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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“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.