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?
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.