Guest essay by Viv Forbes
No doubt we will hear how the current heatwaves in Australia are “unprecedented” and evidence of dangerous man-made global warming.
They are neither “global” nor “unprecedented”.
In the great heatwave of 1896, with nearly 200 deaths, the temperature at Bourke did not fall below 45.6 degC for six weeks, and the maximum was 53.3 degC. Bushfires raged throughout NSW and 66 people perished in the heat.
In 1897, Perth had an 18 day heatwave with a record of 43.3 degC. Other heatwaves were reported at Winton, 1891, Melbourne 1892, Boulia 1901, Sydney 1903, Perth 1906 and so on.
Why don’t we hear of these severe heatwaves from the past? Simple – the government Bureau of Meteorology conveniently ignores all temperature records before 1910.
However, that does not excuse our media for neglecting the written records such as these preserved in newspapers of the past.
Could it be that both the BOM and some of the media are still trying to preserve the ailing global warming scare?
Without doubt this AGW scaremongering is sheer poppycock.
I remember many a stinking hot summer as a child in western Sydney and around 1954 where thetemperature was over 112 degrees Fahrenheit at Penrith in NSW for many days on end over the Christmas holidays at my uncles farm.
A heatwave in Aussie? Well blow me down, Sport, who would have thought? /sarc
For actual Australian temperature trends over time see the BOM website
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/change/index.shtml#tabs=Tracker&tracker=timeseries&tQ%5Bgraph%5D=tmean&tQ%5Barea%5D=aus&tQ%5Bseason%5D=0112&tQ%5Bave_yr%5D=0
Just checked Coober Pedy. http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/city.html?n=3786
A balmy 35 C a bit after 3 PM. Might up to 41 C in a day or two. No story. I should retire there!
😉
Wonder why more than half of Australia is a desert? Global warming made Alberta really cold. Who says magic is a fairy tale?
This is the “anti-global warming” Govt we have in power in Australia. Yes, global warming is shite, but in my 44 years haven’t been in 4 days of 40+ degree temps & I’m in Gippsland. Friday felt like time I went to Sacramento 1999.
Spot on Peter. The sooking and moaning by the MSM about a few days of hot weather has been disgraceful. Just as in other places, we now have the media sport of them all ghoulishly lined up, barracking for soem sort of heat disaster or firestorm, to justify the hype they have engaged in. We ahd the ridiculous headlines of “worst heatwave since Black Saturday”, a time of terrible bushfires here. And just when was it ? 2009!
And of course not far behind the ambulance, is our usual suspects of Flannery, Steffen, Karoly and Lewinsky with their usual ‘end is nigh’ pronouncements.
Well said. Can you follow up with an article about how normal and desirable bush fires are within Australia as well? How they’re absolutely crucial to germination, reproduction and development of so many species, and how fire is a part of the flora’s ‘foreplay’ within Australia. And thus crucial to the health and sustainment of the environment, biota and soil. And mention also how many of the trees are full of combustible natural oils as well, and how rather nice but otherwise unwise people build their house in such a forest, and desire/require power lines to run through them. And how the wires clash together when the wind blows as a front passes, and how this leads to intense showers of sparks that inevitably creates massive blazes in windy hot conditions. I don’t think the BBC, Al Jazeera or CNN quite get the picture. Unfortunately the ABC have also lost their marbles in recent years.
Viv, have you sent this on to our MSM…perhaps “our ABC”?
Short memories seem to me to be a result of information overload and little critical thinking. No effort=no memorable conclusions.
All the best,
Dave
Whenever I hear or read about “the hottest” temperature I am reminded of the Johnny Carson routines during which he would say something like “It was really hot in L.A. today.”
The audience would respond “How hot was it?” Carson would answer with several statements of “It was so hot today I saw a robin dipping his worm in Nestea.” -slight pause- “It was so hot today that Burger King was singing, “if you want it your way, cook it yourself.”
http://www.jokes4us.com/peoplejokes/comedianjokes/johnnycarsonjokes.html
Try it: It was hot in OZ this week.
How hot was it?
It was so hot the Roos had bags of ice cubes in their britches.
I kept records in the 60’s and 70’s. Two days were 120F, 50C. It was not unusual to get 10 days (in a row) over 110F. It was more unusual to have mild summers. You could always expect some high temps in the summer. This is nothing new but like I have said before they are attempting to create a new climate with 35C as a scorcher. One reason for this is for workers to knock off at the new high of 35C. Some industries cease to operate if the temp gets near 40C, even though some of these are air conditioned. Now a lot of these people live in rarified air.
SideShowBob says: January 20, 2014 at 8:42 pm – For actual Australian temperature trends over time see the BOM website.
Not correct SideShowBob, those will be misleading trends where the BoM has adjusted the past to be cooler.
And craig eyles from Gippsland January 20, 2014 at 8:48 pm can you please post your nearest town ?
I remember clearly Christmas 1970 living in the Pilbra. As we sat down for the midday meal dad showed everyone his new thermometer he was given for Christmas, which read 125 F, in the shade, which is 51.6 degrees C. It was hot but we weren’t surprised by it. We’d been told this was fairly typical on hot days. After that we went outside and played. It was like that on most days in summer and we never even talked about it, let alone let it stop us enjoying the day. In fact we were quite proud of it, and us kids considered ourselves ‘tough’. This was the common attitude to the heat back then. I suppose its much the same as the Russian’s attitude to deep cold.
Only now are we we getting urban dwellers who have never experienced a genuine hot temperature, and don’t prepare for it, mentally, who are not tough, and who complain endlessly that their world is coming to an end, on low-humidity days with temps as low as 42 C!
I can’t even take them seriously.
“Not correct SideShowBob, those will be misleading trends where the BoM has adjusted the past to be cooler.”
Have you got a source and evidence for this? Even our conservative government who are scaling back action on mitigating warming make no such claim. The BOM is a well respected institution within Australia.
If you actually have some good evidence to back this claim up, then great, we have something to discuss, but if you are making this claim based on an extrapolation of your ideological view of these issues, then that is pretty weak if you ask me.
Whatever it is…it’s a conspiracy I say!! Jokes…it’s just bloody hot.
Yet at the same time in northern Australia it was cold (in comparison).
…Bureau of Meteorology senior forecaster Todd Smith said yesterday was on par with the coolest January day in Darwin’s recorded weather history.
“It reached 25.7C. The last time we had a temperature that low was on January 1989 since records began 72 years ago,” Mr Smith said.”It’s very rare.”
http://www.ntnews.com.au/news/northern-territory/as-other-capitals-sweat-its-cool-to-be-in-darwin/story-fnk0b1zt-1226802644894
You can play with that link SSB.
Try excluding the spurious minimum temps, choose hot February and you get
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/change/index.shtml#tabs=Tracker&tracker=timeseries&tQ%5Bgraph%5D=tmax&tQ%5Barea%5D=aus&tQ%5Bseason%5D=02&tQ%5Bave_yr%5D=3
Drumphil
If you have the time there is plenty of evidence to show BOM’s ‘adjustments’. You need to check BOM’s raw data with the new ACORN data.
For instance, Bourke in Jan 1939 had all +30C adjusted down and the two temps below 30C adjusted up. Go figure.
Mildura’s top temp of 50.8C was adjusted down to around 48.0C.
What?
We have history?
About all that is left for the consensus crew is book burning, destruction of all libraries.
A fine finish to the job they have done on public education.
These same people/cliches never stop their gnawing at the foundations of civilization, while it looks like their great cause is collapsing into farce, check your wallet and read your bills.
One has less, the others demand more.
You have not received any greater benefits but the bill collectors masters need more wealth.
The cost of the parasitic class grows ever more oppressive.
Parasites cannot be “negotiated with”, they do not drop off voluntarily before they are sated, their nature does not change.
Climate hysteria is but one arm of the beast. A ploy to keep us distracted from focusing our attention on those who are robbing us blind.
Our governments.
Who knew Kleptocracy was a real word?
Sad how desperate the shills of our media are to sing the old song, “Hot Hot Hot”.
If its cold its weather but if its hot its not, no now its climate.
Last week was my birthday and I was reminded by my mother that when I was born 55 years ago I came 3 weks premature, brought on by the extreme heat wave that week in Warragul (Gippsland) Victoria – 4 days above 40 degrees. Nothing new.
It funny how people will use the adjusted government records to argue that it warmer to day than it was in the past. Yet we are in a seventeen year pause, and if you look any where in the record you are hard pressed to find a similar time where the temperature paused for any extended period of time, it always seem to be going up or down.. Funny have any of you wonder maybe this pause is due to the fact the our fine climate find in there measurement a cooling world and damn no matter how much the adjust the present that can only add some much warming that all they can do it hold it steady after all to many eyes are watching the present and there is only so much you can do with the present temperature record. But damn we certainly can adjust the past since most people who lived through are dead, after all who to say we are wrong. Maybe it just my suspicious nature but damn I really question someone whom rewrites the past and I just cannot bring myself to trust them at any level after you find they are will and able to present data that been adjusted and not tell you how and why they adjusted it and good forbid let you see the original data.
Lastly I have vague memories that science was you though up a guess and then you got your data together and presented it to support you guess and you presented all of the data the good and the bad, what supported what you guess and what did not, and then you ask other to check it, not just the data but you process and also they need to duplicate that process and it their number supported you guess good if not well maybe I need another guess. Yet in the climate crowd that not the science they use. Again maybe it only my suspicious nature. All I really know is I have use the guess method for years and it served me well in fixing electronics and computers, you look at the data you have you guess what may be the problem you act on it if the device works after you find the suspect component or software, good. If that did not fix the problem you need a new guess. Yet for climate science that not the way it works, damn to think I been doing it wrong all these years.
