Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
This replaced the previous sticky, and I have this comment about the Economist. Bad form and unprofessional to use the word “denialists”. For WUWT readers who wish to complain: letters@economist.com or use their online form here. – Anthony
AN OPEN LETTER TO THE ECONOMIST
On Dec 11th, the Economist published an unsigned article attacking both me and my work. This open letter is my reply.
TO: The Person Unwilling to Sign Their Economist Article
Dear Sir or Madam;
Recently, you wrote a scathing article about me in the Economist discussing my post called The Smoking Gun At Darwin Zero. Some of it was deserved, but most was undeserved and false. The URL for your unprinicpled attack is http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2009/12/trust_scientists … trust_scientists? Trust_scientists?? Have you read the CRU emails?
But I digress … you begin by quoting from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, viz:
A change in the type of thermometer shelter used at many Australian observation sites in the early 20th century resulted in a sudden drop in recorded temperatures which is entirely spurious. It is for this reason that these early data are currently not used for monitoring climate change. Other common changes at Australian sites over time include location moves, construction of buildings or growth of vegetation around the observation site and, more recently, the introduction of Automatic Weather Stations.
The impacts of these changes on the data are often comparable in size to real climate variations, so they need to be removed before long-term trends are investigated.
While this is true, it doesn’t apply. None of the GHCN adjustments are from any of those sources. This is because the GHCN does not adjust for location moves. Nor does it adjust for construction of buildings, nor for any of the other items listed. The GHCN uses none of those to make its adjustments. So all of that is totally meaningless.
Next, you say the “explanation for the dramatic change in 1941 is simple”:
As previously advised, the main temperature station moved to the radar station at the newly built Darwin airport in January 1941. The temperature station had previously been at the Darwin Post Office in the middle of the CBD, on the cliff above the port. Thus, there is a likely factor of removal of a slight urban heat island effect from 1941 onwards. However, the main factor appears to be a change in screening. The new station located at Darwin airport from January 1941 used a standard Stevenson screen. However, the previous station at Darwin PO did not have a Stevenson screen. Instead, the instrument was mounted on a horizontal enclosure without a back or sides. The postmaster had to move it during the day so that the direct tropical sun didn’t strike it! Obviously, if he forgot or was too busy, the temperature readings were a hell of a lot hotter than it really was.
This might make sense if there were any “dramatic change in 1941”. But as I clearly stated in my article, <b>there is no such dramatic change</b>. The drop in temperature was gradual and lasted from 1936 to 1940. The change from 1940 to 1941 was quite average. So that claim of yours is nonsense as well. In any case, the change in screening did not coincide with the 1941 move. In my article I cited a reference to a picture of a Stevenson Screen in use in Darwin at the turn of the century. Perhaps you didn’t bother to read that.
So, to sum up your first arguments, changes in the Stevenson Screens and other local conditions cannot be the explanation for any of the GHCN adjustments because 1) the GHCN doesn’t use local conditions to make adjustments and 2) the timing of the screen change is wrong. In addition, there was no “dramatic change in 1941”.Next, you point out two actual mistakes I did make.
First, in my proofreading I did not catch that I that I had written “the 1941 adjustment” when I meant the 1930 adjustment. That should have been obvious to me, because there is no 1941 GHCN adjustment. My bad.
Second, I had said that the Darwin temperature data couldn’t have been adjusted by using the GHCN method. This method requires five neighboring stations to which Darwin can be compared. Why couldn’t the GHCN method be used? I said it was because in the earlier time periods like the 1930s, there were no such stations covering that time period within 500 km of Darwin. I was wrong, it fact there is one such station.
Neither of these errors of mine affect my point, which is that there are not enough neighboring stations to adjust Darwin using the main GHCN method. The GHCN folks mention this possibility, saying:
Also, not all stations could be adjusted. Remote stations for which we could not produce an adequate reference series (the correlation between first-difference station time series and its reference time series must be 0.80 or greater) were not adjusted. The homogeneity-adjusted version of GHCN includes only those stations that were deemed homogeneous and those stations we could reliably adjust to make them homogeneous.
Unfortunately, they adjusted Darwin anyway. Consider the GHCN adjustment in 1920. To find five stations around Darwin covering 1920, you have to go out 1,250 km. Nor is there any guarantee that those stations will be suitable. You need to have five stations with an 80% correlation with the Darwin record … I wish you the best of luck finding those five stations.
