NIWA issued a response statement regarding the charges leveled by The NZ Climate Science Coalition here:
http://www.niwa.co.nz/our-science/climate/news/all/niwa-confirms-temperature-rise
They say:
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.
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:
Here is the station survey: NIWA_station_survey (PDF) and the Google Earth KML file
Thanks to: Dieuwe de Boer who did a good portion of station surveys in New Zealand last year.
The NZ Climate Science Coalition responds:
NIWA’s explanation raises major new questions
The NIWA climate controversy took a new twist tonight with the release of new data from the government run climate agency.
Reeling from claims that it has massaged data to show a 150 year warming trend where there isn’t one, NIWA’s chief climate scientist David Wratt, an IPCC vice-chair on the 2007 AR4 report, issued a news release stating adjustments had been made to compensate for changes in sensor locations over the years.
While such an adjustment is valid, it needs to be fully explained so other scientists can test the reasonableness of the adjustment.
Wratt is refusing to release data his organisation claims to have justifying adjustments on other weather stations, meaning the science cannot be reviewed. However, he has released information relating to Wellington temperature readings, and they make for interesting reading.
Here’s the rub. Up until 1927, temperatures for Wellington had been taken at Thorndon, only 3 m above sea level and an inner-city suburb. That station closed and, as I suspected in my earlier post, there is no overlap data allowing a comparison between Thorndon and Kelburn, where the gauge moved, at an altitude of 135 metres.
With no overlap of continuous temperature readings from both sites, there is no way to truly know how temperatures should be properly adjusted to compensate for the location shift.
Wratt told Investigate earlier there was international agreement on how to make temperature adjustments, and in the news release tonight he elaborates on that:
“Thus, if one measurement station is closed (or data missing for a period), it is acceptable to replace it with another nearby site provided an adjustment is made to the average temperature difference between the sites.”
Except, except, it all hinges on the quality of the reasoning that goes into making that adjustment. If it were me, I would have slung up a temperature station in the disused location again and worked out over a year the average offset between Thorndon and Kelburn. It’s not perfect, after all we are talking about a switch in 1928, but it would be something. But NIWA didn’t do that.
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.
Airport records temps about 0.79C above Kelburn on average, so NIWA simply said to themselves, “that’ll do” and made the Airport/Kelburn offset the official offset for Thorndon/Kelburn as well, even though no comparison study of the latter scenario has ever been done.
Here’s the raw data, from NIWA tonight, illustrating temp readings at their three Wellington locations since 1900:
What’s interesting is that if you leave Kelburn out of the equation, Thorndon in 1910 is not far below Airport 2010. Perhaps that gave NIWA some confidence that the two locations were equivalent, but I’m betting Thorndon a hundred years ago was very different from an international airport now.
Nonetheless, NIWA took its one-size-fits all “adjustment and altered Thordon and the Airport to match Kelburn for the sake of the data on their website and for official climate purposes.
In their own words, NIWA describe their logic thus.
- 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.
- 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.
- Thorndon (closed 31 Dec 1927) has no overlap with Kelburn (opened 1 Jan 1928). For the purpose of illustration, we have applied the same offset to Thorndon as was calculated for the Airport.
- The final “adjusted” temperature curve is used to draw inferences about Wellington temperature change over the 20th century. The records must be adjusted for the change to a different Wellington location
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.
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 just knew there was a “grassy knoll” in Kelburn’s past:
1928 Station opened. Enclosure on high grassy knoll in Botanic Gardens. Exposure is generally good apart from some turbulence.
http://cliflo.niwa.co.nz/pls/niwp/wstn.sensor_his?cagent=3385
Everything but the guy with the thermometer and the kitchen sink.
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.”
If there’s a phone number for the site, it could be dialed to remove any uncertainty.
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.
Well I apologise to jfrater for being impolite and thank him for meaningful information on Kelburn temp readings. But he does so in reference to the NIWA Khyber pass building in Auckland and in the midst of discussion about this building, so his information is a little incongruous.
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”
Richard (17:58:31) :
Instead of wasting everyones time on a non-issue, do you have anything to say on Richard (16:17:35) ?
Yes. See Steve McI. 2007. He goes through all the adjustments for Wellington, including informative correspondence from Dr Wratt. This information has long been available.
