This is an old argument, adjusted data versus non adjusted data, and why does the adjusted data show a trend and the unadjusted data does not? We’ve battled this here on WUWT many times with GISS and NCDC, now the battle is spreading down under to New Zealand. And surprise, they cite NCDC’s own adjustment techniques. And it’s the same thing NCDC and GISS does, cool the past and essentially ignore UHI and land use change factors.
The Seven Station Set (7SS) Above from NIWA: Mean annual temperature over New Zealand, from 1853 to 2009 inclusive, based on long-term station records from between 2 (from 1853) and 7 (from 1908 onwards) locations. The blue and red bars show annual differences from the 1971 – 2000 average, the solid black line is a smoothed time series, and the dotted line is the linear trend over 1909 to 2009 (0.91°C/100 years).
Oddly, there seems to be some serious distancing afoot by NIWA, they say essentially “it’s not ours”. I suppose I would too, when you find that you can simply download the raw “unadjusted” data, plot it yourself, and find there there is essentially no trend.
Above graph was noted in this report where they write:
Straight away you can see there’s no slope—either up or down. The temperatures are remarkably constant way back to the 1850s. Of course, the temperature still varies from year to year, but the trend stays level—statistically insignificant at 0.06°C per century since 1850.
Jo Nova sums this up pretty well. So well in fact I think I’ll let her (bold mine):
There’s a litany of excuses. The National Institute for Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) claims NZ has been warming at 0.92°C per 100 years. But when some independent minded chaps in New Zealand graphed the raw NZ data they found the thermometers show NZ has only warmed by a statistically non-significant 0.06°C. They asked for answer and got nowhere until they managed to get the light of legal pressure onto NIWA to force it to reply honestly. Reading between the lines, it’s obvious NIWA can’t explain nor defend the adjustments.
Richard Treadgold was one of that team and files this report on the Climate Conversation Group Website as shown below. Apparently there’s a legal case ongoing. I’ll have another post on this later. – Anthony
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What’s left of the NIWA case?
Richard Treadgold
We hope justice will be done in the case against NIWA. Separate question: what of justice for the NZ temperature record?
The status of the NZ temperature record
For the last ten years, visitors to NIWA’s official website have been greeted by a graph of the “seven-station series” (7SS), under the bold heading “New Zealand Temperature Record”. The graph covers the period from 1853 to the present, and is adorned by a prominent trend-line sloping sharply upwards. Accompanying text informs the world that “New Zealand has experienced a warming trend of approximately 0.9°C over the past 100 years.”
The 7SS has been updated and used in every monthly issue of NIWA’s “Climate Digest” since January 1993. Its 0.9°C (sometimes 1.0°C) of warming has appeared in the Australia/NZ Chapter of the IPCC’s 2001 and 2007 Assessment Reports. It has been offered as sworn evidence in countless tribunals and judicial enquiries, and provides the historical base for all of NIWA’s reports to both Central and Local Governments on climate science issues and future projections.
NIWA has a printed promotional brochure describing its climate activities, which commences with the iconic 7SS graph. No piece of climate lore is more familiar to the public, and it is better known than NIWA’s logo.
But now, para 7(a) of NIWA’s Statement of Defence states that “there is no ‘official’ or formal New Zealand Temperature Record”.
In para 8(b) it says the NZTR is not a public record for the purposes of the Public Records Act, using the exemption of “special collections” defined (in para 4(b)) as non-public records used for “research purposes”.
In para 4, NIWA denies it has any obligation to use the best available data or best scientific techniques, while conceding that it has statutory duties to pursue excellence and to perform its functions efficiently and effectively.
The juxtaposition of these conflicting stances leaves NIWA looking decidedly awkward. Should it go all out to defend its most famous product, or throw the NZTR under a bus?
The 7SS adjustments
The 7SS posed as a genuine historical archive, until the NZCSC disclosed, in its 2009 paper Are We Feeling Warmer Yet, that the warming trend was merely an artefact of NIWA’s in-house ‘corrections’. After a lengthy saga (described in Brill, B.E., 2010a. ‘Crisis in New Zealand climatology’, Quadrant Magazine (May) and Brill, B.E., 2010b. ‘New Zealand climate crisis gets worse’, Quadrant Magazine (June)), it emerged that NIWA had adopted some 34 non-replicable adjustments proposed in 1980 by Salinger, whose calculations had been lost.
