also notice that the period 1975 to 2009 when we have been told the world has been warming most and when extremes of weather have been increasing most that NONE of the hottest days have been in that period but 3 of the coldest have been! Since that period comprises b32 out of 132 of the years of data you should expect a like proportion to that of extreme days of all sorts or 24.24% or about one in four (3 out of 12)as we find with the coldest days. But as NONE of the hottest days occurs in that period (though we should expect one quarter of them to – again 3 out of 12)we can only conclude that Gunnedah at least has cooled in the last 32 years! If you look at the four Annual climate extremes for Gunnedah you will see 24 Jan 1882 (hottest), 4 Aug 1921 (lowest maximum), 27 June 1881 (coldest), 2 Jan 1905 (warmest night).
In other words far from extreme weather events increasing recently it has been 87 years since Gunnedah experienced an extreme weather event! Perhaps the REST of Australia (or the world) has warmed and Gunnedah is the exception?
I have looked at a selection of the more remote sites on the Australian Weather Bureau’s site which have long-term records (e.g. Cape Otway Vic ) and found the same pattern i.e. very few of the hottest days have occurred in the period 1975-2008 and a very high proportion of the hottest days occurred in the 19th century.
You have to choose sites which have long-term records comprising the last quarter of the nineteenth century up to 2008 otherwise some relatively warm years recently will appear to be the warmest when they were not. Obviously large cities WILL have warmed because of the urban heat island effect NOT because the climate has changed.
You have to be VERY careful to notice what years have been averaged in the column ‘Years’ as even though the station may have data from e.g. 1869 to 2008, it may be that the data averaged is only 1970-2008 or the like.
Some sites have moved too and so or not very reliable e.g. Melbourne Regional Office has averages from 1855-2008 but the site only BEGAN in 1908 which begs the question of where the earlier data comes from and is it comparable? Even so, for that site (a very warm site because of the huge growth of the city) only two out of 12 of the hottest days were in that period and they were both back in the 1980’s. The three hottest days by a long shot were in 1938-1940. Sydney Observatory has 6 out of 12 of the hottest days in the defined period but no-one would have thought Sydney had not warmed.
Deniliquin is one of the oldest continuous sites: 2 out of 12 hottest days; Bourke 1 out of 12; Boulia 0 out of 12; Marble Bar 3 out of 12.
I suspect what the ‘global warmers’ have done is to chose the average of ALL sites and since few sites have old records the warmest years on record will be quite recent and therefore the average of ALL sites will show the same pattern but ONLY BECAUSE the older data is missing or drowned out by the more recent data. So it will APPEAR as if there has been global warming when in fact there has not been ANY.”
When I went back to check Cape Otway recently I found that suddenly there had been an increase in the warmest days in recent times.
The BOM’s explanation can be found here:
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/cdo/about/about-stats.shtml where they say:
“We will soon finish reprocessing many of the data which are used to calculate the climate statistics. This will improve the quality of the statistical information provided to you. In the meantime, the statistics will be based on the same (updated) datasets as used previously. This will mean: You may find small differences when comparing the superseded (pre 2007) version of the climate statistics with the most recent. These changes are likely to be associated with the calculation process or the removal of unsuitable data. Some of the previously identified climate extremes may disappear in this new product. This is associated with data quality issues.”
I view this behaviour on the part of the BOM as unacceptable and serious.
I tried the internet archive to see if I could get back to the earlier version where pretty much ALL the hottest weather had been long ago at Cape Otway as with Gunnedah which will no doubt soon change too. But you can’t get back to the earlier version.
This process is really creating a new reality.
Another strange thing I noticed about the BOM’s data is this: I was looking for data for where I live (Yinnar, Victoria). You can’t have temperature data only rainfall data. (Incidentally you can’t get average DAILY rainfall data anywhere either which was what I was looking for. It would be very helpful to know e.g. whether the first five days of April are wetter or drier on average e.g. for planning future holidays). I looked at the rainfall data for Yinnar here:
http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/ncc/cdio/weatherData/av?p_nccObsCode=18&p_display_type=dataFile&p_stn_num=085100
when I noticed that 1928 & 9 were incredibly wet (50% more than the greatest BOM recognises (notice 525mm in October!) yet the data for those two years is not included in the averaging or the statistics because there is a month missing from the data (presumably – the Postmaster probably went on holidays!).
The same thing probably happens to the temperature data which would no doubt cause all sorts of distortions to the record.
Cheers,
Steve Jones
Yinnar, Victoria
************************************
Notes
Anthony Watt’s project, started on June 4th 2007, is designed for the express purpose of photographically surveying every one of the 1221 USHCN weather stations in the USA which are used as a “high quality network” to determine near surface temperature trends in the USA. USHCN is a subset of the larger COOP network of stations in the USA, of which there are about 9000. The USHCN subset has been hand picked by the National Climatic Data Center to be more regionally representative due to their placement, length of service and minimum station moves. Unfortunately, the network has fallen into neglect, and the temperature data produced by it is suspect due to microsite biases. See what has been learned so far here in this slide show. http://gallery.surfacestations.org/UCAR-slides/index.html From, http://wattsupwiththat.com/test/
Marked deterioration in Willis Island temperature data quality, December 1, 2007 by Warwick Hughes, http://www.warwickhughes.com/blog/?p=144
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Hey, you want to keep your job at the BOM or the CSIRO?
You keep your head down. Don’t ask too many questions. Toe the party line. And do NOT get caught with a jennifermarohasy.com/blog bookmark on your desktop. It will end your career…literally.
O brave new world!
That has such people in’t!
In other words far from extreme weather events increasing recently it has been 87 years since Gunnedah experienced an extreme weather event! Perhaps the REST of Australia (or the world) has warmed and Gunnedah is the exception?
simple answer: YES.
you are NOT really using a single station to disprove global warming?
The topics here just keep getting more and more abusive.
Steve Jones: “It is my view that the Australian Bureau of Meteorology is currently tampering with its climate data to fit in with the global warming theory”
Lets repeat my simple explaination for Steve before all the crap flows again.
All readings were man made. Reliable measuring with older style thermometers including liquid in glass types is an acquired art. Each instrument had some drawback such as built in range or zero errors. Your typical max/min variety was no exception and every practitioner had their own way of dealing with potential errors in their routine.
http://www.atwimports.com/atw/weather/thermometer/max_min/101001.htm
I suggest a change in either the instrument or it’s monitor is more significant than a small change in location
Gavin
May I suggest you attend some courses in geoststastical sampling theory before you wade further into this topic? It reduces to understanding the difference between intensive and extensive variables, and the application of each to problems.
Supporting Gavin, about thirty years ago, in the very early days of interest in climate history, I had the job of going through some of these C19 records. You needs to realise that the “practitioners” were not experts. They were usually postmasters, or lighthouse keepers (or members of their families). They were not expert in instrument placement or reading.The numbers themselves were no big deal. They were handwritten into a log book, and generally not looked at again for 100 years or so. No-one paid particular attention to extreme numbers, except maybe in an exceptional heat wave. People made mistakes writing the figures, and some are hard to read. There were lots of missing readings.