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
Nick Stokes (11:12:26) :
Richard (17:58:31) :
Instead of wasting everyones time on a non-issue, do you have anything to say on Richard (16:17:35) ?
Yes. See Steve McI. 2007. He goes through all the adjustments for Wellington, including informative correspondence from Dr Wratt. This information has long been available.
*********************************
Oh no. Steve’s interest was in Hansen’s adjustments and records. He did NOT “go through all the adjustments” in the sense of determining the *specific* changes and reasons for those changes with regards to Thorndon, Kelburn and the airport that were made by NIWA.
This can be seen in Steve’s article by a lack of agreement, argument, or even recognition of David Wratt of NIWA’s quoted claims specifically with regard to the reasons for the adjustment. It’s worth repeating:
“It is time to put on record once again what some contributors here already know: Fitting a linear trend to the entire unadjusted NASA GISS plot for Wellington is physically meaningless. This is because as time progresses this unadujsted plot uses measurements from different sites at different altitudes.
Much of the data used by GISS comes from the site at Kelburn, which is in a park at about 125m above sea level. This data set does not start until January 1928. Before this, the Wellington measurements were taken much closer to sea level. For example from July 1912 until December 1927 they were from a site in Thorndon, at 3m above sea level. As you know, there is a drop off of temperature with height which occurs (on average) in the atmosphere.
We have made this point already to some people who continue to publicly misinterpret the unadjusted NASA GISS plot for Wellington in this way.
I should also mention here that there is a further data set from measurements 4 m above sea level at Wellington Airport, commencing in January 1962.
To find the real trend, you must make appropriate homogeneity adjustments which take account of the differences in height between the various measurement series and also use the time when the Kelburn and Wellington Airport temperature series overlap. When you do that, you will find a long-term warming trend for Wellington through the 20th century.”
Wratt makes a similar claim there as has been given recently, defending the adjustment of Thorndon and the airport based on an “average” altitude difference in temperature included as one of the “internationally recognized techniques” used. Steve did not specifically address this issue, agree or disagree with it.
The Climate Coalition requested *specific* reasons. Perhaps you don’t, but I consider adjusting station temp based solely on average altitude differences to be highly absurd, and easily proven a faulty technique. NIWA has said that no adjustments for UHI was needed. I assume they exclude all location influences, not only urban growth they mention as not being a factor. Perhaps Climate Coalition think there is just enough worm room in NIWA’s statements that indicate altitude is not the only reason why Thorndon and the airport was lowered .79C, as do I.
Prodding NIWA into releasing files that would pin them down on precisely how and why this adjustment was made would appear to be Climate Coalition’s goal with respect to this area of New Zealand.
The problems are
1. The adjustments get larger as we get to more recent times.
Why? We are repeatedly told that the UHI adjustments are minor. Modern instruments are more accurate. Therefore one should expect the errors in measurements to decline as we get closer to today.
2. Why are the adjustments biased towards increases?
3. When the adjustments are largely a secret process, and are considerably larger than the signal, it also throws huge doubt into the process
Nick
Glenn,
Of course, SM did not agree with the adjustment process – that would be too much to expect. My point is that he had access to the adjusted and unadjusted information, plus the station history story, augmented by the email from Wratt.
This was an issue in Richard’s post – a claim that the unadjusted data was withheld, and the adjustment could not be determined. And this post and its predecessor present the unadjusted data as a discovery. But Steve had it, and analysed it. It’s all on GISS here.
Nick Stokes (11:12:26) :
Richard (17:58:31) : .. do you have anything to say on Richard (16:17:35) ?
Yes. See Steve McI. 2007. He goes through all the adjustments for Wellington, including informative correspondence from Dr Wratt. This information has long been available
Well thats a revelation to me and shows that I shouldnt accept everything at face value, no matter where it comes from. It seems Dr Wratt did have some justification for his claims after all. Though supplying some information to CA is not the same thing as supplying the information asked for to the coalition.
I dont agree with him not supplying the details of the adjustments made to the temperature readings at each of those seven stations and making available the raw data involved in the making of these adjustments.
I think it is very arrogant and wrong for him not to do so, to say the least.