The NZCSC filed judicial review proceedings against NIWA, requesting the Court to:
• Declare the 7SS invalid
• Direct NIWA to prepare a valid replacement NZTR
In its Statement of Defence, NIWA announces that it has now completed a full internal examination of the Salinger adjustments in the 7SS, and has forwarded its “review papers” to its Australian counterpart, the Bureaux of Meteorologists (BOM) for peer review.
From ministerial answers to Parliamentary Questions, we know that this “review” has involved five or six scientists working for about six months, and has received a special grant of about $70,000. It comprises a replacement Schedule of Adjustments for the 7SS with de novo documentation and detailed justification for each adjustment.
The Hokitika example at http://www.niwa.co.nz/news-and-publications/news/all/2009/nz-temp-record/seven-station-series-temperature-data (scroll down to Documentation of the adjustment process) has been repeated for all seven weather stations.
The replacement 7SS doesn’t repeat the Salinger adjustments but it is to include any adjustments agreed between NIWA and BOM, both of whom will supposedly apply state-of-the-art homogenisation technology.
So the old 7SS has already been repudiated. A replacement NZTR is being prepared by NIWA – presumably the best effort they are capable of producing. NZCSC is about to receive what it asked for. On the face of it, there’s nothing much left for the Court to adjudicate.
What will happen in the court case?
The proceedings are not yet affected by these developments. If the replacement NZTR is as deeply flawed as its predecessor (which seems inherently unlikely) NZCSC will doubtless press on to trial – although some amendments to the pleadings would probably be required. If the new document seems respectable, the parties may well be able to resolve their remaining differences. Watch this space!
John in NZ Oct 9 at 11.32p.m.
The main Palmerston North met site at the old D.S.I.R. at Turitea near Massey University is stll a rural site thanks to having been moved away from the ever increasing number of out buildings, and tar sealed roads belonging to Agresearch who now gather the data on behalf of the NZ public. I am trying to track down just when this shift happened. I have managed to photograph some sections of large aerial photo’s that the City Council has at the city library. The photos cover the years 1951, 1961,1971,1975, 1986, & 1993. Up to that latter date the met site was as I first remember seeing it in 1975 when I had a part in surveying the setout of a section of road that possibly came inside a 100m radius.
The aerial shots available through the City Council’s web site show the new location several hundred metres west of the old site, where the earlier aerials show a copse of cabbage trees in a paddock.
The current P.N. airport site is within 100m of a hardstanding tarmac where they park the small training aircraft of the Massey School of Aviation (part of Massey Uni.). From my own memory the previous site was close to the isolated control tower. I am currently trying to identify that old site on the relevant aerials.
I applied for and obtained the following raw data from NIWA earlier this year, D.S.I.R. Turitea 1972-2010; Aorangi (Kairanga) on the flood plains about 8 miles west of the city for 1972-1990; Ohakea Air Force Base, closer to the coast again and around 20 miles west of the city, 1954-1991. These three sites give a good indication of the weather/climate in the lower Manawatu basin, from the foothills of the Tararua Ranges to the sunshine belt along the west coast. The overlapping raw data shows the rural sites to be slightly warmer, but it does vary.
I have also been given access to the P.N. long-term Means from June 1928 through to the present. I know trained metorologists look at annual means for obvious reasons. For the southern hemisphere looking at annual groupings sees the end of one summer at the start of the year thrown in with the start of another summer at the end of the year.
When looking at the seasons in isolation one finds that there are distinct differences from one summer to another. To simplify things a little I have settled on a Two-Season Year, i.e. hot & cold, or summer & winter. The southern ‘summer’ runs from November to April, whilst winter is May-October. Very hard for you northerners to get your head around that I’ll bet.
Just looking at the T-Max Means for these ‘2’ seasons we see wide variation during the 1930’s (it cracks me up when people nowadays state that the weather is SO variable. Well actually no. It was more variable back in the ’30’s!. Far more extreme in fact.)
The hottest (T-Max Mean) summers for here are in order, 1934-5, 22.40 C; 1937-8, 22.35 C; 1974-5, 22.32 C; & 1998-9, 22.13 C.