That’s part of the data quality issue that the BoM has been dealing with over the years. It’s real. I suspect it’s also why you see so many extremes from that time. Many will simply be mistakes.
Nick,
And how would you explain all the missing values over the last 5 or so years from Willis Island?
See http://www.warwickhughes.com/blog/?p=144
For those unfamiliar with reading this sort of data 999.9 represents a missing value and Willis Island is considered a key station for the Bureau.
“you are NOT really using a single station to disprove global warming?”
No sodoff – he’s already pointed out others that appear to have the same problem and he’s not saying Global Warming isn’t happening (strawman) he’s saying the BoM is corrupt!
BTW – I’ve checked out my area’s measuring stations and they pass IMO. I don’t think we have the same kind of problem Anthony has found in the US – but we both have humans deciphering the data.
Steve I may have old BOM data should I go look?
“And how would you explain all the missing values over the last 5 or so years from Willis Island?”
Nick doesn’t have to explain it, the BOM collects the data, I would ask them before making accusations of fraud. Disgraceful. Absolutely disgraceful. When did they stop beating their wives?
SJT, You don’t have to explain but how is it possible that there can be so many missing values for Willis Island in the last few years? Have you had a look at that page of data at the website here http://www.warwickhughes.com/blog/?p=144
If the BOM has an answer they should let us know. One of the government types that reads this site should find out.
“I view this behaviour on the part of the BOM as unacceptable and serious. ”
oooooo – wah !
What a clown. This turkey has obviously never worked with real climate data networks in his life.
“You can’t have temperature data only rainfall data” So?
NEXT !
Dennis – Why not use a device called the “telephone” and ask. Or even get high tech and send them an “electronic mail message”.
“..the extraordinary deterioration in the actual recording of data.”
Have you any evidence at all for this claim? It’s your forum,feel free to build a detailed case.
“You needs to realise that the “practitioners” were not experts. They were usually postmasters, or lighthouse keepers (or members of their families). They were not expert in instrument placement or reading.The numbers themselves were no big deal. They were handwritten into a log book, and generally not looked at again for 100 years or so.”
Nick,
It’s my experience that these ordinary people doing ordinary jobs, religiously do it well.
It’s often their reason for existence.
I’ve been recording this way all my life. Rainfall, temperature etc. and the data is as good or better than any other.
Certainly better than AWS.
Why should a century or so of these human observations need “adjusting”?
Going back to the post war2 period, it seems the guys went fishing for dinner in between. It’s a great story. See some instrument history there too
http://www.austehc.unimelb.edu.au/fam/0612.html
Louis “May I suggest you attend some courses in geoststastical sampling theory”
Mate; when I worked for various mines we had some bright metalurgists, eager drillers and real instruments, Now you can pop right back down your hole but don’t smoke because I can smell the drift.
No SJT – it’s the wife is OK here, but beaten here. Can you explain why the wife was beaten?
wow – I should control /refresh more often
Nick, Luke, SJT,
Can you just let me know what you honestly think about all the missing data for the Willis Island site? http://www.warwickhughes.com/blog/?p=144
This is a blog, feel free to defend the missing values, but please, lets stay on topic, lets not just mindlessly jump to the defense of the BOM. Let’s explore the implications of the publicly available data set for Willis Island.
Why should a century or so of these human observations need “adjusting”?
exactly – these people lived in a fully disciplined society and would have done the task.
It the bogons of today we have to watch 🙂
It’s clear Spanglers that you’ve never had to work with a population of stations from the real world. Not all readers are conscientious as yourself. Errors can be made – like transcribing 1 and 4. 14 becomes 41. Somewhat unlikely when all surrounding stations were in the range of 10 to 17. Bearings in anemometers can start to seize – you won’t know until you have a time series to see the downturn in trend. Anyone who has seriously raked over historical records will have heaps of war stories. Any “adjusting” is the best one can feasibly do in terms of error screening. I wouldn’t give two bob for any data set that didn’t have some serious error filtering.
Come on Jen this is pretty amateurish – the missing data are in a GISS data set, not necessarily BoM’s final database. Maybe GISS missed some updates on “a” station. Hardly critical in a global analysis.
In any case an email to BoM should clear it up. Instead of constructing conspiracies why not make some initial inquiries. Quite often a stuff-up is much easier than a conspiracy.
“This is a blog, feel free to defend the missing values, but please, lets stay on topic, lets not just mindlessly jump to the defense of the BOM. Let’s explore the implications of the publicly available data set for Willis Island.”
How about instead of conjuring up as many conspiracies as your imagination can create, you just ask the BOM what they think happened? Topics like this can only bring shame and disrepute on the organisation you represent.
“Quite often a stuff-up is much easier than a conspiracy.”
so you are calling Hanlon’s Razor – “Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity”
not like you.
Jennifer,
Willis Island is an uninhabited atoll, 400 km from land. Data is recorded using electronic equipment. It’s a far cry from these C19 handwritten readings. It’s just one of a very large number of BoM stations. And now, as in C19, the collection of data has a number of priorities – climate science is not chief among them, and the urgencies of climate bloggers even further down the list.
I can’t see the reason for the fuss. Warwick has obtained a computer-prepared set of monthly averages which, in its original form, seems to have recorded a missing monthly average whenever any entry in that month was unavailable. Well, that’s the sort of thing computers do. It doesn’t mean there is no information – you just need to do a bit of processing, which was evidently done for the second set. That processing evidently failed too for some months.
Remote station equipment does sometimes fail to return data for various reasons. You’ll notice a lot of missing data (in WH’s first set) in the original set following Cyclone Larry in March 2006. You can look at the recent daily data here. I imagine somewhere there is a record by the hour at least, and here they record 9am and 3pm readings. For the current month (March 2009) there are two missing 3pm readings. One is on Mar 6. which is when Cyclone Hamish was about. That’s the initial report – if someone wants to look further, there may well be data for adjacent time periods.
Jen you know me in person and could have passed on my email address – alternatively anybody who would like information about climate data or access to any climate data need only email webclim@bom.gov.au .
Willis Island has no observations for a period of 23 months which coincides with the demolition of the old weather station and its replacement by a new weather station – during much of this period the island was uninhabited. Since the renovation the data are complete.
The other points are rehashes of what has been explained many times before, but feel free to contact webclim if you would like an explanation.
David,
fair enough. Could you please tell us how this missing data is handled statistically, or, has the station been dropped from computing trends??
The station is not currently used for trends (such as shown here http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/silo/reg/cli_chg/trendmaps.cgi?variable=tmean®ion=aus&season=0112&period=1900) – but will be in future as we improve the description of trends in remote areas. One simply calculates trends using with the missing data. The statistics for doing this are trivial.
