IF global warming is the greatest moral issue of our time, then the truth really does matter. But this morning, I felt that I had been shut outside, or at least cut-off, without having a chance to tell the whole story.
Jennifer Marohasy feeling left out.
Bronwen O’Shea the host of an ABC radio program for the Goulburn Murray, a region that includes the town of Rutherglen, was interviewing me.
Bronwen invited me on to her program, and also someone from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology to discuss the temperature record for Rutherglen. The Bureau declined.
Bronwen began the interview by suggesting that Bureau have only tweaked the figures for Rutherglen. I disagreed. I explained that the Bureau has actually completely trashed the temperature record by changing what had been a slight cooling trend into warming of 1.73 degree C for the last 100 years.
I also explained that this had been achieved by progressively dropping down the original temperatures from 1973. I wanted to explain that the largest change was back in 1913, with the difference between the actual recorded temperature, and the new official temperature a massive 1.8 degree C.
I was cut-off, before I got to explain too much.
I waited, assuming the line had dropped out. But after no one phoned me back I rang back myself. I phoned ABC Goulburn Murray and was put on hold. Guess whom Bronwen was now interviewing?
Answer: the infamous John Cook, a faux sceptic from the University of Queensland.
Mr Cook
was telling Bronwen that the temperature record for Rutherglen had to be corrected because it was different from everywhere else.
But that is just not true. I haven’t looked at all the weather stations for Victoria. But I have looked at trends for all the stations with long continuous records for the state of New South Wales, which is just across the Murray River from Rutherglen.
Most of the inland records show a very similar trend to Rutherglen. In fact, if we consider the raw data for Deniliquin from 1913 through until the end of the record in 2003 we see a similar pattern of cooling.
Deniliquin is not some random choice of my own. It is listed in the Bureau’s official station catalogue as being one of three nearest sites to Rutherglen, the other two sites listed are Wagga Wagga and Cabramurra. I will look at the data for these locations in due course.
As detailed in my recent paper to the Sydney Institute: after considering all the locations in New South Wales where there are long continuous temperature records available, I have calculated that the net temperature change for New South Wales shows cooling of 0.021 degree per century. That is the net change for the entire state.
In contrast the BOM claims for NSW that there has been a 1 degree C per century warming.
Before I start doing the calculations for all of Victoria, I suggest you get the complete picture for Rutherglen.
To this end I’ve just created a dedicated page for Rutherglen and dedicated it to a real trooper and truth seeker, Judy Ryan.
Here’s the page…
https://climatelab.com.au/temperatures/rutherglen/
Now. Before anyone makes comment at this thread, could I suggest they at least scan the information as provided… sort of the ABC of Rutherglen that I wasn’t quite able to communicate this morning on the ABC.
* I have been contacted at my Twitter account to say that it was not John Cook. He apparently even has an alibi. So, sorry for misleading anyone. After I phoned back I was put on hold, and could hear Bronwen talking with someone. I wondered who that was. I heard them recommend the website Sceptical Science and assumed, it now appears incorrectly, that it was John Cook.
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Photograph by Lyndon Mechielsen.
The problem of Rutherglen is indicative of a general problem in the IPCC version of climate science. This depends on the output of computer models, such that MAST values are assigned to the neat grids required in modeling - after being homogenized to provide individual cell values, or where stations are not present in cells invented using spurious techniques such as kriging that only has real application over homogenous areas. The result is computer models that do not reflect reality, as is seen in the IPCC AR5 report. As Briggs says empirical data is the real data and the use of statistics to produce homogenized data does not produce real data that can be used as such:
Do not smooth times series, you hockey puck! http://wmbriggs.com/blog/?p=195
Instead climate parameters, including surface temperature, precipitation, wind speed etc, are better represented by the irregular Köppen climate zones that result from such factors. This has been shown by Lohmann et al. - cited by Peel et a. (ironically from the University of Melbourne) in a review of the Köppen system – who found a good correspondence between the output of GCM and the Köppen zones and another paper by Kalvova et al. that compared the gridded climate data to the Köppen maps with good results.
