UPDATE: see the end of the article for a response.
Reposted from TBR.cc Investigate magazine’s breaking news forum:
New Zealand’s NIWA accused of CRU-style temperature faking
The New Zealand Government’s chief climate advisory unit NIWA is under fire for allegedly massaging raw climate data to show a global warming trend that wasn’t there.
The scandal breaks as fears grow worldwide that corruption of climate science is not confined to just Britain’s CRU climate research centre.
In New Zealand’s case, the figures published on NIWA’s [the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric research] website suggest a strong warming trend in New Zealand over the past century:
The caption to the photo on the NiWA site reads:
From NIWA’s web site — Figure 7: Mean annual temperature over New Zealand, from 1853 to 2008 inclusive, based on between 2 (from 1853) and 7 (from 1908) long-term station records. The blue and red bars show annual differences from the 1971 – 2000 average, the solid black line is a smoothed time series, and the dotted [straight] line is the linear trend over 1909 to 2008 (0.92°C/100 years).
But analysis of the raw climate data from the same temperature stations has just turned up a very different result:
Gone is the relentless rising temperature trend, and instead there appears to have been a much smaller growth in warming, consistent with the warming up of the planet after the end of the Little Ice Age in 1850.
The revelations are published today in a news alert from The Climate Science Coalition of NZ:
Straight away you can see there’s no slope—either up or down. The temperatures are remarkably constant way back to the 1850s. Of course, the temperature still varies from year to year, but the trend stays level—statistically insignificant at 0.06°C per century since 1850.
Putting these two graphs side by side, you can see huge differences. What is going on?
Why does NIWA’s graph show strong warming, but graphing their own raw data looks completely different? Their graph shows warming, but the actual temperature readings show none whatsoever!
Have the readings in the official NIWA graph been adjusted?
It is relatively easy to find out. We compared raw data for each station (from NIWA’s web site) with the adjusted official data, which we obtained from one of Dr Salinger’s colleagues.
Requests for this information from Dr Salinger himself over the years, by different scientists, have long gone unanswered, but now we might discover the truth.
Proof of man-made warming
What did we find? First, the station histories are unremarkable. There are no reasons for any large corrections. But we were astonished to find that strong adjustments have indeed been made.
About half the adjustments actually created a warming trend where none existed; the other half greatly exaggerated existing warming. All the adjustments increased or even created a warming trend, with only one (Dunedin) going the other way and slightly reducing the original trend.
The shocking truth is that the oldest readings have been cranked way down and later readings artificially lifted to give a false impression of warming, as documented below. There is nothing in the station histories to warrant these adjustments and to date Dr Salinger and NIWA have not revealed why they did this.
One station, Hokitika, had its early temperatures reduced by a huge 1.3°C, creating strong warming from a mild cooling, yet there’s no apparent reason for it.
We have discovered that the warming in New Zealand over the past 156 years was indeed man-made, but it had nothing to do with emissions of CO2—it was created by man-made adjustments of the temperature. It’s a disgrace.
NIWA claim their official graph reveals a rising trend of 0.92ºC per century, which means (they claim) we warmed more than the rest of the globe, for according to the IPCC, global warming over the 20th century was only about 0.6°C.
NIWA’s David Wratt has told Investigate magazine this afternoon his organization denies faking temperature data and he claims NIWA has a good explanation for adjusting the temperature data upward. Wratt says NIWA is drafting a media response for release later this afternoon which will explain why they altered the raw data.
“Do you agree it might look bad in the wake of the CRU scandal?”
“No, no,” replied Wratt before hitting out at the Climate Science Coalition and accusing them of “misleading” people about the temperature adjustments.
Manipulation of raw data is at the heart of recent claims of corrupt scientific practice in climate science, with CRU’s Phil Jones recently claiming old temperature records collected by his organization were “destroyed” or “lost”, meaning researchers can now only access manipulated data.
UPDATE: see this new post More on the NIWA New Zealand data adjustment story
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As an old NOAA certified Weather Observer.To me Temperature is or isn’t.Why do they have to”adjust” Temps? To fit the hypothesis,not the truth?….
Don’t tell me, the statement will explain the neccessary corrections for gridding, interpolation, calibration and research grant acceptance.
It is beginning to dawn on me that perhaps the “official records” in all countries have been fudged like these in New Zealand to match the UN figures. We had a “consensus”, but it was all fake. I bet independent groups could find falsified data in these governmental figures all over the globe.
I have to say that I hope they are lying! Only because we need every reason to doubt the science before our freedom and money is given away at Copenhagen. We need to take a few steps back and examine every paper concerning global warming and determine if the raw data is publicly available and that known tainted data was not used. If there is any problem with data availability or integrity, the paper needs to be tossed into the circular file. Once we see what’s left, then we can decide if we have a real problem with global warming.
Maybe Dr. Salinger wanted to correct the stations data to account for the SHI Effect (i.e. sheep heat island effect). As it it well known that the sheep population in NZ has been decreasing… Dr. Salinger wanted to Hide the Decline!
http://www.maf.govt.nz/mafnet/rural-nz/sustainable-resource-use/land-management/emerging-weeds/emerging-weeds-12.htm
Oh course Dr Salinger was fired earlier this year, as i believe was covered by WUWT. For whatever reason?
Interesting. It just spored me to make a FOIA request to the Danish DMI for the Danish data, methods and corrections. Let’s see what comes of it…
Rgds Troels
Time for trials on scale with the Nuremberg trials with appropriate punishments. These clowns have made a mockery of science and potentially have set back humanity by decades.
How is anyone to trust anything that comes out of any study associated with the IPCC/UN anymore. Heh dumb question I guess.
[REPLY – Better not go there. We don’t jail them; they don’t jail us. But we sure as heck don’t have to trust ’em. ~ Evan]
It’s beginning to look like the problem is widespread, perhaps even orchestrated. When do we get to expose Jimmy Hansen?
The situation is similar also in Japan. Our Meteorological Agency (JMA) publishes this graph (sorry in strange language for the accompanying text!):
http://www.data.kishou.go.jp/climate/cpdinfo/temp/an_jpn.html
and says blithely that “the average temperature in Japan has risen by 1.1 degC over 100 years,” and “this graph has been prepared from the data of 17 stations which “keep long-time record” and “undergo small urbanization effects.”
However, the latter statement is quite dubious because most of the 17 stations show 0.5 – 1.0 degC steep rises, depending on the city size, after 1970s due without doubt to heavy urbanization.
BTW, here is the DMI climate page for Greenland, with historical temperatures (scroll down) http://www.dmi.dk/dmi/index/klima/klimaet_indtil_nu/temperaturen_i_groenland.htm
And they do not indicate that it was warmer, than in the 1940’s, why melting of the ice may not be contributed to GW. However that depends on the seasonal temperature curves, as it is the summers who determine the melting, but precipitation in the winters determine the growing.
I’ll be interesting to see, no doubt.
Rgds Troels
The HadCRu data was a composite of lots of institutions data globally as i understand it.
If this is the case ans as a matter of interest, wouls they have used the original unadjusted data or adjusted data from these institutions? i.e. are we talking about multiple compounding adjustments biasing the results?
Obama is headed to Copenhagen with checkbook in hand. We can rest assurred promises of our money will be made. When his speech aired today, a strangely long portion of it was dedicated to Global Warming. It’s a central agenda for this administration, falsified temps or not.
So it turns out Negative Urban Heating effect could be the thing to save us from this heating world(!)
Too bad it only works in graphs.
What does Mike Mann say about all this?
“sounds good Phil, I agree on the forecast. I think its at least
‘plausible’ ;)”
http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=762&filename=1167928837.txt
And to think our Parliament has just passed a revised ETS law so that our global trotting pollies can jet to the other side of the world to attend Copenhagen “with credibility”. As we say down under – “Yeah Right!”
This is the type of stuff that drives skeptics like me crazy. I hope someone (could one dare hope the press) can extract the adjustments and the methodology.
In a recent discussion of NOAA or NCDC adjustments (I forget which) someone made a comment that I will echo. If a 150 year temperature record shows warming, and the only thing that accounts for that is the adjustments to the record, don’t you think you’d check your adjustment criteria?
Why am I not surprised at this apparent manipulation? It looks as though a downward trend line could be plotted on the original Fig. 7 from 1850 to about 1910 – but for some reason, hasn’t been. Was it perhaps that the atmospheric ppm of carbon dioxide was going down in those years? Or doesn’t carbon dioxide actually have any effect on global temperature?
The answer is probably that the initial part of the plot has to go down in order for the most recent – and hence most reliable! – part of it to go upwards and still end up around today’s values.
Have they really made Hokitika into Hockeystika?
The idea that measured data need to be “adjusted” to reflect reality is suspect to begin with. They are reality! While there may be legitimate reasons for adjusting for station moves, instrument changes, etc., the adjustment should always have an objective empirical basis. It cannot be based on a subjective hunch derived from climate model results. Resort to the latter constitutes data falsification.
Clearly the clamor now should be for the release of the raw data from both CRU and GISS.
Am I the only one wondering it “anybody” else could get the same results analyzing CRU & GISS data that they did?
If you have to adjust the real data, how do you decide how to adjust it? Arguably it should be down to account for city centre temperature gauges that could show higher temperatures as paving, cars and building density increased over time and became heat traps. Who knows? The answer is of course that there is no way to know what the “right” temperature data is and therefore no way to measure the 100 years of average temperature. Its all a farce.
I think it is very telling that the MSM is not reporting on these stories. They really don’t care about any of these revelations; just as Christians or Muslims do not really care about any proofs deriding their faith systems. Science is being thrown under the bus. Science was just another means to an end. As much as I am heartened by these exposures of malfeasance, I am equally saddened; as I am abundantly aware of just how unimportant or threatening this is for the “true believers”. They know that there is no way of stopping them now that they have implicated so many governments and corporations in their subterfuge. Sure, there may be a few sacrificial lambs served up for public consumption in light of these latest scandals. But the AGW juggernaut has been prepared for this sort of thing for some time now. Momentum will carry it forward no matter what is thrown in it’s path. At this point they can effectively argue that it is “too big to fail”. They have already won.
I shall watch this play out with great interest, and hope, no, pray that I am mistaken.
Go to NCDC and see how they have done exactly the same thing to the the U.S. Historical Climate Network (HCN) records. In virtually every case the adjustments to the historical record have lowered the temperatures in the distant past and elevated the more recent temperatures, resulting in an enhanced warming trend. WUWT and CA have shown examples of this manipulation of the data. The general details are at http://cdiac.ornl.gov/epubs/ndp/ushcn/ndp019.html
Note particularly their own graph http://cdiac.ornl.gov/epubs/ndp/ushcn/ts.ushcn_anom25_diffs_urb-raw_pg.gif
which shows 0.6 degrees F of warming from 1940-2000 due to these adjustments.
“NIWA claim their official graph reveals a rising trend of 0.92ºC per century, which means (they claim) we warmed more than the rest of the globe…”
…and therefore should get more of the re-distribution of wealth through lower cap and trade targets …
What country would want to say, “we warmed less than average”. This shows the strong motivation to make sure your data says “greater than average”.
Time for trials on scale with the Nuremberg trials with appropriate punishments. These clowns have made a mockery of science and potentially have set back humanity by decades.
Relax, it’s just a news alert on a web site.
tokyoboy (16:25:06) :
“The situation is similar also in Japan.
…and says blithely that “the average temperature in Japan has risen by 1.1 degC over 100 years,” and “this graph has been prepared from the data of 17 stations which “keep long-time record” and “undergo small urbanization effects.””
It would be great if you could extract and post the station location information.
Here’s another thing that drives me nuts! Phil Jones says that UHI only contributes a small amount to the surface temp records (.05C, I think per century, but I stand to be corrected). Then why is it when I see the local weather forecast for a city of 150,000, that the city night temps are 3-5 degrees F lower that the outlying areas? Is it the negative sheep effect?
Sorry, I overstated the case a bit: based on the USHCN description of their graph they state “The cumulative effect of all adjustments is approximately a one-half degree Fahrenheit warming in the annual time series over a 50-year period from the 1940’s until the last decade of the century. “
Slightly off topic, but still relating to temperature, I am interested in plotting recorded temperature for Australia’s longest running (and apparently most complete) temperatures to see what trend it makes from the raw data, however I have been just using Excel to plot individual stations. What program would you recommend that I could use to add in each separate station onto the same graph to produce an “overall” look?
Bastages. I am REALLY getting angry now! I hate being lied to in order to separate me from my money.
The official Australian temperature record is also based on significant “adjustments’ of raw historical data.
The main adjustments were made by Torok and Nicholls in 1996 and then a few more adjustments were done by paul Della-Marta in 2000.
to my knowledge this process has never been properly audited, but from a few stations that I have checked I see that there is a similar lowering of temps in the early part of the records and a raising later on.
All the data can be found in this folder.
ftp://ftp2.bom.gov.au/anon/home/bmrc/perm/climate/temperature/annual/
Men Behaving Badly – 2.
Reminds me of blink comparators I’ve seen on WUWT previously showing GISS adjustments; how the early data is adjusted down while later years are adjusted up, resulting in an adjusted warming trend.
Now, I wonder why climate scientists have a credibility problem.
Originally, I was worried that this was the worst of the worst possible situations, i.e. first New Zealand’s NIWA for some reason adding in these correction factors and submitting adjusted numbers to CRU, second CRU adding an additional correction, and then last New Zealand’s NIWA publishing the doubly corrected annual graph.
I reviewed the file idl_cruts3_2005_vs_2008.pdf which was part of the CRU file dump. The CRU plots out the temp for 20th Century for all 4 seasons.
All 5 graphs (the 4 seasonal graphs in the CRU file dump and the one published by NIWA) appear (by eyeballing) to have a slope of 0.8 C/century.
It could be that NIWA submits the raw temp data to CRU, and then CRU tells NIWA how much they have warmed up?
While some adjustments of temperature records may be valid, for instance in calibrating resited weather stations, we must remain skeptical of their motivations. The question for me though is Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology engaging in temperature adjustments. I have been using their data and now feel somewhat uneasy.
Sounds like NZ needs a SurfaceStations like documentation of siting and data for each of the subject stations.
And why is it that ALL adjustments result in positive temp trends? McIntyre has run across this in the past. Excuse my ranting, I’m really pissed tonight.
“The wise men are put to shame,
They are dismayed and caught;
Behold, they have rejected the word of the LORD,
And what kind of wisdom do they have? Jeremiah 8:9
Any sensible believer would understand that fossil fuels were laid down to be used. Are they sometimes misused? Sure but remember that our banking and money model is based on government backed, systematic violation of “Thou shall not steal”. No wonder then that we have problems.
Hey Greenies,
Your real enemy is the banking and money creation model. Fix that and we can have sustainable prosperity.
This is exactly the sort of thing I posted on earlier today on the “codified” link – we might find the exact same thing with the CRU code- that most all the supposed warming isnt real at all but induced by the code.
I would again encourage anyone with the time & the skill to try figuring out how the code modified the data – image the impact if the CRU data looked like the unmodified NZ data after the “corrections” were removed. AGW as a problem would be dead. Full stop.
Also from David (16:30:57) link http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=762&filename=1167928837.txt
“Hubert’s chapter has lots of detail, many figures which have lines with the phrase ‘analyst’s opinion’ – one of his favourite terms for things he made up”.
Clearly there is a long tradition in climate science for “made up” stuff.
The GISS site shows the individual station data (all 6 of them that are still active) with the big high in the late 90’s and the drop off to now. The 90’s high was by no means the only one last century.
Publicize everywhere possible. It is imperative to keep the heat on, and not stop until the broader public reacts.
Its easy to figure out guys, whoever fudges the most, has the biggest crisis. They then get the biggest pot of “rich nations” money to combat global warming.
Yes, it is that simple.
Robinson (16:15:46) : “Don’t tell me, the statement will explain the necessary corrections for gridding, interpolation, calibration and research grant acceptance.”
Uh, and “homogenization,” and, uh, “teleconnection,” and “time of day fudge factors,” and a whole bunch of really scientific stuff you guys wouldn’t understand, like dendrophrenology.
This is again showing that the manipulation of climate science is worse than most skeptics imagined.
Adjusting is one thing.
But covertly adjusting in secret while perpetrating a false impression that you’re using the recorded temperatures is cold blooded fraud.
“CRU’s Phil Jones recently claiming old temperature records collected by his organization were “destroyed” or “lost”, meaning researchers can now only access manipulated data.”
Is it radical to now assume Jones et al wanted to avoid getting caught in an AdjustmentGate like what is happening now in NZ?
This isn’t science or politics.
It’s crime.
We have courts and prisons where this ALL needs to be heading.
… and the raws still include UHI effect…
As I asked in another thread…
What if it’s GHCN/GISS/CRUT3 that needs adjustment, and MXD that is correct?
What if they’re adjusting the wrong data series?
What if the actual temperature is 2.6C below where CRUT3 says it is?
Things that make you go “HMMMMmmmmm”
“Dr Jim Salinger (who no longer works for NIWA) started this graph in the 1980s when he was at CRU (Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, UK) and it has been updated with the most recent data.”
Well Damn! I was going to go to the tavern to add to my buzz but pass the POPCORN instead!!!!
This is the NIWA building. Surface station right where it should be….
http://gallery.surfacestations.org/main.php?g2_itemId=41286
I think the saddest part of the recent outing of ‘adjusted figures’ debacle at CRU and now NIWA in ‘Godz own’ country is that science and scientists are coming under a cloud. Always thought to be impartial and trustworthy, some are being shown to be con men and charlatans with little or no scruples and this will inevitably rub of on all.
Whatever happened to the likes of Copernicus, Galileo and Darwin who strived for and stuck to the TRUTH no matter what the personal cost …surely they would be better making the result fit the facts rather than the other way round.
I know this is a very simplistic view but it is sad to see politics get in the way of science, a discipline I HAD a great deal of respect for…
I moved to N.Z. 17 years ago and havent noticed ANY warming … in fact this winter was very cold and helped the ski industry have one of there best years … even in Auckland the temps were a lot cooler than in the recent past…
One man who is on to it though is Leighton Smith talkback host … but… he is an Aussie…
http://www.leightonsmith.co.nz/
Hopefully “The Climate Science Coalition of NZ:” has made their data and code available for replication by independent scientists in a show of how science should be conducted! For now is the time to rise above the fray in a display of proper scientific investigation.
This last week has been so enlightening…
Great stuff. Once people have realized that all is not Kosher, they go alooking 🙂
BTW I reckon HARRY did it!
The adjustments to the data achieve a very similar result to James Hansen’s. It wouldn’t surprise me at all to find a lot of correspondence between NIWA and NASA GISS on the methodology to use.
That should be “HARRY”. We all assume that this poor bastard was given the job to do this on HAD crew company time. Perhaps he did it on his own time/dime?
If it gets any traction this news could have cascading impact because, as mentioned above, NZ has just passed its Emissions trading law.
The passing of this law has significance beyond NZ. As Reuters points out the gov wanted to push it through before Copenhagen
http://www.reuters.com/article/GCA-BusinessofGreen/idUSTRE5AO0JB20091125?sp=true
Australian prime minister is trying to do the same thing but it’s causing major upheaval as sceptical opposition in parliament grows and various shadow minister progressively ‘out’ themselves.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/politics/malcolm-turnbull-faces-fresh-labor-attack-over-ets/story-e6frgczf-1225804088873
The NZ scheme is only the second to pass into law after Europe’s began in 2005.