I will not respond to any further points. This forum and particularly this thread is not an appropriate place for scientific discussion.
janama: Hanlon’s Razor – “Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity”
Then there is Porter Clark’s Law “sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice.”
I sure hope somebody has an original record of the raw data. I even helped collect some of it.
As I’ve said before, if we need extreme statistical techniques to detect “trends”, likely nothing of significance is going on. That about sums up the whole climate science field right now.
Sure hope you did some simultaneous comparisons of the new Willis Island station with the old. I guess not, from what you say.
There is considerable irony here from our good friends luke, nick and little will, not to mention David’s condescesion and departure; it may be time to do a thread on the antics, obfuscations, manipulations and adjustements made to climate data by the pro-AGW crowd; this is a topical start;
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=1492
Going further afield there is this;
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/05/13/ushcn-version-2-prelims-expectations-and-tests/
and this;
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/05/02/a_tale_of_two_thermometers/
Then there are the dozens of site ‘problems’ found by our very own Johnny Appleseed, Watts, with the station siting by the official US agencies but, for Nick, here is my favourite Watt’s expose of the shortcomings of the ‘experts’ compared with the defects caused by the little folk;
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/09/23/adjusting-pristine-data/#more-3208
Now who among the assembled throng of warmers is going to mount a defence of anything Mann has done with data; please feel free to start with the Steig et al paper.
“There is considerable irony here from our good friends luke, nick and little will, not to mention David’s condescesion and departure; it may be time to do a thread on the antics, obfuscations, manipulations and adjustements made to climate data by the pro-AGW crowd; this is a topical start;”
You are a mendacious, vindictive coward, Cohenite. A serious charge has been made of the BOM, without even giving them the right of reply. A typical “When did you stop beating your wife” attack. Reasonable explanations have been given as to why there was a problem with the data. That isn’t good enough, it is only a reason to make more baseless attacks on the BOM. All data is problematic, as the explanation showed.
I repeat, this sort of topic, with it’s grimy, sensationalist approach and total lack of natural justice, asking the BOM for their point of view before publishing it, only serves to further the cause of ignorance and anti-science.
* It reflects badly on the IPA, as an organistion that sponsors such a malicious and mendacious attack.
* It denigrates honest scientists
* It furthers the cause of ignorance and chaos with it’s abuse of science.
* It denies natural justice, publishing any rumour, no matter how baseless, with no attempt to find out the other side of the story.
* Having done all this, the job of smearing has worked, no matter that the BOM has a reasonble reason for the data gathering propblems, the headline is what people will remember.
I would expect Jennifer to apologise to the BOM, to the IPA, and to her readers.
Oh yes, little will, a grave injustice has been done; how lucky BoM is to have steadfast, honest defenders like you; fortunately I have downloaded a considerable amount of BoM data such as the RCS info so subsequent ‘changes’ are irrlevant; here in the Hunter Valley I did a survey of many of the locations; from Nobbys to Jerry’s Plains, to Scone [Philip st], all with lengthy records, I found none had temp records consistent with AGW; in fact many showed cooling over the 20thC.
So, little will, let me make my position clear; the data and information trundled out to support AGW from all sources is always suspect and tainted and your high moral tone is both typical and ridiculous.
When an institution is dominated by an entrenched orthodoxy, whether political, cultural or so-called scientific, the workers within such a system must conform to their institution’s worldview in order to secure their career paths.
To conform the worker must ask the “correct” questions, which yield answers that only confirm the orthodoxy. Steve Jones has asked all the wrong questions.
The plastic quality of human conscious self-awareness and its ability to create whole cultures based on demonstrably empirical falsehoods means that no conspiracy theory is required to explain the BOM’s biased manipulation of data. Quite the opposite, a conspiracy requires rational self-awareness and that is exactly what the BOM as a technocratic institutional culture lacks. At least until now.
Who here really thinks that David cognitively understands the misinformation he regularly posts here as an effort to deceive? There was no conspiracy. Honest workers, (like David) at the BOM are true believers in AGW, if they weren’t they would be either “in the closet” or shunted to dead end desks.
BOM workers do not (yet) consciously manipulate data to support their institution’s holistic orthodoxy. It simply only occurs to them to ask the questions that will fortify The Truth, which is already safely within their possession and beyond all doubt.
Yet as Eyrie notes, don’t rule out a malicious response when challenging the dogma-based assumptions of such an institution. By exposing the unconscious bias of the BOM, the bias becomes no longer an innocent act of enthusiasm.
Now is when the conspiracies begin.
Lesson: KEEP all OLD DATA records on your PC!!!
The Australian might be interested in this should not someone advise them?
Jennifer, it would have been better if you had never made this post. I suspect that Jones (Steve not David) is on to something in a general sense, but his very amateur maths and allegations of conspiracies detract from anyone taking the issue seriously, and now here we are haring off after Willis Island when there appears to be a fairly simple explanation as to why there is missing data. Someone should have made the phone call before publishing.
I agree with Jones that eyeballing the data, the longest established weather stations don’t appear to show any significant change in temperature, and that there would ideally be a lot more of these stations, as a proportion, in our current temperature record. What I suggested in a previous thread was that you take the data from these stations and construct an alternate index of temperature from these stations. A simple average would do.
If the average of these stations shows no trend or change, then there is a basis for progressing this discussion. Otherwise there isn’t. It’s just going to be eye-balling, cherry-picking ad hominems, at the best.
“Oh yes, little will, a grave injustice has been done; how lucky BoM is to have steadfast, honest defenders like you; fortunately I have downloaded a considerable amount of BoM data such as the RCS info so subsequent ‘changes’ are irrlevant; here in the Hunter Valley I did a survey of many of the locations; from Nobbys to Jerry’s Plains, to Scone [Philip st], all with lengthy records, I found none had temp records consistent with AGW; in fact many showed cooling over the 20thC.”
Once again, moving the goal posts, your favourite tactic. Are you a lawyer or something?
re “Jennifer, it would have been better if you had never made this post”. Unfortunately the internet is a democracy and the truth will out eventually…
Nick Stokes says: “Willis Island is an uninhabited atoll, 400 km from land. Data is recorded using electronic equipment. It’s a far cry from these C19 handwritten readings.”
Re: Willis I’ from: http://www.austehc.unimelb.edu.au/fam/0601.html –
“The current staffing at the station is normally four, being three Technical Officers (Observer), one of whom is Officer-in-Charge, and one Technical Officer (Electronic Engineering).
The three observing staff maintain an almost 24 hour observations coverage. A Micromac Automatic Weather Station (AWS) sends out hourly observations of wind speed and direction, temperature, dewpoint, pressure and rainfall. Every three hours the observers add cloud, visibility and weather details to make up a full synoptic report.
Rainfall is measured by a standard rain gauge, a Dines tilting syphon pluviograph and tipping bucket rain gauge linked to the AWS. Wind observations use a Dines pressure tube anemograph, which provides a record of winds up to 200 knots (370 km/h).