http://www.hydrol-earth-syst-sci-discuss.net/4/439/2007/hessd-4-439-2007.pdf
The benefit of using Köppen zones is that they represent a real interaction with human needs for water, food etc with changes at the interface between zones having in some circumstances real consequences, as per the drought cycle that hits the Sahel and other desert areas. That this system is applicable to Australia is evident from the studies discussed by Peel et a. but especially as the country has a limited number of distinct zones that are, as one would expect from the links with agriculture, well covered with data on temperature,precipitation evaporation and some data on wind speeds and surface insolation:
http://www.science.org.au/sites/default/files/user-content/nc-ess-pan-evap.pdf
The eight major Köppen zones in Australia are common to similar zones in Western Europe and N Africa that are well represented by the CET temperature record of the UK that is based on records from a very limited number of meteorological sites but which reflects the AMO/NAO cycles. In contrast, for Auystralia, the BEST climate site gives details of some 180 sites with continuous or near continuous temperature records of over 100 years. Of these some 75 have Tmin and Tmax records for the same periods. As Tmin and Tmax are important in determining the causes of any temperature change as reflected in DTR values it is critical that stations used in the compilation of a series such as BEST, CRU, GISS, NCDC and Acorn are based on such records alone.
Yet Acorn, that BOM claims is based on the best available records, uses only 26 of the BEST sites with 100 years of Tmin and Tmax data; instead using other sites where the Tmin and Tmax records only run post 1940 and for 55 of their 112 stations using sites that only started recording temperatures at all from this time onwards. The result is, as Briggs says, it is not data at all but modeled synthetic data that may conform to other synthetic series like BEST and the rest, but tells us little about the real trends in climate change. This is difficult to understand as as Trewin in a paper given at the Workshop on Pan evaporation - see above reerence - stated:
All-Australian annual mean maximum and minimum temperature anomalies indicate that temperatures have increased since 1910, and particularly since the mid-20th century (Della-Marta et al. 2004; Figs 3, 4). Using only the observation stations considered to be free from the influence of urbanisation, trends calculated over 1910 to 2003 are 0.06oC/decade for the mean maximum temperature and 0.11oC/decade for the mean minimum temperature. However, the magnitude and sign of these trends varies throughout Australia. Increases in daytime maximum temperatures since 1910 have been particularly strong in the western two-thirds of the country, with isolated parts of central and eastern New South Wales and southern Queensland recording weak cooling trends. Positive trends in minimum temperatures have been stronger than for maximum temperatures, and strongest in the northeast. Trends since 1950 also show warming through most of the country.
With mean minimum temperatures generally warming faster than mean maximum temperatures, there has been a decline in the mean diurnal temperature range over Australia (Figure 5). This decline was most marked over the period from about 1950 to 1980, and has levelled off since about 1980. This decline in diurnal temperature range over Australia is consistent with global trends (Braganza et al., 2004; Easterling et al., 1997)`.
The difference in the trend between Tmin and Tmax is the Diurnal Temperature Range or DTR. Whilst it is claimed that there is a general global decrease in DTR values over the 20th century, and especially since the 1960´s this trend is by no means universal and can occur for several reasons, a decrease in Tmax, an increase in Tmin or both simultaneously. Further these trends can differ by season, for example in N China they have found asymmetric effects linked to changes in soil moisture with stronger negative effects of Tmax over Tmin in Summer and Spring and stronger positive effects of increased Tmin over Tmax in Autumn but the magnitude of the responses varies with climate Köppen zones.
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2013/06/20/model-data-comparison-daily-maximum-and-minimum-temperatures-and-diurnal-temperature-range-dtr/
This has consequences in using Tmin from one climate zone to correct temperatures in another, as per Rutherglen This is of particular importance in SE Australia where there are six distinct Köppen climate zones with Rutherglen in a different zone to Wagga Wagga, Deniliguion and Cabamurra that are also in different Köppen zones.
Same old, same old.
During the early days of so called water reform in the Macquarie Valley I was an active member of Macquarie River Food and Fibre (MRFF).
When the draft plan for the Macquarie Marshes was released, there was call for comment etc informal, individual and otherwise from the community.
It was decided that MRFF would deliver a formal response and individual responses would be provided by means of a form letter individually addressed and signed by each person, rather than a petition.
My recollection is we distributed and collected something like a thousand of these letters, individually signed and addressed, the greater bulk showing addresser detail in handwriting with signature.
The government agency classified these letters formally in documentation describing the community response as one letter the reason given as the content of these one thousand odd letters excepting for the ddetail of the addresser and the signature were identical.
By comparison, there was what could be accurately described as a "handful" from the other side of the debate.
This handful was also documented.
Clearly a handful of responses supporting the draft plan would not be a good look against over a thousand responses protesting the equity of the plan.
Oops! Wrong thread. Sorry about that, Chief. My aging 'puter has been playing tricks on me lately.