More on the NIWA New Zealand data adjustment story

The Climate Science cookbook will soon be published.
There is only one ingredient – Data
There is only one recipe – cook the data until it looks like what you want it to.
Data doesn’t mind being tortured.

When there is overlap, is it possible that weather stations tend to be moved due to change of usage in location – and that therefore they are more likely to be in UHIs at the time of their switch off. They therefore tend to be warmer than the replacement because they were warming up prior to being turned off. Is there any general tendancy for stations with overlaps to be warmer than their replacements?

If there is an old site closing down and a new one opening up, why would they wanna splice them, regarding them as one station that has moved? There is the old station and the new.
Why not simply accept that some stations has data for a certain range of years and that other stations has data for other ranges of years?
When all stations have been averaged together, each and every station will only contribute with measured data, no adjustments (guesses).
Anyone knows about the urge to splice them and consider stations “moved”?

The best thing to do would be to treat a new location as a new location. No attempt should be made to fake up the new location as if it were the same. Likewise when parking lots are added or trees cut down then the location should again be treated as a complete new data set. That would be a much more honest and accurate account for the data.
Question is, did the skeptics treat the new locations as such. If they didn’t then they need to.

The final push for the IPCC: The Greenhouse DOES NOT EXIST.
Following an extensive theoretical analysis, two German physicists have determined that the term greenhouse gas is a misnomer and that the greenhouse effect appears to violate basic laws of physics.
“The point discussed here was to answer the question, whether the supposed atmospheric effect has a physical basis. This is not the case. In summary, there is no atmospheric greenhouse effect, in particular CO2-greenhouse effect, in theoretical physics and engineering thermodynamics. Thus it is illegitimate to deduce predictions which provide a consulting solution for economics and intergovernmental policy”.
This is what Hans Schreuder is telling for years now: http://www.ilovemycarbondioxide.com
Read the entire article and download a pdf here:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/11/politics_and_greenhouse_gasses.html

I would hope that you Kiwis are going to use a Freedom Of Information Act filing, if you have one down there. Hopefully expedited.
I got so ticked when I read:
” Wratt is refusing to release data his organisation claims to have justifying adjustments on other weather stations, meaning the science cannot be reviewed. ”
That’s the whole point of the problem.
What was ALL the raw data, how, why, and by how much was it homogenized, gridded, teased, etc.?
Which stations were not used and why?

Quite honestly, as a total Climate amateur, I could have done a better job of fudging data than these hacks seem to have done, (in both the US and New Zealand!). There isn’t even the veneer of scientific rationale present in any of their “adjustments”. As I’ve said several times over the years, I’m thankful that Cancer Research Scientists are slightly more ethical than Climate Scientists! A “cure” for Cancer would reap much more in $$ than “Global Warming Catastrophe” payouts, so I’m amazed they share data and protocols much more readily. Can any Climate Research actually be replicated?

The direct linc to how the corrections were applied. Lower the old data by a degree. Lover the airport tarmac data by less than half a degree. Presto Chango.
http://www.niwa.co.nz/our-science/climate/news/all/niwa-confirms-temperature-rise/combining-temperature-data-from-multiple-sites-in-wellington

I think the proper terminology is now “climate analysts” and not “climate scientists”. What CRU and friends engaged in is not science.
Climatologist or climate scientist is replaced with “climate analyst”
Climate science is replaced with “climate analysis”
Example: “Phil Jones is a climate analyst at CRU which studies issues related to climate analysis”.

I was under the impression that the IPCC/Hadley/CRU approach was to take a mean for each station over some time period and to track offsets to show either warming or cooling trends. If this is done there should be no need for any such “adjustments”. Is this correct ?

The explanation only seems to explain a portion of the adjustments on the graph. Check out the yellow (difference) line on this graph of the Wellington Station: . (You need to scroll to near the bottom of the document). They used the .79 adjustment for part of the time series but why did they make a MUCH LARGER negative adjustment for the period 1910 to 1930 (approx)? They managed to turn a historically very warm period into a below average period. Convenient! Gives a whole new meaning to “man-made” warming.

Fred from Canuckistan . . . (10:52:30) :
There is only one recipe – cook the data
What’s the oven temperature setting for that? Are we supposed to adjust it up to compensate for cooler than expected temperature in the recipe?

I’m becoming more convinced that the mere act of opening and closing stations can introduce issues. Neglecting to ever run an overlap period, microsite issues, UHI – all serious. But I don’t see any correction for the full amount of “Station Closure Anomaly Adjustment” in the code we’ve got.
Picture the US for an instant, and pretend we have only seven stations (these are fake yearly anomalies in C).
Seattle: -1
Spokane: +5
Missoula: -4
Bismark: +3
Chicago: -1
Buffalo: -4
NYC: +2
If you’re just averaging, you’ll get zero. If you’re calculating gridcells, it is obviously more complex. Pretend for a second that this is one dimensional, and that these seven cells are the only ones used. So, in this simplified gridcell arrangement, you also get zero.
But what happens when, say, Missoula goes offline?
There’s the direct effect: the average is going to shift upwards by (+4/7).
But there’s also the gridding effect: We still have seven cells, but we have no reading for Missoula. How can we get a reading for Missoula? Well, the preferred technique is to find the two nearest know values (Spokane and Bismark) and interpolate. That would make an estimate of 4C for Missoula.
So the effect of dropping a local minima isn’t (4/7), it will be (8/7). The numbers I’ve used are made up – but what happens when you drop the only station in a section of the Rockies?
Fundamentally, this is saying that opening and closing stations directly affects the calibration of the instrument you’re using to determine “US Surface Temperatures.” You can have perfect siting and measurement across North America where every individual thermometer shows a completely flat century trend – and yet have an overall substantial increase or decrease based entirely on dropping (for whatever reason) the correct stations.
The very approach of calculating “US Average Surface Temperatures” from ground based thermometers has issues as implemented.