“Why don’t we hear of these severe heatwaves from the past? Simple – the government Bureau of Meteorology conveniently ignores all temperature records before 1910.”
Likely due to Stevenson screens not being completely everywhere (though there were only a few exceptions) until then. That said, all official stations were in the shade, so I doubt they would have been unreliable measurements.
January 20, 2014 at 8:42 pm | SideShowBob says:
————
Side show indeed … these are the BoM’s crafted temperature anomolies after their ‘homogenisation’.
Drumphil,
Article on the BOM adjustments here:
http://joannenova.com.au/2012/06/threat-of-anao-audit-means-australias-bom-throws-out-temperature-set-starts-again-gets-same-results/
This is an odd post – lots on temps in the past, but no numbers on the actual heat last week. It was very hot (here is my complaint at the time). Max temperatures in Melbourne for the first 5 days of the Australian Open were 31.1, 42.8,41.7, 43.9 and 43.9°C. Or, if you prefer, 88, 109, 107, 111, 111°F.
Now we’ve seen hotter days. And even a longer heat wave, in 1908, where maxima were close to or above 40 for six days. But they are rare. From 1855 to 2013, Melbourne averaged 1.3 days per summer in total exceeding 40°C. For the last thirty years, the average has been 1.7. So four consecutive days well over 40 is bound to attract comment.
SideShowBob says:
January 20, 2014 at 8:42 pm
Yes, one tiny portion of the world is warm right now. Not as warm as the past, but warmer then their cherry-picked time period. And what is it called when one tiny portion does one thing over one very specific small amount of time, but all the others don’t do the same?
…oh yeah, “weather” – not “climate”
Now something like these are climate
http://bobtisdale.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/figure-43.png
http://bobtisdale.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/figure-33.png
I cannot find the archives but I went to Adelaide for training courses back in March of ’86. In the first week, Adelaide was in the back end of 10 days straight above 40 degrees Celcius. I returned a week later and we were now at 30 days above 36 degrees C. Not only were the days hot but the night time temps were also hot. I was glad to escape and head back to Sydney.
Nick Stokes says:
January 20, 2014 at 11:04 pm
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Yep that’s what happens when people cherrypick data. Usually it’s the skeptics that get accused though.
Steve B says:
January 20, 2014 at 11:41 pm
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Yes, Perth has the weather Sydney thinks it has. lol
@Nick stokes
A decent heat wave will attract comment for sure, just as the hand-wringing over it and it’s association with global warming (and by implication AGW) is going to attract disdain from skeptics and those who remember heat waves in the past.
And when you say “rare” it’s important to put some context to that. It is not rare in decadal time spans or even less. Growing up in Perth each summer brought heat waves of varying severity. Colin Theile wrote a book called “February Dragon” in 1966 about a severe heat wave that brought a catastrophic brushfire. I think skeptics have a point when they caution against what Judith Curry termed “Weather Amnesia”. Extreme and “rare” weather events by definition don’t happen that often, but they do happen. The objection is when they reflexively linked to man made climate change as if they wouldn’t have happened anyway.
Clearly unfit for human habitation. >:(
Preparing for possibility of bushfire, raking up around the homestead, I noticed that after 4 days of >40C the dry leaf litter build-up from our nearby stringy-barks (eucalyptus trees) was more than had accumulated in the previous 4 months.
It’s as if these trees are going: “hey, it’s time to burn – let’s get some kindling on the ground around us”.
Anyone know the natural reaction of stringy-barks to hot weather?
On a side note. Forrest is in the wrong location on the map. It was a stop on the Indian Pacific rail line and NW of Eucla.
Currently sweating it out on coastal Queensland. The temperatures are lower than inland regions, but the humidity is way high.
Having said that, I’d rather spend my money on a better air conditioner than a windmill – even if we are responsible for hot weather.
You may not like all his posts but Steve Goddard has excellent links to past newspaper reports on “extreme weather events”. A good antidote to the current crop.
Nick Stokes says:
January 20, 2014 at 11:04 pm
So Melbourne was hot you say, but for those that have lived there for 40 to 60 years, they know that you often get 4 consecutive days in excess of 104 degrees F but then the cool change sweeps in and drops the temperature to 80 degrees in 15 minutes. And grab yourself a copy of the real Commonwealth Bureau of Meteorology report “The Climate and Weather of Australia (Hunt Taylor and Quale) Melbourne 1913 and at Page 11 check the extreme temperature for the Capital Cities – Melbourne December 111 degrees (Ft) January 111 degrees (Ft) February 109 degrees (F) and don’t try the bull that these were not derived from LIG calibrated and tested thermometers in properly constructed and maintained Stevenson Screens, as there is plenty of evidence and photographs that show that.
Remember also the BOM’s own written History book “The Weather Watchers” where they document the pressure in the early years from politicians that wanted extremes played down as that might deter people from settling and farming in Australia.
Were you part of the great dying of thermometers, that saw removal of cool rural sites and relocation to warmer sites at airports (needed for aviation purposes but with rural sites removed tends to raise the average modern temperatures) and then of course the destruction of many of the high temperature records of the past – adjusted down by two or three degrees F that artificially make modern records look warmer? Remarkably like the homogenous adjustments? to raw data that Steve Goddard is reporting in his recent re-examination of US temperature CONUS records.
We have had two very mild summers past and one of them got tagged the Angry Summer by the Climatic clowns that the last government installed and this government sacked, and this Summer has been predominantly quite cold apart from those recent days, (compliments of increased Antarctica ice that UNSW ship of fools found and all helped by South Annular Mode polar winds.
Do you agree with taking extreme Desert temperatures and smearing these all over Australia by faulty averaging made possible by tampering with sites and adjusting/manipulating historical data, and then covering that with hand waving diversions.
Get out and talk to average Australians that have lived worked and seen droughts, floods and real extremes of temperatures. Australians are keenly interested in weather, and they don’t like what you and the present BOM, ABC and CSIRO are trying to cook up – the guff about no more rain by the CSIRO – and then we had floods, so much for the control clowns, yes they are laughing at you, but I don’t, this is the real travesty in science -tampering with historical records – Bl**dy vandals !!
A bit of subject but i don’t believe it. Chris turney of the ship of fools has won a prize her in oz for his research on understanding past and present climate change and on improving climate change models.He will collect his prize in canberra this may.Turney said i am absolutely delighted to receive such a prestigious award.I hope he dose not get lost on the way to the prize giving,on the other hand that could be fun,i no this is hard to believe but it is true.
Keeping mind when people say “hottest on record”, the record starts in 1910. Europeans started coming here regularly from 1788. The Aboriginals have been here a lot longer than that. Also, if you look behind the BOM statements, its full of statistical hand waving. Also a lot of comparisons to the 1960-1990 average. 1960-1990?? I live here and am scratching my head…
KenB says: January 21, 2014 at 12:32 am
“So Melbourne was hot you say, but for those that have lived there for 40 to 60 years, they know that you often get 4 consecutive days in excess of 104 degrees F”
Well, I’m one of those, and I know that you don’t. I’d invite you to name a previous occasion. I believe 1908 was the only one.
Here is the WMO commenting on our heatwave of 2009:
“Melbourne’s three consecutive days above 40°C was the first time this had occurred since 1959”
That is three days, not four.
“KenB says:
January 21, 2014 at 12:32 am”
Exactly. Although not reported on ABC or SBS, on Channel 10 for instance the chap who does the weather recently stated that record highs (Which they were not) were recorded at airports no less. I wonder how many airports there were in Australia when records began (1910)? Pure rubbish!
Hey KenB,
Seems to me a younger generation has arrived who have not been out of the cities much. I’ve lived in numerous remote locations and travelled widely in Australia. We did the full-spectrum Leyland Bros Northern Safari thing as a kid, and I expect you know what that means. 😉
But this generation has not been away from an air-conditioned office or a leafy suburb with a minimum of ceiling fans, fridges and copious electricity, much. Or else a TV studio, and its attack offices and complexes. Unless it’s an arduous journey to their air-conditioned cars, a wait at the bus stop for an air-conditioned bus or train, to get to their air-conditioned abodes, or and air-conditioned restaurant, or their air-conditioned local pub, or sporting complex. Even the squids have air-conditioned class rooms and car rides, or lecture theatres.
So its not hard for them to easily fall for the AGW myth if they get mildly warm for a few minutes per day. And the same applies to the new ABC gallivanting after their daily phantom catastrophes. Or for the good folk a BOM to lose objectivity, given their complete lack of field experience, or remote area experience.
And good luck to them if they’re lucky enough to have such niceties.
However, none of the above they have any right to play with past data, or pretend it is not what it really is, or that Australia’s not a whole lot hotter, in reality, due to natural variability, than anything they’ve ever experienced, or can imagine, or will likely ever feel.
We’re faced with a generation we’ve slowly merged with, who really don’t know that they don’t know about what is normal variability. In fact, they seem to find the normal range of historic variability so incomprehensibly large, that they can’t even accept its real, so are adjusting it down to their reality. lol
And I wouldn’t mind that much if they didn’t also want me to pay for their ignorance too. That’s the real injustice here. 😀
errata – that should have said “attached offices and complexes” doh!
in Australia we have a global warming media. they have to be because news paper sales are down the gurgular , BBC TV and news down the gurular the CSIRO and uni scientists nobody believes them any more so they fudge all past temp records to sell more papers and get more GOV,T grants
Here is a picture of how hot it was!