So while my statement about stations nearer than Daly Waters was wrong as you point out (there is one nearer station that covers the 1930 adjustment), my point was correct – there are not enough neighboring stations to adjust Darwin using the GHCN method. The first GHCN adjustment to Darwin was a single year adjustment in 1901. To get five “neighboring” stations for that adjustment, you have to go out 1728 km. You fail to deal with that issue at all. Instead, you say:
“So is it reasonable, if the GHCN is using complex statistical tools to adjust the temperature readings at Darwin based on surrounding stations, that they might come up with the figures they came up with? Sure. No. Yes. I have no idea. And neither does Mr Eschenbach. Because in order to judge that, you would have to have a graduate-level understanding of statistical modeling. … I don’t understand that formula. I don’t have the math for it.”
“Surrounding stations”? We’re talking about stations a thousand km away and more, not surrounding stations.
And while I am sorry to hear of the lacunae in your math education, please don’t make the foolish assumption that others are similarly limited. I have no problem with the GHCN math. If you truly have no idea on the question as you say … then why are you excoriating my ideas on the question?
Nor is it inherently a complex question. The question is, should temperatures more than a thousand km away from Darwin be used to arbitrarily adjust Darwin’s temperature by a huge amount? You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure that out.
Next, as an aside you make the scurrilously false statement that I said that claims of damage due to sea level rise in Tuvalu “stemmed from attempts by locals to blame subsidence problems on the developed world, and cash in on it”. I said no such thing nor do I believe it. The claims stemmed from misguided environmentalists.
Next, you say “He makes it sound as if he’s just happened to stumble across this one site whilst perusing a debate over climate change in northern Australia. But as his link to that conversation from 2000 makes clear, Mr Eschenbach is already aware that climate change denialists have been trumpeting the apparent anomalies at Darwin for nine years.” BZZZZT, poor understanding of the implications of chronology. I looked up the conversation after I stumbled across Darwin. How dare you accuse me of lying? As I said, I went to AIS to see if what Professor Karlen had said was true. I called up a list of all of the stations in Australia that covered 1900-2000. Darwin was the first on the list, so that’s the one I looked at. Try it and see. You accusation is both wrong and totally unfounded.
“[Climate change denialists] do so because of that errant data at Darwin from before 1941, which makes it look as though there was a cooling trend there. The fact that climate-change researchers have to do a particularly strong correction on the data at Darwin, because they moved their dang instruments from the downtown post office to the airport, makes Darwin a perfect place to look for support if you want to claim that climate-change scientists are cooking the data.”
While a correction in Darwin is perhaps necessary, it is cannot be because they “moved their dang instruments” in January of 1941. LOOK AT THE DATA. There is no big change in January of 1941. It occurred gradually over the previous five years. So your theory falls apart upon the simplest examination of the facts.
Next you say: “Average guys with websites can do a lot of amazing things. One thing they cannot do is reveal statistical manipulation in climate-change studies that require a PhD in a related field to understand.”
Your understanding of statistics is as poor as your understanding of chronology. The statistics used by GHCN are average college level tools. You are dazzled by the fact that you don’t understand them, so you make the incredibly foolish assumption that no one without “a PhD in a related field” can understand them either. Some of us actually paid attention in class, you know.
Finally, you use your closing arguments to cheerlead for peer review. Curiously, I agree with you in theory … but the peer review system in climate science is badly broken. First, as the CRU emails clearly show, it has been subjected to enormous “old-boy” pressures to pass through bad studies without a second glance, and to deny opposing papers a fair hearing. How do you think we got the Hockeystick and its cousins? Here’s Phil Jones from the emails, talking about keeping peer-reviewed papers out of the IPCC report:
I can’t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow – even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!
And you give your article the URL “trust_scientists”???
Second, the peer-review system is ripe for abuse. This is because the reviewers often know who the author is, while the reviewers (like you) hide in anonymity. This invites malfeasance. The system needs to be changed so that after the review, the [authors] sign their names to the paper as well as reviewers. At present, we have no way of knowing whether the paper was seriously reviewed by inquiring scientists, or simply passed through by the authors friends.