Also note that a remarkably hyperbolic version of the hockey stick graph has been removed from the Australian Gov website – at least I cant find it any more (anyone know more about this?).
It used to be here:
http://www.climatechange.gov.au/science/faq/question2.html
Instead we have a CSIRO doc “Understanding current climate change in a palaeoclimatic context” which still quotes Mann but mentions the medieval warm period.
http://www.climatechange.gov.au/climate-change/~/media/publications/science/hot-topics-palaeoclimatic.ashx
“All published reconstructions indicate that NH temperatures were warm during medieval times (950–1100 AD), cool in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, then warmed rapidly. Recent NH warmth appears unusual for at least the past 1,300 years, including the medieval warm period, whether or not tree-ring data are used (Mann et al., 2008, 2009). If tree-ring data are used, the conclusion can be extended to at least the past 1,700 years, but with additional strong caveats (Mann et al., 2008, 2009).”
The IPCC (2007) concludes that average NH temperatures during the second half of the 20th century were very likely higher than during any other 50-year period in the last 500 years and likely the highest in at least the past 1300 years.” [CSIRO]
These statements are much more guarded than I recall previously on this Oz Gov Climate Change website.
Arn Riewe (16:52:00) :
“tokyoboy (16:25:06) :
It would be great if you could extract and post the station location information.”
Sure. The 17 station names are: Abashiri, Nemuro, Suttsu, Yamagata, Ishinomaki, Fushiki, Nagano (where a winter olympiad was held several years ago), Mito, IIda, Choshi, Sakai, Hamada, Hikone, Miyazaki, Tadotsu, Naze, and Ishigakijima.
You can find the temp data by entering the place name on the NASA page:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/station_data/
If you can’t identify any station(s), please tell me. Such a trouble may occur because a Japanese wording does not necessarily correspond to a single, definite alphabetical spelling. Cheers.
“What program would you recommend that I could use to add in each separate station onto the same graph to produce an “overall” look?”
There are a few in the documents folder ; )
A tiny correction to “tokyoboy (17:25:35) : ”
The place name “IIda” may have better been “Iida”.
“HARRY” is no fool; he is anlyzing what happens with the software. He is looking at stuff from what appears to be a grab of some months ago and is trying to repeat it.
From comments about Lille in HRMTXTdot35:
Well that’s no help. Why did it change? CLIMAT? But CLIMAT doesn’t have station names!
Let’s try and work out how the updates happened:
MCDW is first:
drwx—— 2 f098 cru 4096 Mar 5 2009 db.0903051342
drwx—— 2 f098 cru 4096 Mar 5 2009 db.0903051442
drwx—— 2 f098 cru 4096 Mar 5 2009 db.0903051448
drwx—— 2 f098 cru 4096 Mar 9 2009 db.0903091631
drwx—— 2 f098 cru 4096 Apr 2 11:25 db.0904021106
drwx—— 2 f098 cru 4096 Apr 2 12:57 db.0904021239
drwx—— 2 f098 cru 4096 Apr 15 14:16 db.0904151410
Then CLIMAT:
drwx—— 2 f098 cru 4096 Mar 5 2009 db.0903051342
drwx—— 2 f098 cru 4096 Mar 5 2009 db.0903051448
drwx—— 2 f098 cru 4096 Mar 9 2009 db.0903091631
drwx—— 2 f098 cru 4096 Apr 2 11:26 db.0904021106
drwx—— 2 f098 cru 4096 Apr 2 12:59 db.0904021239
We won’t bother with BOM, I don’t think they stretch to Lille..
I’m hoping I didn’t do any on the escluster! *checks*.. nope. Just copied.
So this looks like the sequence:
0903051342 MCDW CLIMAT
0903051442 MCDW only
0903051448 MCDW CLIMAT
0903091631 MCDW CLIMAT
0904021106 MCDW CLIMAT
0904021239 MCDW CLIMAT
0904151410 MCDW only
Interestingly, we only seem to have the last three tmp databases, at least in terms of
having the short LILLE station.
This is so hard because I cannot remember the process. Have to dig some more..
(Further speculation snipped by RW of Canada)
In Australia, the long term sites show a pronounced cooling since the 19th century. Check out for example:
Cape Otway http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/ncc/cdio/weatherData/av?p_nccObsCode=36&p_display_type=dataFile&p_startYear=&p_stn_num=090015
and Wilsons Promontory http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/ncc/cdio/weatherData/av?p_nccObsCode=36&p_display_type=dataFile&p_startYear=&p_stn_num=085096
Click Heighlight Datata in Table : Highset to see what I mean.
The same trend applies for all the longest running stations in Australia. I think it also applies in America. In both cases hanson et al ignore or distort the earliest data.
I believe we now have a self sustaining reaction.
Evidently the folks at NIWA felt that Hadley CRU corruption and fraud was getting too much attention. The corruption gap was more than they could tolerate.
“HARRY” is a Brit from his spelling of arse
I think it would be a great idea if Anthony could have a section for folks from individual countries to do the same as these guys. Track down their unadjusted national records and show them next to the ‘official’ version.
um – I spend quite a bit of my time reviewing subjective data. I display the data as a range of probables, not as specific number. I wonder if what we should be doing is plotting each “point” as a range – we could reasonably estimate the errors across all the sources (trees, 18thC mercury, satellites, whatever) and show the temperature as a wide line – the width depending on the uncertainty in the measurement. Any long term trends would then be observable. No?
I watched ‘the cloud mystery’ on youtube about Svensmark’s Cosmic Ray theory.In part 3 he makes a presentation in England and a Met Office scientist immediately stands up telling him not to do his experiment: ‘Have you read my book!?’ Before the last few days I was imagining that the scientific community was earnestly seeking the truth.I never imagined the egocentric bickering (and worse) that has been going on. I think it’s like the Iraq war: America and Britain (powerful vested interests therein) using eachother for moral authority and legitimacy to pursue an agenda. This New Zealand scam is wonderful news.The Spider’s web probably extends from CRU out to the closest Commonwealth countries.
A perfect consensus via criminal collusion
Berend de Boer (17:15:28) : “This is the NIWA building. Surface station right where it should be….”
Come on! You made that up, right? Photoshop guru, are you?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
What was it the man (I’ve forgotten where) said earlier this year when the sensor was reporting false high readings? Something like ‘We can’t change the numbers, we have to just report what the equipment displays.’
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Keep asking the question: Can you point to one thing you personally have experienced that suggests the Earth is warming?
Efficiency and sustainability can exist on their own, they don’t need this stinking climate fraud to be acceptable.
And this mess (adjustment of the raw data) doesn’t even approach the next level, the use of the “corrected” data by the GCMs.
The coefficients and constants for each scientific law, theory, and hypothesis used in the GCMs is tweeked (because that is the only way possible to backcast) to give this inflated temperature increase based on CO2.
The adjustments to the raw temperature data affect all 21 GCMs, is that right?
Rob H (16:43:17)
Of course, the only way to proceed now is to abandon Hadcrut, national land based temperatures, as weather stations are an unholy mess, and rely on satellite measurements instead, only there is a habit of adjusting satellites data upwards, since it records lower temps than land based stations, This is done to conform to land based stations when that divergence comes to light.. They justified it by saying that satellites slow down in the air, so have to be adjusted upwards. In fact, if satellites were slowing they would be nearing the earth and would have to be adjusted downwards against the higher read – the opposite of the given explanation. The result was another fix to a divergence problem.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/03/22/weather-station-data-raw-or-adjusted/
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120847988943824973.html?mod=djemEditorialPage
All these fake sciencist need to go to jail for lieing to the whole world. Disgraces all of them. I feel that the climate over the last 10 years have been very stable, with no warming or cooling, but within .1c +-.
And to think, some of these AGW nimrods actually peddle forcasts for regional climates 90 years from now! That’s almost as sad as the people that believe these regional forcasts.
Whether or not it’s been posted on WUWT before, I think this link belongs on this topic:
http://www.infonews.co.nz/news.cfm?l=1&t=92&id=44833
I hope the terminated for cause idiot went home with a native New Zealander spear up …… I’d better self snip here
This is pretty typical. If you take the raw trends for the US Historical Climate Network per station, the trend is +0.14C. It’s +0.59C after FILNET.
The bio of the pro-AGW drone in the Fox News clip above:
http://www.americanprogress.org/experts/WeissDaniel.html
The only science this clown knows is political science.
I reread the article but still might be missing something. How did they get the data? The article states, “Requests for this information from Dr Salinger himself over the years, by different scientists, have long gone unanswered, but now we might discover the truth.” I don’t see an explaination of how they now received the data. Salinger left and his replacement believes in transparancy? Did somebody do another hack?
When do we get to expose Jimmy Hansen?
He can hide behind NOAA. He doesn’t use raw data. He readjusts already-adjusted (i.e., heavily inflated) NOAA data. At least for the US. (Dunno what he does for the rest of the world.)
Here is the same “breaking story” about NYC, alas from 2007:
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=1798
Wasn’t “Harry” one of the escape tunnels at Stalag Luft XIII of Great Escape Fame?
I have been clamoring for years to archive the raw data. Once it’s gone, then the true historical record is gone. And these pinheads get to rewrite history.
This is a travesty of the first order.
Storm clouds gather
Nature’s response
http://www.nature.com/news/2009/091124/full/462397a.html
Love the way that an actual physical quantity such as temperature can be deemed as a suitable candidate for being tortured on a grant-funded procrustian mathematical rack to extract the desired confession.
Torquemada (sp) would have been proud- this is not Science, this is Inquisition!
Pay the witch hunter general to find a witch and witches will be found.
History will judge this sorry episode in the same light as we now judge those dark but peer-reviewed activities of a shameful past.
The rolling snowball picks up size and speed.
BernieL
the wayback machine http://www.archive.org is your friend here
http://web.archive.org/web/20080720082852/http://climatechange.gov.au/science/faq/question2.html
“Also note that a remarkably hyperbolic version of the hockey stick graph has been removed from the Australian Gov website – at least I cant find it any more (anyone know more about this?).
It used to be here:
http://www.climatechange.gov.au/science/faq/question2.html
Instead we have a CSIRO doc “Understanding current climate change in a palaeoclimatic context” which still quotes Mann but mentions the medieval warm period.
http://www.climatechange.gov.au/climate-change/~/media/publications/science/hot-topics-palaeoclimatic.ashx “
Dr.Tim Ball with a September 30th and prescient video!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8CVh2deXTI&hl=en_GB&fs=1&]
So, it is the adjustments by these folks that is “robust”?
IMO this resembles the Iraq war scenario.Britain and America (powerful vested interests therein) using eachother for moral authority and reinforcement (plus a ready Scapegoat if discovered) to further an agenda. It wouldn’t surprise me if the Spider’s web extended outward from CRU to the closest tied Commonwealth countries while the Americans were the nexus for the rest.
Mr Salinger is mentioned in the CRU e-mail archive – Thursday, 24 April 2003 19:28:20 : Filename: 1051230500.txt – where he says in part, ” is it not partially the responsibility of climate science to make sure only satisfactorily peer-reviewed science appears in scientific publications “?.
He currently is pursuing an unjust dismissal case against NIWA. He was dismissed for speaking to the press without authority.
If he or NIWA cannot fully account for their adjustments, then the NZ NIWA graph is simply gobbledook. Why adjust the raw data ? I know that one adjustment for Wellington was because the Met Station moved up a hill and a change of height adjustment made – a hill in the middle of the city.
A bit off topic, but a question:
Since the ocean is a zillion times more massive than the atmosphere (sorry for the technical quantitative description) and the amount of dissolved CO2 in the ocean is likewise huge compared to the atmosphere.
Doesn’t it make more sense from a thermodynamic perspective to say that the ocean cools the atmosphere (evaporation), and the land warms it (conduction/convection).
I realize that this is a bit simplistic, but should we be measuring ocean temperature, or sub-surface ground temperature to really get the long term trends?
hysteria (17:42:33) :
“I wonder if what we should be doing is plotting each “point” as a range – we could reasonably estimate the errors across all the sources (trees, 18thC mercury, satellites, whatever) and show the temperature as a wide line – the width depending on the uncertainty in the measurement. Any long term trends would then be observable. No?”
This is what Lindzen has done in one of his slide-show graphs, which I saw two weeks ago on an Internet video. He put pink fuzz (for uncertainty) around the line plot on the graph of the historical temperature record.
If there were valid reasons for adjusting older temperatures downward and more recent temperatures upward, we would have known what they are by now.
Maybe there is a reason they haven’t thought up yet?
Ray (16:19:33) :
Maybe Dr. Salinger wanted to correct the stations data to account for the SHI Effect (i.e. sheep heat island effect).
PHI Effect NZ
In my experience the things that heat up NZ all start with P, so the PHI is probably what Salinger was adjusting for.
“P” (methamphetamine), Prostitution, Pokies (slots), Pigs (wild), Pit Bulls (pervasive and pugnacious), Poachers, Police, and Provincialism. 🙂 Clean Green NZ. 🙂 Gotta love em!
To their credit, the NZ public now laughs off AGW where two years ago it seemed 90% were taking any tack that scorned GEORGE BUSH, especially on Kyoto.
This is exactly why climate scientists shouldn’t be forced to make their data public – because lay people don’t understand the reasons for adjusting data and deliberately misinterpret it. “Adjusting” data is not the same as “faking” it.
No statistical data is ever presented unadjusted. Political pollsters, for example, adjust their samples to match reality when they find they’ve undersampled various demographic groups. There’s nothing wrong with it, and anyone who says there is is being deliberately dishonest.
Stephen Shorland (18:23:20) :
That strikes me as a forced analogy. And unnecessary to boot.
The “Adjustment” Dominoes are Falling
OT: I guess the leaker at CRU was active last month sending the BBC stuff. Will throw the media in a spin with their “hacker” meme.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1230943/Climate-change-scandal-BBC-expert-sent-cover-emails-month-public.html
I think it is time to go after the Mauna Loa data and emails with an FOIA.
Then all NOAA data basesand emails.
Let’s not stop there. Let’s make it a world wide demand to see the unadulterated data.
EJ
Anyone see moonbot’s latest column?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2009/nov/25/monbiot-climate-leak-crisis-response
Via Volkh http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2009/nov/25/monbiot-climate-leak-crisis-response
Oh ya, whats the latest dates on the files, this month?
Robert L – we do have data of the ocean heat content, and it’s going up dramatically – far more than land temperature. It’s toward the bottom of this link:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/25/uh-oh-raw-data-in-new-zealand-tells-a-different-story-than-the-official-one/
Robert L (18:26:38) :
I have often wondered how GISS can add Sea Surface Temperature into the climate record and justify it. The measurements taken on land are measurements of the air, a gas, and the SSTs are a measurement of the water, a liquid. How can you a) expect the two to change at the same rate and b) combine the measurements to arrive at a global average temp (which is silly nonsense of its own)?
That NZ graph hasn’t been adjusted for UHI effect either. So they have indeed been “Hiding the Decline (hiding the decline)”.
If any “adjustments” needing to be made, UHI would be one of the most valid. So what moves and changes have happened to the Weather stations at Auckland, Masterton, Wellington, Nelson, Hokitika, Lincoln and Dunedin?
It would be interesting to find out….. NZ might have a Cooling rather than a warming….!
al
the wayback machine http://www.archive.org is your friend here
http://web.archive.org/web/20080720082852/http://climatechange.gov.au/science/faq/question2.html
Thanks al!
And isnt it a beautiful graph! As it says “adapted” from — but much better than — the IPCC 2001hockey stick. Do you think we will ever see it again? I’m gonna print it out and put it on my wall to remind me of the old days.
Craig (18:05:26)
____________________
The way I read it, the raw data were available but the revised data were not until provided (recently?) by “one of Dr. Salinger’s colleages”.
As another Kiwi has posted, Dr Salinger (ex CRU) was fired by NIWA earlier this year, allegedly for “talking to the media”. I wonder though if the real reason was something more to do with fudged statistics ?
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/technology/news/article.cfm?c_id=5&objectid=10611239
” R John (18:18:33) :
So, it is the adjustments by these folks that is “robust”?”
I don’t know, but is isn’t unprecedented or unexpected. Perhaps that is why the MSM ignores such things.
tokyoboy (17:25:35) :
“It would be great if you could extract and post the station location information.”
Sure. The 17 station names are: Abashiri, Nemuro, Suttsu, Yamagata, Ishinomaki, Fushiki, Nagano (where a winter olympiad was held several years ago), Mito, IIda, Choshi, Sakai, Hamada, Hikone, Miyazaki, Tadotsu, Naze, and Ishigakijima.”
Checked out the GISS data. Of course, all of this is adjusted. Poor correlation of names, but it doesn’t make much difference. Of the 33 stations listed, only 11 log data past 1990 and only 7 show as current. Curiously, all the stations that went off line in 1990 showed an eyeball average increase of 1.5C increase in the ending 2 years. Tokyo still on line and showed a 4C increase over the long period. I’m sure none of that could be due to UHI and needed to be adjusted upward by GISS.
How deep is this rabbit hole?
Where did Mann learn this “Nature Trick”? Did he have help merging “Tree temp” with “surface temp” programing.
How many other countries use some variation of this type of programing?
It looks like there is going to have to be a search for unadjusted surface station data around the whole globe. In the meantime, a glimpse of reality may be afforded by looking at temperature records for oceans. Those in the emails claim that land data is warming at twice the rate of oceans, and skeptics claim this is due to UHI and questionable adjustments to data. How to the oceans alone compare to the record of solar activity?
jh, Nice link to Nature. Story precis: Not important; just regular business; of course there are disputes in science; move on.
I call THAT attitude Climate Denial! Denial of the effing obvious … that people are REALLY PO’d about this. Lots of raging and gnashing of teeth.
I couldn’t even be bothered to send that dishonoured rag an e-mail of complaint. Let them sit there and wonder why subscriptions are down.
If we look at the SST anomalies (HADISST) for the Southwest Pacific Surrounding New Zealand (50S-30S, 160E-170W), there is much less of a long-term rise.
http://i46.tinypic.com/1174mtg.png
In fact, the linear trend for that dataset is 0.076 deg C/decade. Looks like the folks at the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric research slipped a decimal place.
http://i48.tinypic.com/nx2tk.png
About a month ago, I finally found time (retired) to investigate AGW — just in time to be able to follow the EAU-CRU revelations. WUWT is an incredible resource. Not only for content, but also for the links to other sites. Thanks!
A couple of observations germane to this thread:
The Urban Heat Island effect is no longer applied to USHCN raw data per http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/ushcn/#urbanization . I expect New Zealand and/or CRU use the same reasoning.
Check out http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/the-surface-temperature-record-and-the-urban-heat-island/ for the rationale.
I’m not sure that any truly raw data is available. The USHCN lowest level data has passed “QA” and been manipulated as described by http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/ushcn/#quality .
Raw? My BS meter is pegged.
Oops!! Should have read:
In fact, for comparison, the linear trend for that dataset from 1909 to 2008 is 0.076 deg C/decade. Looks like the folks at the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric research slipped a decimal place.
http://i48.tinypic.com/nx2tk.png
Someone upthread,
“What if the actual temperature is 2.6C below where CRUT3 says it is?”
One or both of two things?
One, all of the observations attributed to warming look even dumber than they did when they were made.
And AGW will become AGC as they tell us,
“We meant global cooling all along. Emissions must be reduced to halt global cooling. And all the other stuff we want too, so shut up”
E.M Smith, a regular visitor to this site, has done the work for everywhere on the planet, using freely available GHCN data from NOAA, to prove that the supposed AGW is simply an artifact of thermometer numbers and siting over time.