If they had a reasonable explanation for what they were doing, then those reasonable reasons would not have been produced only after they are caught diddling the numbers according to ‘internationally accepted standards’.
Lodging the weather station next to the AC blowers only demonstrates the utter lack of seriousness with which they treat their responsibility for accuracy and honesty.
Anyone involved in the leadership of the aGW movement, particularly as they get closer and closer to the IPCC, under scrutiny, will prove to be a bad player by the time this is fully exposed.
Rob,
SImply being honest, and showing that data series have windows of accuracy,
would be far too honest of an approach for cliamte scientists.
AGW: The more you know, the more you know you have been had.
AGW: the theory that does for climate science what Lysenkoism did for biology!

Bin the dataset then, there are longer uninterrupted ones for NZ (which show no warming I gather)

I guess all the other sites were moved up in elevation as well.
Yeah. That’s the ticket.
They were all moved.

I know this is a little OT but I’m really worried.
Has anybody noticed google has removed any search suggestions relating to the AGW scandal? I actually noticed this today because I now have to type in my entire search string. I found someone who actually posted on this.
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/archives/012721.html
This has me very worried given googles massive control over information flow.

They had to move it up the hill. They were predicting a 122m rise in sea levels. 😉

In New Zealand we have a version of the FOIA it’s called the official information act 1982
http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1982/0156/latest/DLM64785.html
Would it be worthwhile me testing the waters to see if I can get the data released under the act?

To believe NIWA’s excuse of correcting for measurement station movement, you’d have to believe that it was just an amazing coincidence that all the stations moved in just such a way over the decades so as to cancel out all the warming that was simultaneously taking place and leave an amazingly flat record in the uncorrected raw data.
Yeah, that’s the ticket.

Wiki has an overview here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Official_Information_Act_1982
Although I’ve become a bit suspect of Wiki recently.
So Dr Wratt has mentioned the changes in Wellington (Where I live) what about the rest of New Zealand?

Another summing up story on the UK Telegraph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/copenhagen-climate-change-confe/6672875/Whos-to-blame-for-Climategate.html

Oh! I though that the Internationally accepted technique to adjust temperatures was to use tree rings and readjust the temperature of real thermometers. So, what they really should have done is cut a tree at Kelburn and another at Thorndon and do the Mann trick… Et Voila!

There is a lot more to go on this story yet. On 27/11/09 Minority party leader, and coalition government Minister, Rodney Hide, requested full details of all data, code, etc from climate minister, Dr. Nick Smith. You can see the full letter at local blog site http://whaleoil.gotcha.co.nz/. Acknowledgement to local blogger, Whaleoil for this post.
Rodney Hide is not a man who is easily fobbed off. He is well known for his effective ‘crusading’ skills. He is also well educated and very articulate. Now that this request is in the public domain it will not easily be dismissed.

Rodney Hide is also scientifically trained. He has a bachelor degree in zoology and a masters (MSc) in resource management.
http://www.parliament.nz/en-NZ/MPP/MPs/MPs/7/6/1/49MP11981-Hide-Rodney.htm

There is in fact a perfectly standard way to handle this problem. Use a third station which overlaps both the old and new stations, and adjust the old so it has the same difference from the third station as the new.
Doing it in this order may not at first seem logical but it avoids having to continuously adjust the new station.
Given that long-term relative temperatures do not vary much over distances of 10s, or even 100 of kms, this method is perfectly sound. If the distance is of the order of 100s of km then it should be done separately for each calendar month.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/18_06_07impartialitybbc.pdf
In this pdf document,on page 40,you can see the view that the BBC gives about ‘climate change’ and their decision not to give equal airtime to sceptics.Interestingly:
Roger Mosey, Director of Sport, said that in his former job as head of TV News, he had been lobbied by scientists ‘about what they thought was a disproportionate number of people denying climate change getting on our airwaves and being part of a balanced discussion – because they believe, absolutely sincerely, that climate change is now scientific fact.
It would also be interesting to discover which ‘scientists’ they consulted to come to their decision (I bet I can guess a few!). Unfortunately, on page 27 it mentions that their 1996 charter requires them to be impartial in regards to ‘CONTROVERSIAL’ subjects.So I think they have a get out clause against prosecution? I’m still sure that this hoax,once fully brought into the public domain will deal a hammer-blow from which this Leftist organisation will never recover.Better late than never!
http://www.newsnow.co.uk – this is a nice little news aggregator in which to type ‘climategate’ when you feel the need.

brnn8r asks:

In New Zealand we have a version of the FOIA it’s called the official information act 1982
http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1982/0156/latest/DLM64785.html
Would it be worthwhile me testing the waters to see if I can get the data released under the act?

Absolutely! The more the requests the better. You are likely to overload them and might get the data, or other interesting scandals might be revealed, like deletion of emails or data or evidence.

I would have more confidence in wetting my finger in my mouth and then putting it out in the air to check the temperature then from those people.

This Just In! [Mark Steyn]
On this Thanksgiving Day, let us give thanks that the two greatest all-purpose pretexts for government regulation of every single aspect of your life – “health care” and “the environment” – have now converged. Forget the global warming, global cooling, all the phoney-baloney tree-ring stuff – who can keep track of all that “settled science”? And fortunately we no longer need it, because we have a new rationale for the massive multitrillion-dollar Copenhagen shakendownen. Drumroll, please!
But slashing carbon dioxide emissions also could save millions of lives, mostly by reducing preventable deaths from heart and lung diseases, according to studies published this week in the British medical journal The Lancet.
Government regulation of health care justifies government regulation of the environment: Ingenious!
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YmZmYzcwYzUwZDhiYjFjZjllZTg1NzQ1YTZkMjI1MmY=

“NIWA’s chief climate scientist David Wratt, an IPCC vice-chair on the 2007 AR4 report”
Would that be David P Wratt?
C’mon! You’re kidding me!