So I, like you, support peer review. I just want a peer review system that works. It must be double blind during the review period, with neither the reviewers nor the author knowing the others’ names. And the reviewers should reveal their names at the end, so that we know it wasn’t just the author’s best mates doing the author a favor.
Since we have an easily manipulated system instead of a real peer review system, I opt for public peer review by putting my work on the web. This lets anyone, even anonymous innumerates like yourself, register your objections.
Finally, the Economist did not contact me before publishing an article full of false accusations, incorrect assumptions and wrong statements … looks like peer review is not the only system in trouble here. I thought journalists were under an obligation to check their facts before making accusations …
Willis Eschenbach
From this picture
http://www.territorystories.nt.gov.au/handle/10070/6065
the screen was on in the 1930’s.
And a photo from 1890, with the screen
http://www.territorystories.nt.gov.au/handle/10070/32577
Interesting Slashdot has been picking up on it.
http://science.slashdot.org/story/09/12/12/2246208/The-Limits-To-Skepticism
While looking through the thread you may say that there is a lot of bad posts and moderating down of skeptics. It’s actually a positive if you look at it from a relative perspective. Just a year ago you wouldn’t have seen so many skeptics speaking up.
I think the main effect we are seeing post CRU e-mails is that the many skeptics that were already there are emboldened to speak up when previously they were not, it’s a paradigm shift.
And as always, great work Willis.
I subscribe to The Economist. In a few years their writing has degenerated from excellent economic and market analysis to a bizarre blend of pure economic fascism and climate panic. Measure and data mean nothing to the writers. Frequently misinformation, particularly about America is passed on as fact. In particular every topic concerning capitalism. gun ownership. free speech, and climate seems to bring out delusions and plain falsehoods. There is hardly a world pathology that is not America’s fault. Climate change is number one. Imagine that. Rather than The Economist, they should retitle the magazine The Elitist. And being wrong has no place in the vocabulary of these dullards.
As for the instant article, I commented previously. It is clear the data was tampered with because it did not fit the meme. It is simply way too scary for these “scientists” to deliver actual data and foot not observational infections. Instead they corrupt the entire field.
In order to save the village we must burn it. Apocalypse Now.
Willis, you hit the nail on the head. The term journalist has been tarnished by these agenda-ridden gossip queens.
Laura (17:19:43) :
Associated Press article:
AP IMPACT: Science not faked, but not pretty
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gRa5F7Lv_zO0ZKaHmbQENlyV3KdgD9CHUS980
laura, I am sick of this AP report. It reads of pure warmist propoganda. It gets linked on Twitter every five minutes by lazy readers. I don’t even see references, it just states thinks like “people say” and “everyone agrees”… pure BS.
George Turner (19:04:04) :
“The press is just waking up. Right now most are still in the phase of ‘Daily Planet’s in depth investigation finds that estranged ex-boyfriend is innocent of triple homicide based on our interview with estranged ex-boyfriend, who is amazingly cute, by the way.'”
I hope you stick around here, George.
CodeTech (18:37:15) :
“Smokey, if that article you quoted is anything other than sarcasm, then I think it’s time to openly panic in the streets!!!!”
The point was that it received the most votes of any Economist comment! Hard to explain, but there it is.
And you’re right, it had to be sarcasm. Otherwise, panic is surely on the way.
328 responses? I ain’t gonna live long enough to read all those. WOW!!!!!!
The system needs to be changed so that after the review, the [authors] sign their names to the paper as well as reviewers.
I agree completely, and in addition, the review(s) should also be published as supplementary electronic information.
The ‘double-blind’ requirement will not work, because in 90% of the cases the reviewer can tell who the author is, and in 60% of the cases, the author can guess who the reviewers were. Numbers reflect my own experience.
Find who owns this publication: Pearson PLC, owns the Financial Times and is based in the UK. Bet there is a friend of a friend who has interests in green stuff? Apparently they never sign their articles because the reputation of the paper should suffice. Well it doesn’t: who wrote this garbage?
I wish to add that this is clearly MSM putting themselves to attack blogs…
Like posters above, I used to subscribe to the The Economist but no more. It seems to be increasingly written by newly minted BA grads with all the right credentials in conventional wisdom and political correctness but not a dollop of critical and original thinking among them.
It’s not much better than Newsweek.
