THE Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) admits it was wrong about urban heating effects as a professional statistical analysis by Andrew Barnham exposes a BOM claim that “since 1960 the mean temperature in Australia has increased by about 0.7 °C”; the BOM assertion has no empirical scientific basis.
Read more here: http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2010/11/new-retreat-from-global-warming-data-by.html
And from the same article:
Deliberate Fraud or Plain Incompetence?
Barnham identifies that up to 40% of the ‘homogenized’ data is pure ‘guesswork’ and adds, “Of the remaining 60%-80% what precise component can be directly attributed to global human emissions remains uncertain.” However, more outspoken critics suggest foul play because the entire set of adjusted temperatures all point one way- upwards.
The public first became aware of gross incompetence or intentional climate fraud from the leaked Climategate emails (November 2009). Those revelations showed that international climate researchers were long aware of the shocking state of Australia’s temperature data. Most pertinent of those emails was found in the ‘documents/HARRY_READ_ME.txt’ files.
One government scientist ‘Harry’ Harris was so exasperated he admitted:
“getting seriously fed up with the state of the Australian data, so many new stations have been introduced, so many false references, so many changes that aren’t documented… “
‘Harry’ then later adds, “I am very sorry to report that the rest of the databases seem to be in nearly as poor a state as Australia was.”
**********
I wrote on a related issue in March 2009, what I’m now calling part 1,
http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2009/03/confirmation-bias-at-the-australian-bureau-of-meteorology/
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
It will only stop when they are taken to court.
When did this happen?
Why wasn’t I told?
Melbourne Regional Office has endured AGW, as is apparent particularly in the mean minimum temperature….
http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/ncc/cdio/weatherData/av?p_display_type=dataGraph&p_stn_num=086071&p_nccObsCode=36&p_month=13
http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/ncc/cdio/weatherData/av?p_display_type=dataGraph&p_stn_num=086071&p_nccObsCode=38&p_month=13
In my neck of the woods though, AGW (not to mention CAGW) is hard to find.
For instance Ballarat Aerodrome….
http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/ncc/cdio/weatherData/av?p_display_type=dataGraph&p_stn_num=086071&p_nccObsCode=36&p_month=13
http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/ncc/cdio/weatherData/av?p_display_type=dataGraph&p_stn_num=089002&p_nccObsCode=38&p_month=13
or Maryborough (Vic)……
http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/ncc/cdio/weatherData/av?p_display_type=dataGraph&p_stn_num=088043&p_nccObsCode=36&p_month=13
http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/ncc/cdio/weatherData/av?p_display_type=dataGraph&p_stn_num=088043&p_nccObsCode=38&p_month=13
Can we here in central Victoria be the ‘black swans’?
Maybe the anthropogenic part of AGW could be mainly caused by concrete and asphalt.
Opps, here’s Ballarat Aerodrome mean max:
http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/ncc/cdio/weatherData/av?p_display_type=dataGraph&p_stn_num=089002&p_nccObsCode=36&p_month=13
Where’s Luke when you need him?
He can explain this.
If Luke’s banned, we’ll have to develop a sense of humor.
Can someone point to the extact reference where the BOM admits it is wrong …
its not that self evident to me and seems to be more the case of some writers engaging in wishful thinking, than fact.
Happy to be shown to be wrong, but I can’t find the referenceable quote.
http://www.bom.gov.au/announcements/media_releases/ho/20101013.shtml
By my reckoning this isnt saying what is being claimed.
All the researcher has said in her media release is that we now clearly recognise that cities are hotter becase of the UHI and they do retain that heat at night.
Well ” whoopee doo” what a revelation… and for that I needed 2 degrees and to publish numerous Peer Reveiwed papers all connected with the application of common sense and basic arithmetic with a bit of stats.
What it doesnt say is whoops… we have got it wrong and the national temperture record is being over stated by XYZ…. and rather than frying in hell in 50 years time…. it will be 250
http://www.bom.gov.au/announcements/index.shtml
Ok so which one is it?
Me thinks this item Confirmation Bias Part 2 is a beat up
and the blog is doing what we criticise others for doing
The BOM temperature data consists of (using BOM’S words)
1. The Australian Reference Climate Station (RCS) network established for high quality, long-term climate monitoring, particularly with regard to climate change analysis.
2. High Quality HQ dataset containing the Operational monitoring of Australia’s changing climate
3. Historical climate data (raw data) provided in both graphical and textual formats at climate sites. Graphs can be viewed as either mean/total data or as anomalies from the standard 1961-1990 base period (1971-2000 is used for pan evaporation due to shortness of record). Daily data are only plotted from 1995 onwards to avoid over-crowding the graphs, but the full daily record is available as text.
The HQ dataset is the set on which the official Australian temperature analyses are based. The network is shown at http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/change/hqsites/. You can google BOM High Quality to go to the BOM page. For temperature enthusiasts an explanation of the methodology is here ftp://ftp.bom.gov.au/anon/home/ncc/www/change/HQannualT/HQannualT_info.pdf Homogenity is the key. A non-urban set of 99 stations from the updated HQ dataset are used to prepare timeseries of annual all-Australian temperature, and maps of trends in temperature. Based on the methodology used for annual trends urban sites (sites that have or have had at some time since 1910 a population over 10,000) are not to be included.
Ken Stewart’s work compares the HQ to the raw data. The HQ dataset is well explained on Ken’s site under the heading The Australian High Quality Climate Site Dataset http://kenskingdom.wordpress.com/2010/05/12/the-australian-temperature-record-part-1-queensland/ together with explanations Ken received from BOM to enquiries. Ken found just in Qld some urban sites are included. Other states have similar anomalies.