Ron (12:12:12) :
There is in fact a perfectly standard way to handle this problem. Use a third station which overlaps both the old and new stations, and adjust the old so it has the same difference from the third station as the new.
Doing it in this order may not at first seem logical but it avoids having to continuously adjust the new station.
Given that long-term relative temperatures do not vary much over distances of 10s, or even 100 of kms, this method is perfectly sound.
But that isn’t true. Many stations only 10miles apart and same elevation have different long term average temperatures which exceed a degree.

Global Frauding [Mark Steyn]
The CRU scandal has already ensnared Britain’s leading climate “scientist” Phil Jones (whom one principled leftie says has only “a few days left in which to make an honourable exit”) and his American counterpart Michael Mann (as in “Mann-made global warming”).
Given that these two men and their respective institutions are the leading warm-mongers on the planet, and the guys who dominate the IPCC, Copenhagen et al, it would be most unlikely if the widespread data-raping were confined only to the United Kingdom and the United States. Here’s an interesting snippet from my colleagues at Investigate magazine in New Zealand re their National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research:
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.
At least they only “altered” the data, unlike the CRU, which managed to lose it.
Upon examination of said “raw data”, it seems that the country’s temperature increased 0.06° over a century – ie, nada. But by the time Dr James Salinger (a big cheese at NIWA, the CRU and the IPCC), had “adjusted” the data New Zealand was showing an increase of 0.92° – ie, some 15 times greater than the raw data showed. Why?
It might be that “climate change” is an organized criminal conspiracy to defraud the entire developed world. Or there might be a “good explanation”. I’d be interested to hear it. Fortunately for NIWA et al, among the massed ranks of “environmental correspondents”, plus ça climate change, plus c’est la même chose.
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=M2MyNGI4NjU1NGY1OGM2YTYyZmRiOWQ2ZTMwNDkxNDc=

Anthony – the Khyber Pass station is a good example of a non-compliant climate station. Was a survey done at Kelburn that could be used to evaluate whether we might be looking at similar UHI / microsite effects?
Kelburn station seems to be in a park setting, but with buildings and parking lots. It’s got a webcam installed (http://www.metservice.com/public/localWeather/wellington.html) that’s dark right now but might give some idea as to the local setting.

“Our Berlin Wall Moment?”
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100018056/climategate-this-is-our-berlin-wall-moment/

here’s NASA GISS temp for Auckland Airport.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=507931190002&data_set=1&num_neighbors=1
no warming there.

I seem to remember that the Stevension screen used to stand in a garden beside the Wellington Met Office… This would be in the 1960/70s

The exact location of the Wellington airport weather station could be interesting. A look at Google Earth will show that the airport, while close into town, actually sticks out into the sea at both ends. You wouldn’t want to overshoot, especially on the north end because the runway finishes in a fifty-odd foot high ramp. A bit like a giant tank trap.
Wellington isn’t called ‘windy Wellington’ for nothing and the airport is very exposed to the southerly in particular. Landing there is one of NZ’s major adventure tourism attractions, especially in a small plane in a Nor’wester. So location and airflow mean that any UHI effect could be pretty sporadic. Also, although Wellington calls itself an International Airport (lots of NZ airports like to do that – it makes them feel good) almost all flights are local and rarely does anything bigger than a 737 land or take off.
That having been said, I’m really looking forward to the rest of the excuses for the rest of the stations, and if Rodney (Dancing With The Stars) Hide is on the case, then look out NIWA!

Glen, you are of course right, you can have big differences but that is not important. Let as say the Station A has been replaced by Station B with no overlap but that both have an overlap of some years with station C. You compare difference in average between both Stations A and B with Station C. Let us say that Station A is 0.8 C warmer than Station C and Station B is 0.3 C cooler than station C. This means that Station A is 1.1 degrees warmer than Station B. That gives you your correction.

How does the computer code correct tree ring data for those trees planted near some sort of thermal mass or heat source? Those elms on the lawn at Old Main must benefit from the local change in growing season, no?

Global warming has turned into a Wratt trap.

Even if one could completely trust the temperature sensors as providing “hard data”, which can be a challenging proposition at best due to localized heat island effects like being positioned next to heat sources like building air conditioning equipment and site changes not to mention issues with the devices accuracy and calibration, have the “soft data mannipulations” and adjustments seems to be a major source of human induced error or misdirection. As we’ve seen from the Climategate affair the alleged scientists involved (are they still scientists if they don’t follow an ethical and verifiable scientific method?) “misdirection” is now not just a very real possibility but a high probability especially when those involved have deep connections to the Climategate Fellows of Deception.
Anyhow, the alleged professional climate scientists at NIWA) sure know how to destroy a nice graph showing no temperature change in over a hundred years! http://nzclimatescience.net/images/PDFs/global_warming_nz2.pdf.
If I understand what is being said, the entire alleged human caused global warming climate change for New Zealand is from the “adjustments” to the temperature sensors and that without said adjustments the trend is as close to zero as one could expect a Natural system to be if it’s stable?
Can the raw data readings be counted upon as reliable?
How many sites are located within heat islands?
Surely if there are a preponderance of sites in heat islands then they’d have to make adjustments downwards? Wouldn’t that indicate a cooling trend in later years as heat island effects would increase with larger cities and more machinery near sites?
How are the adjustments justified?
Is this the case for the Mann graphs too? Flat trendlines without the adjustments to the data?
If the adjustments to the data are subjective then the entire conclusions are also subjective, and thus subject to human error and foibles.
Sigh.