Upper air radar wind flights are performed four times each day using a hydrogen filled balloon and an attached radar target of foil covered foam. These are followed to heights of over 20 000 metres using a WF100 radar and a computer based console (PC RADWIN). At 9am, the normal 100 g balloon is replaced by a 350 g balloon and a radiosonde is attached to the train. Besides the winds, this flight provides details of pressure, temperature and humidity through the atmosphere.”
For a remote weather station with a full time staff of 4 whose only purpose is to take weather data, having major gaps in the temperature data does require some explanation.
Hi Graham, David and others,
1. To use renovations as an excuse for not collecting data at Willis Island is a further illustration of the apparent deterioration in the level of commitment at the Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) to the important job of collecting and collating basic weather data. There is absolutely no reason why the BOM could not, for example, have put a second weather station at the island while they repaired/renovated the original weather station. I understand there is even a games room at the island – perhaps the Bureau’s staff could have bunked down there while their rooms were being renovated.
2. The issue of data collection and collation at the BOM over recent years has been raised before at this blog and has been an issue with Warwick Hughes for some time. I certainly communicate with BOM staff offline and it has been my experience offline that I often get an earful of AWG mantra that I am told can be published, while the useful information is usually provided on the basis it is not published at this blog – it is often provided in confidence.
3. As regards the approach used by Steve Jones to understanding the climate data, while it was basic, he was having a go, and he was upfront about his methodology. While I appreciate there are more sophisticated techniques, they can perhaps follow. Steve Jones did ask useful questions. Now can David have a go at answering his questions at this thread, please.
“Now can David have a go at answering his questions at this thread, please.”
David, when are you going to stop beating your wife?
PS. I understand Steve Jones did phone the BOM regarding his concerns, and all he got was confirmation that they are altering the records.
I am sure that BOM standards are high, but it would be better if there was some type of independent audit.
It is worrying when an authority as respected as Prof David Karoly refers to Laverton, vic.
as a “high quality rural site”. (recently in a Real Climate post about Vic bush fires, he
compared Laverton to Melbourne to prove there was no UHI component in Melbourne’s
record high temp.)
I havnt seen the Laverton recording station myself, but if it is at the aerodrome then
it is far from being a “high quality rural site”. The aerodrome is a training college which
has been expanded itself, and the drome is surround on 3 sides by recently developed
industry and an 8-lane freeway.
Jen:
“Now can David have a go at answering his questions at this thread, please.”
Sorry Jen, but he’s already got you and your crowd bang to rights:
“I will not respond to any further points. This forum and particularly this thread is not an appropriate place for scientific discussion.”
You got served. Suck it up.
FBD, This forum has a huge and diverse audience including thousands of Australians with a particular interest in climate change and climate data – so why would he be so coy?
“FBD, This forum has a huge and diverse audience including thousands of Australians with a particular interest in climate change and climate data – so why would he be so coy?”
You just keep digging in deeper.
“Now can David have a go at answering his questions at this thread, please.”
Is David the BOM bloke who occasionally posts entertaining AGW folklore here?
Like this howler on January 29 th at 7:41 am:
“(Michael) Mann analysis has been replicated many times over.”
It’s true…by his mum. David also makes clairvoyant weather forecasts… January 28 th at 7:15 pm:
“…Adelaide looking at another 1 in 1000 year heatwave with no end in site to its run of 40s.”
How’s he know that? The man is teleconnected. Or this list of observations by David:
“Record low Arctic sea ice, a rapidly warming Antarctic, ice bergs the size of countries falling off the Antarctic Peninsula, sea levels at record high levels, the 12 year drought soon to turn 13, Murray River to be replaced by sand south of Murray Bridge,….”
AGW bias confirmed at the BOM?
Utter nonsense. Sometimes the rubbish you find on this blog is just shocking!
http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2009/01/high-profile-meteorologist-declares-himself-a-sceptic-and-slams-climate-models/?cp=all
Why would David be coy? indeed.
I’m about to retract part of my comment above. After Walter’s post I accept that there does appear to be good reason to question why Willis Island has missing data, and if David Jones won’t answer the questions here, then maybe someone should ask for the answers in Parliament, or estimates committee. They’re not scientific bodies either, but it might have escaped David, this isn’t just a scientific issue. We spend all that money to maintain a station to collect extensive data and then they can’t collect the data properly. Whatever your position on global warming you ought to be incensed about that.
Having said that, I don’t think the missing data sustains any sort of conspiracy. It’s the data that isn’t missing from the long-standing stations, that suggests something is amiss, but to date no-one on this thread has done anymore than eye-ball it, including me.
“David also makes clairvoyant weather forecasts”
Wes; I would rather “David the clairvoyant” than some of the nondescript bums round here. After all, he’s the one with the figures that matter.
On another thread I reckoned that I could write a whole chapter on the individual perception of instrument errors. In the end it comes down to exactly what each one wants to believe.
“On another thread I reckoned that I could write a whole chapter on the individual perception of instrument errors. In the end it comes down to exactly what each one wants to believe.”
Um, I’m not sure that’s the best way to defend the objectivity or accuracy of the BOM data.
The question I asked at Warwicks blog remains relevant and unanswered.
“I assume that the additional numbers, after the first 12 in each annual string, are for Jan Feb Mar Apl & May of the following year. But if this is the case then why don’t the last 5 numbers at the end of each string reconcile with the first 5 numbers in the next year’s string?
For example, we have
1994 J29.1 F29.1 M28.5 A26.3 M25.7 J999.9 J23.3 A23.3 S24.4 O25.9 N26.6 D26.9 J28.7 F26.8 M23.5 A25.6 M26.15
But for 1995 we have
1995 J = 27.8, not the 28.7 indicated above, F = 28.5, not the 26.8 indicated above, M = 27.7, not the 23.5 indicated above, A = 27.1, not the 25.6 indicated above, and May = 25.8, not the26.15 indicated above. The rest of the 1995 string is J999.9 J23.7 A999.9 S24.5 O26.0 N27.5 D28.3 J27.7 F26.9 M999.9 A26.0 M26.18.
Yet, in 1996 the string goes,
1996 J28.3 F27.6 but March = 27.5 instead of the “999.9″ indicated in the string above. The rest of that string goes, A27.3 M26.0 J24.8 J23.3 A24.0 S24.3 O26.0 N27.2 D28.4 J28.1 F26.9 M24.0 A25.8 M26.22.
But even more curiously, in 1997 there is a non-record for the month of March despite the fact that there is a record in the previous year’s string. It goes;
1997 J = 28.0 instead of the 28.1 in the record above, F = 28.1 instead of the 26.9 in the string above, and M = 999.9 instead of the 24.0 in the string above, A = 25.7 instead of the 25.8 in the record above and M = 25.1 instead of the 26.22 in the string above. The rest of the string goes, J24.1 J23.7 A23.1 S23.7 O24.7 N26.2 D28.2 J28.2 F25.9 M23.6 A24.9 and M25.63.