Something we see over and over from alarmists is contempt for the past. While they are constantly making comparative statements where things are “worse”, “hotter”, “more extreme” etc, one is never to ask “worse etc than what?”
The stunt is to make comparative statements while disallowing points of comparison. The past is treated as a faded sepia photo or an “ancedote”, no matter how well documented.
By the way, fans of climatic extremes could do worse than look at Oz in the 1890s. And all achieved without CC and those new-fangled polar vortices!
Nick Stokes, that picture is very nice, and of course it proves global warming.
[That was sarcasm. Is the alarmist cult so desperate for supporting ‘evidence’ now that they use pictures like that?]
“Nick Stokes says:
January 21, 2014 at 1:23 am”
The point of your post is? Shall I post a picture of Elephants in Africa taking a mud bath to cool off during summer as proof of AGW?
I was gobsmacked to see, in this comment thread, that someone here at WUWT would question the fact that the state agencies are adjusting the temperature records of the past to help out the CAGW cause. There was a demand for evidence and a charge that claiming the warmists are fudging the data was a charge driven by ideology. I just can not believe that one could read here at WUWT and not become aware of the many “value added” adjustments that these agencies make that just happens, purely by coincidence no doubt, to cool the past and warm the present to further the religious belief in the magic molecule CO2.
In my view, the most horrific thing to come of the CO2 religion is not the tons and tons of wasted money or even the discrediting of science itself; but the corruption of long term data that prevents us from gaining an understanding of climate — that is, when honest men and women return to the scientific method and use real data in their science. After all, without the long term exacting recorded observations of the positions of the planets by Tycho Brahe the men of the day would never have discovered back then that the planets go round the sun in a elliptical fashion.
Honest data is precious indeed.
Mr Forbes! Permission to repost? With links back to the original, as always.
Strange that a regular common wave gets so much attention while 11 deaths due to a common cold wave in India goes unnoticed.
http://zeenews.india.com/news/delhi/delhi-in-grip-of-severe-cold-11-deaths-reported_905073.html
@Nick Stokes “Melbourne’s three consecutive days above 40°C was the first time this had occurred since 1959″
That is three days, not four.
Well, with respect, that rather makes the point that these rare events have happened in the past. If you wanted to say that Australia as a whole has gotten significantly hotter to the extent that these rare, extreme heat waves are happening more often, then you would need to show evidence of that. Otherwise it is just weather.
And you would need to get past, or at least acknowledge the suspicion that the BoM have adjusted the record to show warming. The point of posts such as these is to put some context to the tendency to see any kind of extreme weather as evidence of man made global warming – I don’t think it is meant to do any more than that.
This is a large 103 page document.
Ctrl F “adjustments”, “homogenisation”
‘Techniques involved in developing the Australian
Climate Observations Reference Network – Surface Air
Temperature (ACORN-SAT) dataset’
http://www.cawcr.gov.au/publications/technicalreports/CTR_049.pdf
So here in Melbourne we had “The Heatwave Of The Century!”
Which occurred last time……. A Century ago.
Am I missing something unusual here? A Century style heatwave occurs once each Century, and it’s “human caused global warming”?
Me thinks some global warming people out there have been pecked on the head too many times by Nick Stoke’s emus.
I just don’t understand this CO2 hypothesis and the associated complex feedbacks associated with water vapour and clouds. But commonsense tells me that back in the 1890’s, when CO2 levels were 20 times less, why was it so hot? If the hypothesis/theory/science-is settled is correct then all heat records should have been broken during the last decade.
Heatwaves are nothing new in Australia, Australia is a land of extremes that covers a wide range of climatic zones.
http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/by%20Subject/1301.0~2012~Main%20Features~Australia%27s%20climate~143
Heatwaves in Australia’s past. Steven Goddard has over the years been digging into the archives.
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/?s=australia+heatwave
Heatwaves of the past in Australia.
http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/result?q=australia+heatwave
drumphil says:
January 20, 2014 at 9:47 pm
“Not correct SideShowBob, those will be misleading trends where the BoM has adjusted the past to be cooler.”
Have you got a source and evidence for this? Even our conservative government who are scaling back action on mitigating warming make no such claim. The BOM is a well respected institution within Australia.
If you actually have some good evidence to back this claim up, then great, we have something to discuss, but if you are making this claim based on an extrapolation of your ideological view of these issues, then that is pretty weak if you ask me.
==go to
Kenskingdom@wordpress.com
hes sorted years of BoM records and bullshit.
and mate..they ARE LYING!
Found a good link here: http://www.waclimate.net/extreme-temperatures.html
the other odd thing?? we got the usual cool change for most of the hot states by friday arvo..
now?
most of us are back to LOWER than “normal” summer temps and NOT ONE WORD said by the msm warmist shills..funny that!
In my youth in Melbourne, I remember lots of heatwaves over 40. If you look at how this last one occurred (IE Via a northwesterly headed direct from the desert across Victoria) it’s clear this was just weather brought on by just a little trough, and the remains of a cyclone. A northwesterly wind in the middle of summer is going to make Melbourne/Adelaide hot in the same way a south westerly can make Brisbane warm.
It’s just weather
Mick In The Hills says:
January 20, 2014 at 11:53 pm
Preparing for possibility of bushfire, raking up around the homestead, I noticed that after 4 days of >40C the dry leaf litter build-up from our nearby stringy-barks (eucalyptus trees) was more than had accumulated in the previous 4 months.
It’s as if these trees are going: “hey, it’s time to burn – let’s get some kindling on the ground around us”.
Anyone know the natural reaction of stringy-barks to hot weather?
=
yeah Mick, ALL the gums inc reds well rooted in deep clay as well as african pepper trees will shed older leaves in the hot days, I sit n watch em float down.. my stingybarks ditto.
they drop the older leaves to ease their need for water , keep the tender young shoots alive and to lighten the load on stressed branches ie weight.
they will also stop flowering as the temps reach degrees wher ethe flowers will burn and nectar n pollen will drop almost overnight. I help run bees and how the trees are so damn fast in adaptations is frankly staggering.
As you know people are always disputin’ older temperatures while others are adjustin’. Below are a few primers.
http://joannenova.com.au/2014/01/forgotten-historic-hot-temperatures-recorded-with-detail-and-care-in-adelaide/
http://joannenova.com.au/tag/australian-temperatures/
SideShowBob , here is the lowdown on BOM from before this year. Can you trust people whose lavish funding depends on heatwaves and scare stories. Same with NASA GISS.
Agnostic says: January 21, 2014 at 2:30 am
“And you would need to get past, or at least acknowledge the suspicion that the BoM have adjusted the record to show warming.”
Well, it would be good if someone would offer some actual evidence, instead of baseless suspicion.
GHCN Daily files can be found here. They are unadjusted historic temperatures. Melbourne’s file is ASN00086071.dly.
How do we know it hasn’t been adjusted to cool the past? Some clues. Folks like me know from way back that for a long time Australia’s hottest temp in a capital city was Black Friday, Jan 13 1939 Melbourne at 114.1 °F. Check the file – 45.6 on that day. That’s 114.1°F.
Another clue is from KenB (12:32 am above). He quotes the Commonwealth Yearbook of 1913, saying that the highest temp recorded in Melb to that date was 111°F. Check the GHCN file and yes, the max ever recorded from 1855 to 1913 was 44.2°C (111°F) on 17 Jan 1908. Hasn’t changed.
We had 2 days of 111°F last week.
yeah nick, but australia is a surprisingly small fraction of the earth’s surface….you know…regional weather isnt global climate…
so two hot days means what?
I’m not sure what the graphic in the OP says about _global_ warming, but it shows quite clearly that Australia is having more extreme heat, the closer you get to the present. Just bucket all the dates on the graphic by decade. Many more recent dates than earlier dates. If Australia’s weather was random, but with a constant average over the last century, you would expect the highs to be distributed through time more evenly. Instead, there is a trend. Pointing out that there were high temps in the past when there are many more highs recently is why this is anecdote, not evidence.
If anyone wants to look at the GHCN Daily record of Melbourne maxima to get real numbers instead of anecdotes, I’ve put a CSV file here. It covers June 1855 to Dec 2013. You can read it into Excel.
From reading those JoNova BOM stories, it’s more than clear climate-gate has a long way to run. The BOM temperature dataset reeks of corruption, and the BOM is deeply and willingly ignorant regarding historic max and mins. The credibility of the agency has been demolished by its own malfeasance.
But it’s going to take years to get this mess knocked back into shape. Probably going to take a Royal Commission scale of national inquiry to fully expose this abysmal federal agency charade. I guess all that’s left is to get the Government to initiate a major inquiry into the BOM as I think we’re now past the mere dataset audit stage.
And still, according to the data I’ve seen, the hottest EVAH temperature in Australia was during 1893…
David vun Kannon says:
“I’m not sure what the graphic in the OP says about _global_ warming…”
It says nothing about global warming.
And:
“Australia is having more extreme heat…”
So what? Read the title of the article again.
And:
“…you would expect the highs to be distributed through time more evenly…”
The real world doesn’t work that way.
Once again, for the benefit of the True Believer cult:
There is no testable, measurable scientific evidence showing any “human fingerprint of global warming”. None. Be as frightened of “carbon” as you wish. But don’t assume there is any scientific evidence supporting it, because there’s not. It is simply a grant-fueled scare.