Over at realclimate.org, Gavin said that the reason CRU had not released the global temperature dataset is due to the 1% of the entities who own the data has not agreed to the release. I have 2 suggestions to CRU: (1) release the 99% of the data that is not under the restraint, and (2) let the world know who these entities are so that the public can petition these entities to put the data into public domain.

That’s the only half sensible way to do it,it seems to me Ron.(Doesn’t help with poor maintenance and gradual encroachment of urbanisation and plain stupidity (asphalt,AC etc).Perhaps Mr.Watt or the New Zealanders could do something fairly quickly with that.

The NZ situation is an interesting contrast to the Central England Temperature record. This has been kept since 1659 and shows that there is nothing unusual in variations of temperatures over decades and that there is no significant trend over the last 350 years.
It was taken over by the Met Office who have changed the location of the stations to warmer places, but made no adjustments to take this into account. As a result CET shows spurious warming over the last ten years. The Met has deliberately debased an historic record so that they can say that temperatures in England are higher than ever.

@ Patrick Hadley (13:39:43) :
Can you provide references or detailed data for this as it is extremely concerning

And on top of all this, what is not considered by Hadley or NASA?
How about +/- error on the temperature measurements?
That error should then be carried through to the climate models which are back-cast tuned to match the temperature record.
And then the model error needs to be incorporated into the model output at the year 2100.
No, the only error range that is considered at the year 2100 is the difference between all 21 general circulation models.
And then, the gall to say we are 90% certain the temperature will rise x degrees by the year 2100.

The building that the station is sitting on was built in the 1970’s so if the station was moved there in 1927 how did it get on top of a 1970’s building?
Or is there another move that NIWA aren’t telling us about?

Looking at the charts on the ‘global warming nz2.pdf’ from ‘The New Zealand Climate Science Coalition’ I see the problem! Apart from the Auckland chart which from 1860-1960 is fairly self consistent,it’s all a Donkey’s breakfast.So many ‘difference events’ between the unadjusted and adjusted data on a seemingly 5-yearly basis? I assume all measuring stations would have come under Government control at the same time/standards being laid down.Therefore why is Auckland so consistent for the hundred year period when the other stations are not? – Can’t be equipment changes? You can obviously see when a station was moved by the vertical adjustment line but some appear to have been moved many times and there are lesser adjustments too numerous to mention.I think many will never be satisfactorily explained.

What NIWA have actually done is basically move the Kelburn series up to match the airport readings. They are, in effect, saying that Kelburn and the Airport have identical readings.
http://www.niwa.co.nz/our-science/climate/news/all/niwa-confirms-temperature-rise/combining-temperature-data-from-multiple-sites-in-wellington
The fact that the temperature in Thorndon is being read off a roof is effectively meaningless, because in effect NIWA are using the Airport readings now, and the Thorndon series is just a proxy for earlier Airport readings.
But the clever bit off all this is that the movement over time of the Thordon thermometer and the UHI effects mean that it gets a small positive gradient.
So when it is used as a proxy to link the old Kelburn and new Airport values together, it gets to add a quite possibly entirely artificial slope.
Surely the solution is to compare thermometers near the old Thorburn site, the old Kelburn site (before it was on the roof), the current Kelburn site and the airport for an extensive period and sort out the actual relationship . The cost should be peanuts really.

[snip – stop this crap- Anthony]
Perhaps NIWA have just been responding to all the complaints from Wellingtonians over the years that the Kelburn site, being up on an exposed hill, is not indicative of the temperatures experienced down at sea level amongst the concrete/steel/glass towers of Lambton Quay (a real UHI for sure).
I suspect that the Kelburn site was chosen only because it was on crown land. The Met site was positioned next to the old Dominion Observatory, complete with transit circle, and the Carter Observatory (formerly the National Observatory). Wellington is not only renowned for the strength of it’s wind, but also it’s hilly nature, similar to San Francisco by all accounts. Flat land is scarce and at a premium.
As to the siting of data stations relating to this ‘upward trend’ of the past 50 years. Surely we could look at the data from stations that a.) haven’t been moved. b.) aren’t affected by UHI, even if they don’t go all the way back into the 19th century with the data.
Our local station in Palmerston North would be a good one to try out. Situated at what was the D.S.I.R. (Dept. of Scientific & Industrial Research near Massey University) in the 80’s it was in a paddock about 30 metres away from sealed roads and concrete. It has been moved even further away from anything of that nature since then, ostensibly still the same environment.

I’m confused. Which weather station is it that’s on a rooftop next to the air conditioners? The NIWA station survey pdf file seems to be for Newmarket (Auckland), not Wellington.
Re: Wellington, the weather station was moved to Kelburn in 1928 and then to Airport ~1970.

Patrick Hadley (13:39:43) :
have changed the location of the stations to warmer places, but made no adjustments to take this into account. As a result CET shows spurious warming over the last ten years. The Met has deliberately debased an historic record so that they can say that temperatures in England are higher than ever.
What are you talking about!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Please see this document which gives the changes made
http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcet/ParkerHorton_CET_IJOC_2005.pdf

http://www.climatescience.org.nz/images/PDFs/global_warming_nz2.pdf
Forget the station movements!! THEY CRANKED ALL THE DATA DOWN BY AT LEAST 0.5 DEGREES CELSIUS RIGHT FROM THE START OF THE DATASET.(Apart from Dunedin). It’s so outrageous my mind couldn’t even grasp it!!