The two questions are;
1 why the variances? and
2 why did they not use the March 1997 record from the previous 1996 string to fill in the non-record for March 1997 in the 1997 string?
This would tend to indicate that the problem is not in the data sets themselves but, rather, in the BoM software, or even, in the software between certain BoM staffs ears.
It is doubly curious now that the minister in charge of BoM is also the Minister for Climate Truth.”
“I havnt seen the Laverton recording station myself, but if it is at the aerodrome then
it is far from being a “high quality rural site”. The aerodrome is a training college which
has been expanded itself, and the drome is surround on 3 sides by recently developed
industry and an 8-lane freeway.”
You have no idea, have you? The eight lane freeway is several kilometers away.
Richard Hill; Karoly is an alarmist of the worst kind; the issue of UHI and Melbourne and BoM fiddling with UHI data has been around for a long time as this little piece shows;
http://www.warwickhughes.com/climate/gissbom.htm
Here is another one;
http://www.warwickhughes.com/blog/?p=195
“It is doubly curious now that the minister in charge of BoM is also the Minister for Climate Truth.””
The BoM upgrade of the site was done under the funding and ministerial oversight of the Howard Government.
All data collection has problems. Get used to it.
“I’m about to retract part of my comment above. After Walter’s post I accept that there does appear to be good reason to question why Willis Island has missing data, and if David Jones won’t answer the questions here, then maybe someone should ask for the answers in Parliament, or estimates committee. They’re not scientific bodies either, but it might have escaped David, this isn’t just a scientific issue. We spend all that money to maintain a station to collect extensive data and then they can’t collect the data properly. Whatever your position on global warming you ought to be incensed about that.”
“Incensed”? Oh, please.
‘All data collection has problems. Get used to it.’
Leaving aside the issue of lack of transparency of why and how BoM (and USHCN, Hadley, GISS..) “adjust” raw data, the comments from people here claiming experience in managing data simply reinforces that there is uncertainty in the surface datasets, especially for representing long term trends. I’m sure no honest scientist in the field would deny (in private) that uncertainty. However this knowledge does not seem to prevent high priests from the likes of NOAA, Hadley, BoM from making public statements such as “2008 was the 8th warmest on record” (or whatever the number – you get my drift). These statements are made with absolute certainty. They are part of a deliberate strategy to mislead the public as to the certainty of our knowledge of climate.
The idea of constructing an alternate index from the data is great. I would tip into the hat for such a project.
A recent paper estimates a UHI effect of 0.1C per decade;
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2008/2008JD009916.shtml
The paper is by well known AGWer Jones; the population of Melbourne in 1939 was about 1.2million; now it is 3.8million; the recent Black Saturday heatwave peaked at about 47.5C in Melbourne; the 1939 Black Friday heatwave at about 46.8C; that’s about 0.7C over the 70 years during which time Melbourne tripled in size.
“In the end it comes down to exactly what each one wants to believe.”
I’m shocked! Gavin and I agree… The evidence for the AGW hypothesis suffers from low-sigma. This could be the start of an enduring friendship. Or not.
The fact to which few ever speak is that the historic levels of uncertainty in the measuring and adjusting technologies are as large or larger than the warming signal the AGW hypothesis predicts! After all, weather stations were never designed to confirm or falsify climatological theories that depend on T measurements to 0.05c over periods of decades.
Could this equivocal sigma problem lie at the heart of the desire to endlessly wring adjusted temperature records until the evidence conforms to the hypothesis rather than the other way around?
And if the BOM was really interested the levels of accuracy that are now obtainable, why the later-day stuff-ups? We are told the whole future the planet, much less the Great Barrier Reef, depends on getting it right. Yet the accuracy of modern data seems roughly about the same as 1910 when gin-soaked postmasters and lighthouse keepers scribbled numbers in soiled notebooks, albeit for an utterly different set of reasons.
either way the satellites say that the southern hemisphere has maintained a steady temperature for the past 30 years.
Laverton is a well located site as far as I can see.
http://users.tpg.com.au/johnsay1/Stuff/laverton.jpg The freeway is 1.4k away.
Actually, Lazlo beat me to the punch line:
“Leaving aside the issue of lack of transparency of why and how BoM (and USHCN, Hadley, GISS..) “adjust” raw data, the comments from people here claiming experience in managing data simply reinforces that there is uncertainty in the surface datasets, especially for representing long term trends. I’m sure no honest scientist in the field would deny (in private) that uncertainty. However this knowledge does not seem to prevent high priests from the likes of NOAA, Hadley, BoM from making public statements such as “2008 was the 8th warmest on record” (or whatever the number – you get my drift). These statements are made with absolute certainty. They are part of a deliberate strategy to mislead the public as to the certainty of our knowledge of climate.
“It’s the data that isn’t missing from the long-standing stations”
A recent poster raised the question of Laverton and UHI. When I worked around the refinery, Laverton could be good entertainment. I recall in particular one week the RAF had a Vulcan A bomber stationed there to impress our buyers with a potential replacement for the RAAF Canberra. Every time the thing took off Laverton was covered in black smoke but it was a long way away from the newer township of Altona. Our work then was installing and commissioning emissions monitoring systems across the entire industrial sector. Checking temperatures on worksites during hot days could result in an early knock off for most of the outside crew. Official temperatures were the only ones that counted though. .5C was the difference between a cold beer or a long sweat. For those who don’t know the area, its between several BoM stations.
Canberra
When this AGW issue seemed to fail on your (the mob here) acceptance or otherwise of old BoM records as the basis of our long term temp trends I searched and found charts such as they were for the local airports back home and was much surprised by the apparent mess. Reacting before thinking (at first it seemed a disaster) I wondered what the blokes that I probably went to school with in a few cases had been up to in their field of employment all those years ago. I concluded it had much to do with the methods of the day and nearly wept at the apparent wastage in such loyal effort.
David’s lot have some real problems today but once you realise what can go wrong historically even with the very best intentions employed at the time, the data recovery work can start to be effective. BTW imo we are only considering errors around 2% of range in the main and say a 1C zero error for linear thermometers in general.
For those who are really bothered by UHI concepts, 1) I never used a screen. 2) north side v Southside reflected heat from a large silver vessel is hardly measurable if your air temperature bulb remains within your own shadow for the duration of the test. 3) my max/min hangs in a corner outside the kitchen window. 4) it agrees with local BoM stations most times provided I ignore the max/min floats and average the Hg thread on both sides of the U tube.
Ooops, should have deleted the odd word ‘Canberra’ after “its between several BoM stations”.
“I’m sure no honest scientist in the field would deny (in private) that uncertainty. ”
They don’t deny it in public, either.
Ian Mott
The answer is that the 17 numbers are – 12 monthly averages, 4 seasonal averages and an annual.
“I’m sure no honest scientist in the field would deny (in private) that uncertainty. ”
SJT: ‘They don’t deny it in public, either.’