My understanding is the BMO make no allowance for UHI in its HQ dataset when preparing timeseries as the 99 stations are ‘non urban’. However, notwithstanding the HQ dataset rules (that is that is that sites should not be included if they are urban sites if they have had a population over 10,000 at some time in the last 100 years) this rule has not been uniformly applied so there are many sites in the BOM HQ timeseries data which have no adjustments for UHI.
Ken’s conclusion in his Problems in his Big Picture article with the HQ data include:
• It has been subjectively and manually adjusted.
• The methodology used is not uniformly followed, or else is not as described.
• Urban sites, sites with poor comparative data, and sites with short records have been included.
• Large quantities of data are not available, and have been filled in with estimates.
• The adjustments are not equally positive and negative, and have produced a major impact on the Australian temperature record.
• The adjustments produce a trend in mean temperatures that is roughly a quarter of a degree Celsius greater than the raw data does.
• The warming bias in the temperature trend is over 40%, and in the anomaly trend is 50%.
• The trend published by BOM is 66.67% greater than that of the raw data.
The questions remain
1. The extent if any to which temperatures were subjectively altered even before they gained the description “raw data”.
2. What if any adjustment is BOM prepared to make to its HQ dataset for those of its 99 ‘non urban’ stations which are undoubtedly ‘urban’
UHI is a huge problem.
Warwick Hughes has some articles on his site about UHI http://www.warwickhughes.com/blog/index.php?s=uhi including Two degrees C Urban Heat Island in small village of Barmedman, NSW, Australia (277 people)
Val …thats a very good and concise explanation of the difficulties with the BOM data.
But if tis directed at me then it doesnt answer my question, and that is the head line to this thread says that the “BOM admits it is wrong with the UHI”
…as far as I can tell they havnt admitted anything and further there is no Press Release dated October 14th saying that they admit they wrong
It would be good if they did come clean but I doubt that they will ..to bloody arrogant to do that
Thanks Malcolm for taking the time to read and reply to my comment
Maybe the implication should be ‘we wasn’t right’ as opposed to ‘we wuz wrong’
Whatever the implication, what if any adjustment is BOM prepared to make to its HQ dataset for those of its 99 ‘non urban’ stations which are undoubtedly ‘urban’
And here’s how much it might matter!
http://notrickszone.com/2010/10/25/rahmstorfschellnhuber-confirm-no-anthropogenic-climate-change/
In a paper published in 2003, using their own studies, the authors concluded there had been no global warming over the last decades. (J.F. Eichner, E. Koscielny-Bunde, A. Bunde, S. Havlin, and H.-J. Schellnhuber: Power-law persistence and trends in the atmosphere, a detailed study of long temperature records, Phys. Rev. E 68 2003),
The temperature records of 95 stations distributed over the globe were studied. In the paper’s summary discussion, Schellnhuber and his colleagues wrote:
In the vast majority of stations we did not see indications for a global warming of the atmosphere.
and
Most of the continental stations where we observed significant trends are large cities where probably the fast urban growth in the last century gave rise to temperature increases.
And la pièce de resistance!
The fact that we found it difficult to discern warming trends at many stations that are not located in rapidly developing urban areas may indicate that the actual increase in global temperature caused by anthropogenic perturbation is less pronounced than estimated in the last IPCC Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change.
For the record
http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/section?content=a928051726&fulltext=713240928
A comparison of local and aggregated climate model outputs with observed data
Authors: G. G. Anagnostopoulosa; D. Koutsoyiannisa; A. Christofidesa; A. Efstratiadisa; N. Mamassisa
Abstract
We compare the output of various climate models to temperature and precipitation observations at 55 points around the globe. We also spatially aggregate model output and observations over the contiguous USA using data from 70 stations, and we perform comparison at several temporal scales, including a climatic (30-year) scale. Besides confirming the findings of a previous assessment study that model projections at point scale are poor, results show that the spatially integrated projections are also poor.
Ian that’s a great find, thank you for sharing; Warwick Hughes has quite a lot to say about BOM model predictions http://www.warwickhughes.com/blog/?cat=20
just look for the category BOM on the left side if that doesn’t take you to the right page
I love his 25 September 2010 comment looking back at BOM predictions:
For a start – the entire Outlook map areas are predicted to be far too hot. This has been a common fault in BoM temperature Oulooks for a long time – look for yourself. What are these people smoking ?
also came across a link to this paper on Warwick Hughes’ blog:
By Richard Kelly
http://www.warwickhughes.com/agri/Kelly_BoM_Forecasts.pdf
Predictions, Forecasts or Just Pure Guesses?
A couple of quotes:
With this in mind, I’ve been monitoring the Brisbane Bureau’s 24-hour temperature forecasts and
actual temperatures for a total of 2834 days (over 7-3/4 years). So how have they managed to
perform?
…
I am not attempting to denigrate the Bureau of
Meteorology or its staff – merely to highlight the difficulty of reliably predicting temperature
changes in the immediate, let alone the distant, future.
dated 2009
There is a fair bit more on comparing AR 4 model results with reality at The Blackboard – e.g.
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2009/anomalies-mimicking-ar4-figure-104/
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2009/multi-model-mean-trend-for-models-forced-with-volcanic-eruptions-mega-reject-at-95/
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2009/new-aogcm-runs-at-the-climate-explorer/
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2009/fact-6a-model-simulations-dont-match-average-surface-temperature-of-the-earth/
(the last one plots two versions of CSIRO’s efforts)
Off thread but interesting
http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2010/07/15/a-letter-from-london/
“This is a guest post from Roddy Campbell who coincidentally shares many of my views on energy. It’s an empassioned essay on where the best use of energy dollars, or pounds rather, would be. The post is written in the context of UK events, but applies equally to the US. What’s more, I think that if properly understood, the concepts expressed below make sense even without climate change.”