The winters were showing a slow rising trend from the very cold winters of the 1930’s up until 2005. The coldest winters were 1941, 12.80 C; 1930, 12.88 C; 1931, 12.92 C; & 1992, 13.07 C (the latter was Pinatubo affected, as was the summer of 1991-92).
Whereas the summers of the 1930’s show great variation from one year to the next, it is the winters of the first part of this decade that show that feature, with swings of over one degree celsius from one winter to the next. This peaked with the very warm winter of 2005, 15.56 C. Since then the trend has been noticeably downwards.
In addition to these figures I have been monitoring the mountain snowfalls for both the Tararua and Ruahine Ranges since 1980. By noting the severity and altitude of each visible snowfall, as seen from the panoramic Manawatu plains I can attest to the fact that the last three years have seen the heaviest aggregate of mountain snow in the past three decades based upon my own weighted system. As an independent back-up to this has been the return of avalanches to the Tararuas as of August 2008 for the first time in over 75 years! The Tararua Ranges are the only non-volcanic region of the North Island to have glaciers during the last glaciation.
just to show how much things haven’t changed in the past 30 years it was noted on the TV news tonight that there was snow down on the hills behind the small port of Picton (many travllers to N.Z. may remember this place as their first point of contact with the South Island when crossing from the north by ferry). According to some of my notes from back then the same thing happened on Oct 5th 1980! You would think that after 30 years of increasing CO2 that this sort of thing wouldn’t still be happening!
As an amateur astronomer I’d rather be watching a clear sky, but with weather and climate being what they are it isn’t hard to see how one can become addicted to watching them too!
Cheers, Coops.
“It was when the debate over climate science descended to accusations of fraud, lies, cheating etc that climate sceptics crossed the line to take the issue away from the science and into ideology.
Well that’s certainly put Professor Hal Lewis in his place.
To : James allison says:
October 9, 2010 at 9:51 pm
See a spring lamb proxy is the go. Seems those disappearing snow fields (predicted by various “climate scientists”) did OK in A & NZ. Wonder if snowfield property is decreasing in value as we approach the TIPPING POINT. By the way, we will take Robbie and Split Enz- legends!
Ian Cooper – from memory (which is fallable now, I know) the Stevenson Screen at Palmerston North’s Milson Airport was sited about eqi-distant from the control tower and the old Middle Districts Aero Club premises, on the lawn under the aerial complex during the 1050s and ’60s. In the same period, PN Boys High had a Stevenson Screen on the sports feild which was bounded by Featherston and Rangitikei Streets, plus another out at the old DSIR station on the river flats opposite the original Massey College road entrance and yet another at the research station on the old Milson Estate in Milson Line, not far from the aerodrome. I have vague memories of another Stevenson Screen on Jennersmead, the Glaxo research farm between Bunnythorpe and Feilding.
The Lands and Survey farm that was once out near the Manawatu Gorge on the Aokoutere road before it was subdivided was named ‘Siberia’ and for good reason!
” ‘it emerged that NIWA had adopted some 34 non-replicable adjustments proposed in 1980 by Salinger, whose calculations had been lost.”
Don’t you just love those “The dog ate my homework” excuses?
Bad doggie.
Wonder how big of a fish the “Pier Review” will determine to have gotten away?
Brendan H says: “. . . this aspect of climate scepticism has done immense damage to science by breeding a casual cynicism towards especially public institutions that do science.”
Amazing! The fault lies with people who want to verify and replicate — not with people who hide data, lose data, claim a right to keep data manipulation procedures a secret, conspire to prevent opponents from publishing, letting political interests trample scientific principles . . . .
To those who have posted laments that it is “too late” (NZ and Oz): Have some Tea.
Over here in wonderland, we had the same problem once. We solved it. The problem re-surfaced. Fortunately (or not), the original solution provides the current remedy; it is called the vote.
Source:
“Declaration of Independence – Transcript.” Government. U.S. National Archives, July 4, 1776.
http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript.html
Alexander K Oct 11th 7.54 a.m.
Nothing wrong with your memory mate. I was at P.N.B.H.S. from 1971-73 and can’t recall the little met site that you mention. I think when I was there that particular area had been sold and was being turned into commercial premises.