Sure – the honest ones.
Wes George,
I think most of the uncertainty and hence picking of nits might be obviated if meterologists etc presented the data in terms of absolute temperature and not as temperature anomalies (data with an predefined average subtracted from them).
That the variation is within an envelope of +/- 0.5 Kelvin, close to the limit of accuracy of the recording instruments, tells me that much ado is being made about serial correlations of ‘ noise”.
Of course if the data were presented in degrees (C or F) then an eyeballing of the graph would suggest that its boring as bat turds.
Personally I don’t think the BOM people are willfully manipulating the data and what we are observing is simply human fraility under the phenomenon of the “herd instinct”.
Reminds me of an anecdote Michael Talbot recounted in his book “The Holograhic Universe” in which students were individually asked to state whether a statement was true or false (the statement was false by design). Alone they admitted it was false, but when then asked to repeat their assessment among a group of fellow students which had decided the statement was true, the previous “it was false” sayers changed their tune to agreed with their peers that it was true.
I think what we are observing in the BOM, subject of this thread, is this peer pressure in operation and from what I remember from Talbot’s work, it was also a subconscious act.
Peer Pressure – is this the ultimate basis for “Peer Review”?
I apologise for the poor quality of my previous post. I dont know where the BOM recording station for Laverton is precisely located at the moment. Perhaps it is now at the Point Cook airfield which is some kilometers away. However, if it is at the Laverton Aerodrome, which it was some years ago, then the facts about the Laverton Aerodrome can be confirmed from Google maps. The Google maps are a bit out of date. You can get a better idea by looking at a recent Mebourne Street Directory. I was wrong, the 8 lane freeway is not directly adjacent to the drome. it is about 200m. away on the south side. I drive on this freeway quite often and i can clearly see the airfield and the many buildings on it. Because it is on the south side the freeway would not have infuenced the recent record temp reading which was on a north wind day. However, the north wind approaches the the Laverton aerodrome over a recently developed industrial area. This includes a steel mill, a chemical plant and a large quarry and associated concrete product manuacturing plant. (and a prison).
I recently flew past Laverton in a Jetstar A320 on the way home from the Avalon airshow. The area around Laverton is extremely built up now.
I also flew at low altitude from Benalla to Tocumwal and Tocumwal – Narromine in mid January. There’s lots less irrigation north and south of the Murray river compared to the 1980’s. Back then the irrigation areas had their own mesoclimates complete with strong “lake breezes” which inhibited convection during the late afternoon. I doubt that that happens now just from looking at the dry ground. This may well be a reason for lack of record temperatures from pre WW2 to now in the Melbourne area. Think land use not CO2.
“I doubt that that happens now just from looking at the dry ground. This may well be a reason for lack of record temperatures from pre WW2 to now in the Melbourne area. Think land use not CO2.”
Think positive feedback.
SJT –
” Disgraceful. Absolutely disgraceful. When did they stop beating their wives?”
That’s easy. They didn’t!
Exactly, this is not about science. What it is about is something very distasteful.
Richard Hill – I posted a picture of the Laverton station above. The freeway is 1.4K away- the exact coordinates for the station are on the picture – type them into google and see for yourself – the google picture is from 2006.
“Exactly, this is not about the science. What it is about is something very distasteful.”
Yes, social engineering;
http://www.csiro.au/news/GREENHOUSE-09-table-talk.html
“Yes, social engineering;”
Once again, moving the goal posts. You are a one trick pony, Cohenite.
David Jones as servant of the public, and employee of the BOM is entitled to choose with whom he engages in discussions with. He states that he is no longer engaging with this blog because, he asserts, it is not about the science–as he sees it.
The bigger questions however are:
1. What are the objectives of the BOM.
2. What performance measures,or KPI’s, is the BOM subject to, that relate to these objectives
3. When did it last produce an Annual Report to Parliament that contains its achievements against these objectives and measures.
4 . The Auditer General may audit the financial systems of the BOM, but who or what audits the performance of the BOM in the Technical and Operational sense.
5. What specifically is the BOM’s role in deciding the science as declared by Jones, ie is that his job?
Speaking of ponies, here is BoM’s attitude towards evidence contrary to AGW;
http://www.fotosearch.com/bigcomp.asp?path=LIQ/LIQ102/vl0001b034.jpg
Look at ’em froth. What a trumped up little kangaroo court of faux sceptics. Malcolm – why don’t you find out about your questions then? Gee Mally – maybe there’s a really big conspiracy going on – maybe they’re out of control Mal? Maybe there’s a central bunker where it’s all planned.
ooooo wah ! Oh diddums. Could be headline stuff Mal. ROTFL !
I reckon an inquiry would be good – I’m sure the economic rationalists would close most of the met stations down. Let’s save some money. Just like most of the nation’s research stations are being closed. Then you clowns wouldn’t have anything to complain about.
All over a GISS – YES THAT”S GISS – data set.
Want a real conspiracy – read Guy Pearse’s latest expose on lobbyists !
http://www.quarterlyessay.com/qe/currentissue/
The usual cretinous carry on by that obsessive clown Luke Walker.
Again in true to fashion he hasnt bothered to read just blather on like the goat.
At least he is consistent.
“I don’t think the BOM people are willfully manipulating the data and what we are observing is simply human fraility under the phenomenon of the “herd instinct”.
Good point, Louis. David and all his mates at the BOM know AGW is happening big time. “The 1 in 1,000 year drought in Adelaide” this summer reveals far more about the BOM mindset than David imagines. He has lost his scientific objectivity.
AGW is the axiom of nature that animates the BOM’s institutional culture. The debate is over. The science is done.
So the fact that the collection of T data with all the modern tools at our disposal isn’t of higher quality than in the mid-20 th century is no worry at the BOM.
The BOM doesn’t attempt to collect more accurate data in order to confirm or falsify the AGW hypothesis because in their culture AGW isn’t a hypothesis but a scholastic dogma. The AGW hypothesis doesn’t need confirmation, it needs a hermeneutic exegesis.
The BOM finds it annoying that the old Gavin-like codgers out there found reading thermometers so bewildering, otherwise the AGW signal would be as plain as Mann’s hockey stick. Finding the AGW signal that we KNOW must be in the T-record is a bit like interpreting the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Solution: Adjust the historic data to what we know it should be, had it been measured correctly in the first place. Obviously, such rocket science is well beyond the intellectual grasp of hoi polloi. Thus there is no need for transparency in the process.
This is essentially a postmod version of scholasticism. The BOM is conducting a program of mathematical “dialectic reasoning” between the AGW hypothesis and the T record in order to smooth out the contradictions. It’s not science but statistical philology.
“Speaking of ponies, here is BoM’s attitude towards evidence contrary to AGW;”
Moving the goal posts again. Time to get some more tricks up your sleeve, this one is getting boring.
“So the fact that the collection of T data with all the modern tools at our disposal isn’t of higher quality than in the mid-20 th century is no worry at the BOM.”