Ron (13:04:20) :
“Glen, you are of course right, you can have big differences but that is not important. Let as say the Station A has been replaced by Station B with no overlap but that both have an overlap of some years with station C. You compare difference in average between both Stations A and B with Station C. Let us say that Station A is 0.8 C warmer than Station C and Station B is 0.3 C cooler than station C. This means that Station A is 1.1 degrees warmer than Station B. That gives you your correction.”
Not really OT, since the article above says there is no overlap data.
I suspect your method could well introduce a larger bias than with just A and B having overlapping data. Suppose
Station A is 10 miles from B. Station C is 5000 miles from Stations A and B. So technically there is overlap data. Your method would get a correction, would you depend on it? Who gets to choose which station 5000 miles away is the one used, and on what basis would it be chosen, and how would the result be tested?
Each station has a unique weather condition history, which can not be interpolated from another unless several complete historical factors are known of each station, which do not exist in early historical records (or not sufficiently accurate). This applies even to stations that are 10 miles from one another.

For those interested, I had an email discussion with Dr. David Wratt, Chief Climate Scientist for NIWA, about this issue and he felt there were no issues with the station location. You can read more here:
http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-25061-Climate-Change-Examiner~y2009m11d27-Debate-continues-about-New-Zealand-climate-records

@ janama (12:51:32) :
here’s NASA GISS temp for Auckland Airport.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=507931190002&data_set=1&num_neighbors=1
no warming there.
I was surprised to see there was an airport in Auckland in 1880

grumpy old man (16:34:47) :
“Am I wrong is seeing this as a red herring?
The offset, at worst, would cause a step offset in the data starting at Jan 1, 1928, either up or down depending on whether they under or over estimated the effect of the altitude change. The “corrections” caused a rising temperature slope over time.
As I see it this station change is irrelevant.”
Others don’t:
“Warming over New Zealand through the past century is unequivocal.”

@ Ed Scott (12:29:41) : This Just In! [Mark Steyn]
————
Well, Mark Steyn (often a great read!) caught part, but not all of it. Just a few days ago the director (I believe that was position) of our USA Nat’l Institute of Env. Health was on about this same issue. She was saying in a televised interview that reducing CO2 levels actually will not just help the enviro, but save lives – because reducing CO2 reduces heart disease, reduces respiratory disease, even reduces some types of cancer.
Ya, I’m buying all of that, aren’t all of you? I’m just sure they’ve had some good well designed controlled studies of people in low v high CO2 levels, ones that did a fine job of addressing all possible confounding factors too, right?
Ah, here it is, I’d posted (vented about) it to the WUWT tips & notes section on the 25th:
Tonights Jim Lehrer News report, just did interview with I think, Laura Burnbaum, director of Nat’ Institute of Environmental Health. She’s going on about how addressing climate change could not only help us economically and environmentally, but could save many many lives because reducing CO2 and Methane, etc., will, get this, will reduce heart disease, respiratory disease, even certain types of cancers!

John in NZ (16:48:07) :
@ janama (12:51:32) :
here’s NASA GISS temp for Auckland Airport.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=507931190002&data_set=1&num_neighbors=1
no warming there.
“I was surprised to see there was an airport in Auckland in 1880”
I’m sure Orville and Wilbur would have been surprised in 1900 as well.

A kiwi ate my data!
I support Wratt. Keep all the data secret. Bury it in the backyard. No, hide it in East Anglia, UK. No, that won’t work. Eat it. That’s what secret agents do. Print the data on edible paper and eat it before the dudes with the badges come knocking.

Where “Global Warming” and “Peak Oil” meet
That place, of course, is the world´s financial market.
Read article at: http://alethonews.blogspot.com/2009/11/where-global-warming-and-peak-oil-meet.html

Re: Nick Stokes (18:14:57) :
“The post is misleading. The building pictured is not Kelburn, in Wellington, but Khyber Pass, in Auckland.”
Actually, it’s confusing, as the dictionary defines misleading as “to lead in a wrongful direction by deliberate deceit”. Your comment is misleading.

Anthony,
thanks for the snip. I am suitably chastised now. sorry about that mate.

Rob (11:06:35) :
“If there is an old site closing down and a new one opening up, why would they wanna splice them, regarding them as one station that has moved? There is the old station and the new.
Why not simply accept that some stations has data for a certain range of years and that other stations has data for other ranges of years?
When all stations have been averaged together, each and every station will only contribute with measured data, no adjustments (guesses).”
I think you have it nailed. Whatever trend the old site shows, that’s all the valid data there is, at that location in that time span, available for study. No overlap, no science.

Put temperature data in pot
Cook until hockey stick comes out clean.

Here’s graphs of the NIWA adjustment:
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/SC0911/S00060.htm
Before eyeballs at no increase
After has an increasing trend of around .5C
“Where there is an overlap in time between two records (such as Wellington Airport and Kelburn), it is a simple matter to calculate the average offset and adjust one site relative to the other.”
Yes, paintbrush can do that easily.
“Wellington Airport is +0.79°C warmer than Kelburn, which matches well with measurements in many parts of the world for how rapidly temperature decreases with altitude.”
IF it *is* then they put it in the wrong time slot.

Much of this discussion has been around how to get accuracy at a single station. The main published records use around 5000 records. Ideally for quality control each station should go through a rigorous process. Difficult enough in New Zealnd which has good metadata – but almost impossible in countries which have civil wars and or major upheavals.

