Yesterday we posted on BoM’s bomb on station temperature trend fiddling. where BoM claimed the trend difference was a result of a station move. Apparently, BoM can’t even keep track of their own station histories! Today, Dr. Jennifer Marohasy writes: Who’s going to be sacked for making-up global warming at Rutherglen?
She writes: HEADS need to start rolling at the Australian Bureau of Meteorology. The senior management have tried to cover-up serious tampering that has occurred with the temperatures at an experimental farm near Rutherglen in Victoria. Retired scientist Dr Bill Johnston used to run experiments there. He, and many others, can vouch for the fact that the weather station at Rutherglen, providing data to the Bureau of Meteorology since November 1912, has never been moved. Senior management at the Bureau are claiming the weather station could have been moved in 1966 and/or 1974 and that this could be a justification for artificially dropping the temperatures by 1.8 degree Celsius back in 1913.
Surely its time for heads to roll!
…
The unhomogenized/raw mean annual minimum temperature trend for Rutherglen for the 100-year period from January 1913 through to December 2013 shows a slight cooling trend of 0.35 degree C per 100 years. After homogenization there is a warming trend of 1.73 degree C per 100 years. This warming trend is essentially achieved by progressively dropping down the temperatures from 1973 back through to 1913. For the year of 1913 the difference between the raw temperature and the ACORN-SAT temperature is a massive 1.8 degree C.
…
The Bureau has tried to justify all of this to Graham Lloyd at The Australian newspaper by stating that there must have been a site move, its flagging the years 1966 and 1974. But the biggest adjustment was made in 1913! In fact as Bill Johnston explains in today’s newspaper, the site never has moved.
Surely someone should be sacked for this blatant corruption of what was a perfectly good temperature record.
more here: http://jennifermarohasy.com/2014/08/whos-going-to-be-sacked-for-making-up-global-warming-at-rutherglen/
The hockey stick team should be getting very nervous…….
As I keep stating to Mosher, Nick Stokes.
Data is what it is. You shouldn’t adjust it at all.
This is going to come back big style…..
I too have been making this comment.
There should be no attempt to homogenise the raw data.
The raw data comes with warts and all. The correct approach is to examine the data in order to assess the extent of the warts annd all so that one can assess an error margin.
It may well be the case that old data is more unreliable than new data. If that is so, it merely means that the error bars are wider in the past than they are in the present.
It may be acceptable (depending upon the evidence) to say for example that the 1913 temps are X +/- 1.5 deg C, whereas the temps in 1973 are Y +/- 0.8 degC and that temps in 2010 are Z +/- 0.4 degC. It may be that due to modern equipment and better quality conntol that the error bands of modern data is better, but that is all it is.
The raw data should always remain as it is, and then through detailed analysis of the data, one ascribes a realistic margin of error, which error bands may not be uniform throughot the entire historical period, and may be narrowing.
If one looks at the matter scientifically, it is clear that we simply do not know whether the world is warmer today than it was in the 1880s or in the 1930s, save that as far as the US is concerned, we can say that it is probably cooler today than it was in the 1930s. That is about all one can say about the temperature record.
The land based temperature record is for the main part irrelevant. The energy is in the oceans, it is the oceans that drive the climate. What is needed is a good quality ocean temperature data set. The money should be transfered away from monitoring the land temperatures, and trying to create a temperature record from equipment that was never intended to be used for the purposes that it is now being put. I would suggest that BOM is disbanded.
I have always felt the honest answer is to talk about the aggregate of the record and about the average trend in stations unadjusted records, like this: we know that x number station are report warming of X degrees and y number of station are reporting y degrees and Z number are remain the same. As to why we think it is “this”. The trying to produce a global temperature to me has always been a fools errand, it funny to me how many fools are willing to do it.
I’ve always called this FRAUD. Fraud is a criminal crime in the UK but Hadley seem to get away with it.
I’ve always said that if these people were accountants they WOULD be behind bars with no drinks. GISS and others are all at it, adjusting to justify their continued generous funding.
Can you trust a ‘scientist’ whose organizational funding extent DEPENDS on continued global warming?
[snip – wildly off topic and off color -mod]
Here is another voice on this subject…. William Kininmonth… the actual curator of the raw temperature data for Australia, who saved it because he saw the data being misused. http://t.co/2CR0h37Jyq
Truth is like ivory soap…in time it bobs to the surface…
I certainly think it’s a pity this happened but am a bit queasy over the metaphor, given poor Mr Foley’s recent grisly fate.
Facts and fiction never ever is the same……
Three cheers for Jennifer Marohasy for sticking with this story!
Naw. Foley knew he was doing something dangerous – don’t change the subject.
Altering history is the first act of any regime that is attempting a violent overthrow – brainwashing is a standard tactic across all terrorist groups. While I don’t think the heads should roll, I think degrees should be burnt.