And how do you know this? Any evidence other than your prejudices? David said, this isn’t about science anymore, and comments like yours only prove him to be right, as do topics like this.
How do I know this?
You answered your own question: “David said, this isn’t about science anymore…”
He’s right.
“You answered your own question: “David said, this isn’t about science anymore…””
He was talking about this blog, but you already knew that. Stop playing word games. What is the evidence for your claim?
Wes,
Who is SJT commenting to? Himself? Again?
AGW is about a massive wealth transfer from the western to the underdeveloped world via the UN. It was never about science. The AGW adherents specifically stated this.
Remember AGW is not only a belief system but also a political agenda run by the nation states. I had a chat to David Evans the other night and the conclusion was that it’s all about money.
“Remember AGW is not only a belief system but also a political agenda run by the nation states. I had a chat to David Evans the other night and the conclusion was that it’s all about money.”
Thank you Louis, you have created a new standard of evidence, two people chatting to each other.
Thank you Nick Stokes, it now makes sense.
What is it about the internet that encourages this sort of rhetoric?:
“AGW is the axiom of nature that animates the BOM’s institutional culture.”
“The AGW hypothesis doesn’t need confirmation, it needs a hermeneutic exegesis.”
Why would-and indeed how could-anyone from BOM engage with this self-indulgent pamphleteering?
The fact that the BOM’s institutional culture is “animated” by the need to maintain and operate an extensive observation system and provide a large number of community information services clearly ain’t sexy enough.
Nick is correct:
“The fact that the BOM’s institutional culture is “animated” by the need to maintain and operate an extensive observation system and provide a large number of community information services clearly ain’t sexy enough.”
Wes, sturdy as your efforts are , Louis shows how liberating full-blown paranoia can be. Perhaps y’all can set up a menage a trois with David Evans at the Principality of Hutt River and formally print your own intellectual currency on a souvenir tea-towel.
Face it Wes – you’re among friends here with your right wing goon squad, astroturfers and retired geologists. Though I had to get the thesaurus out after the 2nd last rant to translate. I think it meant “I’m really clueless but want to sound important”.
Mate – have you any idea what you’re on about. But it is clear though you’re on something. Keep taking them.
It’s ironic isn’t it – under Kininmonth (now the defender of truth, light, coal mining and the WMC ashes) you couldn’t get any data out of BoM. So in the David Jones-ian Renaissance era you sceptics have never had it so good. Web accessible data galore.
I reckon David should devolve us back from the late Holocene Internet available period back to the Kinimonthian Cretaceous period. An impenetrable bureaucratic primordial soup – the good ol’ days.
Nothing like the BoM database to get the conspiracy wankers off and on the way to an earthquake harmonic. Jeez I was down the pub last night and everyone was saying “gee isn’t that new BoM database a disgrace” “Did you know that there are actually MISSING VALUES in there”.
Holey doley. Time for a Royal Commission.
Droll Nick. Nevertheless, your silence speaks louder than your wit.
I love it when Luke posts comments in complete sentences. He’s so hot!
xxx
Nick,
Full blown paranoia? Your post is a standard ad hominem. Knowing the lefties I am personally involved with, the their stated goals and philosophies, you come across as another typical Fabian.
SJT,
Another non sequitur is it? My, the way you and your fellow AGW bedwetters overeact when the sceptics score points is a sight to behold.
“Another non sequitur is it? My, the way you and your fellow AGW bedwetters overeact when the sceptics score points is a sight to behold.”
Score what? It’s all in your own mind, Louis. The scientists ignore the likes of you for a good reason.
Go away for a few days and come back to see how low it has got. I should have struck while the irony was hot. There may never be a better example of confirmation bias than some of the sceptics responses to this one.
BOM Annual Report
My first impression of this threads topic was that it was but rough criticising an organisation for having just a few bad stations and/or processes, that one could imply a confirmation bias or similar.
The only valid way was to either get more data of specific examples, and/or see if there may be anything systemic involved.
One way to start to look for systemic matters is to see how well the place is run, and what the tax payer gets for its money. You know the shareholder returns sort of stuff that one can get for any publically listed entity, good or bad.
Well for starters, there is quite a lot of information on their site, but it is seriously out of date, most up to date data is for 2003-4, nearly 6 years behind.
http://www.bom.gov.au/inside/eiab/reports/html/overview.shtml#P61_18619
Having looked through this stuff cannot one have confidence that there isn’t a conformation bias, or some other deficiency affecting the quality of its outputs.
It’s just not possible to tell, but if their own documentation is anything to go by, they don’t know either, for example:
1. They are 5-6 years behind in their Annual Reports, so neither they nor the Parliament knows what they are up to.
2. Their Corporate Planning is pathetic and involves Goals and Objectives that are just not measurable.
3. There is absolutely no indication as to how the top level Goals and Objectives break down and become measurable entities.
Nick
Paranoid am I? Seems I have rge facts of the situation just about right.
“U.N. CLIMATE PLAN WOULD SHIFT TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS TO FORM NEW WORLD ECONOMY
A United Nations document on “climate change” that will be distributed to a major environmental conclave next week envisions a huge reordering of the world economy, likely involving trillions of dollars in wealth transfer, millions of job losses and gains, new taxes, industrial relocations, new tariffs and subsidies, and complicated payments for greenhouse gas abatement schemes and carbon taxes – all under the supervision of the world body.
Those and other results are blandly discussed in a discreetly worded United Nations “information note” on potential consequences of the measures that industrialized countries will likely have to take to implement the Copenhagen Accord, the successor to the Kyoto Treaty, after it is negotiated and signed by December 2009. The Obama administration has said it supports the treaty process if, in the words of a U.S. State Department spokesman, it can come up with an “effective framework” for dealing with global warming.
The 16-page note, obtained by FOX News, will be distributed to participants at a mammoth negotiating session that starts on March 29 in Bonn, Germany, the first of three sessions intended to hammer out the actual commitments involved in the new deal.
In the stultifying language that is normal for important U.N. conclaves, the negotiators are known as the “Ad Hoc Working Group On Further Commitments For Annex I Parties Under the Kyoto Protocol.” Yet the consequences of their negotiations, if enacted, would be nothing short of world-changing.
Getting that deal done has become the United Nations’ highest priority, and the Bonn meeting is seen as a critical step along the path to what the U.N. calls an “ambitious and effective international response to climate change,” which is intended to culminate at the later gathering in Copenhagen.”
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,510937,00.html
Paranoid seems more than appropriate.
Jen “This forum has a huge and diverse audience including thousands of Australians….”
…and the odd Canadian, transplanted from Scotland at an early age, completely against his will.
Malcolm,the BOM 2007-08 annual report is available online.
Hey, thanks for the link, Nick!
Your silence is deafening.
Mal and Wes talking sans bum yet again. Plenty of reports – except drongos can’t comprehend them. Took a whole 10 seconds to find the latest report Wes Wonk. Gee I thought dodos were extinct.
