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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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)