Jeff Id (10:30:55) :
A politician in the US insists Alaska has warmed by 6 degrees
Hey, I just congratulated the Economist for showing how Science does and should work!
Willis published openly, on a blog no less, an Anonymous reviewer [= anyone] responded in a non-Climate Science publication, and Willis has now rebutted that, the merits of each case standing completely on their own.
In contrast to the way the ipcc, its elite Climate Scientists, and certain other Cliimate Science Publications have tried to operate and argue science works, which is false, and which was one of the main criticisims of AGW Climate Science resulting in its problems to date.
The Economist, most likely inadvertantly just broke the whole thing wide open. I told them to “keep up the good work”.
bill (18:28:19):
You claim that the stevenson screen was in place in 1880s
however John daly’s page
http://www.john-daly.com/darwin.htm
Says that the screen was installed in 1941.
Compare this photo on warwick hughes’ page
http://www.warwickhughes.com/agri/darwin1890.jpg
to
http://img696.imageshack.us/img696/218/darwinpostofficebombed.png
War Correspondent Robert Sherrod, od Time magazine, in front
of the remains of the Darwin Post Office in June 1942
bill (19:54:43) :
Japanese bombing of PO was in 1942 the temp dip is jan 1941.
The 1880s photo of warwick hughes looks more like the Government House, not the “Old PO”
The bombed out photo shows signage on the wall and looks less up-market building. There obviously could have been reconstruction of the PO from 1880s to 1942 but would they rebuilt it so solidly ?
It’s obviously the same building in both photos. The only difference is that the photo with the journalist is shot from around the corner from 1890 shot, If you zoom in on the area of wall between the veranda roof and the building roof in the Warwick Hughes photo, you will observe the same stone masonry construction as in the 1942 photo. This photo from the 30s posted by Corey above
http://www.territorystories.nt.gov.au/handle/10070/6065
shows the stevenson screen having apparently migrated somewhat, but also the row of small rectangular windows above the wraparound veranda, which evidently got obliterated in the bombing.
The mathematical skills of many of those scientists responsible for historic data records have already been assessed indepedently by a high profile team of statisticians (the Wegman commission) a few years ago:
http://climateaudit.org/2007/11/06/the-wegman-and-north-reports-for-newbies/
Referring to the criticism of McIntyre and McKitrick of hockey-stick reconstructions, those professional scientists “tended to dismiss their results as being developed by biased amateurs”.
The Wegman commission, however, concluded differently:
“While the work of Michael Mann and colleagues presents what appears to be compelling evidence of global temperature change, the criticisms of McIntyre and McKitrick, as well as those of other authors mentioned are indeed valid.”
Their judgement about the quality of the professional scientist’s work was quite revealing:
“The papers of Mann et al. in themselves are written in a confusing manner, making it difficult for the reader to discern the actual methodology and what uncertainty is actually associated with these reconstructions.
It is not clear that Dr. Mann and his associates even realized that their methodology was faulty at the time of writing the [Mann] paper.”
“I am baffled by the claim that the incorrect method doesn’t matter because the answer is correct anyway.
Method Wrong + Answer Correct = Bad Science.”
“It is important to note the isolation of the paleoclimate community; even though they rely heavily on statistical methods they do not seem to be interacting with the statistical community.”
“A cardinal rule of statistical inference is that the method of analysis must be decided before looking at the data. The rules and strategy of analysis cannot be changed in order to obtain the desired result. Such a strategy carries no statistical integrity and cannot be used as a basis for drawing sound inferential conclusions.”
If you still think, that was just an “exception”, but at least their algorithms to compute the global temperature data have somehow been elaborated and implemented much more skillful and careful, have a look at their computer code and particularly the inline commments:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/25/climategate-hide-the-decline-codified/
“OH FUCK THIS. It’s Sunday evening, I’ve worked all weekend, and just when I thought it was done I’m
hitting yet another problem that’s based on the hopeless state of our databases. There is no uniform
data integrity, it’s just a catalogue of issues that continues to grow as they’re found.”
