By Chris Gilham,
Did you know that Australia’s rate of temperature warming per decade since 1910 has increased by 23%?
No? Neither does the Australian public, despite the Bureau of Meteorology several weeks ago releasing a new ACORN dataset of daily temperatures over the past 109 years that significantly rewrites Australia’s climate history.
ACORN 1 (Australian Climate Observations Reference Network – Surface Air Temperature) was released in 2012. The bureau has released ACORN 2 dailies, a total revision that significantly increases the warming trend calculated from the average temperatures since 1910 at 112 weather stations across the country.
The BoM hasn’t yet issued a press release to announce ACORN 2 and there’s been no media coverage. However, the bureau has published a report explaining the differences between ACORN 2 and ACORN 1, the dataset that got it wrong.
In a nutshell, the rewritten dataset means the national “area averaged” maximum from 1910 to 2016 at the 112 stations increased by 0.116C per decade, up from the 0.090C per decade calculated by ACORN 1. The ACORN 2 minimum increased 0.130C per decade, compared to 0.109C in ACORN 1, and the mean temperature was up 0.123C per decade in ACORN 2 compared to 0.100C in ACORN 1.
That’s a 23% increase in the warming rate of Australia’s mean temperature since 1910 (28.9% for max and 19.3% for min). Compared to the per decade increase in unhomogenised Australian Water Availability Project (RAW) temperatures, it’s a 54% increase.
The bureau has been claiming for several years that Australia’s mean temperature has risen by 1C since 1910, and the 23% increase per decade will presumably mean it’s risen by about 1.3C. Don’t be surprised to see a slight increase in the southern hemisphere’s historic land area temperature trend.
But it gets worse. ACORN 2 estimates that from 1960 to 2016, maximums increased by 0.202C per decade (0.179C in ACORN 1), minimums increased by 0.219C per decade (0.148C in ACORN 1) and mean temperatures were up by 0.200C per decade (0.165C in ACORN 1).
So Australia’s mean temperature trend from 1960 to 2016 has had an extra 21% of heat written into it (26% compared to the original raw temperatures).
Nitty gritty
There are 112 ACORN stations, 57 of which have temperature observations since 1910 and daily datasets in ACORN 1, ACORN 2 and RAW.
Prior to and including 1980, ACORN 2 cools the original raw maximum at these 57 stations by an average 0.16C (25.02C > 24.86C), whereas ACORN 1 cooled raw by an average 0.03C (25.02C > 24.99C).
Prior to and including 1980, ACORN 2 cools the raw minimum by an average 0.45C (13.50C > 13.05C), whereas ACORN 1 cooled raw by an average 0.07C (13.50C > 13.43C).
Comparing annual maximums in the averaged first half of the record (1910-1963) with the averaged second half (1964-2017) at the 57 stations, ACORN 2 warmed 0.49C, ACORN 1 warmed 0.39C and raw maximum warmed 0.32C.
Comparing annual minimums in the averaged first half of the record (1910-1963) with the averaged second half (1964-2017), ACORN 2 warmed 0.71C, ACORN 1 warmed 0.51C and the unhomogenised raw warmed 0.39C.
According to the bureau report, there were 966 adjustments made in version 2 of ACORN (463 maximum, 503 minimum). This compares to a total 660 in ACORN 1. That’s not 966 days with their temperatures changed. That’s 966 sweeping changes that each affect consecutive days in different blocks of years among the 112 weather stations.
For example, ACORN 2 includes new metadata on weather station moves, particularly recent moves in eastern Australia, which cause a warming trend. The bureau found a coding error in ACORN 1 and the corrected data may cause a 0.1C difference in monthly temperatures for individual stations. Another ACORN 1 coding error was fixed, causing a 0.09C increase in maximum, minimum and mean temperature trends since 1910. Many stations had an ACORN 2 adjustment averaging -0.05C in maximum and +0.05C in minimum because of the shift from large to small Stevenson screens in the 1990s.
There were numerous other homogenised adjustments and it’s obvious that although plenty of the homogenisation in ACORN is justified, a substantial majority of new adjustments in ACORN 2 just happen to result in an increasingly warmer temperature trend since 1910 – as was the case in ACORN 1 when compared to RAW.