And, as I have pointed out earlier, Wellington airport today is not the same thing as Thorndon a century ago. And they must select a site as similar to Thorndon of a century ago and calibrate the difference between that site and Wellington airport for another adjustment.
Similarly we should know the details of each of the other stations.
Nick Stokes (17:43:12) :
Glenn,
Of course, SM did not agree with the adjustment process – that would be too much to expect. My point is that he had access to the adjusted and unadjusted information, plus the station history story, augmented by the email from Wratt.
This was an issue in Richard’s post – a claim that the unadjusted data was withheld, and the adjustment could not be determined. And this post and its predecessor present the unadjusted data as a discovery. But Steve had it, and analysed it. It’s all on GISS here.
***************************
It isn’t clear that Steve McIntyre ever gained access to actual raw data from any station in that area. He had graphs of data, but that isn’t raw data, nor necessarily drawn from raw data. The issue Richard seems concerned with is method the adjustment of data. Steve didn’t “have” that, and your GISS link doesn’t list any of the stations, at least by name, Thorndon, Kelburn or the airport.
Steve provided a link to NIWA (the same as I provided to you) that Warwick Hughes had given him, but apparently discovered the data is only available to registered users, although free, in inquiry form he described as possibly needing “scraping”. Steve put scare marks around “raw” to describe NIWA data. Seems he may only have had access to graphs.
It may be that NIWA database does not hold records for some older stations no longer reporting, they may have archived some of the data or only provide “analyses” graphs. I haven’t checked as I’m not a New Zealander and do not wish to register. But it isn’t clear to me that data for any particular station or all stations are available, or easily available without special request. And you yourself said “No actual data that I could find” after I provided a page that had a link to “data availabilty” right at the top of the page.
Glenn,
The digital GHCN data is at this NCDC site. It includes unadjusted and adjusted. I think Steve M’s conclusion was that NIWA’s adjusted data matched, although he found issues. The station identification is on the .inv files. It’s brief, but enough to identify the site. For example, Wellington is at 128m, which suggests Kelburn (there’s lat and long too).
“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.”
Not really. There are, what, 7 stations total in New Zealand? It’s a small place, and the uncorrected data is not exactly amazingly flat…
“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?”
Someone else has already pointed this out – because it makes it difficult to do any sane sort of averaging across all of the stations if you only have measurements for some of them.
“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.
I registered for access on the NIWA database today, curious to see if temp records were available for Thorndon and Kelburn around the time one closed and the other began (as seen in the NIWA graph) in order to verify NIWAs claimed “internationally accepted technique) station adjustment of .79C.
NIWA locations within 5km of Thorndon:
http://cliflo.niwa.co.nz/pls/niwp/wstn.get_stn_nodt
NIWA database query results:
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
A search of all other stations within the 5 km radius results in NO comparable stations with regard to same time and altitude difference, for ANY period of time.
NO historical data for any station close to Thornton for periods prior to or during the time Thornton was open, at any altitude.
In short, I can’t even verify that Thornton ever took temperature measurements, have no access to any that may exist, no access to any temp from any other station from same time period to make any analysis or comparison between stations such as Thornton and Kelburn (or any others) of temperature by altitude or any other criteria.
This lack of data produced by the database queries may be the result of a lack of user permission, or archived/unavailable records. NIWA does not provide specific reasons for a lack of data on the website.
It’s not unreasonable to assume it true that NIWA has not released raw data or the specific methodology for the adjustments seen here:
http://www.niwa.co.nz/our-science/climate/news/all/niwa-confirms-temperature-rise/combining-temperature-data-from-multiple-sites-in-wellington
What can be inferred from the graph is that Kelburn was only around .2C cooler than Thorndon when it closed, not .79C. If using average temperature lapse rate is the sole method NIWA used to lower Thorndon .79C, it is easily shown that this technique does not hold even close to many stations separated by a short distance and an altitude difference of 125 meters.
To quote from Richard (16:17:35) :
“In the spirit of his commitment yesterday, we call on Dr Wratt to answer the following three questions.
“1. The graph of the New Zealand temperature record on the NIWA website is based on just seven weather stations. What, precisely, gives NIWA confidence that they are representative of the whole country?
“2. What, precisely, are the adjustments made to the temperature readings at each of those seven stations and when were they each made? We request access to the raw data involved in the making of these adjustments.