“Here, the expected 1990-2003 period is MISSING – so the correlations aren’t so hot! Yet
the WMO codes and station names /locations are identical (or close). What the hell is
supposed to happen here? Oh yeah – there is no ‘supposed’, I can make it up. So I have :-)”
“getting seriously fed up with the state of the Australian data. so many new stations have been
introduced, so many false references.. so many changes that aren’t documented. Every time a
cloud forms I’m presented with a bewildering selection of similar-sounding sites, some with
references, some with WMO codes, and some with both. And if I look up the station metadata with
one of the local references, chances are the WMO code will be wrong (another station will have
it) and the lat/lon will be wrong too.”
“I am very sorry to report that the rest of the databases seem to be in nearly as poor a state as
Australia was. There are hundreds if not thousands of pairs of dummy stations, one with no WMO
and one with, usually overlapping and with the same station name and very similar coordinates. I
know it could be old and new stations, but why such large overlaps if that’s the case? Aarrggghhh!
There truly is no end in sight.”
“Wrote ‘makedtr.for’ to tackle the thorny problem of the tmin and tmax databases not
being kept in step. Sounds familiar, if worrying. am I the first person to attempt
to get the CRU databases in working order?!!”
and many more…
Bryn (14:03:11) :
To see Darwin in a regional perspective, visit JoNOva for additional data across tropical northern Australia. It only reinforces Willis’s thesis.
——————————————-
No, no. no. This whole thing is being taken out of context. It’s simply just scientists using the data within approved scientific methods and coming to conclusions that you’ll need higher learning to understand. Just trust them. There’s a consensus.
Global Warming is doubtless happening. And it’s all our fault. You must send a good portion of your money to the victims of climate injustice.
😉
George M (21:03:36) :
328 responses? I ain’t gonna live long enough to read all those. WOW!!!!!!
———————————————-
It’s worse than you thought.
If you start early enough in a next life you can get to the 1,607 responses at this post:
“Breaking News Story: CRU has apparently been hacked – hundreds of files released”
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/19/breaking-news-story-hadley-cru-has-apparently-been-hacked-hundreds-of-files-released/
George Nick Bill,
Faith is a fickle friend. You have a peculiar faith that the adjustments not only make sense, but also were correctly applied. This is only compounded by the unspoken faith you must also hold that all necessary adjustments are also applied.
It is incredibly noticeable that this:
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/epubs/ndp/ushcn/ts.ushcn_anom25_diffs_urb-raw_pg.gif
bears a resemblance to this in shape:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A2.lrg.gif
I like to give people the benefit of the doubt, which for many unquestioning years I did regarding GW, but the similarity between those two graphs is striking and disquieting.
My email to the Economist:
Anonymous Critique of Eschenbach Darwin Analysis Demonstrates the Scientific Method
[Or isn’t the Economist a serious Publication?]
Editors:
It has been clear for many years without any assistance from the leaked CRU emails and files that the ipcc and its elite Climate Scientists are simply not doing Science. The most obvious evidence involves the failure of certain critical papers necessary to establishing the Hockey Stick representation of “Global Mean” temperatures extending back to A.D. 1000 to have been presented along with the “materials and methods” supporting a paper’s results also having been archived in an easily accessable way and reasonably contemporaneously, so that anyone interested can get them.
And, obviously, the above problem involving the failure of the ipcc and the elite Climate Scientists to follow the Scientific Method is demonstrated quite graphically by what was discovered when an official ipcc Reviewer, Steve McIntyre, was fianally able to get the materials and methods upon which Michael Mann’s and Ken Briffa’s proxy reconstructions were based – in Briffa’s case this occurred 10 years after Briffa had first used the data in a publication, when the Royal Society made Briffa obey its correct scientific rules for publishing a paper in its own publication.
McIntyre found that Briffa’s method was quite inadequate to establish what Briffa thought he was establishing. Briffa’s analysis was even critically dependent on only one tree.
Without such a presentation of “materials and methods”, there are in fact no scientific results or conclusions of papers to be promoted, defended, analyzed, or criticised to begin with. Nor has “peer review”, limited to the review by a publishing entity’s chosen “peers”, ever been warranted to result in the “given truth” as per a paper’s results or conclusions. Never. For good reason.
No, the materials and methods must be presented as above, because the real “peer review” is known to occur only after a paper’s publication, which just happened right here within the Economist itself.