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/11/03/ghcn-the-global-analysis/
If you dig around his site you’ll find all of the worldwide data from way back, and if you just eyeball this data, before any of the neat analysis that EMS has done, you can see that we’ve all been sold a pup by the Team and their hapless, wide-eyed supporters.
That site (and this) should be mandatory reading for all non-climate scientists and other basically numerate persons who believe they believe in AGW, unwittingly trusting that their climate scientist peers have been doing the right thing according to “the method”. There’s no fancy maths involved, just a probing analysis of raw data that shows how it’s been tortured to prove a point.
WAG (18:28:10) :
Doctor to patent’s relative: “I’ve got some good news and some bad news. The good news is that the operation was a success. The bad news is that the patient d**d”
Oops! UEA-CRU not EAU-CRU.
David (18:41:17) :
There are standard, precise, mathematical corrections for wind velocity, humidity, cloud cover, velocity vector of the vessel, wetness of the bucket, wave height, etc.
Trust me; I’m a climatologist.
URGENT have your say at the BBC
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/talking_point/8375378.stm
see how many emails from you they will post. It might be important
REPLY – Better not go there. We don’t jail them; they don’t jail us. But we sure as heck don’t have to trust ’em. ~ Evan]
Evan:
Normally I agree with you, but I’m not inclined to agree to a quid pro quo. I’m a skeptic because from a sociological point of view the process of deviantization seemed more political than anything else. My question always was “Is there a reasonable alternative view to AGW?” The answer is “YES”. I did not fiddle with temperature records or attempt to suppress dissent or opposing views.
I want a Congressional Investigation. I want MORE money for a clean climate investigation network: more land stations, more ARGO buoys, more satellite coverage and more public oversight. I want jail time for people who willfully misrepresent the climate record to advance a political agenda or for personal gain. Make no mistake, this is happening.
End the lies. Congress, investigate now.
tthew Weaver (19:01:33) :
Yes. Check out Anthony’s surfacestations.org pages. I suspect he must be near completion of his project. Just in case he needs the bus fare over to some far off station in a downtown US city rooftop somewhere, I’m popping over to his tips jar to donate $10.
Let’s all do this!
@Third Party (16:56:53) :
“Sounds like NZ needs a SurfaceStations like documentation of siting and data for each of the subject stations.”
I can start. There is a station at 37deg 40min 14.74S 176deg 11min 47.64E
The Met station is visible on Google earth. In a fenced off enclosure a little to the north of the control tower and near the western end of Jean Batten Drive.
It is at the Tauranga Airport surrounded by the growing city of Tauranga and Mount Maunganui. They used to be two small towns. Now they are a small city. New Zealand cities admittedly are not very big. When I was young in the 1960’s our family would visit an elderly relative at Aerodrome Road, Tauranga. It was a long drive along a dirt road to get there. Look at it now on Google maps. It is bounded on one side by the city. The other side by the harbour. I expect the nearby mudflats and water may moderate the UHI effect somewhat but the nearby industrial estate to the north must have an effect.
My impression of how they adjust for the UHI is:
Long ago they didn’t know about it at all, so we subtract it.
When I was an undergraduate we knew a bit, so we subtract a bit.
Now we know all about it, so we subtract nothing.
It’s becoming clear that not only is there a lack of ethics in Climate Science but also a lack of intelligence.
Was New Zealand one of the countries Phil Jones said contractual agreements would not allow him to release the raw data? Did NZ supply him with raw or adjusted?
Robert L (18:26:38) :
A bit off topic, but a question:
Since the ocean is a zillion times more massive than the atmosphere (sorry for the technical quantitative description) and the amount of dissolved CO2 in the ocean is likewise huge compared to the atmosphere.
Doesn’t it make more sense from a thermodynamic perspective to say that the ocean cools the atmosphere (evaporation), and the land warms it (conduction/convection).
I realize that this is a bit simplistic, but should we be measuring ocean temperature, or sub-surface ground temperature to really get the long term trends?
Yes and it is being done. This is also the reason why the Arctic melt was not really that big a deal because it is not the air temperature doing it so much as the warmer currents that did it.
Look take an ice cube out of your freezer and stick it in the refrigerator. It will melt but it will take a heck of a long time to do it. Now place a cup of water in the fridge over night and then place an ice cube after the water has chilled . It will melt at a much greater rate then the one that only had ‘air’ to heat it.
Water is an immense, huge, gigantic reservoir for heat. It is really the thing that drives our climate.
WAG (18:28:10) : “Adjusting” data is not the same as “faking” it.
…. but “faking” data is the same as “faking” it though, right ??
And Winston looked at the sheet handed him:
“Adjustments prior to 1972 shall be -0.2 degrees and after 1998 shall be +0.3 degrees.”
Winston wondered at the adjustment to the data. At this point, no one even knows if the data, prior to his adjustments, was raw data or already adjusted one or more times previously.
It didn’t matter. All Winston was sure of is that one of the lead climatologists needed more slope to match his computer model outputs. He punched out the new Fortran cards and then dropped the old cards into the Memory Hole where they were burned.
“There!” Winston exclaimed to himself. Now the temperature data record is correct again; all is double-plus good.
WAG (18:28:10) :
“This is exactly why climate scientists shouldn’t be forced to make their data public – because lay people don’t understand the reasons for adjusting data and deliberately misinterpret it. “Adjusting” data is not the same as “faking” it.
No statistical data is ever presented unadjusted. Political pollsters, for example, adjust their samples to match reality when they find they’ve undersampled various demographic groups. There’s nothing wrong with it, and anyone who says there is is being deliberately dishonest.”
Political pollsters are often quite wrong, but there’s a bit of a difference between playing with polls and playing with the welfare of the human race. Adjusting data can indeed be done for purposes of deception, and is not unheard of. And not all lay persons are unable to understand data adjustments, some are able to make informed decisions about whether data has been fudged or not, and make determinations of the intent. You do yourself and your cause no favor with the unsubstantive rhetoric you have been sharing here, I submit you drink your own koolaid somewhere else and not expect to hook anyone here with your accusation of “deliberate misinterpretation”.
WAG wrote:
“No statistical data is ever presented unadjusted. Political pollsters, for example, adjust their samples to match reality when they find they’ve undersampled various demographic groups. There’s nothing wrong with it, and anyone who says there is is being deliberately dishonest.”
I agree. It’s undisputed that there has been warming over the past 200-some years, since the LIA. (Natural proxies indicate this, such as (in the US) the northern and upward-altitude expansion of territories of many species, etc.) If the unadjusted chart fails to show such warming, some adjustment (e.g., for time-of-day measuring) is surely in order.
There is a great temptation to “let ’em have it,” but that opens us to a counter-punch. I’m sure most–let’s say 2/3–of the adjustment is justified, and that Salinger will be able to persuade his colleagues of that. Therefore we should focus not on the magnitude of the fiddling, but on its existence. We should say, “If these alarmists are willing to put their thumb on the scale here, who’s to say they haven’t done so wrt more important matters, like positive feedback from water vapor? There’s a need to reassess this whole matter by a less involved / committed group of scientists.”
Let’s not try to hit a home run. Swinging for the fences feels good, but will get us nowhere. Let’s just try to get on base, and let our main work be done by TIME. (As recommended by Kuznetsov in War and Peace.)
No statistical data is ever presented unadjusted.
Really? Do you reckon the LHC at CERN will only give “fixed” values to scientists? Or do you reckon they will trust them to make their own adjustments?
The NZ Statistics authorities certainly adjust demographic data. But they both publish the original material and list the published changes in excruciating detail.
Political pollsters, for example, adjust their samples to match reality when they find they’ve undersampled various demographic groups. There’s nothing wrong with it, and anyone who says there is is being deliberately dishonest.
Pollsters even out data to balance their chosen selection with reality. They take a great deal of care to do so properly. That is the exact opposite of cherry picking, which is what we are seeing with GW values. And I would not trust with my money a poll I had not eyeballed the original data from.
I find it amazing anyone would claim such crap. Stop and think about what you just wrote. Do you really, really believe that no-one other than a small cabal should be trusted with data of this importance?
Eric (19:20:36) :
The Hitler video is in exceedingly bad taste, and should be removed. It’s the second time I’ve seen it posted.
REPLY: agreed. done, – Anthony
If these shenangans are going on in every country, do you know how much man power it will take to investigate all those frauds? It could take the entire CIA, KGB, FBI, NSA, MI5, etc. Do You know how many jobs investigating this scam could create?
First CRU, now NIWA. It really does beg the question:
How many OTHER supposedly objective atmospheric science agencies in how many other countries did the lemming thing; and adopted similar ”extended data enhancement” methods (the most generous term I can think of to apply (preferred plain english translation: Cooked the books) ) ??
SIDEBAR in passing:
The continuing exponential rise of the Google ”climategate” hit counter is truly amazing:
From 38K total after the story broke last Friday night, to 3760K as of 19:40 hours US PST today. Up by TWO orders of magnitude.
By comparison:
Throw “anthropogenic global warming” at Google, and see only 740K hits.
hmmm…..:
Not saying the above proves anything, but it’s kind of interesting. . . .
AJ Strata has found files in the CRU data dump that, country-by-country, plot out the temperature going back many years. Lots of countries show no warming, some even a decline. His links to the files might be helpful to those interested in pursuing how the global temperature was computed by CRU. At first glance it looks a lot like Mannian mathematics where the hockey sticks are heavily overweighted, but that’s to be proved by analysis of the code and data.
http://strata-sphere.com/blog/index.php/archives/11466
It is clear this “adjusting” has been going on for some time now.
Maybe some of the adjustments are justified, maybe they are not, maybe the coders who actually implement the adjustments have been erring on the high side every time a new adjustment algorithm is instituted.
The NCDC confirms that the US temperature trend hs been adjusted upward by abou 0.425C since 1920 (or more than the increase which is recorded in the adjusted numbers so no warming has occurred since 1920 in the raw numbers).
The questions are, how do we find out exactly how much fiddling has actualy been done and how do we fix it?
FOIs, yeah let’s continue trying this. Let’s find the raw data and put it up on the internet but it doesn’t mean much if Hadcrut, GISS and the NCDC keep putting out their adjusted charts.
We have to convince the community itself, to redo all the analysis and redo all the charts. I don’t think we are going to have much luck in that.
[It sounds like it is about time for Part II of the PaleoClimate series which shows that the CO2 sensitivity is only about 1.0C per doubling over the last 45 million years and about 1.5C per doubling over the last 570 million years.]
i see there is this update to the original story linked.
UPDATE 15:49 NZDT – NIWA’s news release in response to this story appears to have been delayed, and according to a radio news report a few minutes ago Rodney Hide, leader of the minority Act Party and a minister in the National Government, is now calling on his Cabinet colleague, Climate Change Minister Nick Smith, to “please explain” [normal transmission now resumes]
Robert Wood of Canada (19:07:10) :
Well, I am sure that data goes up onto the rack also, but what I was getting at is the fact that they are two completely different things, but it seems that GISS treats them like they can be added together and give us a meaningful number to use and I wonder what their justification for that is. They aren’t measuring the air temperature above the surface of the water, they are measuring the surface of the water. With land measurements, you are measuring the air temperature, and not the surface temperature. Why is that ok?
[snip]
Nothing new, but an interesting headline.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/nov/27/the-global-cooling-cover-up/#comments
Just searched on New Zealand in the HadCRU emails, looks like 24 results.
I’m going in, cover me.
Apparently Phil Jones’ dog doesn’t range as far as New Zealand or it would have eaten that data as well.
What I find really amazing about the “offical” graph is even that does not support global warming. I mean, look at it .. the temp anomoly only rises 1.2 Celsius over 100+ years! When you compare that to the discredited hockey stick graphs and other temperature change claims, the amount listed is far less (and does not follow the claimed rapid increase shape) from many other “climitologists”. I guess they didn’t read the memos on the desired graph shape and forgot to properly “account” for needed changes to make it more “accurate”.
It’s easy to see what the warmist tactic is in reply to climategate.Point out that whatever is in those e-mails does not affect the bigger picture.Science is still saying sea level rise blah blah blah.The interviewer in that fox video posted here gave that warmist a platform to spout that the science is still certain on global warming,what he said will stay in the mind,because the interviewer didn’t cut him off,and didn’t ask what data the settled science is using,and has that data been corrupted?There is so much information out there,but it is spread all over the web.All I’m seeing is one scientist went too far,but he will be sacked or resign,then we can go back to all the other data that is showing global warming as a threat.It is why they are calling for Phil to resign.All the msm is doing is giving a platform to warmists to state the view that global warming is a threat under the guise of investigating climategate.
“Maybe some of the adjustments are justified, maybe they are not, ”
Of course there are reasons for adjustments but they generally go in the other direction where increasing urbanization has encroached on stations that were rural. Urbanization results in higher temperatures due to heat absorbed and re-radiated from pavements and buildings. So if you have a station that was rural, urbanization would result in higher temperatures even with a static “climate”. So you adjust temperatures down. Adjusting them up in recent years would act to amplify urban heat islands. But since NZ is South of the Equator, maybe things go in the opposite direction down there. /sarc
I would expect there to be little difference in the climate of NZ because it is (or they are) islands. The climate is influenced (and moderated) by the ocean. No matter from which direction the wind comes, it comes from the ocean, unlike winds in places like North America.
Michael R (16:53:36)
In case you’re not aware of it:
http://www.john-daly.com/stations/
John Daly died a few years ago, so if you want to contribute to this area you would do well to maintain updates here rather than start out on your own.
Matthew Weaver (19:01:33) :
Question–and pardon being a bit off-thread–but is there any US station-by-station weather data downloadable that is presumed unadjusted? That is, the real original data reports by hour, day or whatever? As I read each of these reports–and realize that I’m sitting here with more computer power at my desk than these so-called scientists did even just 10 years ago, I’d like to download the data and take a look first hand.
I believe so. You can try poking around here for example:
http://www.wrcc.dri.edu/summary/Climsmwy.html
Pick a station and then pick under monthly temperature listings (avg, min, max) to get a table of data.
press release is now out:
http://www.niwa.co.nz/our-science/climate/news/all/niwa-confirms-temperature-rise
Warming over New Zealand through the past century is unequivocal.
NIWA’s analysis of measured temperatures uses internationally accepted techniques, including making adjustments for changes such as movement of measurement sites. For example, in Wellington, early temperature measurements were made near sea level, but in 1928 the measurement site was moved from Thorndon (3 metres above sea level) to Kelburn (125 m above sea level). The Kelburn site is on average 0.8°C cooler than Thorndon, because of the extra height above sea level.
Such site differences are significant and must be accounted for when analysing long-term changes in temperature. The Climate Science Coalition has not done this.
NIWA climate scientists have previously explained to members of the Coalition why such corrections must be made. NIWA’s Chief Climate Scientist, Dr David Wratt, says he’s very disappointed that the Coalition continue to ignore such advice and therefore to present misleading analyses.
NIWA scientists are committed to providing robust information to help all New Zealanders make good decisions.
—————–
I believe that ClimateAudit covered issues relating to these station moves previously.
The New Zealand news is all over Twitter.
http://search.twitter.com
NIWA
Observation is perhaps the best method for determining anything. Statistics come with too many caveats.
Observation is simple….. You find a Semi tropical planktonic Diatom in the sediment cores of the South western Baltic sea that no longer lives there today. The conclusion is simple… The Baltic sea must have been warmer in that area. http://www.co2science.org/articles/V4/N3/C2.php
They appear in the sediment cores up until the mid 1200AD then disappear from the sediment record…. They do not appear in the Baltic sea today as it is too cold for this Diatom.
Now what climate conditions would the world have had to have, in the year 1100AD, in order for the South Western Baltic sea to be several degrees warmer than it is today, so that this Diatom, Pseudosolenia calcar-avis, could survive there.
Interesting question… Probably a climate conducive to colonizing Greenland, Iceland and a Viking cultural heyday.
“Matthew Weaver (19:01:33) :
Question–and pardon being a bit off-thread–but is there any US station-by-station weather data downloadable that is presumed unadjusted? That is, the real original data reports by hour, day or whatever? As I read each of these reports–and realize that I’m sitting here with more computer power at my desk than these so-called scientists did even just 10 years ago, I’d like to download the data and take a look first hand.”
There is also a place where you can get a look at the original data sheets, but that is a long slog unless you are just looking for a specific month or so.
http://www7.ncdc.noaa.gov/IPS/images/coopsample.pdf
http://www7.ncdc.noaa.gov/IPS/coop/coop.html
Also, just came across this:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/ghcn/africa.html
Might be promising.
BernieL (17:25:13) : says ” Also note that a remarkably hyperbolic version of the hockey stick graph has been removed from the Australian Gov website – at least I cant find it any more (anyone know more about this?).
It used to be here:
http://www.climatechange.gov.au/science/faq/question2.html ”
——————————
Archive.org is your friend. They archived that page in July 2008.
See: http://web.archive.org/web/20080720082852/http://climatechange.gov.au/science/faq/question2.html for a copy.
It is indeed an extreme case of hockeystickitis.
BernieL (17:25:13)
That CSIRO doc. you linked was very mind, it included this as a discussion of interglacials……
Significant warming begins in the Antarctic and several hundred
years later the warming causes the CO2 increase, mainly through ocean processes. The Northern Hemisphere
deglaciation follows the CO2 increase. Therefore, increases in CO2 contribute an amplification (positive
feedback) throughout most of the warming. The ice sheets also cause a feedback. The observed temperature
changes and rates of change cannot be simulated without the observed changes in CO2 or ice extent.
Variations in solar irradiance, natural and anthropogenic aerosols and land cover have also infl uenced climate.
Very mild….. and after warming, “several hundred years later CO2 increases”, truly amazing, they spoil it a bit by saying CO2 adds to the feedback (it possibly does but to a minor extent).
Yes I too am puzzled by the loss of the BOM warming chart. I have a link but no copy.
Does anyone have a copy of what was on
http://www.climatechange.gov.au/science/faq/question2.html ? so that comparisons can be made.
Well, that doesn’t even come close to addressing the issues raised by CSC.
chainpin, I don’t think you’ll find much – I had a look at that yesterday. Though there is some data as I recall.
Any time an organisation says they are preparing an official response you know there is major butt-covering going on. Lawyers will be busy.
I’d like to make one other point about the temperature data. Once it’s definitively shown that the temperature record is corrupt then the whole CO2/AGW model goes into the garbage can because the computer models have been fit to fake data. They no longer have any validity. None. Zero. Done.
Once long ago, when CA was a little village with only a few visitors, I pointed this out and predicted that the Gates of Mordor would open when the temperature record came under scrutiny. I think that’s a glimpse of what we saw in the emails with Jones preferring to destroy the data rather than give it to Warwick Hughes or anyone else. It is more than sufficient to explain the vile behavior towards Steve McIntyre, Anthony, and many other skeptics that we’ve seen from the inner circle.
“No statistical data is ever presented unadjusted.”
except over important/vital matters like elections and census, school /university numbers etc and… something that should be so unequivocal as temperatures.
Here’s a hypothetical raw v adjusted case:
“Raw” data for the population of France in 2008
62,048,473 – 2008
Source: World Bank, World Development Indicators
Population density of France in 2008: 110 people per sq km
http://about-france.com/facts-figures.htm
area of metropolitan France in 2008: 547,030 sq km
source: http://www.franceway.com/w3/Facts&Figures/geography/area.html
Therefore the adjusted population in france for 2008 was 60,173,300, but lets call it 6.0, as opposed to 6.2.