NIWA fudging data is not a new issue, a couple years ago I tried to reconstruct their temperature record after I saw them ignore a local well sited long term record for Christchurch in place of a station moved three times in a small fast growing town far out of Christchurch. The graph they showed in the MfE report was used as evidence of global warming, but I noticed they had also truncated this station to hide the warmer than today temps in the 1940’s. This led me to do a total construction for NZ. Using fudged GISS data I got a very small warming trend, much less than theirs, using their raw data I got no trend, and when I adjusted the raw data for shifts as they claim they do, I still got virtually no warming. They dont have a leg to stand on! PS I have pics of several well sited NIWA stations. You can access their raw data for free from Cliflo on their website.

The layman tends to be torn between one point of view and another opposing view when reading conflicting reports.
The initial report on the NZ temp graph showed how the raw data showed no growth while the adjusted data showed a growth.
The approach taken was plausible understandable and believable.
Quite clearly the raw data showed no growth but the adjusted data did and the conclusion was that this was deliberate and an attempt at deception in the name of AGW.
The rebuttal has been strong.
It has not been quite so moderate in its language and it has attacked the debunkers and their qualifications.
But again, it seems to be robust, i.e. sound. They explain how many such temperature adjustments are necessary, it attempts to suggest how the corrections are arrived at and examples it with a weather station move.
However, while I tended to initially think, “Oops!” not proven after all” I took another look.
It troubled me that so many weather stations were on airports. Since the 1950’s there has been significant exansion in air traffic and improvements in aerodrome facilities. New hardstandings, more car pars, more buildings and air conditioners and so on.
One wonders if what has been measured deosn’t bear a far greater corelation with the growth and advances in air traffic than it does with climate change or CO2.
Then we have the questions about why the data for rainfall begins in the 1950’s when reliable data from much earlier s available. It is this truncating of the available data that is also a concern and we have seen this used to hide the decline, for example.
But in the end, I revert to the original raw data.
This seems to show, despite station moves etc., no significant increase.
It would seem to me that if the bulk of the data is robust and shows an increase that interpolating data at other sites (which I find hard to understand – if you don’t have measurements, inferring what those measurements would be if you did have sensors seems fraught with risk) would suggest that the adjustment should include an increase.
However, where the bulk of the data shows no such increase, then how can you justify including an increase.
Finally, why should we adjust data?
Why should we need to infer data for any particular site?
I can see a justification for an individual site if you want to try and understand some local climatic or weather situation at that site.
If I want to know how the weather at a location has changed over the years and there is no weather station at that precise location, then I can see the valdity for interpreting or inferring what might have been the history from the history at surrounding sites.
However, when we are trying to deduce global climatic conditions over time and project the future, I cannot be so confident of the rightness of including and manipulating such data. I am especially concerned where the manipulations are of a magnitude greater than the global projections.
Take two stations one reading 4 degrees higher than the next nearest and we want to interpolate the data for a virtual station in between.
WE could simply average the data and say that it is 2 degrees higher than one and 2 degrees lower than the other If we now average the three sites we find no difference than if we averaged the two real sites.
Thus no need for the virtual site.
However, if the correction is more complex and the virtual station data is assumed to be 1 degree lower than one of the real stations and 3 degrees higher than the other then we have added a distortion. The average of the three stations, one virtual, compared to the average of the two stations is no higher. This raises very serious questions about the appropriateness of the corrections.
I think I would far rather see methodology evolve that treats with the real data only but which addresses the missing stations in a different manner than currently used.
It seems to me it has been too easy to take raw real data showing no temperature growth and manipulate such that year of year growth has occurred with no other justification that the temperature adjustment algorithms used. In such a case it is easier (so says Ocam) to belive that the corrections are wrong than to believe the earth is entered into a runaway warming cycle. I should like therefore to see an independent verification of the change, some indirect method i.e one that can show in some related parameter, but one which is not temperature, that because A is responsive to B just as C is responsive to B that where we have missing data in A or where there are anomalies in the A data that we correct them using the C data as a reference.
Hmm.
So what about rainfall?
Lots of claims that Australia, for eample shows serous rainfall disruption since 1950. But that 1950 is claimed to be a false cut-off date. reliable data extends far earlier. So while the post 1950 data might suggest some correlation with temperature growth, the full data set does not.
On balance, i tend to agree with the initial report that NZ temperature records do not justifiably show any evidence of global warming. It is an artifact of the correction and nothing else.

Ron (23:14:40) :
“Glenn. If the third station (Station C in post above) with an overlap was 5000 miles away it would not work. But in New Zealand stations are never 5000 miles apart.”
Then how close is “good enough for government work” to apply a standard rule of temperature/altitude? The “adjustment” was .79C:
“Wellington Airport is +0.79°C warmer than Kelburn, which matches well with measurements in many parts of the world for how rapidly temperature decreases with altitude.”
NIWA claims “Thorndon (closed 31 Dec 1927) has no overlap with Kelburn (opened 1 Jan 1928)”. Yet the startpoint for Kelburn and the endpoint for Thorndon shows only about .2C difference on the first graph:
http://www.niwa.co.nz/our-science/climate/news/all/niwa-confirms-temperature-rise/combining-temperature-data-from-multiple-sites-in-wellington
I suspect something is very wrong here. Were Thorndon to be adjusted down by .2C to .5C there would be no upward trend from 1910 to the present. Thorndon shows no trend up or down for a 15 year span ending in 1929, Kelburn shows no trend up or down for 15 years starting in 1929, ending around 1945.
There was a drop in temperature. Even by NIWA’s second chart, temps quickly dropped .3C or .4C right after Kelburn took over, and stayed low till around 1945 when temps increased from 1945 -1960 (app) back up to around .4C above pre 1929.
Kelburn shows no increased trend from 1960 to the present (end of charted date).
It appears to me, using *real* data (although admittedly only data inferred from the charts) that the area is the same temp today as it was in 1910, no overall upward trend at all, only a temporary drop in temp in the 30s – 40s.