Oh Goodie! We have at last caught up with New Zealand.They have been kooking the books for years too!
It just dawned on me. How do you think the NRC (Nuclear Regulatory Commission) would react to a report, where a systematic data error was made, and the data was “adjusted”…and in being adjusted was brought into an “acceptable” range, for the purpose the entity supplying the data? How about the FDA, or the FAA? I can tell you how they would react: FINES AND IMPRISONMENT…
So, yes, the result here (proper one: REJECT THE DATA ENTIRELY!)..should be…AH, you can figure it out.
This is a very important event in the climate wars hahaha It will not just die. Many comments on US MSM are talking about this http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/panel-global-warming-human-caused-dangerous-25133004
It just could be a crucial turning point where MSM sees more money in the “fraud” than the usual IPCC parroting.
Why is it that all adjustments are warming adjustment. A real world move of a station could just as easily require cooling more recent data and warming older data. But we never see examples of this.
In any case, a move should reflect as a step change, not as a trend change. So there should be a step correction, not a trend correction. If the homogenization algorithm is responsible for turning a step correction into a trend correction, the algorithm introduces more error than it removes.
Tilo, you are right about the trend issue.
But I question your statement, “Why is it that all adjustments are warming adjustment”?
Is this true? Has anyone got evidence that all adjustments are convenient for alarmists and BOM funding?
If so then the news story is very much different. This is a systematic distortion of the record. That is not an accident – it would be noticed that everything went the same way.
But it might just be that everything is distorted everyway. That is still bad. It vandalises a dataset. But it is not the same news story.
If not all, at least the vast majority of the trend adjustments have increased warming. If you are talking about individual data point adjustments, I’m sure you can find some that have decreased the trend.
I seem to recall a post on WUWT some time back that examined the adjustments and showed that the vast majority of them were in favor of a warming trend.
Of 104 sites in the dataset, adjustments at 66 cause warming, at 38 cause cooling. 63.5%. The effect on national trends is a warming of +0.3C or 47%. See my posts at kenskingdom.wordpress.com,
Ken Stewart
Heads will roll is a very very old saying indicating someone is in deep trouble and will be sacked.
Data that is wrong must be dumped or fixed
Looking at the records for this site I note no data before
1965.
No break at 66 or 74.
We split the station at 1980. The reason is a series of qc failures followed by a data gap.
Either way including this station or dumping it or adjusting
It changes nothing
Steven Mosher August 26, 2014 at 2:54 pm
Data that is wrong must be dumped or fixed.
If you “fix” data, you must publish why you think it’s wrong and how you have adjusted it. This is part of science – transparency, openness, willingness to have your assertions challenged. From what I have read on this matter, those three traits seem to be woefully lacking.
It changes nothing
If that truly is the case, then there is absolutely no reason to do it. All that is achieved is an erosion of trust in the record keepers.
“Data that is wrong must be dumped or fixed”
Sounds like a good method for removing data that doesn’t support an assumption.
Since the site was in use from 1913 through 2013, and Marohassy has plots of both unadjusted and adjusted data spanning that period, AND you say that your data only extends back to 1965, it is plain that you don’t have all the data. Ergo, your data is wrong and should be dumped or fixed, nicht so? That, in case the irony tags aren’t visible, is a reductio ad absurdum.
There is a profound absence of explicit or implicit methodological backing for the assertion that the data needs to be “dumped or fixed.” First you need to demonstrate that the data is “wrong” to begin with. In fact, before that, you absolutely need to define “wrongness” for a given data set in terms of the use to which you want it applied. You also repeatedly state that “adjustments” to the data do not change the analytical results significantly (“It changes nothing” – here). Logically that implies that there was no methodologically justified need to “correct,” “fix,” or “dump” the data to begin with. It isn’t wrong enough to make a difference.
Actually, I can see a regionally-“homogenized” data set as a useful tool. Presuming that the “homogenization” uses a nearest-neighbor based system to select candidates defining a region, AND executes the homogenization in an honest manner, then the data could be linked to a centroid for a region defined by a convex hull linking the individual stations. The homogenized data should never, ever, be used to “correct” individual station data. That raw station data with all its warts and moth holes is the absolute closest you can get to the original natural condition. No correction can be proven to be closer reality, since, to mangle a couple of allusions, the event is history, the thermometer is beyond reach and the recorder is resting with the parrot(s).
We can all cherry pick stations here and there. Jennifer Marohasy can do it and BOM can do it.
Why can’t we see a simple comparison of the ‘raw’ and ‘adjusted’ trends for Australia as a whole? Surely this basic information is available to both sides of the argument.
If there is no statistically significant trend difference between the raw and adjusted data on a national level then what’s the problem?
There are histograms here for GHCN world data. There is a modest warming effect overall. I’m sure it is statistically significant, but that doesn’t mean anything except that there are a lot of stations.