Thats 2,000,000 disappearances in one year
which leaves over 2 million unaccounted for
Imagine adjusting for overseas territories that are defined as being part of france against population density of 110, but not telling the public how these odd figures were arrived at.
In light of the press release check out the Wellington graph at Page 6 of http://www.climatescience.org.nz/images/PDFs/global_warming_nz2.pdf
So we see at 1928 the 0.8 degree increase in difference (see jump in green line). Accepting the press release at face value there is no explanation why there were also temperatures adjustments between 1900 and 1928 and also from about 1970 onwards. These adjustments appear to make the past cooler and the more recent times hotter by about 0.3 degrees at both ends – 0.6 degrees in total.
Robert Wood of Canada (19:07:10) :
David (18:41:17) :
“There are standard, precise, mathematical corrections for wind velocity, humidity, cloud cover, velocity vector of the vessel, wetness of the bucket, wave height, etc.
Trust me; I’m a climatologist”
…and the data to do these globally are available back to 1870?
That was addressed to WAG (18:28:10) :
“The Kelburn site is on average 0.8°C cooler than Thorndon, because of the extra height above sea level.”
Wellington is one of the windiest places on the planet. I should imagine it has had a major UHI effect since 1928. Did they adjust for that?
Good points Paul, certainly without the raw data, it is impossible to replicate the results of any study.
Such violations of the scientific method simply must not be tolerated.
There was an excellent post at CA on the topic of disclosure which everyone should read:
http://www.climateaudit.org/index.php?p=66
There are a set of NZ graphs in one of the leaked FOI2009 documents that might be worth comparing. To be found in:
“idl_cruts3_2005_vs_2008b.pdf”
These are seasonal but the adjusted graph looks very much like the summer graph.
Anyone have access to some old Sacramento Bee newspapers from the late 60’s to early 70’s?
There is something to be found in them that will put a regional nail in the issue of how much damage was done to the historical data.
A few things I believe happened awaits some provenance tests.
So, if you have some copies of Sac. Bee newspapers, by all means, speak up.
This will probably work for any US cities and even in other countries.
REPLY: Are you speaking of the weather station o the roof of the post office in downtown Sac?
unequivocal – –adjective 1. not equivocal; unambiguous; clear; having only one possible meaning or interpretation: an unequivocal indication of assent; unequivocal proof.
2. absolute; unqualified; not subject to conditions or exceptions: The cosigner of a note gives unequivocal assurance that it will be paid when due.
I always analyze the way people use their language.
This is like saying the “Science is Settled”. A bit arrogant.
Uh oh!
http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/climate/hqsites/site_data.cgi?variable=maxT&area=wa&station=004020&dtype=raw&period=annual&ave_yr=0
I plotted this only 2 weeks ago
http://members.westnet.com.au/rippersc/mbar.jpg
The Climate Fraud Department at Telegraph UK has been notified of this development in “how they squirmed” comments 1:23am – thought it would be nice for the Dept Head to have something to mull over while word processing machine was warming up.
Disagrees with this as well
http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/ncc/cdio/weatherData/av?p_display_type=dataGraph&p_stn_num=004020&p_nccObsCode=36&p_month=13
Alvin (20:47:15)
I get your point, only temperatures are either or they are not what is recorded. Adjusting them makes little sense. At the moment here in London its recorded as 46F in Waterloo. How should it be adjusted to make it higher than 46F?
Warwick Hughes whom some of you may know has a truck load of New Zealand Temperature data from remote sites that are NOT “adjusted” for UHI. Perhaps if Warwick is reading this he may like to post some of them, otherwise a quick request on his blog site might do the trick. The data is interesting, but he seems to have taken it down off his site.
http://www.warwickhughes.com/blog/
Alvin oops.. I think you were refering to the press release and not my post.
i’ll ask Anthony to make the adjustment
Wow ! Why did they gather so much data; a whole two stations from 1853 to 1908 and a whopping seven since then; talk about a data overload.
I can see why they need two stations; one for Noth Island and one for South Island; but where on earth could they put five more.
Well maybe one for Stuart Island would be good, and if they put one on White Island, that would give them a nice warm signal; and of course it just wouldn’t do to not have one on Rangitoto.
It just seems like so much data to process, and the place is only about 1000 miles long or so; and what is it you need for good continuity; one station for every 900-1200 km.
Yeah I would say NZ is really overdoing the spatial sampling there if you ask me.
I can just see the chaps at the DSIR, or this newfangled NIWA outfit saying; “she’ll be right mte; don’t sweat it, it’ll all come out in the wash !
Way to go Kiwi; you make me proud..
It seems to me that New Zealand is small enough that, if we could get the data, we could see if the adjustments make sense. One thing popped out about their denial. If you move a thermometer up 100 meters, do you adjust the new location’s readings up to jib with the lower location or do you adjust the old location down to jib with the new, cooler location? It seems in order to be unbiased, one would have to imagine there was a high elevation before-the-move thermometer reading lower based on the average difference between the locations and a low elevation after-the-move thermometer reading higher based average difference between the locations. That way, the effects of the move would be averaged out. Otherwise, one artificially moves the lifetime reading of the instrument up or down.
REPLY: Are you speaking of the weather station o the roof of the post office in downtown Sac?
Actually, I am looking for printed material that I saw as a Sacramento Bee Boy when I was young. 1st Sunday of any month 60’s -70’s will do the trick.
When found, post a jpeg online and compare to the historical records (GHCN data). I don’t know where that station would have been located in the nineteenth century, but COOP lists it as Sacramento 5 ESE .
I just listened to Richard Treadgold of The New Zealand Climate Science Coalition on Newstalk ZB. He hasnt accused NIWA of fraud. All he has asked is that NIWA explain exactly HOW the temperature records were adjusted. The reasons and the methods. NIWA’s raw data shows NO warming in 150 years. The adjusted data shows 1.9C. Quite a difference. He also said it was quite astonsihing that all the adjustments did was pull the earlier temperatures down. Surely they should have worked both ways (thats me).
My post??
NIWA has made an announcement
http://www.niwa.co.nz/news-and-publications/news/all/niwa-confirms-temperature-rise
[quote]NIWA’s analysis of measured temperatures uses internationally accepted techniques, including making adjustments for changes such as movement of measurement sites. For example, in Wellington, early temperature measurements were made near sea level, but in 1928 the measurement site was moved from Thorndon (3 metres above sea level) to Kelburn (125 m above sea level). The Kelburn site is on average 0.8°C cooler than Thorndon, because of the extra height above sea level.
Such site differences are significant and must be accounted for when analysing long-term changes in temperature. The Climate Science Coalition has not done this.
NIWA climate scientists have previously explained to members of the Coalition why such corrections must be made. NIWA’s Chief Climate Scientist, Dr David Wratt, says he’s very disappointed that the Coalition continue to ignore such advice and therefore to present misleading analyses.
NIWA scientists are committed to providing robust information to help all New Zealanders make good decisions.[/quote]
If it was really 1.9C warmer 156 years ago we must have been in a local ice age.
“Charlie (20:22:20) :
BernieL (17:25:13) : says ” Also note that a remarkably hyperbolic version of the hockey stick graph has been removed from the Australian Gov website …””
Yes, that was FAQ 2. in the science section. I emailed them some months ago complaing about it, using as my “irrefutable proof” that the mann graph had been dropped from IPCC ar4. I got the reply that everyone who has entered this vipers nest has got … that the problems with Mann don’t matter because they have so many other sources. I have been preparing a list of papers from the leaked material, and an email to them saying “Oh, you mean these?” Seems like someone beat me to it.
“… in 1928 the measurement site was moved from Thorndon (3 metres above sea level) to Kelburn (125 m above sea level). The Kelburn site is on average 0.8°C cooler than Thorndon, because of the extra height above sea level.” I happen to have spent a long time in Wellington. Basically the city sprawls along a former beach area and then climbs up a hill – all of which is built upon – and the Met office is close to the University – all that hill is subject to the UHI effect. That adjustment for altitude – might be OK on a barren hillscape, but not on a built up hill area. Try this site for a view of Wellington
http://www.maplandia.com/new-zealand/wellington/wellington/ .
Also, very interesting that they DID NOT mention any other site in NZ. No explainations ready to hand ?.
“”” Andrew (20:13:54) :
press release is now out:
http://www.niwa.co.nz/our-science/climate/news/all/niwa-confirms-temperature-rise
Warming over New Zealand through the past century is unequivocal.
NIWA’s analysis of measured temperatures uses internationally accepted techniques, including making adjustments for changes such as movement of measurement sites. For example, in Wellington, early temperature measurements were made near sea level, but in 1928 the measurement site was moved from Thorndon (3 metres above sea level) to Kelburn (125 m above sea level). The Kelburn site is on average 0.8°C cooler than Thorndon, because of the extra height above sea level.
Such site differences are significant and must be accounted for when analysing long-term changes in temperature. “””
Sorry press release; but no cigar for you; you’ll have to smoke a dock weed instead.
The movement of a site such as from Thorndon to Kelburn, is tantamount to ceasing the sampling at Thorndon, and commencing sampling at Kelburn.
If such a change in sampling regimen causes a change in the temperature continuous function reconstruction; requiring “adjustment” that simple fact is prima facie evidence that the sampling process violates the Nyquist criterion; so the reconstructed temperature map function is bogus.
Random sampling in Oscilloscope technology is quite old; they were doing that at Tektronix in the 1960s. In the case of random sampling, every single sampling “station” is moved in a quite unpredictable way for every sampling interval. now the randomizing algorithm ensures that samples are always; or at least mostly always within the period required by the Nyquist criterion (1/2B).
The reconstructed continuous function has good fidelity even though every “thermometer” is effectively in a continuous state of motion and may never turn up in the same place twice.
So as I said, and have reiterated many times; if you sample the function properly, in acordance with the Nyquist sampling theorem criterion; it doesn’t matter if you move a station, or even if you move them all, so long as the maximum station spacing called for is maintained.
So nyet NIWA; you chaps are just engaging in self delusion. Oh sure if you mostly leave your seven thermometers in place for a while, you will continue to get coherent data from those seven locations; and you can even plot them on a graph if you like; but just don’t go telling anybody that you are measuring the mean temperature of New Zealand; you are simply measuring the mean temperature of your seven stations (maybe dependiong on what fudging you do); but you are doing what Hansen does at GISS; he is simply measuring (calculating) GISStemp; and nothing more. You are simply measuring your seven wonderful spots, and nothing more.
Roger Knights said: “Let’s not try to hit a home run. Swinging for the fences feels good, but will get us nowhere. Let’s just try to get on base, and let our main work be done by TIME. (As recommended by Kuznetsov in War and Peace.)”
How well was this process working prior to this scandal? Seems like only abrupt events make any difference in the world, unlike bored Russian writers might think. Those writing about history can enjoy the luxury of seeing how each swing of the pendulum is inevitable. Those making history lack that luxury.
It occurs to me that something intentional is happening here. If an international effort has been underway to create a false impression of AGW it could be accomplished in a very straightforward manner by adjusting the models used to reconstruct PAST climate proxy temperature data. These models could then be used to “control” for any temp., CO2, or solar variables which current AGW scenarios required as a baseline. Once the “historic” baseline data are accepted as true, normal science can be trusted to provide legitimate “confirmation” of warming trends across a wide range of disciplines for the simple reason that there has been empirical warming on the earth for the better part of four decades. The “trick” as they say in their emails, is to graft the present real data points on to the reconstructions so that they satisfy all the logical requirements of the AGW argument. However, the really clever move is epistemological. Current climate scientists are operating in complete good faith. Their lichens, estuaries, ice caps, animal migrations, etc. are in fact behaving as they describe them but they are now seen against the backdrop of a unidirectional paleo-climate model and projected into the future in this way. The real trick is not essentially technical at all. It is far more sophisticated because in enlisting current normal science in the service of a theoretical contrivance it can cover itself in all the philosophical arguments that have defended science since the Enlightenment. It can claim that anyone who dissents is an enemy of science itself. In Medicine, the virus which feeds on the immune system while benefitting from its defenses is the most deadly virus of all.
If such a situation is intentional, as I believe it is, the skill set required for this operation is quite clear. It would include the following capabilities: intellectual skills of the first order, a deep commitment to an alternative political/social order, advanced training in applied mathematics and/or computer modeling, a high level knowledge of paleoclimatology, incredible energy and an institutional placement at or near the center of the climate science community. The person or persons I describe will have been active for some years. They will have realized early on that they do not have to control everything. Controlling the Past is all that is needed, the Future, as we have seen , will take care of itself
tional
dissents is an enemy of science itself.
“Anyone see moonbot’s latest column?”
It’s Monbiot’s usual BS. The claim is that the problem is one of appearances not one of substance. That is clearly a misrepresentation on his part. And then he does the usual job of villifying the skeptics by claiming that they are all in the pay of Exxon Mobile. What nonsense. I don’t know who these people are that are suppose to be working for the oil companies to spread disinformation. I’m sure that some people like that can be found and used as strawmen by Monibot. But I haven’t formed a single opinion based on the input of such people. Look who Jones is afraid of. It’s people like McIntyre, not the people that Monibot mentions. I formed all of my skeptical opinions based upon the data and none based upon some oil company shill telling me what I should believe. I think that is probably the case for most of the skeptics. Monibot’s caracterizations of the opposition to AGW as being unethical are themselves unethical and are derived from a cherry picked sample set that suits his purpose.
How?
Some of us might need some specifics before we carte blanche “buy-off” on any given course of action, because, you know, there is a lot of misinformation circulating out there these days that could use clearing up.
Do you suppose you (and your friends) could practice an Amish way of life and avoid involvement in the modern banking system (just a hypothetical)?
Forms and Functions of Modern Banking – a review for some, an introduction for others …
And –
Fractional-reserve banking
.
.
also see NIWA’s direct connection to the IPCC:
http://www.niwa.co.nz/our-science/climate/key-contacts
Dr. Wratt was also cc’d here:
http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=861&filename=1202939193.txt
Paul Demmert, that graph is indeed interesting.
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/epubs/ndp/ushcn/ts.ushcn_anom25_diffs_urb-raw_pg.gif
Unless my old eyes are badly in need of glasses it says virtually all of the 20th century warming is due to adjustments.
If I had to choose one English word to describe this debacle, it would be “thick.” Thick in deception, thick in the head. How can so many thinking, educated, peer reviewed scientists be so stupid? Oh well, they are only people and we shouldn’t be surprised. Even though some of them tried to set themselves up as gods, history tells us that a percentage of our population will have grand illusions about themselves and they will go to great lengths to appear as having special powers. Changing the climate is just one of their powers.
Interesting how this is playing so far. So they trot out one single station that obviously did require an adjustment and act as if that explains the record for the entire country.
Straight away you can see there’s no slope—either up or down. The temperatures are remarkably constant way back to the 1850s.
Funny, seems to happen a lot when viewing unadjusted individual stations of long record.
“Anyone have access to some old Sacramento Bee newspapers from the late 60’s to early 70’s?”
There’s a pay site that archives 100 million pages of old newspapers, and that allows keyword searches. You can probably get a free trial offer, and you can subscribe by the month, quarter, year, etc. Under $100 per year. Useful for lots of topics. Unfortunately it doesn’t carry the Sacramento Bee. Here’s the link.
http://www.newspaperarchive.com/Default.aspx
They really do believe the people are stupid.
NIWA
“For example, in Wellington, early temperature measurements were made near sea level, but in 1928 the measurement site was moved from Thorndon (3 metres above sea level) to Kelburn (125 m above sea level). The Kelburn site is on average 0.8°C cooler than Thorndon, because of the extra height above sea level.”
Get two people and two thermometers together,that read the same temp. at the same location (digital,reading 1/10 of a deg.C). Move one to Kelburn the other to Thorndon, communicate via cell-phones and post the result.
michael hogen wrote: “The real trick is not essentially technical at all. It is far more sophisticated because in enlisting current normal science in the service of a theoretical contrivance it can cover itself in all the philosophical arguments that have defended science since the Enlightenment. It can claim that anyone who dissents is an enemy of science itself.”
In very simple terms they have the Hockey Stick handle and when confronted dance around and point to the blade as if that’s the only issue that is being challenged.
I’ve done contract work for NIWA, I wasn’t impressed with some of the stuff (Can’t give detail) I saw and people I had to deal with, so I am not one bit surprised about this.
The Australian Govt Department of Climate Change has removed it’s FAQ (a copy is on wayback) and replaced it by a link to New Scientist. I wonder what New Scientist thinks about being outed like that?
Glenn (19:34:06) :
WAG (18:28:10) Said;
“This is exactly why climate scientists shouldn’t be forced to make their data public – because lay people don’t understand the reasons for adjusting data and deliberately misinterpret it. “Adjusting” data is not the same as “faking” it.
Glenn (19:34:06) : replied… Adjusting data can indeed be done for purposes of deception, and is not unheard of. And not all lay persons are unable to understand data adjustments, some are able to make informed decisions about whether data has been fudged or not, and make determinations of the intent.
Please define “lay person” I’m a professional engineer, despite my spelling handicap. People who want to communicate the excellent job they did will not just tell you they adjusted numbers; they will tell you the value of the adjustment; why the adjustment was made and are prepared to show documentation that the value of the adjustment is reasonable. I think I can handle that much information and I think most people can.
michael hogan (21:50:41) :
Oh, no, it’s far simpler than that.
Start over.
Do it right or hit the “Coming Ice Age” road.
I guess NIWA forgot to include this site in their study; records from 1880 and still rural.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=507936150000&data_set=1&num_neighbors=1
(and yes, look in the bottom right corner and it’s Jim Hansens data)
Arn Riewe (16:52:00) :
re – HEAT ISLAND EFFECT
http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2007/06/does_this_make_.html
He has an interesting plot of Max Heat Island Effect in Deg C vs “sky view” metric (?). He notes that his sources assert that “no one gets a number for the Urban Heat Island effect less than 1 degree C”. Although I trust him more than I do anyone of the usual suspects from CRU, I would still like to know where he got that graphic from. If it’s solid, it would be great to have the original ref.
He also references http://www.surfacestations.org/ in the last half of the article. (apparently he participated in the survey).
April E. Coggins (22:02:00) :
I’ve seen similar things happen in other fields. Counsellors and trainers, who, despite having a Code of Ethics, still think that they can have sexual relations with clients.
Maybe I’m not being fair, but I begin to wonder if the-rules-don’t-apply-to-me is an occupational hazard of having some sort of high profile.
DaveH (22:19:05) :
It might be a good idea to get a screenshot of that data, you know, before it gets “lost.”
Can we really trust average temperature numbers from 1850?
It’s appears to spread to Kalgoorlie as well
http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/climate/hqsites/site_data.cgi?variable=maxT&area=wa&station=012038&period=annual
http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/ncc/cdio/weatherData/av?p_display_type=dataGraph&p_stn_num=012039&p_nccObsCode=36&p_month=13
and
http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/ncc/cdio/weatherData/av?p_display_type=dataGraph&p_stn_num=012038&p_nccObsCode=36&p_month=13
Combined
http://members.westnet.com.au/rippersc/kalcomb.jpg
We have lost a whole degree out of some of the 1930’s
Here is a sample of NZ airport stations, it covers a geographic slice of increasing latitudes of around 1200 kilometers and the trends (station specific) get progressively cooler towards the higher(polar) latitudes.