You must track back a bit before my time also in your reference to Massey College! The D.S.I.R. (Dept. of Scientific & Industrial Research, now defunct) site opposite Massey is the one currently being looked after by Agresearch (another Crown Research Institue, I think), and is now more commonly referred to as Turitea (the spelling used to be Tiritea, but was found to be incorrect).
Thanks for the info on Milson Airport. I was coming up short in my attempts to identify anything close to the control tower on the old aerials. I believe Jennersmead is still operating ( I did some work there about 10 yeras ago). I have a vague recollection of the Aokautere site you call “Siberia,” but another DeSIRe (as we used to call them in those days) site that comes to mind with a similar reputation as the latter, was Ballantrae on the Woodville side of the Saddle Road, up where the Te Apiti wind farm now is. I always figured you must have done something bad in a past life to end up working for any length of time in such places as Ballantrae and Siberia!
Cheers
Coops
Brenden H
If you grab all the raw temperature data from each long-duration climate record for the Southern portion of NZ then do a 1st differences-style analysis you will find that there is no justifiable reason to adjust the early part of the Hokitika record to a colder level. The data is available at the NZ Climate Database (cliflo database).
I have studied the NIWA justification for its Hokitika adjustments and it does not impress me at all.
There are long/early records available from Nelson City, Christchurch Gardens, Lincoln, Dunedin, Queenstown, Wellington, Queenstown, Chatham Islands, Bealey (pre 1900) and pre 1930’s records available from many sites including Hanmer, Naseby, Invercargill, Ashburton/Rakaia, Tapanui, Waimate, Gore, Tekapo, Ophir, and Timaru. Relevant pre 1960’s records include Blenhiem, Appleby, Westport, Greymouth, Jackson Bay, Omarama, Waipiata, Mt Cook (The Hermitage) Lake Rotoiti, Molesworth, Rudstone-Highbank (Methven) Milford Sound and a number of other sites.
So I would suggest that before you trust the NIWA Hokitika to Auckland long-distance correlation exercise that you should try a correlation with a basket of nearby climate stations, particularly ones with no obvious urban warming trends. When you do this you may note, as did I, that the need for downward adjustement of pre-1930’s Hokitika temperatures disappears.
As one who has obtained all the relevant early NZ temperature data from the cliflo database I would suggest to you that if you have an enquiring and open mind and were to do likewise you will find that the NZ emp trend is not as advertised by NIWA. Until then you would do best to avoid bieng too gushing in your support of statements made by NIWA.
Rob R: “I have studied the NIWA justification for its Hokitika adjustments and it does not impress me at all.”
As I mentioned in a previous post, I’m not qualified to judge the methodologies used by NIWA. I linked to the article as a matter of information, and to illustrate the good faith of NIWA in being prepared to offer an explanation for adjustments to the historical temperature record.
If you’re not convinced by the explanations in the linked paper, and are able to persuade NIWA or other qualified people that your explanation is superior to theirs, I will of course accept that new knowledge. But for now your explanation is merely a claim.
Niwa Are still doing their BIT for AGW…
http://www.niwa.co.nz/our-science/climate/publications/all/cs/annual/aclimsum_08
Quoting “Wanganui,Spriggens Park 14.5 0.6 SCINCE (1937) 4th highest
CONVENIENTLY forgetting that the Wanganui Site was moved by the Local Global Warmest mayor http://www.weatherforum.org.nz/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=1665#p24264
The site was moved (2007) to an URBAN HEAT Island, Very convenient for Tourists and NIWA alike !!
Maybe I missed a similar response, but as for Robinson’s 50 year trend:
The only reason you see that 50 year trend in the second graph is because you are choosing to start at a high temperature in the past and only going out far enough to reach a very low point. Then you start the second trend at an anomalously low point and trend it up to the recent anomalously warm years.
You can’t start and stop your trends at the highest and lowest points on the graph. That’s cheating.
I’ve looked at Australian weather staions which are clearly away from urban heat islands – mainly lighthouse sites, small islands and the data shows no clear trend that I can see in the past century. Yet overall the BOM has maps of Australia suggesting everywhere is warming. Whatever is happening needs plain unadjusted data to help us know the truth.