There’s also a Google Maps gadget that will show stations in various ranges of adjustment effect. I’ve shown some Australia images here.
Sorry, the BOM have not done it. I did. +0.3C per 100 years increase in trend, or 47%. See http://kenskingdom.wordpress.com/2014/06/15/the-australian-temperature-record-revisited-part-3-remaining-sites/ and several others before and after.
Finally the Australian Newspaper has broken from the ranks of parrotting mass Media like Fairfax and the ABC and is publicising the hard work done by Jennifer Marohasy and Joanne Nova. Knees are trembling down at the BOM as the blowtorch being applied to their tender parts. At last the tide seems to be really tuning against the great Green Wall of CAGW..The general population is finally being exposed to the Truth of the fraud involved in the past Climate data manipulations.
Isn’t Australia also the country that produced the “climate psychologist” who wants to send all us skeptics to jail?
That said, on balance Australia is doing the heavy lifting in terms of handling the CAGW crowd. It’s fun watching their their project and funding get canceled.
Actually Chip he learnt his trade in the US and Canada. Go check. Please don’t blame us for “producing” this dingbat!
Computers are wonderful tools. But like any tool, they can be misused. A hammer can be used to build a house or to wreck one. How computers are used in the field of understanding “climate” depends on the goal. Is it to build a better understanding of what is really going on and has gone on in the past or is it to dismantle our understanding in favor of a virtual “reality” that supports some other goal?
There should be no ‘homogenization’ of data for this purpose. If, in ‘fixing’ a dataset, the critical signal of that dataset is reversed or seriously altered, then either the dataset or the fix is not fit for purpose.
We would be better of with ‘a few good men”. Find (and agree on, using objective criteria) the best 50 to 100 temperature stations spread around the world and use the raw data from them to to determine any trend. No doctoring, tampering or ‘homogenzation’. Using 2000 or 3000 stations just muddies the waters and contaminates any good data with hidden statistical tricks.
You’ve just proposed concensus science.
I’ll add the the goals of those paying for it can’t be ignored.
“Data that is wrong must be dumped or fixed”
Translation: Real world observations and data that don’t fit the hypothesis are clearly wrong
You have to laugh
Heads will roll? In Australia, does that mean “everybody will keep their job and probably get promoted for this?”
Steven Mosher August 26, 2014 at 2:54 pm
Data that is wrong must be dumped or fixed
Looking at the records for this site I note no data before
1965.
No break at 66 or 74.
We split the station at 1980. The reason is a series of qc failures followed by a data gap.
Either way including this station or dumping it or adjusting
It changes nothing
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Good to know at least Steven knows ALL the other data is good…or that other data will be fiddled to compensate…whatever.
If fact, this is not just a “data problem” (which is bad enough), it is also a management process problem. At this point, the system has no credibility. Somebody needs to go back and re-do the entire analysis with “real” data, and provide a reconciliation of before and after results.
This on a day where the USA Today website is carrying a banner headline – “Climate change worsening, dangerous, group says”.
We are now in a position where we just cannot trust any historical data. It is being adjusted as fast as it is being taken.
Since the AGW proponents know the real data is indicating no warming, they evidently have to create as much confusion as possible to continue on. My guess is the ice sheets will almost be on top of NYC before the NYT will run a headline on page 36 indicating some in the northern part of the city might think about relocating.
BTW, I’m for the new look.
At that time LSM will state it due to global warming.
There is not now, nor has there ever been, any such thing as “adjusted” data. Data are collected from instruments. Any changes made to the data change it from being data to being estimates of what the data would/might have been under the conditions envisioned by those “adjusting” the data.
If the data are known or suspected to be inaccurate, correct the known or suspected problem, don’t try to “correct” the data. If important data are missing, install the instruments necessary to collect the data. Even when it is being done by GISS, collecting terrestrial temperature data ain’t rocket science.
Exactly.
If there is insufficient confidence in the data as collected to report a correct conclusion, just admit “we don’t know what the answer is at this time”.
Yet, climate scientists continue to report anomalies in data, known to be in error in the digit to the left of the decimal point, to two decimal places to the right of the decimal point. Estimates to two decimal places could only be the product of insignificant digit generators.
Abbot will eventually get ear of this don’t worry. Heads will not roll but be moved (we all know how the Australian Gov works)..Already comments in mainstream US are using this info http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/panel-global-warming-human-caused-dangerous-25133004 thank you again J. (My father was an atmospheric physicist studied with Einstein in 1935-37 at the Max Planck Institut Fur Physic in Leipzig and a WMO expert.and published 3 papers in Nature about evapotransporation? and particle physics cloud forming) He told me in 1997 it was a scam to get money he did not even bother to explain why.(The Science) as I was still very young and not very interested LOL
Steven Mosher August 26, 2014 at 2:54 pm says: Data that is wrong must be dumped or fixed
What if Steven Mosher is wrong, not data?