Marble Bar, Australia in 1923-24. At or over 100F for 160 consecutive days: http://www.bom.gov.au/lam/climate/levelthree/c20thc/temp1.htm
Now THAT’s a heat wave. I wonder how the media would report that one today?
SideShowBob says:
January 20, 2014 at 8:42 pm
For actual Australian temperature trends over time see the BOM website
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
You have to be kidding. BOM is as bad as Hansen’s GISS when it comes to adjusting temperatures.
SEE: Mystery black-box method used to make *all new* Australian “hottest” ever records and other articles at Jo Nova’s on Australian Temperatures
While the news screamed “Sydney swelters in 5th day of extreme heat wave conditions” it never reached 29C! At one stage I actually felt a bit chilly in the CBD.
Unmentionable says: @ January 20, 2014 at 9:38 pm
The wimps should try 38C in 90% humidity. I’ll take 42C with very low humidity any day of the week. At least I won’t feel like I am drowning and I will be able to see without wiping my face every ten seconds.
I strongly sympathize with you ‘southerners’ from Down Under. I live in the far south central USA. Close enough to the coast of the Gulf of Mexico to enjoy the humidity in all its evaporative cooling prevention, yet far enough away to enjoy the continental high temps during our summer.
I recall a late 80’s heat wave here of daily highs between 105 – 112 with tangible humidity and practically no wind. Brutal, but like you say. Adaptable, with plenty of water to drink.
In 2011 here we had over a month of daily highs in excess of 100F. The media made all the hay they could out of it. Actually all the hay had to be imported (literally and figuratively), because that summer was the second or third worst drought on record, winds were westerly from Texas, and the actual feel of the heat was much more comfy than the thermometer would suggest.
It’s really all about the Joule’s and calories rather than the temperature.
Nick Stokes says:
January 21, 2014 at 4:13 am
Note folks that this Nick Stokes is a dissembler, I didn’t quote as Stokes implies cleverly
” from the Commonwealth year Book of 1913″
He well knows that this is the official Meteorology of Australia issued by the Commonwealth Bureau of Meteorology Melbourne 1913 and titled “The Climate and Weather of Australia” issued by.H. A .Hunt Commonwealth Meteorologist that eventually changed title to be the present Australian Bureau of Meteorology – but of course in those days 1913 these Meteorologist it is a 79 page booklet, but of course well before the Global warming meme was promoted.
The Prefatory note reads in part – “In submitting this small work to the public, we venture to express the hope that it may prove acceptable as being the first effort in the nature of a text-book that has been published on Australian Meteorology”
There are lots of interesting maps and charts displayed – The Bureau when it was formally created by the Commonwealth of Australia took into their custody such records as had been maintained by the various state Meteorology entities. with many mentions of data extending back to 1853 regarding flood data and barometric pressures associated with extreme weather events. Hot spells in Southern Australia
The maximum Temperatures for Melbourne for the five days 30th January -3rd February, 1912 were 96.4 degree F, 102.6 F, 106.5 F, 105.9 F respectively, it goes on to say
“much the same factors appear to be at work during the still more severe and in Melbourne record spell of heat from 15th to 20th January 1908, the successive maxima at the Weather Bureau being 102.0 F 106.7 F, 109.3 F,104.1 F, 105.7 F and 107.5 F (page 81) Now of course the Melbourne of 1908 was nothing like the sprawling population it is today – When you check temperatures as you drive into greater Melbourne their is on average a 3 degrees celcius difference from the rural so any record that Nick’s mates claim should be much much higher than the piddling temperatures `they are cherry picking and relying on, and you can see the reason that to keep the myth of temperatures always getting hotter, some crafty adjustments were required. Simple maths and common sense.
Going back to the page 11 Capital city extremes in Farenheit .Adelaide has sweltered as shown in that chart with December extreme of 114 F, January extreme of 116 F, February 114 F, and again in 1913 when the chart was compiled had nothing like the population it has today and a UHI footprint that adds degrees to the now Celcius temperature record.
So Nicks attempted diversions and claims in themselves proves that something smells in the modern hyped temperatures that they are trying to politically sell us today – absolute nonsense.
“racehorse” is an apt nickname …….that our host has applied to him.
Look, people, Australia can be hot, especially in summer, and especially in the north in the tropics.
It can also be cold, especially in winter in the south and in higher altitudes.
Australia can also be hotter or colder inland from the coast, depending on the summer or winter, the hour of the daytime or the night.
It has bugger all to do with CO2, and everything to do with the fact that Australia is a giant island subject to oceans and the atmosphere and the sun and prevailing global conditions, and volcanoes, and anything else one chooses to throw at it.
We don’t particularly care, we just get on with droughts and flooding rains, and go to the beach.
If persistent and frequent heat is the issue, in my region of Oz every single month of the year bar one had it’s record max between 1910 and 1919. The exception is August, which had its record max in 1946. In addition, 1902 was our driest year (as for all Oz) and 1915 was our second driest and also our record hottest year. If anyone is wondering how northern NSW could have caught fire in the winter of 1895, the 4 month mid-year drought of that year would have done credit to the Simpson desert. Just add August westerlies. (Now we’re told that fires in high Spring are “unprecedented”!)
None of this disproves any theories of general warming, but general warming itself proves nothing.
If Australia and the planet overall are a bit warmer these days, just wait a bit…and you’ll get something else. It’s called climate change, but most climate dogmatists wouldn’t notice a real climate change if it jumped into their laps and started tap dancing.
PRD says: @ January 21, 2014 at 5:44 am
……It’s really all about the Joule’s and calories rather than the temperature.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
And that is why temperature is the wrong measurement for determining what is happening to earth’s climate. It is the humidity that is a killer. Cold and wet is just as bad. Give me minus 30°C and dry over 0°C and drizzling any day of the week.
So, given that the uncorrected records are available, can someone run the numbers, and demonstrate how the BoM has deceptively lowered the past temperature record? If someone can lay this our, I’d be fascinated to examine what can be shown.
UHI, ‘adjustments’ and more money please, the piper will play thy tune. See links above on BOM.
out*.. I can’t spell. Who designed this comment/communication system anyway…
“UHI, ‘adjustments’ and more money please, the piper will play thy tune. See links above on BOM.”
Can you explain for me? I only have a little brain.. Lay out the basics for me.
Thanks KenB for the tip about the Weather Watchers (history of BOM). How reliable were the temperature measurements after 1907 (BOM founding) and before 1907????
Have you been taking something banned? Look for yourself, I shan’t be doing your homework for you. It’s out there.
But I will give you a start.
http://joannenova.com.au/tag/bom/
I think drumphil is working in BOM. LOL. Never mind, the funding will soon dry up for Climastrology.
I don’t know… Maybe it’s just me, but if If I’m going to assert something, I make damn sure I can actually explain it myself, to the level of detail actually necessary to make a reasonable determination of the issue. Otherwise I defer to the experts in the field.
But I am crazy…..so take that as you will.
drumphil, RSS shows no warming in Australia since the start of the satellite record. Satellites V thermometers.
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2013/11/05/rss-shows-no-warming-in-australia/
Working for the BoM?? My qualifications are in the fields of IT and contemporary music.
“Have you been taking something banned? Look for yourself, I shan’t be doing your homework for you. It’s out there.”
Maybe my ego will never match your glorious status, but I wont be asserting anything if that is the best I can do to support my assertions.
Heatwaves are nothing new to Australia,
But 2013 was a year of record temperatures and certainly is something new – and well outside the normal climate variability.
Satellites tend you have long-term stability issues, and ground stations can give much more accuracy over a long period.
Peter
“I think drumphil is working in BOM. LOL. Never mind, the funding will soon dry up for Climastrology.”
Is this the usual method of engaging in genuine discussion of these issues round here? Really?
Gail Combs says:
January 21, 2014 at 5:43 am
Unmentionable says: @ January 20, 2014 at 9:38 pm
The wimps should try 38C in 90% humidity. I’ll take 42C with very low humidity any day of the week. At least I won’t feel like I am drowning and I will be able to see without wiping my face every ten seconds.
__
Indeed Gail, I’ve been in those conditions several times and much prefer >45 C in dry air. Very high humidity at 38C gets dangerous.
drumphil:
I often post on WUWT but I have not posted to this thread because it is about Australia so I read it to learn.
I am writing to offer you some friendly advice by answering your question.
At January 21, 2014 at 7:53 am you ask
No. It is the usual method of pouring contempt on people who post unsubstantiated assertions and ignore information which refutes the assertions.
If you want to be taken seriously here then you need to engage in genuine discussion. Provide information (preferably with a link) as evidence for what you say, and address information put to you in rebuttal of what you say. Assertion and logical fallacies (e.g. Appeal to Authority) do not cut it here.
I hope that helps so you can now engage in genuine discussion.
Richard
drumphil says: @ January 21, 2014 at 7:07 am
So, given that the uncorrected records are available, can someone run the numbers…
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I already gave you links to Jo Nova. Mystery black-box method used to make *all new* Australian “hottest” ever records
and the rest of the articles: HERE.
Here are more from WUWT:
The Smoking Gun At Darwin Zero
More bad siting in Australian weather stations
Also see: On the “march of the thermometers”
There is tons of information on this subject at DiggingintheClay and CHIEFIO but I am not going to dig it out. You can do a search yes as easily as I can.
To drumphil and Peter. The bad siting issues (thermometer sitting in an asphalt parking lot, net to a/C exhaust…) has been looked at over the years by volunteers. The Urban Heat Island effect is very real.
