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Just this morning I sent the following note to subscribers of my irregular e-news. I try and send something out each month, but of late it has become more seasonal. Please do consider subscribing, the link is here.

It has only taken ten years, that is how long a few of us have been detailing major problems with how the Australian Bureau of Meteorology measures daily temperatures. Now, I’m informed, the Bureau are ditching the current system and looking to adopt an overseas model that it claims will be more reliable.

This is a huge win for fair-dinkum sceptics.

I’m afraid, however, too many on our side just like me poking the bears. They don’t really want the necessary revolution. And so, most of my colleagues have gone to ground on this one. They are not acknowledging this big win.

I remember back to 2014 and with some residual bitterness. I blogged about this recently:

Back in 2014, when Tony Abbott was Prime Minister of Australia, and after a series of damning articles in The Australian newspaper showing the extent to which the Bureau of Meteorology remodel historic temperature series exaggerating warming, there was opportunity for a review.

There was real opportunity for an overhaul of how the Bureau not only change recorded temperatures, but also forecasts the weather.
The plan went to Cabinet, and it was ‘shut down’ by then Environment Minister Greg Hunt. He is on the public record proudly explaining that he ‘killed’ the idea.

I go on in the same blog post to explain:

And if you want a job in politics and you can’t self-censor yourself, then get someone like Greg Hunt to do it for your entire team, the entire Cabinet – for you and Scotty and also Peter Dutton.

I have observed that over the last decade Conservatives have shown more groupthink than the Greens and Labor combined on this and most other issues, while claiming they would welcome debate. Ends.

Back in 2014 the issues revolved around the industrial scale remodelling of historic temperatures through the process of homogenisation.

Over the last few years, I have successfully moved the argument with the Bureau to problems with the electronics.

With each new blog post in a recent series entitled ‘Jokers, Off-Topic Reviews and Drinking from the Alcohol Thermometer’, I have gleaned more and more inside information and crucial temperature datasets. I have so much evidence now, in my back pocket – so to speak.

Just this morning I have passed the following questions across to Senator Gerard Rennick for tabling in the Australian Parliament:

Can the Australian Bureau of Meteorology please confirm the nature of the electrical problems causing artificial variations in daily temperatures across the automatic weather station network, in particular:

1. Is it true, given the nature of the platinum resistance probes and how they are hooked-up to the data loggers, that applying a 100Hz frequency to a power circuit to extend the life of a battery – necessary with solar systems – can cause maximum temperatures to drift up by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius on sunny days? (To be clear, as the electrical current increased the recorded temperature increased additional to any actual change in air temperature.)

2. Can the Bureau confirm the number of remote locations where temperatures have dropped by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius on the hour, at the same time every hour through the night, as the battery is drained with each satellite upload of temperature data?

3. Can the Bureau confirm that upgrading power supplies in 2012 caused a 0.3-to-0.5-degree Celsius increase across 30 percent of the Australian network?

4. When is the Bureau going to inform university and CSIRO scientist of potential problems with the temperature data it has supplied, following the 2012 upgrade? (The increase in temperatures was reported by David Karoly and Sophie Lewis, for example, as due to greenhouse gases when it may at least in part have been due to changes in the power supply to the AWS network.)

5.Which overseas model for measuring temperatures is the Bureau going to adopt as a replacement for the current AWS network that has proven unreliable? Ends.

My most recent blog post in the jokers’ series resonated with many past and present Bureau employees and is technical, and some of the comments in the thread that followed its reposting at WattsUpWithThat.com are important.

I am always inspired by the maxim of Anthony Watt’s resolve quoting Andrew Breitbart:

Walk toward the fire. Don’t worry about what they call you.