Auckland 0.0086c/yr (extrapolating to 120 yrs + 1c)
Wellington 0.0016c/yr (extrapolating to 610 yrs+ 1c)
Christchurch -0.00649c/yr (extrapolating to 160 yrs- 1c)
Invercargill -0.076c/yr (extrapolating to 13 yrs -1c)
Here is the series since 1960 WMO station Wellington Airport.(reported data)
http://i255.photobucket.com/albums/hh133/mataraka/wgtntemeraturetrend.jpg
Alvin (20:47:15) :
Seems to me the new peer review process is a little more open than the “Gang of 114”. If the NIWA information is “unequivocal” and “robust” it will withstand scrutiny – or not.
I live near the Met station at Mt Maunganui that John in NZ (19:13:17) : describes. The influence of newly built warehouses, tar-sealed roads etc must produce a local warming effect not present in earlier measurements, but to bundle this local and resent warming effect into a “Warming over New Zealand through the past century is unequivocal.” aggregate does not sit well with me. Of course it will be warmer if the temps are influenced by new radiant surfaces (bit like the coefficient of runoff for water varying for different surfaces for same rainfall). I think there was a controversy in the USA re the siting of stations in similar regard.
To put this in perspective, temps at extremely cold stations (Antarctica) are read remotely to exclude the effect of human body warmth. At the other extreme it is not unusual for temps at Tauranga/Mt Maunganui CBDs to rise above 40 degrees C in the height of summer but it is impossible to exclude this effect from the reading.
Begs the question: are temperature measurements by thermometer from say 10 stations that are then applied to the NZ land mass (3 major islands plus how much ocean?) any more valid than 10 temp proxy tree-ring samples from Yamal applied to the global land mass plus ocean?
And Geraldton
http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/climate/hqsites/site_data.cgi?variable=maxT&area=wa&station=008051&period=annual
http://members.westnet.com.au/rippersc/gero.jpg
With respect to my comment (22:38:15) : , have I accidentally stumbled on the Heat Island Effect?
Craig (22:16:08) :
“Please define “lay person” I’m a professional engineer, despite my spelling handicap. People who want to communicate the excellent job they did will not just tell you they adjusted numbers; they will tell you the value of the adjustment; why the adjustment was made and are prepared to show documentation that the value of the adjustment is reasonable. I think I can handle that much information and I think most people can.”
I used the term because Wag (the dog) did. So it’d probably be someone outside the circle of “Trust me, I’m a climatologist” people in this case. Although I didn’t actually speak to a living soul, I remember scoring an “A” in an online Interpersonal Communication course.
I agree about sharing, and especially in the field of climatology data and methods (including code) should be available to any reasonable request, and kept until it is outdated. Certainly an FOI shouldn’t be met with a number of contradictory excuses. “Hiding behind” a claim of copyright or IPCC bothers me the most.
Re NIKFromNYC (18:07:04)
Thanks for resurrecting that 2007 CA post that I had commented on, but lost in a disc crash earlier this year. I belatedly added an additional comment to bring my earlier responses up to date.
And Southern Cross
http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/climate/hqsites/site_data.cgi?variable=maxT&area=wa&station=012074&period=annual
http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/ncc/cdio/weatherData/av?p_display_type=dataGraph&p_stn_num=012074&p_nccObsCode=36&p_month=13
It’s contagious!
Thank you, Marine Shale, you have solved some long-standing puzzles.
From the Excellence in Broadcasting Golden Microphone:
“You know, it’s a bubble here. Look at it this way. The global warming bubble, we just heard it burst. The question is: How will that explosion affect the Universe of Lies? This past decade, we have lived and suffered through a dot-com bubble, stock bubbles, the housing bubble. We all know the problem with bubbles: They eventually burst. Bubbles refer to things that are grossly overvalued. When bubbles burst, values leave the Universe of Lies and reenter the Universe of Reality. The dot-com bubble brought reality to the stock market. The housing bubble brought reality to the housing market. And so will the global warming bubble eventually bring reality to science. Man-made global warming may be in the process of reentering the Universe of Reality, finding its true value. It’s a debunked theory of junk science promulgated by junk political scientists. Big Science can no longer be trusted as things stand today. Science, the media, government, and academia: The Four Corners of Deceit in the Universe of Lies.
Bubbles are self-perpetuating climbs in value that defy free market principles. They defy checks and balances. They’re lies — counterfeit truth, if you will. Bubbles occur when hope triumphs over reason, when speculation jumps ahead of fact. It all becomes obvious in hindsight after values have fallen back to earth and reality. A bubble occurs when speculators note rapid increases in value and buy in anticipation of further increases, rather than buying because something is undervalued. Bubbles are false values. It’s why everybody worries about them. It’s why everybody worries, “When’s this bubble going to burst?” Because everybody knows when you’ve got a bubble, you’ve got a fraud. You’ve got false values — and when those bubbles burst, we all fall back into the Universe of Reality, and it can be a very hard fall.”
Folks, the bubble has burst on AGW. It will never be looked at the same. In hindsight, it will be one more false scare to add along side “The Population Explosion”, “Worldwide Famine”, Raw Material Scarcity”, The New Ice Age”, etc.
Now for the entertainment…………….
Hope you all enjoy!
Hmmm… It looks like they used a Bezier curving “trick” to pull the data down; weighting the curve’s point around the year 1905.
As the guys at Real Climate like to say, that’s “a good way to deal with a problem…”
Cheers
I don’t agree with the call for “jail” or trials of any sort for what I believe to be because it is the fault of the entire community that this sham has been allowed to continue. Why has the scientific community not demanded to see these results? I mean the ENTIRE scientific community.
When people claimed to have invented cold fusion, they were not allowed to keep their stuff secret. Why has no scientific journal refused to publish information based on their climate information until they have explained it?
This is a failure along the entire chain that is supposed to prevent stuff like this happening. There seems to be great financial incentive for the institutions involved to keep quiet as it brings a lot of research money and “prestige” to them. As long as everything is kept quiet, that is.
As Dr. Jones’ dog apparently ate the raw data and for some reason they don’t even have the meta data that describes the original data, then the entire database is junk. It can not be replicated. It can not be shown to be right or wrong. We must simply trust Dr. Jones with data on which policies costing huge amounts of money are based. I don’t think so.
The responsible thing to do is build a new database with new data that is fully documented. The current one can not be verified.
– NASA’s Latest Discovery: SUN HEATS THE EARTH (American Thincker, June 05, 2009) – Robert Calahan at NASA’s Goddard Space Center could be in big trouble — for telling the truth. Here is a headline for an article in the Daily Tech: “NASA Study Acknowledges Solar Cycle, Not Man, Responsible for Past Warming”… World’s Largest Science Group Rejecting Man-Made Climate Fears…
– Pentagon/NASA: Global Warming/Global Cooling… THE PENTAGON WARNS CLIMATE CHANGE WILL BRING GLOBAL CATASTROPHE… Now the Pentagon tells Bush (Guardian.co.uk., 22 February 2004): climate change will destroy us… Britain will be ‘Siberian’ in less than 20 years:
http://cristiannegureanu.blogspot.com/2009/07/worlds-largest-science-group-rejecting.html
Have just read “Does this make sense?” from yonason (22:19:51) : re Heat Island Effect so now up to speed. The following quote is telling:
“Note that no one gets a number for the Urban Heat Island effect less than 1 degree C, and many hover around 6 degrees (delta temperature from urban location to surrounding rural countryside). Just a bit higher than the 0.2C assumed by the IPCC. Why would they assume such a low number in the face of strong evidence? Because assuming a higher number would reduce historical warming numbers, silly.”
WHAT? – “0.2C assumed by the IPCC.” you have got to be joking, what a load of piffle. Do these IPCC people know nothing about heat transfer? If the temp at the urban station is 20-30 Deg C and the temp at the local CBD within cooee is 40 Deg C guess what will happen? or do they have a different “adjustment” for this gradient scenario than the aforementioned “(delta temperature from urban location to surrounding rural countryside)” gradient.
And this science is “settled”. I’m going now, my head hurts.
“”Folks, the bubble has burst on AGW.””
There are a lot of smart people who say that “carbon” was supposed to be the next big bubble to drag the stock markets of the world back from the brink. Australia is going through the same things the US is re: the tax and cap stuff. The Liberal leader (US eqiv. being the R’s) is a proponent of taxing carbon and is a past employee of Goldman. Follow the money.
“the pursuit of money is the root of all evil”
Benford’s law might be applicable on numerical values making up the graphs? To my knowlege no one has tried that yet.
When a recording station is moved to a significantly different location then a new data stream is created.
Assuming the new values can be simply and directly related to the old ones by a y = x + c relationship is just invalid without evidential proof.
That presumption alone shows the dataset is garbage and the trend conclusions are GIGO.
Anthony and others
Warwick Hughes has just provided links to an UNADJUSTED NewZealand temperature record.
First an overview
http://www.warwickhughes.com/nz/land.htm
Second the north Island Average
http://www.warwickhughes.com/nz/ni_hughes94.gif
Third the South Island Average
http://www.warwickhughes.com/nz/si_hughes94.gif
Now most of the stations these are from are REMOTE stations largely unaffected by UHI and need no “adjustment”. Question to Dr Wratt if he is reading, why are these “pristine” data not used in preference to the contaminated official data. There may be a good reason, but lets hear it. The data by the way comes from the NIWA database, so we assume it is accurate.
” I bet independent groups could find falsified data in these governmental figures all over the globe” – Joseph in Florida
I’m sure they could* – IF the custodians of this (public-funded) data were willing to release it rather than “accidentally” delete it. Which is kind of where we came in. (*And if, unlike “Harry” they were able to make any sense of it!)
If confirmed, though, this New Zealand scandal turns the smoking gun into a smoking cannon. Confirmation that raw data is being manipulated to create an imaginary warming trend there combined with persistant insistent refusal to publish raw data here will really make them look bad.
“he does the usual job of villifying the skeptics by claiming that they are all in the pay of Exxon Mobile.”
Actually, AIUI the oil companies are actually making rather a nice income from the carbon scam, partly because it’s increasing demand for oil/gas over coal and partly because they are in a position to sell carbon credits.
The National Health Service in the UK is paying a fortune to the oil companies here by way of buying carbon credits. So why would these companies be paying people to upturn this lucrative apple-cart?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1533275/NHS-carbon-trading-sees-millions-go-up-in-smoke.html
Can’t stop gnawing this bone.
Glenn (22:45:05) :, Craig (22:16:08) :
Point taken re “adjustments” but there is an infinite number of adjustments that can be made when you go down that track and are they “adjusting” in a scientific sense or “fudging” to satisfy a predetermined outcome or both? This can only be determined by unbiased peers replicating results independently but if the underlying methodology is questionable, what’s the point of raking over the same data?
There cannot be a reliable and measurable average temperature for a country plus surrounding ocean (say NZ) as in “Warming over New Zealand through the past century is unequivocal.” without extensive sampling. At the moment it seems to be a battle of best estimates; sensible vs fudged.
Weren’t CRU measuring tree-ring proxy temps to 1/10 of a degree? That’s more accurate than a thermometer.
Alan Wilkinson (20:33:42) :
“The Kelburn site is on average 0.8°C cooler than Thorndon, because of the extra height above sea level.”
Wellington is one of the windiest places on the planet. I should imagine it has had a major UHI effect since 1928. Did they adjust for that?
KimW (21:40:53) :
I happen to have spent a long time in Wellington. … all that hill is subject to the UHI effect. That adjustment for altitude – might be OK on a barren hillscape, but not on a built up hill area.
Keith Minto (22:12:39) :
Get two people and two thermometers together,that read the same temp. at the same location (digital,reading 1/10 of a deg.C). Move one to Kelburn the other to Thorndon, communicate via cell-phones and post the result.
Kiwi (22:43:32) :
With respect to my comment (22:38:15), have I accidentally stumbled on the Heat Island Effect?
.
Could be.
Adiabtic lapse rate for the elevation difference between Kelburn and Thorndon means Kelburn should be 1.2°C cooler. Since they show only 0.8°C, 0.4°C might be attributable to UHI, depending on the site surroundings.
You can check long-term records in NZ on NASA GISS website:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=507937800000&data_set=1&num_neighbors=1
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=507936150000&data_set=1&num_neighbors=1
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=507939870000&data_set=1&num_neighbors=1
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=534949960000&data_set=1&num_neighbors=1
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=501949950001&data_set=1&num_neighbors=1
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=532915920000&data_set=1&num_neighbors=1
All Australian stations are available from NASA GISS here:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/station_data/
Here are some examples:
Tenterfield
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=501945560000&data_set=1&num_neighbors=1
Melbourne
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=501948680000&data_set=1&num_neighbors=1
Bathurst
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=501947300000&data_set=1&num_neighbors=1
Alice springs
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=501943260004&data_set=1&num_neighbors=1
Roma
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=501945150010&data_set=1&num_neighbors=1
Broken Hill
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=501946890000&data_set=1&num_neighbors=1
Adelaide Airport
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=501946720004&data_set=1&num_neighbors=1
Broome Airport
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=501942030004&data_set=1&num_neighbors=1
Darwin Airport
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=501941200004&data_set=1&num_neighbors=1
Charleville
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=501945100004&data_set=1&num_neighbors=1
Parks
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=501947170000&data_set=1&num_neighbors=1
Dubbo
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=501947190000&data_set=1&num_neighbors=1
Tamworth
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=501957620000&data_set=1&num_neighbors=1
A NZ$130,000 p/a pay rise for the NIWA big wig….
http://www.stuff.co.nz/sunday-news/news/2997956/Niwa-chief-pockets-130-000-pay-rise
I usually go to stuff.co.nz for NZ news, this story about false data doesn’t show at all.
If you have corrupted increments, eliminate them. And declare your action openly. NIWA shows their bias and chasing of a preferred end result by the deliberate manipulation of an increment result to provide a manipulated historical increment. And hiding their manipulation. And attacking anyone who deigns to question them. Disgraceful. This would get you fired if you worked for SGS and you “massaged” an increment because you were not suitably positioned to record a crucial increment.
This NZ guy…
http://hot-topic.co.nz/
…who usually has a lot to say, is keeping strangely quiet on this one!
HideTheDecline (23:06:04) :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEiLgbBGKVk
That should carry a warning – you now owe me a new keyboard.
NIWA has issued a response ( http://tinyurl.com/yj2luns ).
The thing I find most striking about the report is that NIWA uses data from seven weather stations to make its official graph. And the adjustments to six of those seven weather station records have an upward slope, together forming the warming trend shown on NIWA’s official graph.
“….consistent with the warming up of the planet after the end of the Little Ice Age in 1850.”
Variants on this meaningless statement appear so often it’s ridiculous. Warming does not cause itself. Spouting tautologies does not make you look clever.
In an ideal world, this standard of “adjusted” science would be used in the medical professions, in pharmaceutical developments, in the design of aircraft, nuclear reactors etc etc.
We are indeed fortunate that the scientists from the global warming sector cannot cross-contaminate these sectors, unless there are a few smarties who realise they can make a fortune by following the ‘adjustment’ methodology.
Image if your life depended on it.
As indicated earlier, humans are only marginally responsible for global warming. The hotter sun is undeniable, and it is the main reason for global warming.
http://flyingbuffaloes7.net/keluar6.html
The per-station adjustments in the PDF are stunning. especially as Urban Heat Island effect would go the other way.
Surely now every single such paper in the body of “settled science” should be reviewed again – in the open, with raw data added as an extra series in all trend graphs. Where raw data is “lost or destroyed” the paper should be officially discredited. We need a per-paper and per-claim list with each either validated or discredited.
Gads, are there *any* long-running unadjusted station data that show an AGW upswing at a greater slope after the 1940 upswing in CO2 than before it? The stations that have run from the 1700s or 1800s are mostly all in Europe…about as close to the arctic as you can get without having to live in igloos. New stations then get added further and further towards the equator. Thus you could indeed have an alarming “global average” chart despite the fact that few if any individual stations in fact show an authentic “AGW” signal. Even century long cooling might be obscured this way. Before this scandal I might have chuckled at the idea that the answer might involved such incompetence but now I understand that it may have been willful or at least hopeful incompetence and needs to be checked out.
This has in fact been analyzed, come to think of it, but the guy involved doesn’t tend to graph his results so his blog is full of page after page of numbers so it didn’t make a huge impression on me when I ran into it several weeks ago:
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/08/17/thermometer-years-by-latitude-warm-globe/
His theory is that despite adjustments for location that the adjustments simply become “swamped” by the “March of the Thermometers”.
Here he suggests that New Zealand is very important since its readings influence what scientists think the entire Pacific Ocean is doing since there are huge areas of ocean that lack thermometer stations:
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/11/01/new-zealand-polynesian-polarphobia/
RW (01:54:15) :
“….consistent with the warming up of the planet after the end of the Little Ice Age in 1850.”
———-
:”Variants on this meaningless statement appear so often it’s ridiculous. Warming does not cause itself. Spouting tautologies does not make you look clever.”
========
As has been extensively discussed in various threads here in the past, there need be no “forcing” to cause warming (or cooling) to occur. Unforced warming is inherent in a chaotic system that is constantly chasing an ever-elusive equilibrium point–one that its chase itself disturbs.
As an example, the century-length upward and downward temperature surges of the past few thousand years occurred without any outside intervention. There is no reason to think that the upward surge of the past 150+ years, which is so far smaller than the MWP & the Roman Optimum, is unlike those prior unforced warmings.
It never entered the IPCC’s head that the climate might be a chaotic system whose zigzags were (mostly) internally generated. Its naivete disqualifies it from the get-go.
Steve Jones : Thankyou for those links to the Australian BOM’s temperature data for Cape Otway and Wilsons Prom. Very interesting indeed.
I’m sure they’ll find someway to blame global warming for their lies (the devil made me do it). I’m sure this same anti-mind/man crap is at work in all other countries that have public-scientists (those with their lips on the public teat). I’m sure they’ll all re-double their efforts for an urgent push to action to further chock off energy and [modern] life.
May I be the first to say…
[0.,0.,0.,0.,0.,-0.1,-0.25,-0.3,0.,-0.1,0.3,0.8,1.2,1.7,2.5,2.6,2.6,2.6,2.6,2.6]*0.75
George E. Smith (21:42:41) :
press release is now out:
“…in 1928 the measurement site was moved from Thorndon (3 metres above sea level) to Kelburn (125 m above sea level). The Kelburn site is on average 0.8°C cooler than Thorndon, because of the extra height above sea level.”
Sorry press release; but no cigar for you; you’ll have to smoke a dock weed instead. The movement of a site such as from Thorndon to Kelburn, is tantamount to ceasing the sampling at Thorndon, and commencing sampling at Kelburn.
Based on the standard adiabatic lapse rate of a 2°C decrease in temperature for every 1,000-foot increase in altitude, Kelburn’s temperature should be .78°C cooler than Thorndon’s. If they’ve been adjusting the temperature based on an 8°C difference, they’ll consistently show a small, but measurable, warming.
%$#@! Twitchy “Submit Comment” thumb.
That last sentence should have included the caveat “…even when *no* actual warming is occurring.”
“We have discovered that the warming in New Zealand over the past 156 years was indeed man-made, but it had nothing to do with emissions of CO2—it was created by man-made adjustments of the temperature. It’s a disgrace.”
This warmed the cockles of me heart its priceless?
“Dave (01:51:21) : NIWA has issued a response ( http://tinyurl.com/yj2luns ).”