I had this as an example:
Here is a quick look at the only city & close by airport listed for North Carolina. The city is on the North Carolina/Virgina border and right on the ocean. Take a look at the city vs the airport. Norfolk City and
Norfolk International Airport
The airport showed increasing temperature over time while the city does not. Unfortunately the data base is down and with luck it is not being “Adjusted” again.
Anthony has many many more. Look up the SUrface station project.
Steve Goddard has a good essay on “Adjustments” HERE.
In a word, the data is absolute CRAP!
At 2:52 am “John Of Cloverdale WA, Australia says:”
“the 1890′s, when CO2 levels were 20 times less,
Can someone explain this? Thanks.
Alert to my friends in Alberta. The Alberta Premier is planning to meet with Al Gore to discuss climate change. Get your woolies and shovels ready cause it is about to snow and get really cold 😮 /sarc off
KenB says: January 21, 2014 at 6:30 am
‘Note folks that this Nick Stokes is a dissembler, I didn’t quote as Stokes implies cleverly
” from the Commonwealth year Book of 1913?’
This is a very odd thing to get excited about. The Commonwealth Meteorologist used to write a report every year which went into the Commonwealth Yearbook. I thought that is what you were quoting from. But apparently it was a separate publication. Mea culpa, but what is the “clever implication”?
But on substance, what you say has been totally unreliable, starting with the nonsense about ” for those that have lived there for 40 to 60 years, they know that you often get 4 consecutive days in excess of 104 degrees F”. And you’re continuing with this:
“When you check temperatures as you drive into greater Melbourne their is on average a 3 degrees celcius difference from the rural “
Melbourne’s heat was not due to UHI. Surrounding places were as hot or hotter. Geelong Racecourse had temps 44.9, 40.6, 42.5 and 45.4. Sheoaks (quite rural, but nearby) 43.5, 41.6, 42.6, 42.8.
But for those who continue to baselessly claim that BoM has been adjusting daily temp records downward, the numbers you quote from a 1913 publication can be checked against the GHCN Daily file, which uses BoM data.
“Melbourne record spell of heat from 15th to 20th January 1908, the successive maxima at the Weather Bureau being 102.0 F 106.7 F, 109.3 F,104.1 F, 105.7 F “
GHCN gives:
39.9,42.8,44.2,40.0,41.1,42.7 which translates to:
103.82 109.04 111.56 104.00 105.98 108.86°F. They are a bit different, partly because the Hunt quote seems to leave off the final number. But where there is a difference, the current BoM figure is higher. There’s no evidence of adjusting downward.
Mick in the Hills – “these trees are going: “hey, it’s time to burn – let’s get some kindling on the ground“. I noticed that too last year. In a single very hot day, all the work we had done clearing the fuel was undone. Last winter we removed all gum trees from upwind of the house and planted deciduous trees. If everyone did the same we might get a lot less pain and none of the “leave and live” rubbish. I can’t answer your question, but you may find the historical part of this item interesting: http://www.talkingnature.com/2010/02/biodiversity/nothofagus/
John F. Hultquist – re “the 1890′s, when CO2 levels were 20 times less” – may have meant emissions not levels.
Captain Cook mentioned the hot weather a few times in his journal during his voyages in the 18th century. The only specific temperature he game was from a 119 F day in Tahiti. The heat index must have been unprecedented.
Drumphil – If you’re still about.
‘So, given that the uncorrected records are available, can someone run the numbers, and demonstrate how the BoM has deceptively lowered the past temperature record?’
So I’ll do a bit of the work for you.
Raw data for Bourke – check daily temps for Jan 1939 (17 days straight over 40C).
http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/ncc/cdio/weatherData/av?p_display_type=dailyDataFile&p_nccObsCode=122&p_stn_num=048013&p_c=-461043825&p_startYear=1939
Now run the same dates for Bourke using the new ACORN system.
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/change/acorn/sat/data/acorn.sat.maxT.048245.daily.txt
Note the downwards ‘adjustments’?
This is one small example of what we are taking about – Kenskingdom, JoNova, etc have plenty of examples.
And if you can’t be bothered, check my post here.
http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2013/06/19/australian-warming-overestimated-by-a-third/#comment-13116
For all those people that think the BOM temperature record is too high due to incorrect adjustments, keep in mind that it’s consistence with our neighbours temperature record https://www.niwa.co.nz/climate/nz-temperature-record
Ian George says: January 21, 2014 at 2:32 pm
“So I’ll do a bit of the work for you.
Raw data for Bourke – check daily temps for Jan 1939 (17 days straight over 40C).
Now run the same dates for Bourke using the new ACORN system.
Note the downwards ‘adjustments’?”
That’s what is wrong with this talk of adjustment. You find somewhere, anywhere, where someone has for some reason adjusted data, and say BoM data is corrupted. And quote BoM data to prove it!
Yes, the Acorn set has been adjusted for a specific reason – to aid the preparation o0f climate indices. They explain at length how and why they do it. But in discussion of record heat and extremes, the adjusted data is not used. Apart from anything else, there are only 110 stations in Acorn. Homogenizing is hard work.
Data is adjusted to get a temperature which is believed to be representative of a region. It’s not an assertion about station history.
“No. It is the usual method of pouring contempt on people who post unsubstantiated assertions and ignore information which refutes the assertions.”
What were the unsubstantiated assertions I made?
“If you want to be taken seriously here then you need to engage in genuine discussion. Provide information (preferably with a link) as evidence for what you say, and address information put to you in rebuttal of what you say. Assertion and logical fallacies (e.g. Appeal to Authority) do not cut it here.
I hope that helps so you can now engage in genuine discussion.”
ORLY? So far I have just asked some questions.. And got this as a reply:
“I think drumphil is working in BOM. LOL. Never mind, the funding will soon dry up for Climastrology.”
But I guess that is OK, because I’m not cheerleading for the cause in a suitable confirmatory way.
Nick Stokes:
I write to ask a question.
At January 21, 2014 at 3:07 pm you say
Assuming what you say is true, please explain why estimates of “a temperature which is believed to be representative of a region” decades ago need to be “adjusted” on the basis of temperature data obtained from measurements obtained now.
Richard
drumphil:
I take exception to your post at January 21, 2014 at 3:11 pm .
I took the trouble to explain why you had been reviled and told you how to avoid such responses. Instead of thanks to me you have provided misrepresentation; e.g. you did NOT “only ask some questions” but had made assertions (e.g. BOM is “highly respected” so its data should be accepted) which were refuted by evidence and links from others.
I assumed you were a ‘newbie’ who would benefit from friendly advice. Frankly, your subsequent behaviour suggests I was wrong and you are merely a troll.
Richard
richardscourtney says: January 21, 2014 at 3:14 pm
“Assuming what you say is true, please explain why estimates of “a temperature which is believed to be representative of a region” decades ago need to be “adjusted” on the basis of temperature data obtained from measurements obtained now.”
It’s not adjusted on the basis of new temperatures. The reason for changing adjustments is usually that a better algorithm has been developed. Or in the case of Acorn, basically because BoM management was persuaded that the effort should be made.
Homogeneity adjustment says that a mix of the station reading with some nearby stations would be more representative of a region than the station alone. In the index, the effect is to down-weight the station relative to neighboours.
“BOM is “highly respected” so its data should be accepted”
This is what I actually said:
“Have you got a source and evidence for this? Even our conservative government who are scaling back action on mitigating warming make no such claim. The BOM is a well respected institution within Australia.”
Having been involved in off shore fishing, and having relatives who are farmers, I am aware of how many people rely on the BoM, and that it is well respected. Consequently, I will ask for people to explain themselves if they think there are problems at the BoM.
Where do I assert that their data should be accepted without question?
I need some help, It seems here in NA there is a strong movement from the greens to remove dams (water storage for towns, cities and foremost agriculture) to protect certain fish stocks and they are succeeding much as they did with the Spotted Owl and the forest industry (which I thought was well understood and handled by all parties involved but still killed 1000’s of jobs and industries). Currently there is a severe drought problem in N California and it is very hard on the Agriculture and so farmers and eventually you and me. So is there anything happening in Australia? Personally I would be WAY more concerned with that than AGW or what ever the new name is (BTW @Prof Turney congrats on the reward where are you going to put the $$ a new expedition? I would not be surprised what a absolute joke!). Thanks for any leads.
Penny Wong said the heatwave was proof of climate change, you remember she was in the Minister of environment during Rudd’s first reign. Well I can remember in the year 1966, I lived in Woolooware a suburb of Cronulla near the ocean. I was 8 months pregnant and the temps were over 100 F for days, I nearly melted. Then a storm came, the temps dropped to 65 F in hours.
Thanks to the southerly buster. In around 1975, I was stewarding at a dog show near Penrith.
The temps there were 43 C. Dogs suffered heat exhaustion and two died, people and dogs were throwing themselves in the nearby river. I returned at lpm to my judges ring, to await her as she was feeling the heat too, she stopped dogs (gundogs) from racing around the ring to a gentle lope. Not even an umbrella for shade or drinks brought around the hydrate us. So I took out my lipstick to refresh my makeup, and it had melted and dripped down my chin and onto my blouse. But on our way home, to Cronulla, we saw heaps of cars with their bonnets up from over heating. But nearer the sea we had a refreshing sea breeze. And to top that I was stewarding with a really bad hangover! Nowadays all dog shows are stopped when the temps go over 38 C. The dogs that died were whippets, my breed when I showed in the early 2000s, and very sensitive to heat and cold. They have little insulation because they can run very fast and faster than a greyhound over 100 yards.
Talk about temps in Oz. Ivanhoe inland is one of the hottest places, and 40 C is not abnormal.