“3. What, precisely, are the reasons each station was so adjusted?”
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.
Frank (16:26:46) :
“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?
*********************
Check Glenn (16:53:50) or
http://cliflo.niwa.co.nz/pls/niwp/wstn.stn_details?cAgent=22164
Khyber Pass, Auckland Regional Council
http://cliflo.niwa.co.nz/pls/niwp/wgenf.genform1_proc
22164 20091128:0800 20.2 24 13.7
22164 20091129:0800 19.4 24 15.8
22164 20091130:0800 20.3 24 14.9
But “what is it used for” would be a very good question for NIWA to answer, for any station for that matter.
Why were these 7 stations choosen and why were the others excluded?
For example, even if the number of stations increase, you can use the average of the stations at a particular point in time.
Here’s a comparison of temps from two stations very close to stations Thorndon and Kelburn used in the NIWA adjustment, from 10/1/2009 to 11/1/2009:
old stations:
Wellington,Kelburn 125m asl -41.286 174.767
Wellington,Thorndon 3m asl -41.283 174.783
New stations used for data below:
Wellington, Kelburn Aws 125m asl -41.285 174.768
Wellington Aero 4m asl -41.322 174.804
****************
Unless this data, which appears as raw data, is already adjusted, there is nowhere a difference of .79C between these stations. Have a look
Station Date Tmax Tmin
25354 20091001:0800 11.5 9.5
3445 20091001:0800 12.2 10.2
25354 20091002:0800 15.1 8.9
3445 20091002:0800 15.4 10.4
25354 20091003:0800 15.1 8.4
3445 20091003:0800 16.9 8.2
25354 20091004:0800 15.3 8.2
3445 20091004:0800 16.1 10.1
25354 20091005:0800 9.1 4.8
3445 20091005:0800 10.4 5.6
25354 20091006:0800 9.3 5.7
3445 20091006:0800 10.6 5.5
25354 20091007:0800 9.4 5.6
3445 20091007:0800 10.2 7.0
25354 20091008:0800 11.5 6.3
3445 20091008:0800 12.8 6.9
25354 20091009:0800 13.6 7.5
3445 20091009:0800 14.5 9.0
25354 20091010:0800 7.7 4.8
25354 20091011:0800 11.4 5.5
3445 20091011:0800 11.4 6.3
25354 20091012:0800 14.6 10.3
3445 20091012:0800 15.1 11.2
25354 20091013:0800 14.8 9.9
3445 20091013:0800 15.7 10.5
25354 20091014:0800 13.9 10.6
3445 20091014:0800 14.8 11.7
25354 20091015:0800 15.0 11.8
3445 20091015:0800 16.2 12.4
25354 20091016:0800 16.6 9.4
3445 20091016:0800 17.3 10.6
25354 20091017:0800 14.4 9.9
3445 20091017:0800 16.0 10.2
25354 20091018:0800 15.8 9.0
3445 20091018:0800 16.8 9.9
25354 20091019:0800 10.3 5.1
3445 20091019:0800 10.9 7.2
25354 20091020:0800 12.7 6.7
3445 20091020:0800 14.0 7.6
25354 20091021:0800 11.0 4.1
3445 20091021:0800 11.6 5.2
25354 20091022:0800 14.9 10.2
3445 20091022:0800 15.0 10.0
25354 20091023:0800 14.4 7.1
3445 20091023:0800 15.4 8.6
25354 20091024:0800 11.2 5.9
3445 20091024:0800 11.8 7.2
25354 20091025:0800 15.3 8.4
3445 20091025:0800 15.0 9.8
25354 20091026:0800 14.8 11.5
3445 20091026:0800 16.3 12.1
25354 20091027:0800 16.7 7.8
3445 20091027:0800 17.6 9.7
25354 20091028:0800 11.0 5.5
3445 20091028:0800 11.3 4.9
25354 20091029:0800 15.4 5.5
3445 20091029:0800 17.0 5.8
25354 20091030:0800 10.7 5.7
3445 20091030:0800 10.9 7.0
25354 20091031:0800 12.2 8.1
3445 20091031:0800 13.1 9.0
25354 20091101:0800 13.4 4.5
3445 20091101:0800 13.1 5.6
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
“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.
“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.
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?
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