Nick Stokes (17:31:40) :
Glenn,
Sorry about that faulty link. Yes, it is the one you listed. And just above the map:
Data Owner ARC,
************************
This is nitpicky, since it doesn’t matter in “the real scheme of things”
but that isn’t quite unambiguous, Nick.
My doctor is the data owner of my medical record.
The meaning of the term in NZ, and on that webpage, may not mean what you think it means. It could mean that ARC has the responsibility and authority to take and keep official measurements for NIWA. Regardless, ARC is obviously providing NIWA with temperature data, or have been since the 7th of Nov, according to the data availability page. Look up the data yourself
http://cliflo.niwa.co.nz/pls/niwp/wgenf.genform1

Nick Stokes (18:26:51) :
Glenn,
Well, we could go round and round with tehnicalities. But the site is clearly placed to suit ARC pollution monitoring requirements, which constrains their choice of places for measuring temp etc. I think they did the best they could.
******************
I did the best I could when I rolled a truck down the mountain. I think you hit the nail on the head, you’re a round and round guy. I seriously doubt you have any idea why the ARC building site was chosen or whether it’s the “best” site for monitoring air pollution, or whether they even know that is true. But that wouldn’t constrain either ARC or NIWA’s choice of places for measuring temps.
Quit while you’re behind. Almost everything you have said on the subject has been flatly wrong, and much more misleading than a possible criticism of Anthony’s choice of language. I for one did not interpret the picture header as implying that NIWA only had one station in New Zealand. And it was apparent to me that he was reacting to NIWA’s claim “NIWA’s analysis of measured temperatures uses internationally accepted techniques, including making adjustments for changes such as movement of measurement sites.”

Richard (18:26:13) :
jfrater (18:02:05) : I would just like to point out that the temperature readings used by NIWA don’t come from their building – the photo above does show their building and weather station, but the official data comes from the Kelburn weather station which is situated alone in an enclosure at the top of Kelburn near the MetService Building – it is not mounted on a roof or near exhaust from air conditioners
“jfrater – are you somewhat challanged in English comprehension? Is English not your first language? Just read the correspondence above and try to understand it. Take your time. Use Google translation if necessary.”
That’s not nice and not fair. jfrater politely explained where the Kelburn temp readings come from, providing meaningful information to the group.

The NZ Climate Science Coalition first claimed “First, the station histories are unremarkable. There are no reasons for any large corrections.”
Contrast with their admission now that adjustments for station moves have to be made.
So do they really know what they are talking about? Even I knew station data had to be adjusted for moves and I am just a regular guy not part of a self-proclaimed “climate coalition”

Concerning this “Internationally accepted technique” of adjusting station temperature by altitude:
“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.”
Looks to be the same attitude – or worse – as Jones etal… I call it “stuff and staff”:
“There’s been a whole lot of work behind this in terms of things like having overlaps between particular stations when they’ve moved. There’s a whole methodology, internationally accepted, where you actually work out how to correct for these sorts of site changes and so on.”
“But you’ll be providing all that shortly?”
“Well, we’re not going to run around in circles just because somebody has put out a press release. We will continue to put out what is reasonable to provide.”
“Wouldn’t it be important –“
“No!”
“…for people to see the comparison studies between both sites?”
“Look, we’re talking about scientific studies here. I’ve told you we’ll put out information about Wellington. Basically it’s not up to us to justify ourselves to a whole lot of people that come out with truly unfounded allegations. We work through the scientific process, we publish stuff through the literature, that’s the way that we deal with this stuff and I can’t have my staff running around in circles over something which is not a justified allegation. The fact that the Climate Science Coalition are making allegations about my staff who have the utmost integrity really really pisses me off.
“That’s all I’ve got to say to you now – [click]”
http://briefingroom.typepad.com/the_briefing_room/2009/11/breaking-nzs-niwa-accused-of-cru-style-temperature-faking.html?cid=6a00d8341c51bc53ef0120a6db0cdb970b
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/SC0911/S00055.htm

“I’m not too impressed, especially when you see where the weather station for National Institute of Water and Atmosphere (NIWA) is, right on the rooftop next to the air conditioners:”
How do you know that this is a weather station and what it is used for?
The actual station this is about is here:
http://maps.google.co.nz/?ie=UTF8&ll=-41.284406,174.768007&spn=0.000706,0.001063&t=h&z=20
BTW. the station belongs to the MetService and not NIWA (as does the AWS at the airport).
“Instead, as their news release records, they simply guessed that the readings taken at Wellington Airport would be similar to Thorndon, simply because both sites are only a few metres above sea level.”
No they looked at the period of the airport record that overlaps the Kelburn record as the press release you link to shows.
“is applying a temperature example from 15km away in a different climate zone a valid way of rearranging historical data?”
Do you have any evidence that they actually are in different “climate zones”?
“Not really. There are, what, 7 stations total in New Zealand?”
No there are more: http://www.metservice.com/national/maps-rain-radar/local-observations/local-3-hourly-observations
And none of the stations in the “survey” linked further up seems to be a synop or AWS station and will not have been used for any temperature trends.

One would have thought that as well as adjustment for elevation there would have had to have been an adjustement for the heat island effect at some stage in the Kelburn data.