” but in 1928 the measurement site was moved from Thorndon (3 metres above sea level) to Kelburn (125 m above sea level). The Kelburn site is on average 0.8°C cooler than Thorndon, because of the extra height above sea level.” Hmmmmm…
Kelburn: Approximate population for 7 km radius from this point: 56857[probally a lot less in 1928]
http://www.fallingrain.com/world/NZ/0/Kelburn.html
Tourist town… Cablecar museum gets over 600,00 vistor per year
Victoria University of Wellington is there…
Urban Heat Island???? big changes from 1928 to today!!!!!
At the risk of editorialising… may I clarify the significance of this topic as it relates to the exposed UEA emails/programming files and the “correction” of the surface temperature record generally. The weather station record acts as the “master” series for much of the literature in climate science.
These weather instrument measurement series are used to “calibrate” and “correct” the complex predictive computer models upon which so much hangs, paleoclimate proxies which set the context for modern climate trends, and even satellite data.
The problem with the instrument record is that it is a) incomplete, b) prone to micro-environmental distortion (due to moves, “heat island effect” from urbanisation, etc), c) instrument changes, d) human error, and e) the recent selective drop-off of station points from the record. These are “corrected for” in the published definitive series, but that these corrections are controversial — not least because the correctors are unwilling or unable to tell us comprehensively how and why they did this.
The resultant data are used as the basis for much of the literature on AGW.
I’ll accept NIWA’s +0.79°C Kelburn-Airport offset for the periods between 1928 and 1970, but as the Wellington graph from the Climate Science Coalition paper shows, other offsets are applied before 1928. After 1970, the offset appears to vary wildly.
Just reviewed wisdom up-thread excluding my own awkward rambling and reconnected a few loose neurons that were previously assigned to my understanding of thermodynamics.
Conclusion:
The NIWA statement: “Warming over New Zealand through the past century is unequivocal” should read: “Air warming over selected New Zealand ambient air temperature measuring stations subject to Urban Heat Island Effect through the past century is unequivocal” to be correct. So those stations should be discarded and only one or two remote stations well away from urban influence be selected for NZ consideration in the global context (i.e. give UHI the flick).
The problem:air heats and cools rapidly as heat transfers through the medium (conductor) from hot sources to cold spots so temperatures swing wildly night and day, urban/rural gradient etc. generating massive data overload. Obviously air is a very poor choice of medium for long-term study of “Warming vs Cooling”. (the physics could be better but its late and too hard).
The solution: it’s the heat content of ocean and land mass that matters, both of which have thermal inertia far greater than air plus there is only one significant temperature cycle per year. (be careful not to poke the probe too far into the ground because Al said it’s millions and millions of degrees down there)
Having solved that I now find the Idealogues have shifted the goalposts from Anthropogenic Global Warming to Anthropogenic Climate Change. Notice how the focus of study is shifted from the solution: heat content of ocean and land mass (Globe) back to the problem: ambient air temperature (Climate). The Idealogue camp within Climatology (and Environmentalism) want the battle fought in the Climate arena. That way they only have to push the man-made aspect and can avoid any Warming vs Cooling debate and instead just point to Change either way.
Meamwhile, sharp minds are diverted from the big picture to haggle over NIWA temperature data-sets instead of just highlighting the irregularities and then getting straight back to addressing the notion that (developed country) man is the significant driver of Climate Change and should be penalized for it as part of a global wealth redistribution regime. And to put that in perspective, a Telegraph UK article shows how only 16 supertankers emit the same pollution as all the worlds car fleet. One of the many absurities of national Emissions Trading Schemes is that the worlds 100,000 strong shipping fleet is excluded. The other elephant in the room being the now industrialized China – the biggest polluter of all.
I’m worried about all the graphs on here. None of them really shows raw data.
The raw data will be a huge series of daily Tmin and Tmaz readings for individual stations – unless they have some new style thermometer that reads off annual average temp directly.
I posted the CRU data for comparison as well – none of them match.
http://strata-sphere.com/blog/index.php/archives/11542
AJStrata
“Why do they have to”adjust” Temps? To fit the hypothesis,not the truth?….”
I believe this adjustment serves a legitimate purpose. Many weather stations have been overrun by urbanization over the decades. This tends to skew their readings as urban temperatures are generally warmer than the previous rural temperatures. But you can see that in general the trend would then be that adjustments would generally go down not up. This, as you say, looks more like fitting the hypnosis than the truth but even more than you might suspect.
Incidentally, tried to communicate on NZ Prime Minister John Key’s Facebook page that NZ ETS is based on Climategate fraud and that NIWA is implicated – got censored out twice – can’t think why.
Like medieval theology, the answer in climate warming is known. Reality is just an obstacle to getting to the right answer.
I do worry about the future of science – a far more fragile enterprise than most people suppose.
See
http://vulgarmorality.wordpress.com/2009/11/25/scientsts-arent-science-and-science-isnt-a-method/
It seems to me that these people (Climate Scientists?) are doing there best to answer a completely different question that has intrigued me for a while…..
How high can you pile BS before it falls over and buries you?
This could make an interesting study, without needing to massage any data.
It would be beyond naive to think that this is confined to the UK or even merely to a handful of players. Look to the much touted consensus worldwide and you will find the culprits. It’s may be a good day for the world but it is a black day for science.
This’s scary info, if such kind of miscalculation prevails then we are most like to encounter so many challenges on our Environment, we need to wake up fast with the latest technologies so that we become Y2K compliant.
While you are waiting for these stories to break in the MSM, go get yourself some free carbon offsets:
http://www.freecarbonoffsets.com
You will be glad you did.
Now that we see some raw data, its becoming clearer that man-made global warming is confined to the man-made spike in the pro-AWG people’s graphs.
Thank you, commentors. I have been more impressed by the substantive quality of these comments than by any I’ve ever seen on any other website on any subject. If there’s a moderator screening them: good work!
A little footnote or two to this post:
WAG (18:28:10) Said;
“This is exactly why climate scientists shouldn’t be forced to make their data public – because lay people don’t understand the reasons for adjusting data and deliberately misinterpret it. “Adjusting” data is not the same as “faking” it.
1) I’m getting really sick of this elitist habit of referring to ‘lay people who don’t understand science’. A good scientist must be able to explain things so that a lay person can understand – obfuscation and explanations from top down belittle not those who need explanations but those who are unable to give them.
2) One can adjust data in scientific papers, provided one shows what and of what kind the adjustments are, and why one is making them.
Hiding these adjustments, keeping shtum about them is not science.
‘To make it look pretty’ is not a scientific argument either.
I think this is the time for a flood of FOI requests in EU, US, NZ, Australia,…….They may be too skittish now to refuse
I’m betting that the motive for the “adjustments” is almost certainly political. A New Zealander commenting on a post of mine (link below) complained that NZ minister of climate change Nick Smith is “hell bent” on rushing through a climate bill through the legislature. No doubt he looked to the climate bureaucrats at NIWA to give him useful numbers.
http://vulgarmorality.wordpress.com/2009/11/14/the-scientist-as-political-guardian/
To get a Ph.D in climatology, you should be required to have a Post-Graduate degree in Statistics with possibly a double major in Logic and reasoning.
I think these guys are putting their trust in the idea that will all the compute power available to them that the number crunchers will be able to discern the trends. What they don’t realise, it seems, is that the computer does not check the trends for reasonableness and suggest alternative hypotheses, or highlight where a supposed relationship does not actually exist. (Like the graph on joannenova.com.au that correlates global warming with US postal rates).
Once the data has been crunched it has to be processed by an objective and rational mind with the capacity to consider a range of possibilities. It just not seem to have happened.
****************
crosspatch (23:30:58) :
I don’t agree with the call for “jail” or trials of any sort for what I believe to be because it is the fault of the entire community that this sham has been allowed to continue. Why has the scientific community not demanded to see these results? I mean the ENTIRE scientific community.
*********************
Let’s not forget the journal’s role in all this. They are analogous to the ratings agencies that gave sub-prime loan derivatives a high rating. The journal’s didn’t require the researchers to give them all raw data and code. How can we bring pressure to bear on them?? Cancel subscriptions?
Anthony, if you follow the first link there is an update to this story. The NIWA has responded and the text can be found there.
I still haven’t heard or read a valid explanation of why this bandwagon is so powerful. I don’t buy the “politicians want power”, or “they’re all stupid”, or “they want to tax us” meme. It’s similar to the European Super-State concept. It must go through, regardless of whether or not it’s rejected by the people in referendums, as it has been countless times (they vote “the wrong way”, just keep voting until they vote the right way!). Why?
Is there’s a compelling argument in favour that nobody is telling me about?
[snip]
Interesting new relevant comments about the NIWA press release above, see
http://briefingroom.typepad.com/the_briefing_room/2009/11/niwas-explanation-raises-major-new-questions.html
I agree that some offset has to be applied when stations moved, in order to obtain maximum (and accurate enough) information from a network that is not stable, but I am not sure that the offsets were reasonably justified in all cases.
Can’t they just measure the right offset by putting a station to each old place again?
***************************
Robinson (08:35:59) :
I don’t buy the “politicians want power
******************
Are you serious about this??
1. The politicians DO want power.
2. The scientists want money.
So the scientists are giving the politicians the data they want. They are hoping that by helping politicians, their funding will be guaranteed. This might not work out for them even if the politicians get the power (including our money) they seek.
Some scientists also have environmental goals they want to see achieved that have nothing to do with CO2. CO2 is just a vehicle for this subset of scientists.
Barry Foster (01:26:49) :
This NZ guy…
http://hot-topic.co.nz/
…who usually has a lot to say, is keeping strangely quiet on this one!
He’s commented now: NZ sceptics lie about temp records, try to smear top scientist – pro-NIWA and anti “The cranks in the NZ Climate “Science” Coalition”.
The reader comments tend to the same view, except for one by Richard
Treadgold from the Coalition.
For a map of added/deleted/edited land sites, see Fig #1 in
hadcrut3_gmr+defra_report200503.pdf in the data folder.
Sucks to find out one lives in an area that has been edited (data cleansed).
From http://briefingroom.typepad.com/the_briefing_room/2009/11/niwas-explanation-raises-major-new-questions.html?cid=6a00d8341c51bc53ef012875dfcab6970c#comment-6a00d8341c51bc53ef012875dfcab6970c
He’s referring to the graph provided be NIWA showing (unadjusted?) data from the three Wellington locations:
Although the Kelburn-Airport offset looks valid to me and the combined Kelburn/Airport curve goes up 0.6 degrees.
Here is a photo of the Stevenson Screen at Kelburn.
http://www.panoramio.com/photo/22051607
At 125 metres(and that is indeed its altitude from GE) It is at the highest point for a considerable distance. The ground slopes down from it in all directions so it is much less subject to frost(and indeed all night radiative cooling) than the Thorndon site which is on flat land and near a hillside which will have cool air draining down at night. Welling ton does have a few calm days each year. Maybe 20.
One other point, the Wellington warming seems to have occurred between 1930 and 1960. Both the Thorndorn and Airport curves start and end at the same temperature.
And the 5 metre away asphalt carpark would not have been there in 1925.
God, can’t you people just google the names of these organisations before you take their words as gospel? The objecting organisation is a astroturf group funded in-part by the Heartland Institute.
Grant (08:20:42) : “To get a Ph.D in climatology, you should be required to have a Post-Graduate degree in Statistics with possibly a double major in Logic and reasoning.”
How would that help with honesty? Would it not make the dishonest even harder to catch.
Data from this or that weather station is interesting, but only insofar as it bears upon something larger. At this point, we are seeing larger evidence of global warming: melting of permafrost in arctic regions, melting of glaciers, shrinking of the north polar ice cap, rising sea levels, severe droughts in Australia and the American Southwest, increasing acidity in the oceans. All of these things are predicted by the various models.
You will always be able to find some contrary data. In fact, to have all data pointing in the same direction is typically evidence of a faulty process and/or hypothesis. The existence of anomalies does not invalidate the larger idea. Often, the exceptions prove the rule.
I realize none of my arguments will be considered here, because this site isn’t about science but rather about politics, and you are convinced of your thesis. I’m not particularly convinced of anything, but I do respect such a strong consensus among the overwhelming majority of scientists who have examined these issues.
They might still be wrong, but it’s going to take much more than anomalies to convince me. And then there are still the changes we’re seeing globally. I suppose it will be worthwhile to have a new water route from Japan to Northern Europe, but if the Himalayan glaciers melt, I dare say that there are going to be some issues as half a billion Indians or more people migrate northward owing to the drying up of the Indus and Ganges rivers.
Same goes for the Colorado River. It too is drying up. The reservoirs are less than half full. Things are going to change whether we want them to or not.
Reads like Michael Critchton’s State of Fear!
LOL. If scientists wanted money they would have become investment bankers or got a job at a pharmaceutical company.
Have you considered the possibility that the time of day for taking the observations has changed?
Acementhead: 11.06.09
The reflected heat from the Car park and Road nearby will distort the readings I thought the people operating this Weather Station where Scientists.
Interested Amateur – this does bear on something larger: the quality of the global temperature record.
Any hypothesis is only as good as the data with which it can be tested.
bugs (12:47:04) :
Based on behavior, investment bankers maybe. Not much call for people who can’t archive data and keep good records in the pharma industry.
“LOL. If scientists wanted money they would have become investment bankers or got a job at a pharmaceutical company.”
If thieves wanted money they would have become investment bankers or got a job at a pharmaceutical company.
Interested Amateur – were glaciers static prior to 1960? or 1940? or 1850?
Charlie
It is reasonable to believe that the advent of the industrial revolution (moreso STEAM ENGINES) around 1850 could be responsible for a global cooling trend until cleaner burning methods were discovered and implemented.
When we first started to really burn coal we burnt it in ways that released an enormous amount of particulates into the atmosphere – Think an effect similar to volcanoes which cause global temperature drops.
Now whether or not mankind was releasing enough particulate to actually have a global cooling effect is probably impossible to determine.
If he or NIWA cannot fully account for their adjustments, then the NZ NIWA graph is simply gobbledook. Why adjust the raw data ? I know that one adjustment for Wellington was because the Met Station moved up a hill and a change of height adjustment made – a hill in the middle of the city.
For example, the Wellington figures had to be adjusted down when the official weather site moved from the Thorndon waterfront to Kelburn. “That’s a move up of about 120 metres – that is the equivalent of a degree of cooling.”
http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/3101413/Climate-scientists-attack-criticism
so what i want to know is what was the actual adjustment NIWA made i bet it was more then 1c . Also they dont know the actual hight above sea level becasuse the say “about 120 metres” . even if they out by 10 metres it make a difference of +/-0.08c. And also what side of the hill did they put the censor on, north side would be warmer than thw south side.
Jim (08:23:02) :
****************
crosspatch (23:30:58) :
I don’t agree with the call for “jail” or trials of any sort for what I believe to be because it is the fault of the entire community that this sham has been allowed to continue. Why has the scientific community not demanded to see these results? I mean the ENTIRE scientific community.
*********************
Let’s not forget the journal’s role in all this. They are analogous to the ratings agencies that gave sub-prime loan derivatives a high rating. The journal’s didn’t require the researchers to give them all raw data and code. How can we bring pressure to bear on them?? Cancel subscriptions?
========
Another guilty party is the FOI bureaucracy and its eager / willing complicity with establishment / peer-reviewed science, skillfully exploited by the Team. When we’re pointing finger, let’s not leave that group out. (They are analogous to the see-no-evil regulatory agencies that turn a blind eye to the rating agencies.)
Robinson (08:35:59) :
“Nick Smith is “hell bent” on rushing through a climate bill through the legislature.”
I still haven’t heard or read a valid explanation of why this bandwagon is so powerful. I don’t buy the “politicians want power”, or “they’re all stupid”, or “they want to tax us” meme. It’s similar to the European Super-State concept. It must go through, regardless.
============
This is a question that deserves deep thought. A good place to start would be to ask the few political leaders who have opposed CAWG (like Klaus) why they think their colleagues have bought into this so strongly.
IMO, It’s partly a bandwagon effect, and it’s partly the effectiveness of well-funded greenie groups at politicking and mobilizing, and there are all sorts of weird psychic / sociological factors that should be considered (e.g., it fits the “template” of the modernizing / environmentally responsible state), but mostly, I think, it’s been the intimidating endorsement of CAWG by the organs of establishment science (journals and societies) that has made most of them cave in and “get with the program.”
Official bureaucratic, gate-keeper-ed science will lose its halo as a result of this, and it deserves to. Get rid of it–its day has passed.
Sorry – attributed this article highlighting the absurdity of national Emissions Trading Schemes at (06:05:29) : to Telegraph UK, should be Daily Mail UK.
Here’s the story: How 16 ships create as much pollution as all the cars in the world
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1229857/How-16-ships-create-pollution-cars-world.html#ixzz0Y0GkWfZk
Blooper shows the perils of obsessive behavior in the wee small hours. Also miss-read “servers of East Anglia” to be “sewers of East Anglia” although on reflection I’m not sure there’s a distinction.
New Zealand Govt has rammed through a revised ETS while confronting Climategate with an Ostrich-like stance. Process in Australia a little more fraught, however.
Scientists yesterday rubbished claims from New Zealand climate-change sceptics that temperature data from around the country had been deliberately tampered with to show a higher degree of warming.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/3101413/Climate-scientists-attack-criticism
Yes and i bet these were all the Government payed Scientists that said this .
Alan Wilkinson, the quality of the global temperature records might not be very good. I am not any sort of specialist in this stuff; I do have technical expertise, but in completely unrelated fields. In evaluating sloppy data, researchers commonly adjust it, and then allow for uncertainties and look elsewhere for corroboration, contradiction, and confirmation.
My understanding is that climate change has attracted heavy multidisciplinary support. There are too many stories of people who started off looking for one thing and found evidence of climate change for me to dismiss all of this on the grounds of what those with a vested interest in knocking it down say they’ve found.
I’d love the argument against climate change to be the correct one, but I’m not seeing very much evidence that it is. Anyone who’s ever really closely researched anything knows that you’ll have data pulling in more than one direction. You have to look at the preponderance of evidence, and then connect it to the larger phenomenon that you’re studying.
There are some big things going on in the environment. Carbon dioxide levels are high and rising. The oceans have turned more acidic, but are reaching their limit of absorptive capacity. This is affecting the food chain at the most basic level, i.e., the plankton. Which, soon enough, will mean a big problem with the fish. Or so it would seem.
An awful lot of people have to be telling an awful lot of lies for this to be wrong. And they have to be doing that in a bunch of widely disconnected subspecialties. Like I say, I am not a climate change specialist by any stretch, but in my fields of interest I’ve dealt with plenty of scientific researchers. Most of them are too busy and/or too independent to be telling lies at all, much less coordinating them as they’d have to be for this all to be a conspiracy.
The weight of evidence and opinion, anomalies notwithstanding, is heavily in the direction of climate change, and of man’s role as a catalyst and/or cause. I must also ask the skeptics a couple of questions that I have never seen them address: What if you’re wrong? What evidence would satisfy you?
I honestly think the skeptics are fighting a political battle, wrapped up in partisan U.S. politics. I think that’s pretty foolish. Last time I looked, the Colorado River’s watershed is pretty heavily Republican country. I wonder what all those people will say in 40 or 50 years when cities are being abandoned for lack of water.
Interested Amateur (13:59:02) :
“I honestly think the skeptics are fighting a political battle, wrapped up in partisan U.S. politics. I think that’s pretty foolish. Last time I looked, the Colorado River’s watershed is pretty heavily Republican country. I wonder what all those people will say in 40 or 50 years when cities are being abandoned for lack of water.”