I think they all think Aussies are wimps. But they are laid back possibly to a fault, but the natural environment has brought about very resilient people and bush folk are tough. They have to be to survive. But city slickers well, they are used to the plenty of water and services, that are not available to many inland towns mainly the mining and agriculturally placed towns. Like Tamworth where our international Music festival is about to start. It is much hotter down there than 115 kms up onto the Tablelands where I live. Mind you it is colder here of course, and they were complaining about 31 C the other day. Obviously academics from UNE or the media trying to make news.
Older people have longer memories, we are used to hot or cold extremes, I remember in the late sixties, I was living in Sydney, and it snowed in November. All up the Eastern coast to Qld. I cut out the article and sent it to my sister in law in England. “See we are having snow earlier than you”.
Otter (ClimateOtter on Twitter) says:
January 21, 2014 at 2:05 am
Mr Forbes! Permission to repost?
Yes of course as long as Anthony agrees
Nick Stokes says:
January 21, 2014 at 3:42 pm
richardscourtney says: January 21, 2014 at 3:14 pm
“Assuming what you say is true, please explain why estimates of “a temperature which is believed to be representative of a region” decades ago need to be “adjusted” on the basis of temperature data obtained from measurements obtained now.”
It’s not adjusted on the basis of new temperatures. The reason for changing adjustments is usually that a better algorithm has been developed.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
That doesn’t explain the need to adjust observed temperatures. An algorithm can explain past temperatures?
Nick
The explanation you give (or BOM) doesn’t make sense. They now compare all recent temps against ACORN’s adjusted data. That’s why we’ve had the hottest day, month, year, blah blah. Only 110 stations with only 75 or so going back to 1910.
For instance, the difference between the Dec max mean temp for NSW using all 95 stations (i.e. those allocated an anomaly status) was 0.3C lower than the official 1.64C anomaly when compared to ACORN. If this happened in all states, the latest temp record is reading too high.
And if what you say is true, why did they adjust Bourke for all 30C+ downwards and the two below 30C upward, reducing the monthly mean by +0.3C. That meant that Cobar, which normally has a cooler Jan mean than Bourke, was now hotter than Bourke for that month. Really representative of the area.
O/T Richard Courtney, I do think we have privately contacted each other before, but I need to contact you on a historical matter about SW England. It’s for a historical novel I am writing, nothing to do with climate nonsense. I’m interested in geo thermal attempts in Cornwall and if they have any connection to ley lines.
“SideShowBob says:
January 21, 2014 at 2:41 pm”
The BoM is involved in the adjustments of NIWA data from NZ.
“Peter says:
January 21, 2014 at 7:43 am
But 2013 was a year of record temperatures and certainly is something new – and well outside the normal climate variability.”
There has been NOTHING unusual about this summer in Australia. You will also note many of these, so called record highs, were recorded at airports.
Newspaper reports of the Black Thursday fires across Victoria in Australia in 1851 that burnt 5 million ha (about 1/4 of Victoria) note that the fires began on 6th Feb 1851 after about 5 weeks of hot northerly winds.
The newspapers reported that on that day the temperature in Melbourne reached 117F (47C) at 11am, at 1pm had fallen to 109F and had risen again to 113F (45C) at 4 pm.
These high temperatures were later disputed by a BOM study (http://www.amos.org.au/documents/item/382) which applied a formula derived from temperature readings taken over the period 1979-2008, to the official government recorded readings taken on Black Thursday 96F at 8:30am, 108F at 2:30pm, 106F at 7pm,and 88F at 9pm and concluded that the maximum temperature on that day in Melbourne was likely 43.9C.
I feel the study based on a formula derived from average conditions may not be appropriate for the unusual conditions present during the day of the fires and the official readings taken at the decreed times may not have captured the the extreme reported at an intermediate time.
I doubt that there was a problem with the siting of the weather station from which the high temperature was recorded as it reported 109F at 1pm whilst the official record reported 108F at 2:30pm.
I tend to think that the temperature as reported in the newspapers did actually occur.
The whole matter of those fires, and the droughts in the period are either forgotten or downplayed when more recent such events are examined, yet there is enough anecdotal evidence to support the idea that what was reported at that time was not exaggerated and was a quite accurate record. Many unofficial records were being kept by the early settlers and many properties have records covering several generations which do provide a deeper insight into have things have or have not changed over time and have not been influenced by urban growth.
Ah the Nick Stokes of old, ignore the obvious.
Nick what was the population of Melbourne in 1913?
What is the population 2014?
Melbourne was the headquarters of the present BOM, like the CET, hard to tamper with that record, but.!
Have you ever driven from the North of the state into the outskirts of Melbourne with a temperature measuring device, I have, and the present UHI temperature rise on the outskirts of Melbourne rises between three and four degrees, and that can even be seen on those modern air conditioned cars that read the outside temperature – I would encourage anyone to try this observational experiment.
Logic would suggest that any temperature achieved in the years leading up to 1913 would be very unlikely to be subject to any significant UHI due to mankind whereas todays fantastic hyped temperatures should be much higher by at least 3 degrees celcius plus the trending temperature over the last 100 years added. That they are not at that level makes these much media hyped temperatures – very ordinary indeed, and I suggest exposes the whole warming meme to some serious errors of logic. The C02 meme is already lost!
You also know the reasoning behind the discontinuance of many past temperature recording sites that were much cooler, in favour of warmer locations – this is convenient when the present BOM uses averaging to introduce desert heat (yes the deserts get hot in the barren interior of Australia) and when smeared by clever people like yourself, there are no longer the rural cool temperature sites to give balance to the reading, Just a lot of much hotter UHI sites like airports and those which have defective siting of modern equipment.
I agree with Gail we should not have to repeat the excellent work published here on the temperature siting issues that amplifies the problems with siting and adjustments ad nauseum on Watts Up With That. Take that up on the links supplied as their are plenty of retired meteorologists on those sites who resent what has been done to Australia’s historical temperature record.
If you can’t do that take you spin elsewhere! You are part of the problem in continuing to sing/spin from the alarmist song sheet!.
Perhaps you are only practicing the spin that is being developed for doing the same smearing exercise in the lead up to the US elections – take for instance that nice new higher temperature natural heat trap in death valley USA will that be smeared by averaging also, I guess so, but will it work? People around the world are looking and checking, becoming aware of the tricks and adjustments, and the spin you guys use.
Trickery might fool some, but not all I suggest.
Ian George says: January 21, 2014 at 7:43 pm
“They now compare all recent temps against ACORN’s adjusted data.”
If you would give evidence, links, something, it would be easier to sort out, I don’t believe that statement is true. They do likely use Acorn for regional averages – Australia’s hottest year etc. They would be expressed in anomalies. But for any statement expressed in absolute deg, such as Melbourne’s hottest temperature, adjusted temperatures should not be used, and I’m sure they aren’t.
Adjustments should only be used with anomalies. The reason is that they are generally made relative to present, which is kept fixed. For anomalies, the base does not matter, because a mean is then subtracted.
If you look at BoM climate data for Bourke, you’ll find an overall max for Bourke PO (49.7°C, 4 Jan 1903), and one for Bourke Airport (48.3 on 12 Jan 2013). Both correspond to unadjusted values, although for the airport the ACORN value is the same, since it is so recent.
Bourke is complicated because its Acorn record is a composite. If you look at the climate data for Cape Otway, say, BoM tells you that the hottest temp ever recorded is 43.3°C on 24 Jan 1982. That’s the value on the unadjusted record. If you look up the Acorn record, it tells you that 24 Jan was 42.9°&C. Adjusted. But BoM cites the unadjusted value.
I would have less of a problem with the BOM’s efforts to propagandize this year’s temperatures – and insult and demean the incoming Australian leader at the same time as they attempt to justify their own jobs and greed (er, creed) of CAGW dogma !
…. IF – and only IF – the bureaucrats promoting today’s “smear-maximum-daily temperatures-across-Australia” used those exact same equations for the specific local temperatures recorded 10, 50, 70, 90, and 150 years ago at the same places under the same conditions as today of UHI and airports and lakes and cities …
KenB says:
January 21, 2014 at 8:57 pm
Have you ever driven from the North of the state into the outskirts of Melbourne with a temperature measuring device, I have, and the present UHI temperature rise on the outskirts of Melbourne rises between three and four degrees, and that can even be seen on those modern air conditioned cars that read the outside temperature – I would encourage anyone to try this observational experiment.
=============================================================================
Hi Ken,
When I left work last Thursday, in a rural area about 100km SE of Melbourne, my modern air conditioned car which can read the outside temperature showed a temperature of 46C, and didn’t drop below 44C all the way home. I believe Melbourne peaked at 43.9C.
And readings in excess of Melbourne’s temperature have happened on numerous occasions.
Cheers!
Jimbo says:
January 21, 2014 at 7:25 am
Thanks Jimbo, That is an excellent history book and the chapters are an excellent source for the very real political battles for control of climate reporting, the constant battle between the C.S.I.R.O. the computer short cut guys and the more meticulous meteorologists who did the hard work to on the spot investigate anomaly records – cross check them and validate the equipment and siting to ensure we had the very best records as that was so important to modern meteorology. There are also clues to be found in the Bibliography of reports dealing with those issues.
The excellent summary of the variability of the Australian climate is the year by year climate graphics in red blue and white depicting the statistical averages and located within the front and back covers. In some years when it is predominantly wet and flooding, you will always find a location that is the opposite and almost in drought compared to the rest of Australia, and of course the opposite in other long years of drought recorded over most but not all of the vast Australian continent.