Because, somewhat ironically, the Economist’s Anonymous critique of Willis Eschenbach’s presentation was based upon this exact point – about a paper, no matter where published, even being able to have scientific results to either promote, defend, or critique in the first place, and that the real peer review starts after a paper is published, and that it can be done by anyone.
Willis Eschenbach included the “materials and methods” which supported his product. Or if he didn’t include enough, there’s no need to even “peer review” it in the first place as the Economist’s Anonymous reviewer did, because, once again, there would be no truely scientific results or conclusions reported to either accept, promote, defend or critique.
But the Anonymous reviewer apparently thought there was something scientific to critique.
Again, the Economist’s completely Anonymous review shows that anyone whosoever can review a paper properly supported, because the merit of the review stands or falls upon the actual analysis itself, to which Willis Eschenbach has now responded.
This is how real Science actually takes place.
Keep up the good work!
Willis,
FWIW, the UK is the most plaintiff-friendly place in the world for libel suits. Just sayin’.
According to the Torok data set I posted the Darwin data was adjusted for the addition of a Stevenson screen in 1894.
here are the adjustements:
Key
~~~
Station
Element (1021=min, 1001=max)
Year
Type (1=single years, 0=all previous years)
Adjustment
Cumulative adjustment
Reason : o= objective test
f= median
r= range
d= detect
documented changes : m= move
s= stevenson screen supplied
b= building
v= vegetation (trees, grass growing, etc)
c= change in site/temporary site
n= new screen
p= poor site/site cleared
u= old/poor screen or screen fixed
a= composite move
e= entry/observer/instument problems
i= inspection
t= time change
*= documentation unclear
14015 1021 1991 0 -0.3 -0.3 dm
14015 1021 1987 0 -0.3 -0.6 dm*
14015 1021 1964 0 -0.6 -1.2 orm*
14015 1021 1942 0 -1.0 -2.2 oda
14015 1021 1894 0 +0.3 -1.9 fds
14015 1001 1982 0 -0.5 -0.5 or
14015 1001 1967 0 +0.5 +0.0 or
14015 1001 1942 0 -0.6 -0.6 da
14015 1001 1941 1 +0.9 +0.3 rp
14015 1001 1940 1 +0.9 +0.3 rp
14015 1001 1939 1 +0.9 +0.3 rp
14015 1001 1938 1 +0.9 +0.3 rp
14015 1001 1937 1 +0.9 +0.3 rp
14015 1001 1907 0 -0.3 -0.9 rd
14015 1001 1894 0 -1.0 -1.9 rds
Can someone help me with this conundrum pls?
I’m a layman in every sense of the word regards temp. data. But I think I understand the gist of raw vs homogenised data. My problem is this. Thousands of stations around the world, thousands of problems with their accuracy irregardless of disagreements about specific problems at specific stations.
We are told global temp. increases in the order of 0.7c over the century. Lets say 1degC for sake of simplicity. Am I to believe data can be adjusted so well, so accurately, from so many stations located in so many different regimes (old soviet era, China Africa etc) that such a precise figure of 1degC can be confidently arrived at, thence extrapolated 100yrs into the future?
And all this covering 30% of the globe. The other 70% has worse problems with accuracy.
How confident should we be about historic data sets? How confident can we be with proxy data when real data is such a dogs breakfast?
I’m not even sure there is a problem (rising temps.) let alone the cause of the said problem.
Willis,
You assert:
“So while my statement about stations nearer than Daly Waters was wrong as you point out (there is one nearer station that covers the 1930 adjustment), my point was correct – there are not enough neighboring stations to adjust Darwin using the GHCN method. The first GHCN adjustment to Darwin was a single year adjustment in 1901.”
The paper by Peterson and Easterling (“Creation of Homogeneous Climatological Reference Series”) says the following on p. 673:
“We decided to use five stations for the reference series estimate for any
given year. …. Often, however, there are fewer than five appropriate
reference stations available for a given year. In such cases, we use all
available stations, to a minimum of two. We need at least two, or a
discontinuity in a reference station would have the same effect as a
discontinuity in the candidate station.”
There do appear to be at least two candidates for reference stations
available over part of the period in question: Wyndham Point (1898-1966) and Daly Waters Pub (1926-1986). So it seems that at least from 1926,
onward, there were enough stations for them to do what they say they
did. I haven’t checked whether there are any stations to replace Daly
Waters in the earlier period.