I respect your opinion, but holy cow, isn’t the above one big political statement?
I wonder what the Democrats will say in 50 years when Phoenix is a tropical jungle.
Honestly, I’m doubtful that in 50 years there will be a Democratic party.
Interested Amateur (13:59:02)
When you use a word you should know what it means(El Guapo, ¡Three Amigos!).
Barbara Bush once used the word demagogue(described Saddam Hussein as such) during the course of an interview. The interviewer, quite reasonably(because most people would not know its meaning), asked her what it(the word demagogue) meant. She was totally unable to define it or give even an approximate meaning. it made her look very silly. So it is with you.
Interested Amateur you do not know what “watershed” means do you? I suggest that before using “big” words in future you take the trouble to learn their meanings and thus look less foolish(although it won’t save you from the feebleness of your writing).
NIWA
“For example, in Wellington, early temperature measurements were made near sea level, but in 1928 the measurement site was moved from Thorndon (3 metres above sea level) to Kelburn (125 m above sea level). The Kelburn site is on average 0.8°C cooler than Thorndon, because of the extra height above sea level.”
Get two people and two thermometers together,that read the same temp. at the same location (digital,reading 1/10 of a deg.C). Move one to Kelburn the other to Thorndon, communicate via cell-phones and post the result.
We risk being labelled armchair philosophers,here is a good opportunity to test the adiabatic lapse rate for this site. For goodness sake, Wellington is a University city, can’t two people run this experiment ?.
I wonder what the Democrats will say in 50 years when Phoenix is a tropical jungle. Honestly, I’m doubtful that in 50 years there will be a Democratic party.
There is absolutely nothing political about what you cited, but like so many of those who’d like to deny what’s going on, you have turned it into a partisan U.S. issue. You don’t know me, or my politics. Frankly, I don’t think the Democrats have even remotely clean hands on these issues. One small example: Look at the promises Obama made to the coal industry to win votes in Virginia last year.
The Colorado River is in trouble. Every local and state official knows it. Its reservoirs are 46% full. As we speak, they’re working overtime to cut new, lower intake valves to Las Vegas can continue to have water. Either next year or by 2011, Arizona is going to start seeing its allocation cut. From what I understand of their politics, I’m not sure I’d be investing in long-term building projects in Tucson right now.
You know what they’re talking about to replenish the Colorado? Cloud seeding. Think about that one a second. If that one even works, let’s imagine the future battle between the Southwest and the Great Plains, which has been in a multi-year drought of its own, masked by accelerated pumping of the big aquifer underneath. From what I understand, those water tables are dropping, and what (reduced) rain does come across the mountains is needed very badly to replenish it.
That only scratches the surface in the U.S., and we are far from alone. I was in China a couple years ago. In addition to their unbelievably horrendous chemical pollution issues (in one of their largest provinces, the groundwater is so polluted that nothing grows), big parts of that country are in the midst of an epic drought. Towns on the outskirts of the Beijing metro area have been abandoned for lack of water. They only have one party in China.
I think there are two real issues here with respect to American politics. One is that you’ve got a significant chunk of the economy based directly on mining, mostly of coal, oil, and methane. Those industries are not only large but very profitable, and they want to keep it going. The other is modern interpretations of free-market ideology, which aren’t even very accurate in their internal logic.
Both of those issues are being overridden by physical realities. We are only seeing the leading edge of it now, but we’re soon going to see a whole lot more of it. What happens when the Colorado drops below Vegas’s new valves? What happens when the oceans rise a couple feet on average, and (according to the models) more than that along the Eastern Seaboard? What happens when the worldwide fish catch essentially disappears because plankton can’t survive in a highly acidic ocean?
That goes back to the questions that I never see addressed on sites like this one: What if you’re wrong? What evidence will you need to change your mind?
Interested Amateur (15:05:14) :
Glenn (14:32:13) :
I wonder what the Democrats will say in 50 years when Phoenix is a tropical jungle. Honestly, I’m doubtful that in 50 years there will be a Democratic party.
“There is absolutely nothing political about what you cited, but like so many of those who’d like to deny what’s going on, you have turned it into a partisan U.S. issue.”
Uh, just what did I say that causes you to claim I have turned “it” into a partisan US issue??? And just what am I denying, pray tell??? I don’t know you or your politics? Get a grip!!
Interested Amateur (15:05:14) :
I have said this in another form before, but, Interested Amateur, if you are genuine, just keeping absorbing the information contained in the comments, threads and links provided by this site,compare them with the information that you have that you apparently base your comments on, weigh these two sides up and see if you come to the same conclusions.
“That goes back to the questions that I never see addressed on sites like this one: What if you’re wrong? What evidence will you need to change your mind?” – Interested Amateur
What evidence will we need? Well, the obvious first piece would be validation of a climate model – any climate model – that it has successfully predicted global climate change over (say) a 10 year period. 20 or 30 would be better (as we’re told a decade is statistically insignificant) but let’s be generous for now. Have they managed that? Not that I’ve seen, and I can’t see the successful achievement of such a prediction not being shouted from the rooftops of every warmist MSM outlet there is. From which we deduce a) that the models DON’T yet work, the science isn’t “settled”, and any guesses about climate in 10,20, 40 or a 100 year’s time are just that. And b) that since the models are the ONLY proof that warming is primarily due to man-made CO2, the whole AGW theory goes out the window too.
The second piece of evidence would be to validate that there had actually been significant warming (however caused) last century, how much, and whether this was or was not “unprecedented”. This was how I came into climate scepticism because I saw the hockey stick and wondered “Where’s the medieval warm period and little ice age gone? And if warming started in 1700 without industrial CO2, why do they say CO2 is needed to explain it now?” Trouble is, the unscrupulous secret manipulations of both recent past and tree-ring temperature and proxy temperature records means that right now we don’t even know whether we’ve warmed when or by how much. Was 1998 warmer or colder than 1934? Depends which adjusted version of 1934 you look at. How has data been adjusted? We don’t know because they won’t tell us. This desperately needs to be fixed and trust restored in the historical record – by OPENNESS.
The third piece of evidence would be to show, even if warming is man-made and significant, that the cure would not be worse than the disease. IMHO the biggest world problem is not climate change but overpopulation and famine. And the only way to cure this is to develop healthcare and sanitation in the third world so that families no longer feel the need to have a dozen kids – much as happened in Europe about a century ago. And to do that we need Growth of the sort we’re not going to get if we green tax and low-carbon ourselves into economic oblivion. Whilst the only “scientific” or “economic” studies being done into this are of the “the worse the prediction, the bigger the headlines and so the bigger next year’s grant will be” variety so again, nobody really knows. And what if you’re wrong? You’d condemn third-world millions to early death on the basis of dodgy code, fraudulent peer-review and not-quite-randomly adjusted data? What evidence will you need to change your mind?
Besides, you make one common strawman mistake – you assume those that don’t believe in catastrophic man-made warming therefore also don’t believe in reducing pollution, reducing dependence on fossil fuels, increasing energy efficiency or the rest. We do – but not throwing the economic baby out with the AGW bathwater!
Interested Amateur (13:59:02)
The boundary of the Colorado Basin(the Colorado River watershed) runs through seven states.
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.waterencyclopedia.com/images/wsci_01_img0108.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.waterencyclopedia.com/Ce-Cr/Colorado-River-Basin.html&h=395&w=334&sz=22&tbnid=p6TUoMimmskgaM:&tbnh=124&tbnw=105&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dcolorado%2Briver&usg=__vEzBzMUOFLapsC4Dcb4nCwodj7I=&ei=ChQPS_vsMo6KMor37DM&sa=X&oi=image_result&resnum=4&ct=image&ved=0CA8Q9QEwAw
Of these seven states the Electoral College votes in the 2008 election were 74 Democrat versus 18 republican.
http://electoralmap.net/2010/2008_election.php
Electoral College votes are(very roughly) proportional to number of registered voters in each state so I’d say that the Colorado River’s watershed is pretty heavily Democratic country.
Interested Amateur in science precision counts. Slop just doesn’t cut it.
Drudge links to the critique of the NZ data comparisons of this post.
NZ sceptics lie about temp records, try to smear top scientist
Someday someone is going to do a psychological study on the moronic effects of the Web. The more thoughtful amongst you must have pondered about the effect on intellectual and mental health of regularly communicating only with those that agree with you. The effects are obvious to the detached observer: the inability to consider contrary evidence, the hysterical response to critics, the irrational obsession with conspiracies – both your own and those against you, the tendency to dismiss the opposition with glib cliches rather than reasoned argument supported by evidence, the very circular citing of similar groups… Like the man said, you should get out more.
From England.
The projections of climatologists are discredited. Even if the emails of CRU in East Anglia are ‘innocent’, the discredit is real and unanswerable. No one with any intelligence will ever believe what these people say again. This fact produces a serious problem – how are we to know what we CAN believe in the future?
There is an answer and that is TO START AGAIN.
Mr Obama, Mr Brown etc are going to Copenhagen. Their objective ought not to be agree steps to combat global warming but to get the true facts.
There is no immediate urgency. Nothing serious is going to happen in, say, the next ten years. All that needs to be done is to increase hugely the number of temperature stations spread out over the world’s surface in places not subject to interference for cities etc, and publish the data from these stations on the internet. Interested parties could then use their own spreadsheets to collate the data.
Despite the public pronouncements of climatologists, even they themselves do not predict disaster tomorrow – maybe in forty years time. There is no urgency now this minute. Let’s get the facts right first.
Heidi Deklein (15:29:37) :
Wonderful post. Can you prove that you aren’t Interested Amateur and set yourself up with a softball that you could bat out of the park? 😉
“You’d condemn third-world millions to early death on the basis of dodgy code”
It’s my belief(and of course I can’t prove it) that people in third world(and other) countries are already dying early due to economic deprivation caused by the huge increase in basic food prices caused by the bio-fuel fraud.
The big threats to humans are overpopulation, vulcanism(and I don’t mean Spock, earthquake and Asteroids. When Yellowstone goes up again millions will starve unless it is planned for well in advance. Toba redux would be worse.
Reporting in New Zealand on the CRU leak and the NIWA adjusted temperatures has been shamefully light within the MSM. The biggest traffic in the email leaks has been on talk back radio, and within loacl BLOGs.
Such is the disconnect, the two big TV network stations, one private one Government funded, have studiously avoided mention of the CRU leak. Instead one of them reached for the “Glaciers are shrinking even faster” story, completely ignoring the Hadley fiasco.
So its not just NIWA who adjust records here in NZ, the media is complicit in it too, history doesn’t happen if it ain’t in print right?
acementhead (16:06:28) :
Interested Amateur (13:59:02)
Last time I looked, the Colorado River’s watershed is pretty heavily Republican country.
snip good rebut
“Interested Amateur in science precision counts. Slop just doesn’t cut it.”
I might add that Arizona’s governor is a democrat. She drinks the koolaid too, not just McCain, in these parts.
Interested Amateur (15:05:14) :
The Colorado River is in trouble. Every local and state official knows it. Its reservoirs are 46% full. As we speak, they’re working overtime to cut new, lower intake valves to Las Vegas can continue to have water. Either next year or by 2011, Arizona is going to start seeing its allocation cut. From what I understand of their politics, I’m not sure I’d be investing in long-term building projects in Tucson right now.
You know what they’re talking about to replenish the Colorado? Cloud seeding. Think about that one a second. If that one even works, let’s imagine the future battle between the Southwest and the Great Plains, which has been in a multi-year drought of its own, masked by accelerated pumping of the big aquifer underneath. From what I understand, those water tables are dropping, and what (reduced) rain does come across the mountains is needed very badly to replenish it.
That only scratches the surface in the U.S., and we are far from alone. I was in China a couple years ago. In addition to their unbelievably horrendous chemical pollution issues (in one of their largest provinces, the groundwater is so polluted that nothing grows), big parts of that country are in the midst of an epic drought. Towns on the outskirts of the Beijing metro area have been abandoned for lack of water. They only have one party in China.
Drought is an issue that obviously concerns you, and of course it’s an important one.
But you make the same mistake all Alarmists do, that of laying all naturally-occurring problems, like drought, floods, fires, hurricanes, etc. at the feet of your favorite scapegoat, that of man-made C02. The fact is, though, that these are all things that have always happened, and always will, to varying degrees, and in varying parts of the world. The more you learn about climate, in fact, the more you will see that drought indeed becomes far more prevalent when the climate cools, not when it warms. The fact is that man’s problems with water (either too much or too little) have more to do with the locations he chooses to live in, and to some extent, how he uses the land.
Stick around, and read, read, read. Don’t make the same mistake a lot of trolls do of coming here, and saying “oh, I see you are all political hacks who don’t care about the environment.” Nothing could be further from the truth, in fact quite the opposite. Demonizing C02 is actually the most damaging thing to have ever happened to the environmental movement, and it will take years for it to recover.
I looked at the hot-topic.co.nz site and I’m not entirely convinced.
For example NIWA splices three different series in the Wellington Nz area. Gareth (of hot-topis) may be right that “This sort of correction is commonplace, and not remotely controversial amongst meteorologists and climatologists who are trying to build long term records from disparate data series.” However, if I were to use the methodology shown in his webpost processing the type of RF/RADAR data I do at work, I’d wind up with all sorts of errors. From my quick glance at it, the NIWA has far too many variables to do the linear shift shown in the post to adjust different sites into one time series.
There may be cause that the NZCSC (NZ Climate Science Coalition) is barking up the wrong tree. From what I see the problem isn’t that the data was adjusted, but in the simplistic way the adjustments and splicing occurs.
The evidence i need need to change my mind is when they can get facts right like this one with Al gore in this video about Confronting Climate Change he has the earth rotating from east to west for one thing .
http://www.google.com/landing/cop15/#utm_campaign=en_AU&utm_medium=ha&utm_source=en_AU-ha-apac-aunz-sk-cop15&utm_term=climate%20change
As a Kiwi I am not surprised that NIWA have gone to these lengths to reinforce their stated belief in AGW. Dr Wratt is a contributor, and proud of it, to the IPCC reports over many years. Bully for him.
A friend of mine works at NIWA in Wellington. When I put it to him about 15 months ago that the infamous “hockey stick diagram,” had been discredited, he pronounced that he did not know of this diagram. I was astounded to say the least. From this I figured him to be either extremely naive, or that NIWA somehow kept their employees in cotton wool so that they could continue to go out and fight the good fight to save the planet without undue influence from the outside, i.e. real, world.
My feelings on this have now been strengthened by the graph from NIWA that purports to show unprecedented warming over New Zealand in my whole lifetime (the past 52 years). What I mean by this is that the NIWA employees not only work in an ivory tower (with central heating) but they live an insular existence as well if they believe New Zealand has heated up to the extent shown on their graph.
In the meantime us folks out here in the real world exposed to actual, not virtual, conditions have experienced a good degree of climatic oscillation in the past half century. The 37th anniversary of New Zealand’s hottest recorded day is coming up on Feb 7th next year. I find it ironic that many young people sucked in by this alarmist nonesense have never experienced a day as hot as that in this country.
Still NIWA says it is getting hotter. If the high point peaked 37 years ago then the bottom points must be coming up to increase the averages. That would explain why we have just experienced the most ground frosts, with actual ice on the ground, this year for the period from 1980 to 2009 by my own records (you have to keep your own records, I mean who can you trust anymore?). It would also explain why we have experienced the largest number of mountain snowfalls in my area (Lower North Island) this year, for the same period.
It is getting hotter but… last year avalanches returned to the Tararua Ranges for the first time since 1929 because of the heavy snow that year. No trampers/mountaineers active now had ever experienced such conditions in those mountains before.
When Dr Jim Salinger was sacked earlier this year for breaking his contract by speaking with the media, he said afterwards that he considered himself, ” a good scientist.” From this we can deduce that Jim’s version of good science is to conduct your research with a preconcieved notion, and then do your utmost to secure that notion. I was not surprised to find that Dr Jim had worked at the Hadley CRU before.
I went to a talk by Dr Jim here in Palmerston North back in early 2003. Another audience member, a farmer, and myself predicted that the conditions prevailing at the time, a strong El Nino, would lead to severe drought conditions here. With all of his knowledge and the tools available to him he didn’t see it coming. I guess he didn’t see his dismissal coming either. That’s the trouble when you live and work in an ivory tower.
Cheers
Coops
Some context for the NZ ETS, hurriedly raced into law this week.
Forget the science, guys, this is a purely pre-emptive trade-related move. As NZ relies so heavily on exported agricultural products (meat, wool, dairy, seeds, etc), then not being seen to drink the climate kool-aid could have consequences. As commenters well know, the AGW delusion is widespread, and one version of it in practise is that one should punish heretics by refusing to buy their goods. NZ can’t afford to let that happen, hence the ETS.
Nothing particularly high-minded here – just TCB.
ot this MAY interest some MASTER STATION LIBRARY FORMAT .
http://dss.ucar.edu/datasets/ds900.0/station_libraries/1996.17.html
One thing would really convince me: seeing the major proponents of AGW downsizing their lifestyles. That’s not exactly scientific evidence, but it sure would get my attention.
With the amount of wasted spending dolled out over the last eight years, Americans have been taken for a ride they would sooner forget. Anyone else think extensive jail time is in order for key profiteers (i.e. Al Gore)?
Nathan R. Jessup
http://www.the-raw-deal.com
NIWA Media Release 26 November 2009
Warming over New Zealand through the past century is unequivocal.
NIWA’s analysis of measured temperatures uses internationally accepted techniques, including making adjustments for changes such as movement of measurement sites. For example, in Wellington, early temperature measurements were made near sea level, but in 1928 the measurement site was moved from Thorndon (3 metres above sea level) to Kelburn (125 m above sea level). The Kelburn site is on average 0.8°C cooler than Thorndon, because of the extra height above sea level.
Such site differences are significant and must be accounted for when analysing long-term changes in temperature. The Climate Science Coalition has not done this.
NIWA climate scientists have previously explained to members of the Coalition why such corrections must be made. NIWA’s Chief Climate Scientist, Dr David Wratt, says he’s very disappointed that the Coalition continue to ignore such advice and therefore to present misleading analyses.
NIWA scientists are committed to providing robust information to help all New Zealanders make good decisions.
I have been putting links on John Keys facebook page and they are deleting every one.Sad to think our tax is being used for some goon to sit on Johns page all day Censoring my freedom of speech.Everybody should hammer his FACEBOOK with comments!,that would help wake them up!
Where can i find the year summarys from The Kelburn site 1928-2008 ?.Are the free copys avaliable ?. NIWA scientists are committed to providing robust information to help all New Zealanders make good decisions
I think, like many, you miss an essential point or two. Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that all your “signs” are correct. It still doesn’t “mean” anything if we were this “warm” almost a 1000 years ago or much “colder” 300 years ago and worse, that we were comparably “warm” in the 30s/40s.
All of this is acknowledged in the CRU mails and in some cases “action” was taken. Here we are now with NZ getting exactly the same treatment with exactly the same result. Let’s say that there is an obvious and alarming CO2 signature in the station records – why would it require “fudge” to tease out? It is supposed to be recent, obvious and alarming. Surely it should be visible to some extent or another in the raw record.
The station data for many long standing records going back to the mid 1700’s shows little of anything. Certainly nothing alarming. What is remarkable is the narrow range throughout the record. Only when we apply “fudge” and grid the stations to we see anything. Until this is done transparently and reproducibly I see no way to avoid threads like this one.