Anthony (17:10:28) :
“One would have thought that as well as adjustment for elevation there would have had to have been an adjustement for the heat island effect at some stage in the Kelburn data.”
To my eye, an increasing trend depends on the last “Airport” piece of the graph. Without that increase, the rest of the Airport (app 1960 – 1990) and Thorndon show no increase, by my eye.
I haven’t identified the stations these records are supposed to come from.
But adjusting for UHI and local effects would not be easy, scientifically. Many researchers dismiss or do not take account for UHI, and I have found little literature or tests on the subject. Perhaps getting lucky and finding stations close together to compare may have some weight of argument, but there must be many factors that would need to be taken into account to assign an adjustment value in the absence of that. Of course it’s real and needs to be taken into account, and no one denies the reality of UHI etc. So ignoring it to show a trend is IMO pseudoscientific garbage.
One thing I’d like to see is a timeline of jets in the area of a tmp station at an airport, compared to minute by minute temperature readings. Of course, every airport could be different, so no average value could be used for heat adjustments unless a lot of these experiments could be done, and certain parameters defined.
http://www.niwa.co.nz/our-science/climate/news/all/niwa-confirms-temperature-rise/combining-temperature-data-from-multiple-sites-in-wellington

Frank (00:18:42) :
“http://cliflo.niwa.co.nz/pls/niwp/wstn.stn_details?cAgent=22164
Khyber Pass, Auckland Regional Council”
“The image at the start of the page refers to an alleged weather station on the top of the Niwa buildings – which are in Wellington and not in Auckland. And the Khyber Pass stations is owned by the council (as the station info shows).
How can the author of this article claim that whatever it is you can see on the image is used to determine temperature trends in NZ?
But never mind, it’s good enough to cast doubt and prove how stupid or -better- malicious these scientist bastards are.”
It isn’t an “alleged” station, NIWA collects data from a variety of sources, including metservice and ARC, the author did not claim that “whatever it is you can see on the image” is used to determine temp trends, but the picture *is* a good example of incompetence.
“Unless this data, which appears as raw data, is already adjusted, there is nowhere a difference of .79C between these stations. Have a look”
“Funny that. I get an average difference of 0.81 and 0.9 degrees for the maximum and minimum temperatures.
BTW anybody who wants to replicate, be aware that the data for 20091010 is missing for one station.”
A difference of .1C is a very significant difference, and the data posted is only for a year, and not for the period of the early 20th century. It is necessary in science to be accurate, whether results fit your expectations or not.
As for the questions of jets and temperature sensors.
You do realise that these stations are used by weather services, don’t you? That is particularly true for the Wellington airport AWS which belongs to the MetService (not NIWA). These weather services depend on high quality measurements to create their forecasts and thus revenue. They would know if jets (or air conditioning exhausts) would screw up the signal. But still they might also be as incompetent as these climate scientists, so why don’t you write to the Metservice (www.metservice.com) and ask them for the AWS data from the airport and do the study yourself?
No claim was made of the Wellington airport, but you are correct about airports needing accurate temperatures as they exist in the immediate location of take-off and landing. Of course, a warmer than actual reading will err on the safe side.
AWS in this case may indeed know jets “screw up the signal”, but that does not make them incompetent. Using the data for other purposes might, depending on the purpose.
An interesting bit of information, a site that apparently monitors and analyzes some of NZ weather stations claims there is a .4F difference between two stations at the airport, .3 miles apart:
http://weather.gladstonefamily.net/site/93439
“NZWN 0.3 miles North -0.4°F”
Frank, please provide me with evidence (not claim) of which stations NIWA labeled “Airport”:
http://www.niwa.co.nz/our-science/climate/news/all/niwa-confirms-temperature-rise/combining-temperature-data-from-multiple-sites-in-wellington

Frank (17:45:08) :
“It isn’t an “alleged” station,”
So show me where it says what the thinggummy on the roof measures.
Reply: I already provided that information once to you in Glenn (17:24:08)
“the picture *is* a good example of incompetence. ”
To claim this you’ll have to know what it actually is that one sees on the image and what it is used for.
Reply: Yes, and Anthony explain what it actually is in Nick Stokes (14:45:40)
“A difference of .1C is a very significant difference, ”
Depends on what you want to show.
You where saying that the difference is “nowhere near 0.79″, which is rather wrong.
Besides, you are looking at daily maximum and minimum values. So to be able to actually compare the values from two different stations you have to assume that they are pretty similar (i.e. have their min. and max. temperatures at the same time).
Given the short time span and the fact that you are looking at min/max temperatures, I would say that the data fits quite well.
Reply: How can you say “nowhere near” is “rather” wrong? In that short time, by your own figures is off a very significant difference in terms of differences of tenths of a degree, which is the scale of temperature trends. Unlike you, I assume little.
“and the data posted is only for a year, and not for the period of the early 20th century.”
The data you posted is for a month and not a year.
Reply: yes, I took a year from the db but only posted a month. Shoot me. Funny you didn’t reply to the fact that the period was not for the early 20th century.
“airports needing accurate temperatures”
I said that the weather services need accurate measurements.
Reply: Well goody for you.
“Frank, please provide me with evidence (not claim) of which stations NIWA labeled “Airport”:”
I don’t know which of the airport stations NIWA has used in their analysis
You didn’t have anything to say in this post, you made no real arguments, you avoided and snipped important points. That’s “unequivocal”.

http://www.niwa.co.nz/news-and-publications/news/all/nz-temperature-rise-clear
“NIWA’s unadjusted climate data is available to anyone at no charge, through web access to the NIWA climate database. This has been the case since 1 July 2007.”
This is a blatant, deceptive lie.
3391 Thorndon 15July1912-31Dec1927 Station type: “Rain”
No temperature data for any date, but has rainfall data.
3385 Kelburn 1Jan1928-present Station type: “Climat Standard”
No temp data for 1928, 1929, 1930 Temp data available for later years
25354 Kelburn AWS (airport) Apr 2004-present station type: AWS
temp data available.
12443 Kelburn2 Nov1995-Nov1996 station type “Climat standard”
No temp data
13905 Kelburn Nov1995-Nov1996 station type: Rain
No temp data