So if you cherry pick locations, you can always raise doubt/spin due to variability, and the other good source is the Trove Newspaper reports, a little harder to search extremes of weather now – perhaps they were an embarrassment to the Flannery’s, in those clown science years. Most will note that many overseas extreme weather reports have been able to be located because of the interest that Australians had in reading news of world weather events. Weather ruled our lives!
Once you get the report and overseas newspaper reference – great to precisely locate an original report via your local library or historical association and greatly reduces search costs.
Another good source is some of the stock, grain and other food growing journals that go into interesting detail into growing conditions, advice to and from farmers on the effect of temperatures wind and natural variable weather and no hint of anthropological influences!! By studying those type of journals you can almost pick the period when the C.S.I.R.O. followed the money and the political literature/journals became filled with man made climate change memes.
I would hope that at some time there will be a series of Royal Commissions, or Commissions of Inquiry to get to the bottom of the recent wasteful years, and put the science we were all proud of back to the forefront in Australia. Love to see that.
KenB
And so, if the earth is cooling and we are entering a ‘mini’ ice age why is it still so bl**dy hot?
I mentioned record MONTHLY heat above, in looking at my own part of Oz.
I can also see a decade of continuous high ANNUAL average temps. As with those monthly record maxima, the period in question is between 1911 and 1919. There is no other sequence of years remotely comparable. We are not talking about a freak event or two. We are talking about an entire decade of higher heat.
There is a marked cooling (by annual averages) from the late forties into the seventies, and nothing remarkable at all about recent annual averages, taken singly or in groups/sequences. The only scary “trend” (sorry to use that word of big babies) about recent decades is low rainfall in 1993-1994, though the sequence 1900-1902 is our worst.
If there were any trends in all this, they did what all trends do. They ended.
I must be missing something, Nick. Anomalies are based on the mean taken from 1961-1990 so they don’t change.
BOM climate summaries states clearly:
‘The ACORN-SAT temperature dataset has been used for calculation of state and national temperature area averages in summaries from December 2012 onwards. The major change from earlier datasets is that the ACORN-SAT dataset commences in 1910, rather than 1950, and hence rankings are calculated using a larger set of years.’ (Only 75 out of 110 start at 1910).
So, if you adjust temperatures downward in the period before 1961, then you will distort the record.
And I agree that not all records have been adjusted down. For instance, Adelaide’s top temp is 46.1C but ACORN has it at 46.4C.
My point is the ACORN data is not a credible record of temperature history and has been poorly put together (as is this sentence).
@Nick Stokes
Well, it would be good if someone would offer some actual evidence, instead of baseless suspicion.
There is plenty of evidence offered in the posts just preceding the one I took this quote from! The suspicion doesn’t come from simply deciding that the BoM doesn’t match a world view, but because I have seen work that demonstrates that the data has been manipulated and adjusted in what appears to be a biased way. That is (for me) a suspicion not a conclusion, as I have not checked that work personally or seen convincing justifications. The main problem as I see it is that the methodology of the adjustments are not available for replication and scrutiny.
Start with this link:
http://joannenova.com.au/2012/06/threat-of-anao-audit-means-australias-bom-throws-out-temperature-set-starts-again-gets-same-results/
And follow these up:
http://joannenova.com.au/tag/bom/
…and tell me then that there is no case to answer.
That should read ….”convincing justifications for the adjustments”.
Since I am addending, I should also add that I am not sure that it is the entire record that is accused of spurious adjustments, maybe Melbourne has escaped more even handedly – I don’t know.
SM says:
January 21, 2014 at 9:41
I acknowledge that..
I spend time in the country too and when the Media was raving on about records being broken our car parked in the sun read 52 degrees in a Northern Victorian town. and in the country you don’t get the benefit of the Melbourne seaside cool changes for several days unless you get a country ice storm downpour – we do have extreme weather changes and when you look at past Climate reports over the years, that is the way our weather works in Australia – Normal variable weather.
What I object to is a pack of clowns trying to sell the idea that we had an “Angry Summer” when common sense and personal observations indicate we had a very mild summer in the temperate regions of Victoria and New South Wales, yep there will be some hot spots here and there but when you speak to people in those places they also regard that heat as nothing out of the normal.
If one thing positive can be said about the politically motivated media reports and the hype that has been generated is that more people are closely watching the data, the methods and with lots of actual scientists now willing to comment on these pages and prepared to express sceptical views and advance alternatives to the warming memes, we are seeing a return to a normalisation of science, advancement and exchange of information and data that just might unravel the unknowns that prevent a better understanding of how the world weather drives itself and man is just a puny observer in many cases.
We should not be driven to commit economic suicide or dump proven energy generation for an agenda of dreams based on faulty modelling, weird scary agenda’s and especially so if the world is slipping towards an extended cooling phase, we will need all the energy and economic strength to survive that.
I have also grown up in the Wimmera and Mallee enjoyed the hot summers and the muddy boggy winters, its weather.
bushbunny:
At January 21, 2014 at 7:47 pm you write to me
O/T Richard Courtney, I do think we have privately contacted each other before, but I need to contact you on a historical matter about SW England. It’s for a historical novel I am writing, nothing to do with climate nonsense. I’m interested in geo thermal attempts in Cornwall and if they have any connection to ley lines.
There have been several “geo thermal attempts in Cornwall”. They were all near where I live and they all failed. (I most recently passed the site of the last attempt on Sunday morning when driving to conduct duties at Stithians.)
Geothermal energy is good where it can be used. For example, Iceland gets most of its electricity from geothermal energy.
But ‘Hot Rocks’ is not geothermal energy although it is often presented as being such. And all the geo energy attempts in Cornwall have been Hot Rocks.
Geothermal energy obtains heat from near the Earth’s mantle. Hot Rocks attempts to obtain heat from the ground heated distant from the mantle and also minimally by radioactive decay. There is a huge difference between the large amount of energy obtainable from geothermal energy and the little energy which can be obtained from Hot Rocks.
Hot Rocks consists of drilling at least two bore holes. The ‘hot’ ground is cracked between the bore holes and water is pumped down one bore hole so it flows through the cracks then flows up the other bore hole. The water which comes up is heated by having passed through the cracks in the Hot Rocks. And this heat is the energy which the method is intended to obtain.
But the cracks slowly close under action of gravity. The rate of this closure can be reduced by pumping sand down with the water so the sand particles inhibit the closure. But the closure happens and more cracks need to be created. Making cracks requires energy.
There is so little energy in Hot Rocks that the system soon requires more energy for creating cracks than can be obtained from the Hot Rocks. And the water obtains salts from the ground so becomes corrosive of equipment for recovering the heat.
The need to make cracks and to replace corroded equipment means that Hot Rocks cannot be economic. Despite that, politicians are often persuaded to finance yet another trial for Hot Rocks because Hot Rocks sounds like it is a form of geothermal energy, and geothermal energy is very economic.
I know nothing about the relationship of hot ground to ley lines, and I have some doubts as to whether ley lines exist.
I hope this is sufficient for what you wanted from me. If I can be more help then contact me by email.
Richard
Agnostic says:January 21, 2014 at 11:47 pm
“…and tell me then that there is no case to answer.”
There is no case to answer, for a simple reason. Acorn, whatever its merits, is not being cited by BoM here. Noone has shown where an Acorn result has been used for a station extreme value, or indeed anything else that is not given as an anomaly. I have shown that whenever BoM gives such a result, it is based on unadjusted data. And is not limited to post 1910.
If you go to the Melbourne climate page, for example, it will tell you that the hottest December day was 15 December 1876. Melbourne has records back to 1855 but Acorn starts 1910.
“richardscourtney says:
January 22, 2014 at 2:26 am
Geothermal energy is good where it can be used. For example, Iceland gets most of its electricity from geothermal energy.”
Did not work too well in New Zealand.
“Nick Stokes says:
January 22, 2014 at 3:04 am
Melbourne has records back to 1855 but Acorn starts 1910.”
ACORN is adjusted rubbish.
Nick Stokes said:
“There is no case to answer, for a simple reason. Acorn, whatever its merits, is not being cited by BoM here. Noone has shown where an Acorn result has been used for a station extreme value, or indeed anything else that is not given as an anomaly. I have shown that whenever BoM gives such a result, it is based on unadjusted data. And is not limited to post 1910.
If you go to the Melbourne climate page, for example, it will tell you that the hottest December day was 15 December 1876. Melbourne has records back to 1855 but Acorn starts 1910.”
So, can anyone demonstrate how these statements are false?
Patrick:
At January 22, 2014 at 4:38 am you assert that geothermal power “Did not work too well in New Zealand”.
I find that strange when geothermal energy produces about 13% of New Zealand’s electricity supply.
http://www.nzgeothermal.org.nz/elec_geo.html
Richard
Said Hanrahan, by P J Hartigan
‘We’ll all be rooned’ said Hanrahan
In accents most forlorn
Outside the church ere mass began
One frosty Sunday morn.
The congregation stood about,
Coat collars to the ears,
And talked of stock and crops and drought
As it had done for years.
‘It’s looking’ crook,’ said Daniel Croke;
‘Bedad it’s cruke, me lad,
For ever since the banks went broke
Has seasons been so bad.’
‘It’s dry alright’ said young O’Neil,
with which astute remark,
he squatted down upon his heel
And chewed a piece of bark.
And so around the chorus ran,
‘it’s keeping dry, no doubt’
‘We’ll all be rooned,’ said Hanrahan,
Before the year is out.’