Are you talking about “us” or the CRU?
I just love the way you can, seemingly without seeing any contradiction, say all that without blinking. Must be fun in your world.
I used to work with a guy who would preface pulling bogus stats out of his ass at a meeting with something along the lines of “how can you claim that when we have no real numbers”. He would continue .. “while it is clear to everyone here that 85% …”
http://hot-topic.co.nz/nz-sceptics-lie-about-temp-records-try-to-smear-top-scientist/#more-3622
Even I can see that the skeptics are getting desperate. If the skeptics could attack the science they would. Since they can’t, they attack the scientists.
REPLY: Oh, have you seen this? http://briefingroom.typepad.com/the_briefing_room/2009/11/niwas-explanation-raises-major-new-questions.html
Reality Check (19:45:21) :
“For example, in Wellington, early temperature measurements were made near sea level, but in 1928 the measurement site was moved from Thorndon (3 metres above sea level) to Kelburn (125 m above sea level). The Kelburn site is on average 0.8°C cooler than Thorndon, because of the extra height above sea level.
Such site differences are significant and must be accounted for when analysing long-term changes in temperature. The Climate Science Coalition has not done this.”
Nor can they, unless measurements from the Kelburn site were also measured prior to 1928 that would provide a comparison for pre-1928 historical temps to be corrected. That the sites are an average .8c different in 2009 doesn’t mean they were prior to 1928.
Interested Amateur (12:21:56) : “…shrinking of the north polar ice cap,”
A couple of problems here: One, Earth’s north-polar region is an ocean so the proper reference is to ‘sea ice’ and not an ‘ice cap’ which usually relates to Greenland and Antarctica. Ask yourself what brittle ice can be expected to do in a turbulent sea. Two, why do you believe the sea-ice is shrinking? Climate modelers’ models say it should be, but it is not:
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm
We respect your opinion, and you are welcome to it. You just are not allowed to make up your own facts.
The problem is that most, if not all, depend on the underpinning temperature data. How else can we tell if there is warming? If there is a problem here then everybody has a problem. “The effect of warming on the mating habits of XYZ” is just so much scrap paper if there is no significant warming and that applies to every other paper. Even the “dendro’s” and others in similar fields calibrate their samples to the instrumental record.
I think that what is going on is far from lies and conspiracy (in science at least, although the CRU mail comes pretty close at times). I write my “mating habits” paper trusting that there is significant warming, I don’t build my own CRU first to check that information. I also, as a human being, don’t want to look like a fool, now or later, so there is a tendency for me to defend my paper and by definition “support” the AGW hypothesis.
Despite the claims that they are just a “storm in a tea cup”, the CRU mail and incidents like this in NZ are important because they invite a lot of questions about what is, in the end, the foundation of the AGW thesis.
Eggs and baskets n all that.
Gary Wright (20:07:14) :
Gary you do not have a “right” to free speech on someone else’s property or forum. If you wish to exercise your “right” then you should do it where you are welcome. maybe put up your own Facebook page and put your links there.
I have a few things to say about this. First: the above analysis is based on leaked data. Which leads me to my second point:
climate science could get so leaky that it no longer holds water.
You can read more of my thoughts on the matter including a comment from the Saturday Evening Post at:
http://powerandcontrol.blogspot.com/2009/11/kiwi-scientists-cooking-books.html
Will you be retracting this post?
http://hot-topic.co.nz/nz-sceptics-lie-about-temp-records-try-to-smear-top-scientist/
And yes, I read the TBR post. It says nothing in it of substance. It simply repeats NIWA’s reasons for making the adjustments, but in a “skeptical” tone, basically saying, “oh really?” after each sentence. The very last paragraph, in fact, reads:
“Now, it may be that there was a good and obvious reason to adjust Wellington temps. My question remains, however: is applying a temperature example from 15km away in a different climate zone a valid way of rearranging historical data? And my other question to David Wratt also remains: we’d all like to see the metholdology and reasoning behind adjustments on all the other sites as well.”
The answer to the first question is “yes” – unless random guy on typepad cares to give an alternate method of making adjustments. And the last sentence, again, is just shooting the messenger by alleging a lack of transparency instead of dealing with the substance.
Even I can see that a rebuttal hosted on a website associated with Ian Wishart has less than zero credibility. (How credible is Wishart? How cold is the sun?)
There IS one way to PROVE Global Warming is REAL ! Wait 30 years, and we all go scuba-diving with Al Gore on Wall Street !
But by then, Global Warming,The Kyoto Protocols, Al Gore, and the Obama administration will all be horrible, horrible memories (like Woodstock) and we will all know that Global Scamming is real.
Glenn (20:22:39) :
…
‘ “…Such site differences are significant and must be accounted for when analysing long-term changes in temperature. The Climate Science Coalition has not done this.”
Nor can they, unless measurements from the Kelburn site were also measured prior to 1928 that would provide a comparison for pre-1928 historical temps to be corrected. That the sites are an average .8c different in 2009 doesn’t mean they were prior to 1928.’
Actually it does. The difference that Reality_Check is discussing is a difference determined by physical law alone. The rule is that as altitude is gained, the atmosphere becomes physically cooler. Its why we head to the mountains in the summer for cooler weather. This has to do with the adiabatic lapse rate. In physics and chemistry one vitally critical need is to be able to compare measurements taken at different times, or under different conditions or at different locations. To do achieve this standard reference conditions are used, often referred to as STP or Standard Temperature and Pressure. Standard Temperature is 0-deg. Centigrade (or Celsius for the picky). Standard Pressure is one atmosphere at sea level – 760 mm Hg. If you had physics and chemistry in high school or college this should be familiar.
Since the concern is temperature and we want to compare this site with others, the temperature for comparison’s sake must have the difference due to altiudinal difference removed. Dry adiabatic lapse averages about 0.65-deg C/100 meters. Moist air differs in Lapse rate (lower) and the humidity thus also has to be accounted for. The short of this is that until temperatures have been standardized to a common altitude, they are only roughly comparable. Once these locational differences that are the direct result physical laws are accounted for, only then can the data actually be compared or gridded.
Now think about this. With very, very, very few exceptions ALL weather stations are above sea level. That means that the initial correction for altitude for a station will ALWAYS add something. The only exceptions I can think of are Death Valley and the Dead Sea region, both of which are below sea level and thus will have the correction subtracted. Given a station a mile above sea level the correction for altitude should be about 10-deg C. These are constant differences based solely on altitude above mean sea level. We should expect to see an altitude correction for each station that may differ from any neighbor. That should be applied to every single measurement made at that station – ever.
To keep things even more amusing, while it appears to first glance to be nonsense, the mapping convention being used has an effect on the estimated altitude and thus on temperature. If a country were to shift from say North American Datum 1927, to WGS 84, the fact that these systems use different spheroids means that the estimated altitude is different, probably not a lot, but the AGW gang – uh – Team talk in terms of 0.1 or 0.01 of a degree. So a minor elevational change could be “important.” So historical changes in conventions such as mapping coordinate systems also may need to be considered.
Last, there is the issue of measurement error that seems to be largely ignored by the AGW bunch. Every measurement is subject to error. No two thermometers are likely to read precisely the same. The same ruler at different temperatures will measure things very slightly differently. Some of these are built instrument errors, some environmentally imposed. None of them go away. They represent the essential uncertainty in the data. The temperature or distance measured might be precisely correct, but because of the irreducible error, we can’t be certain.
There is a profound difference between these conversions to standard conditions though, and simply tossing constants at a chunk of data to get it where you want because your theory says that’s what the number should be. The emails and code do not appear to discuss standard corrections, but instead torturing the data to get it to say what is expected.
It’s nice to be right. It is clear that this site is a political forum and nothing more, and that you are ideologues who have convinced yourselves of a thesis. I’d like to require all of you to live in houses on the Florida coast no matter what happens there, but it’s obvious that the water could be up to your necks and you’d still be denying the science. Good luck, guys.
“This sort of correction is commonplace, and not remotely controversial amongst meteorologists and climatologists who are trying to build long term records from disparate data series.”
Fail. You should never argue consensus = correct. It is a logical fallacy.
Probably the same thing happened as with the hockey stick graph. They pulled the thing out of the printer and held it upside down. By the time they realized their mistake, it was being presented all over the place as gospel, and they just couldn’t take it back.
Having looked over NIWA’s response and read everything I could, I’m starting to think that their adjustments may be reasonable. It’s quite a coincidence that so many stations were moved to higher altitudes but that appears to be exactly what happened.
That said, look at the result — a constant warming over the last 110 years. I looks just like recovery from the little ice age and it doesn’t accelerate with CO2. This is the true warming trend — not anthropogenic at all.
“but it’s obvious that the water could be up to your necks and you’d still be denying the science. Good luck, guys.”
As one incapable of evaluating data for yourself, I expect you to demonstrate your ignorance by using capitals for ‘The Science’.
Rod Oram, a “Business Journo” from New Zealand is aware of the above but continues to write his rants about GW:
http://shareinvestornz.blogspot.com/2009/11/rod-oram-on-prius-to-obscurity.html
You forgot to tell the glaciers of New Zealand that the warming has been exaggerated and they need not have melted so much.
http://www.niwa.co.nz/our-science/climate/news/all/glaciers-continue-to-shrink2
They are at there lowest volume of anytime in the last century. It has not been a long term loss due to the end of the Little Ice Age. It is the last decade that has been particularly negative for the glaciers.
http://glacierchange.wordpress.com/
WAG (23:30:52) :
My question remains, however: is applying a temperature example from 15km away in a different climate zone a valid way of rearranging historical data?
The answer to the first question is “yes” – unless random guy on typepad cares to give an alternate method of making adjustments.
Alternate method: Interpolation (look it up).
Interested Amateur (01:17:25) :
It’s nice to be right. It is clear that this site is a political forum and nothing more, and that you are ideologues who have convinced yourselves of a thesis. I’d like to require all of you to live in houses on the Florida coast no matter what happens there, but it’s obvious that the water could be up to your necks and you’d still be denying the science. Good luck, guys.
Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Mr Pot, meet Mr Kettle.
Clearly, you came here with an agenda as most trolls do, and it had nothing whatsoever to do with science. Your final, spittle-flecked rant outed you. Buh-bye, and good luck with your AGW ideology.
mspelto (05:15:31) :
You forgot to tell the glaciers of New Zealand that the warming has been exaggerated and they need not have melted so much.
http://www.niwa.co.nz/our-science/climate/news/all/glaciers-continue-to-shrink2
They are at there lowest volume of anytime in the last century. It has not been a long term loss due to the end of the Little Ice Age. It is the last decade that has been particularly negative for the glaciers.
http://glacierchange.wordpress.com/
Short term, there are a number of factors which determine whether glaciers grow or recede, and at what rate. Even soot and dust play a role. Climate is an extremely complex issue. You can not just look at one factor, and say “a-ha, this proves we are warming”. The kicker is, even if you can show that there is warming going on in some areas, the fact remains that it has stalled overall in the past decade.
There is just one more thing, and call me nitpicky but see, the problem is, the exaggeration of the actual warming which has taken place still does absolutely nothing to show that C02, or indeed man’s measely 3% contribution to C02 made any considerable contribution to that warming.
Do half you plonkers believe everything you read? Or is it only when it confirms your prejudices?
Raw data have to be adjusted to correct for problems with the collection – like the fact that your new monitoring station isn”t able to be placed at the same altitude as the old one, for example.
Just on the offchance that you *will* believe everything you read, try http://hot-topic.co.nz/nz-sceptics-lie-about-temp-records-try-to-smear-top-scientist/
REPLY: see also the latest info on this issue on the main WUWT page – A
Bruce Cobb: You are correct there are many factors. However, we do gather sufficient information on the variable to know which is important. Soot levels have declined in ice cores in most the alpine mountain ranges, due to better emission controls so that is not the issue here. In most of the cases where we measure glacier mass balance around the world we also have a climate station recording temperature. This allows us to compare the weather records with the observed melting and conclude the cause, we are not guessing. Our measurements have indicated that it is warmer summer conditions that is causing the melting, not more wind etc. We also have noted in a few regions the increase of winter rain on snow events. Having measured the mass balance on the same glaciers, at the same sampling sites, at the same time each of the last 26 years in the North Cascades, we are not guessing, nor are the Norwegians or the Swiss. We are not guessing that on the glaciers where these best measurements are made each year around the globe, 18 straight years have been negative. If that was a company they would be bankrupt. Note the image of the weather station on the Easton Glacier. http://www.nichols.edu/departments/Glacier/mb.htm
I am no expert, but have fought for the wild places where I live against almost unstoppable wind turbine developments on peatland in remote wildland. As one of nature’s largest stores of Co2 the peatlands have been attacked by this industry’s remorseless greed. I have never completely understood how the government agencies who represented these reamarkable ecosystems at planning hearings and public enquiries ever commented on the release of Co2 when discussing their usual indifference to yet another catastrophic application.
Now with this dam burst of information does this whole sorry mess show itself for what it is.
To use children in government TV adverts to engender fear, to bribe poorer affected communities into the acceptance of money and ‘collective responsibity’ for global warming, to villify those who ask for more reliable and peer evaluated scrutiny on the basis of this new religion of sorts, wherever it might impact is now being tested by the people. At last.
Copenhagen was perfect as a destination, it is the country’s main export – wind turbine technology. They fought to get the lion’s share of R&D grants in the UK, better, meaner and tougher than most. The concrete used in the building of the bases alone is in nightmarish quantities. The resultant Co2 colossal.
As a result, the hydro electric dams now serve as mere back up for the wind scam. The large generators replaced with smaller less productive ones owned by companies that run and own the wind farms.
No! I am not drifting off the subject. We have all been had, all of us. Some of us less than others. If the person who released this information is fearful or angry, he must too know that so many of us are grateful and relieved.
Others too might have the courage now.
acementhead (21:06:22) : ‘free speech’
Gary Wright (20:07:14) :
Your point and counter-point are unrelated to “free speech” as the phrase is meant in the US legal arena. See this:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/07/30/on-climate-comedy-copyrights-and-cinematography/#more-9650
Therein, Anthony and others explain the concept and provide examples.
JDougherty (00:43:29) :
Glenn (20:22:39) :
…
‘ “…Such site differences are significant and must be accounted for when analysing long-term changes in temperature. The Climate Science Coalition has not done this.”
Nor can they, unless measurements from the Kelburn site were also measured prior to 1928 that would provide a comparison for pre-1928 historical temps to be corrected. That the sites are an average .8c different in 2009 doesn’t mean they were prior to 1928.’
“Actually it does. The difference that Reality_Check is discussing is a difference determined by physical law alone. The rule is that as altitude is gained, the atmosphere becomes physically cooler. Its why we head to the mountains in the summer for cooler weather. This has to do with the adiabatic lapse rate.”…
Actually is doesn’t. If it did we’d only need one station in the world measuring temperature and only altitudes for all other points. This is discussed further in the more recent thread.
Hi every body. I want to do a sun spot correlation against the raw NZ temperature data but I can’t a temperature file to download. I went to NIWA but couldn’t get it. (I’m not suggesting that they don’t have it or won’t give it to me, I just can’t find it)
I’ve got the NZ Climate Coalition Report but that will take a lot of time to digitise the data.
Could anybody help with a URL? or similar
And guys. They are in the sh*t up their necks in New Zealand over this. You can always judge how guilty somebody is by the way they respond to an accusation.
Real scientists would call a press conference and explain it all. They would open their records.
But NIWA are using cheap publica relations stunts and inlisting their spoin merchants with headlines like:-
“NZ sceptics lie about temp records, try to smear top scientist”
I can smell the pee in their pants. They are scared… KEEP AT ‘EM…
P.S. I still want the raw data so I can see for myself, but the Climate Coalitions Report is pretty damming
“
mspelto (13:19:04) :
http://www.nichols.edu/departments/Glacier/mb.htm
Good link, I’ve been looking for one like this, but not very hard.
So I don’t lose it, I’ve added it to my page http://wermenh.com/climate/6000.html on the glacial retreat of 5,000-7,000 years ago.
Semi off topic link. I hadn’t looked hard, but I hadn’t come across an information source for North American glaciers. I found Glacier Mass Balance in a blog entry. The site concentrates on the North America’s North Cascades, but has links to mass balance information from wider areas. The data thins out going before 1980, so most of it covers the warming phase of a PDO cycle and no data is included from before 1890 or so. However it is a good source of modern glacier information.
shout it from the rooftops!!!
A someone else pointed out, “Two Down, Two to Go!”
This is bigger than CRU because, as scientists are supposed to do, it VALIDATES!
out
Is this what we all want from the pursuit of scientific research ….
“The improver of natural knowledge absolutely refuses to acknowledge authority, as such. For him, scepticism is the highest of duties; blind faith the one unpardonable sin. And it cannot be otherwise, for every great advance in natural knowledge has involved the absolute rejection of authority, the cherishing of the keenest scepticism, the annihilation of the spirit of blind faith; and the most ardent votary of science holds his firmest convictions, not because the men he most venerates hold them; not because their verity is testified by portents and wonders; but because his experience teaches him that whenever he chooses to bring these convictions into contact with their primary source, Nature — whenever he thinks fit to test them by appealing to experiment and to observation — Nature will confirm them. The man of science has learned to believe in justification, not by faith, but by verification.”(Thomas Huxley)
Apparently, this story is based on an outright lie
Yep, Harpo … You’re exactly right. You know someone has been caught with their hand in the cookie jar when they start accusing others of “smearing” them rather than mounting an affirmative form of defense by opening up all of their work freely to the public.
“You forgot to tell the glaciers of New Zealand that the warming has been exaggerated and they need not have melted so much.” — mspelto
Hmmm …. I guess maybe someone also forgot to tell the antarctic ice sheet, which has been in the process of INCREASING instead of decreasing for the past 30 years or so.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Global-Warming/Antarctic-ice-growing-not-shrinking-/articleshow/4418558.cms
Of course, the warming lobby has found a creative way to spin this as evidence of global warming too. “Well of course the antarctic ice sheet is increasing! If the waters surrounding the antarcrtic are warmer, then that means more evaporation, which means more precipitation in the form of snow, which then means more ice on the antarctic ice sheet!”
OK, now I understand. If the amount of ice in the world is decreasing, then it’s because of global warming. But if it’s increasing instead, then it’s because of global warming.
Got it. Thanks for clearing that up, fellas.
The big secret is: much of global warming has nothing to do with global warming at all. In order for us to unveil the global warming scheme it will take critical thinking and research and a serious look at the real agenda behind global warming. Mark Twain writes “Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority it’s time to pause and reflect.” (Samuel Clemens) The first agenda behind groups like the bilderberg group, the Tri Latteral Commission, the Council on Foreign relations, the world Trade Organization and the worlds Banks is to create a state of emergency. In fact, most of their members believe in order to push their agendas they must create a sense of danger and helplessness so the people will accept their ideas. The global warming idea is fear mongering to push for population control much like china. The elites are pushing for global warming to enforce more taxes, cap and trade and eventually control the human population and destroy the middle class this will eventualy lead into a TOTOLATARIAN GOVERNMENT OR THE NEW WORLD ORDER, WAKE UP AMERICA , it is already happening.
http://www.meteoschweiz.admin.ch/web/de/klima/klima_heute/homogene_reihen.Par.0054.DownloadFile.tmp/vergleichoriginalhomogen.pdf
The same problem with Swiss temperature records. All have been made rising steeper by “homogenization”, by artificially decreasing the past anomalies.