Time for Wes to reel off another thesaurus busting rant about nothing. zzzzzzzzzzz
Thanks,
As it turns out, the latest is not much better at revealing their performance and the measures used. It weasels out of the hard stuff with a few well chosen paras of consultant speak.
Probably done so as to not potentially embarrass the Minister.
I’m shocked Malcolm. shocked. Yawn.
Luke, your irrelevance is deafening.
Oh, and Luke, it’s nice you’re stretching your coprolalian oeuvre to include (sort of) grammatically correct sentences. Yet, we’re going have to start a metaphor watch if you continue to mix four metaphors every four sentences. Mal and I are san bums or drongos or wonks or extinct dodos, but it’s discombobulating to combine those images in the same comment.
Try to extrapolate on a single metaphorical motif through out a comment. For example, perhaps Mal and I as uncomprehending drongos squawk and strut around like we’re in heat during the big wet, flapping our mouths like stubby beaks….laying dud egg comments, poop in our own nests, etc. But drongos aren’t extinct dodos or wonks or australorps. You sound like a galah, mate. Don’t mix your metaphors.
You grok?
Malcolm exposes as an ignoramus does his best to save face. You pathetic crow-eating moron.
Of course the ever obsessive Walker (Bsc Hons) demonstrates to all that he has read countless Balance Sheets and Annual Reports, Government and commercial, never mind being a party to producing same
Given your record of referencing material that you clearly have never read you have cheek trying to have a go at anyone, you pretentious fraud.
See if you can do a days work for your employer for change–us tax payers are getting fed up under writing the brown cardigan brigade.
http://www.larouchepub.com/eiw/public/2007/2007_20-29/2007-25/pdf/33-37_725.pdf
Another example of “data” that has been “adjusted” to agree with expectations. Nils-Axel Morner on sea level.
Hey Malcolm Dill – have you found the 2007/08 report yet? hahahahahahahaa
Yes thank you —
And I have read and understood it.
Which is lot more that you have ever done with your incessant Googling and posting of any old rubbish that you dont read.
What’s your rate fee for posting these days Wakka boy?
Still getting $200 a post from your GW cronies and greeny lobbyists.?
Struggling to keep it up are we.?
Well gramps – we’re glad we could be of assistance – given those BoM reports are just soooooooooooooo hard to find.
Golly they’re just SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO secretive. We had to google for what – oh – a whole 20 seconds to find the latest report. SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO hard.
Now Malcolm – you’ve never shown much nous on here – and always have been a bit of a ranter – it’s just easier to make stuff up isn’t it Mally boy –
like – “They are 5-6 years behind in their Annual Reports, so neither they nor the Parliament knows what they are up to” –
Who got caught bluffing ? eh – come on – tell us. We won’t laugh for too long. hahahahahahahahaha – ROTFL LOL LMAO
so tell us – are you sure you have the right document. Are you sure it wasn’t the telephone directory. I mean for someone like yourself the phone book might be easily confused with an annual report.
Mally welly – I’m sorry you have never understood my googles. Perhaps you could consider repeating Grade 8 so you might have some of the basic skills required. Never too late for some remedial effort.
$200 a post – don’t insult me. That’s cheap.
Well Walker you obnoxious little creep there is no one–I repeat No One who has inhabited this blog over the last few years who has displayed a greater level, of ignorance and bluffery, combined with abuse and ridicule.
My reading of these posts and your 1000’s of so called contribitions is that the general view of others is also that you dont read most of what you google/post.
As for not finding the BOM Annual Reports first time that was an error on my part, which I have acknowledged. As Annual Reports go they well done. But that doesnt change the criticism of the lack of published performance measures–as far as I can tell.
Only someone with too much time on their hands or suffering from some pscychotic delusions the way you have done over the years. Whats your number for postings up to now.
2659 is my guess–what a screwball.
Now to do something more useful.
Australian data should be very suspect. I report to BOM 4 years ago about errors in the min/max temperatures for Tewantin Queensland, that, for example, showed a low of -8C one year. BOM replied that, yes there were errors for Tewantin but that it might take them some time to correct the data. Checking the data 3 years later it was still uncorrected.
At Casino airport, there is a manual weather station and an automatic weather station some 300m apart. The MWS is surrounded by buildings (a house has just been built recently only some 20m away) and it is also near a tarred road (about 5m away). The AWS is on a grassed oval with no buildings within 70m of it. The AWS temps are recorded in the BOM’s daily weather observations but because the MWS has been there for much longer, those temp measurements are used in their monthly climate statistics (I suppose for continuity’s sake). The interesting thing is that the MWS always records higher for both average monthly max and min temps, sometimes up to 1C. ‘Urban warming’ in action. I guess.
I also read a report that Jim Hansen adjusted the world temps a few years ago and by dropping pre-1980 temps and raising post-1980 temps (someone had overlaid his new graph with one he had used in a prior IPCC report). Any truth in that?
The point Malcolm is that you gleefully put the boot in with no regard in the slightest. It took seconds to find that report. You didn’t bother looking. You were simply willing to abuse them over a fabricated assertion. Do you think that’s good form? Although typical.
The fact you think I have “randomly” googled contributions honestly reinforces my opinion of your critical faculties. Go and do something useful yourself like total the quantity of abuse from AGW haters. Vile abuse. Add it up Mal !
Well el creepo the quantities have been added up, and if one includes all your aliases such as Phil Done, then you win hands down by a factor of 10:1.
No one can beat you for the sheer volume of vile abuse extending over a long period.
Now Mal – are we going to take the word of a bloke who couldn’t find the 2007-08 report. You just put that little anti-BoM rant straight out of thin air didn’t you. Just make up a bit of crap and see if you could slip it in.
Now mate we’d love to believe you but I don’t think old ranters who make up stories have a lot of maths credibility.
Well El Creepo its not hard to do even retrospectively, but for you I will start the meter running today.
Its already got one hit.
Nut cases like you wont be able to help yourself. Whats the betting on yet another change in persona is in the offing.
As for you wanting to keep harping on about my initial comments re the BOM, based upon what I had at the time, I now actually think their reporting in total is well done- but still weak in the area of KPI’s etc.
Steve Jones
I just checked Melbourne RO and found 8 of the hottest days for each month were before 1941, 2 were in the cooling period (’57 and ’75), one in 1982 and one in 2009. After doing research about the 1851 bushfires in Victoria, The Argus newspaper reported that the temp on 6th Feb, 1851 was 117F (47.2C) – higher than 7th Feb, 2009 (46.4C). I suppose that doesn’t count but you don’t think they would be that far out. I agree with you that when they start manipulating (or eliminating) the data and smoothing the numbers while calling it ‘quality control’, it is unacceptable.
For instance, Casino has records back to 1908 but the data for hottest day in each month goes only back to the 60’s giving the impression that the second part of the century was the hottest as previous data has not been taken into account.
Thanks for pointing this out.