‘The crops are done; ye’ll have your work
To save one bag o’ grain;
From here way out to Back-o’Bourke
They’re singing’ out for rain.’
‘They’re singing’ out for rain’ he said,
And all the tanks are dry.’
The congregation scratched its head
And gazed around the sky.
‘There won’t be grass in any case,
Enough too feed an ass;
There’s not a blade on Casey’s place
As I came down to Mass.’
“If rain don’t come this month,’ said Dan,
And cleared his throat to speak –
‘We’ll all be rooned’ said Hanrahan,
If rain don’t come this week.’
A heavy silence seemed to steal
On all at this remark;
And each man squatted on his heel,
And chewed a piece of bark.
‘We want an inch of rain we do,’
O’Neil observed at last;
But Croke ‘maintained’ we wanted two
to put the danger past.
‘If we don’t get three inches, man,
Or four to break this drought,
We’ll all be rooned’ said Hanrahan,
‘Before the year is out.’
In God’s good time down came the rain;
And all the afternoon
On iron roof and window-pane
It drummed a homely tune.
And through the night it pattered still,
And lightsome, gladsome elves
on dripping spout and window-sill
Kept talking to themselves.
It pelted, all day long
A-singing at its work,
Till every heart took up the song
Way out to Back-o’-Bourke.
And every creek a banker ran,
And dams filled overtop;
‘We’ll all be rooned,’ said Hanrahan,
If this rain doesn’t stop.’
And stop it did, in God’s good time:
And spring came in to fold
A mantle o’er the hills sublime
Of green and pink and gold.
And days went by on dancing feet,
With harvest hopes immense,
And laughing eyes beheld the wheat
Nid-nodding o’er the fence.
And oh, the smiles on every face,
As happy lad and lass
through grass knee-deep on Casey’s place
Went riding down to Mass.
While round the church in clothes genteel
Discoursed the men of mark,
And each man squatted on his heel,
And chewed his piece of bark.
‘There’ll be bush fires for sure, me man,
There will without a doubt;
We’ll all be roomed,’ Said Hanrahan,
Before the year is out.’
If Australians want to know what their climate is really like, they could do worse than to consult their own poets. PJ Hartigan was ordained as a priest in 1903, so this poem was probably written around the turn of the Twentieth Century.
drumphil
Sometimes it happens.
How about Mildura on 7th Jan, 1906? It shows a temperature of 50.7C in the raw data records. This was adjusted downwards by about 2.5C (probably for good reason although no other raw temp for Mildura has been adjusted). This would have made Mildura equal to the highest temp ever recorded in Australia (Oodnadatta Jan 1960) but you never hear about it.
Source
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/averages/tables/cw_076077_All.shtml
Hadley cells cause descending air over sub-tropical regions and these areas are where deserts form. Australia is included in this zone and why many heatwaves and droughts occur. The oceans keep coastal locations from being affected too much by hadley cells, but often this is unavoidable.
Ian George, It is interesting that the same people who adjusted the record Melbourne Feb 1851 temperature down as noted in my earlier post also adjusted the Mildura record temperature down. See http://www.amos.org.au/documents/item/383
Deniliquin is a long way from Mildura and no ,mention has been made about wind direction at either place which I would have thought would be a crucial consideration, especially when dealing with such unusual events.
KenB says:
January 22, 2014 at 1:31 am
SM says:
January 21, 2014 at 9:41
I acknowledge that..
========================================================================
Actually my trip to work last Thursday was strange. As I drove through the remnants of a small thunderstorm, the temperature went from 32C to 26C then back to 30C over a distance of about 8km.
In my line of work I get to meet a lot of people. In late January last year I spoke to a woman who had come to Melbourne to live after spending some years in Alice, basically because the previous 6 months had been way too hot. Check the records.
I also spoke to a chap who had been working for a mineral exploration company west of Alice and another man who said his son had been working in the desert east of Alice. In both cases they said that during the early January heatwave they had recorded temperatures of 55C. Yes, I know it’s anecdotal but that is still outrageously hot.
As for the “Angry Summer”, certainly most places on the coastal side of the Great Divide where most of the population live were not too badly affected, I think Melbourne had only three or four days in the high 30’s low 40’s. But it is a different story inland of the Divide, and that’s what they were referring to. The most remarkable part of last summer in Melbourne was the humidity, at times worse that tropical, particularly during early March.
As for the “hype”; each to their own. I personally can’t stand these “Reality” TV shows such as The Block, My Kitchen Rules etc, even the advertisements for the shows cause me grief: so I don’t watch the shows and ignore the ads.
If economic suicide is your concern, and I assume it’s on a global scale, you could do better than to pick on “Green Energy”, or Carbon Taxes. Just think of what we could do with the money the countries of the world spend on their Military forces, not to mention the destruction and loss of life. Imagine all the people living life in peace………..sounds like a good line for a song.
Cheers!
Ian George says: January 22, 2014 at 11:19 am
“How about Mildura on 7th Jan, 1906? It shows a temperature of 50.7C in the raw data records. This was adjusted downwards by about 2.5C”
Where do you see that? I downloaded Mildura from this BoM page and it said 50.7°C on 7 Jan 1906, as it does in the table you link.
I see from Kalsel’s link that some people opined that it was overestimated by about 2.5°. But I can’t see any adjusted record.
Ian George said:
“Sometimes it happens.
How about Mildura on 7th Jan, 1906? It shows a temperature of 50.7C in the raw data records. This was adjusted downwards by about 2.5C (probably for good reason although no other raw temp for Mildura has been adjusted). This would have made Mildura equal to the highest temp ever recorded in Australia (Oodnadatta Jan 1960) but you never hear about it.
Source”
Yeah, but people here aren’t talking about a few errors or inconsistencies. They are saying that the BoM has deliberately altered the past record to allow them to falsely claim record temperatures recently.
This is a serious accusation, and demands serious, thorough evidence.
I suppose I could follow David Eyles’ advice and use poetry to make a determination of the issue… Science at its best! 😛
Nick
Here is the article re Mildura. It was reduced using Deniliquin temps as a comparison (some 250kms away).
http://www.amos.org.au/documents/item/383
Note: you do not hear Mildura as having the equal hottest temp – only Oodnadatta, which had 50.7C in Jan, 1960.
drumphil
The ACORN data base has many mistakes and adjustments. It was ‘sloppy’ work in parts and there seems no reason why some adjustments were made to individual records.
If the BoM isn’t using the acorn data to make their claims of record temperatures, then how is that relevant to the specific issue at hand?
Ian George says: January 22, 2014 at 6:42 pm
“It was reduced using Deniliquin temps as a comparison (some 250kms away).
http://www.amos.org.au/documents/item/383“
It wasn’t reduced. It’s still 50.7 in the records. Some people wrote an article giving reasons for thinking it was exaggerated. That is all.
The fact that they had a good case is probably why people don’t talk about it much. But it hasn’t been “adjusted”, and certainly not by the BoM.
‘Some people’ must have influenced the BOM because, If it was recognised, it would show up on this report under Victoria’s hottest temp.
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/extreme/records/national.pdf
Yes, Nick, the original raw temps are kept by the Bureau but some have been adjusted in the ACORN record.
And here’s a quiet change to the annual climate summary’s annual means.
Check the changes in position of 1998 and 2009. In the 2009 summary, 2009 is headlined as:
Second warmest year for Australia. See at:
http://www.bom.gov.au/announcements/media_releases/climate/change/20100105.shtml
Now check the 2012 climate summary. 1998 mysteriously goes back to be hotter than 2009.
http://www.bom.gov.au/announcements/media_releases/climate/change/20130103.shtml
The Bureau states:-
‘The Bureau is responsible for collecting, managing and safeguarding Australia’s climate archive. Several homogenised datasets have been developed from this archive to identify, monitor and attribute changes in the Australian climate.
This statement has been prepared using the homogenised Australian temperature dataset, ACORN-SAT and high-quality rainfall data.’
So did the change to ACORN affect the mean temps of 1998/2009 or was there an honest mistake in the data analysis?
Does not inspire confidence.
So, can you demonstrate how that shows that the BoM has adjusted the past temperatures to allow them to falsely claim temperature records? The accusations were pretty clear.
drumphil
1. The ACORN system only uses 110 w/s (26/95 for NSW) of which only 75 start from 1910. This in itself changes the basis of the way temperatures are averaged (eg NSW Dec 2013 – explained above). All records before 1910 are therefore deleted from the official record. Thus a heatwave in 1896 would not be taken into the official account when comparing it with 2014, even though it may be mentioned in passing.
2. The ACORN record has then been adjusted (or, if you will, homogenised). The effect of these adjustments has been to distort the record (eg Bourke, Jan 1939). Kenskingdom, etc have more examples.
3. Some records have been changed without explanation (eg annual means 1998 v 2009). There appears to be slight adjustments to other years as well (see Warwick Hughes).
No, I am not saying the BOM ‘has adjusted the past temperatures to allow them to falsely claim temperature records’. I’m saying that they have made changes to the way that they calculate the temperature record and are not prefacing or communicating this when presenting the data to the general public (ie Angry Summer, etc ).
Ian George says: January 23, 2014 at 11:42 am
“All records before 1910 are therefore deleted from the official record.”
There you go again. No data has been deleted from the official record because of Acorn. Melbourne’s data back to 1855 is all there, on the BoM site. We’ve been discussing it. I’ve now graphed all the summers, day by day.
Sorry, Nick. I have already stated that. But the comparisons done now are against the ACORN record not the raw data. Therefore the goal posts have changed.