Measuring the long-term weather stations
It’s not easy figuring out how the bureau includes stations such as Western Australia’s Learmonth, which opened in 1975, to calculate temperature trends since 1910. However, 57 of the 112 stations were open in 1910 and have temperatures available since then to 2017 in ACORN 1, ACORN 2 and RAW, so some averages can be figured out over the 108 years.
1910-1963 – v1 24.98C / v2 24.83C / raw 25.03C
1964-2017 – v1 25.37C / v2 25.32C / raw 25.35C
v1 warmed 0.39C / v2 warmed 0.49C / raw warmed 0.32C
57 Australian stations 2000-2017 – v1 25.79C / v2 25.76C / raw 25.78C
1961-90 – v1 25.09C / v2 25.02C / raw 25.08C
The first decade, 1910-1919, averaged 25.00C in v1, 24.87C in v2 and 25.06C in raw
The final decade, 2008-2017, averaged 25.84C in v1, 25.79C in v2 and 25.84C in raw
Prior to and including 1980, ACORN 2 cools raw maxima by an average 0.16C (25.02C > 24.86C), whereas ACORN 1 cooled raw by an average 0.03C (25.02C > 24.99C)
1910-1963 – v1 13.38C / v2 12.98C / CDO raw 13.48C
1964-2017 – v1 13.89C / v2 13.69C / CDO raw 13.87C
v1 warmed 0.51C / v2 warmed 0.71C / raw warmed 0.39C
57 Australian stations 2000-2017 – v1 14.12C / v2 14.03C / raw 14.05C
1961-90 – v1 13.67C / v2 13.39C / raw 13.70C
The first decade, 1910-1919, averaged 13.43C in v1, 13.01C in v2 and 13.56C in raw
The final decade, 2008-2017, averaged 14.21C in v1, 14.14C in v2 and 14.16C in raw
Prior to and including 1980, ACORN 2 cools raw min by an average 0.45C (13.50C > 13.05C), whereas ACORN 1 cooled raw by an average 0.07C (13.50C > 13.43C)
A detailed analysis with charts of all 57 weather stations spanning 1910-2017 can be viewed at http://www.waclimate.net/acorn2/, including spreadsheet downloads with minimum and maximum calculations for each site.
Three wrongs don’t make a right
None of the three datasets, ACORN 1, ACORN 2 and RAW, is accurate because they all have various undocumented, unadjusted or questionably scaled influences such as surrounding infrastructure, rapid response times in Automatic Weather Stations, urban or airport heat islands, reduced smog, and a majority of Fahrenheit temperatures being rounded at x.0F before 1972 metrication.
For example, with AWS response times the bureau calculates these electronic thermometers, mostly introduced since 1996, only affected national average maxima by +0.01C and minima by between zero and -0.01C, but maximums by up to 0.08C in arid areas like Alice Springs. No adjustments for these artificial influences were made in ACORN 2.
About 60% of all temperatures recorded at the 57 long-term stations from 1910 to 1971 were rounded .0F without a decimal, an unknown proportion truncated rather than evenly rounded, and BoM testing confirmed a 0.1C artificial Australian mean temperature warming in 1972. ACORN 2 didn’t even consider a compensatory adjustment because ACORN 1 had already decided the warming may have been caused by major La Ninas and the heaviest rainfall and cloud cover in Australian history during the early to mid ’70s.
The bureau has suggested that the new ACORN 2 temperatures will replace the existing ACORN 1 data throughout its website early this year, and public announcements thereafter will presumably be based on the warmer revised dataset. The ACORN revision is sure to be promoted as a more detailed and accurate measure of Australia’s climate warming that confirms Australia is roasting more rapidly than thought, and the media will respond accordingly.
When the media and public learn about Australia’s new warmer climate history there are likely be interesting political repercussions, particularly with a Federal election due within months. The left wing should be licking its lips.
The ACORN 2 revision has been underway for several years but the question remains … if the world-class ACORN 1 temperature dataset has been self-evidently wrong for the past seven years, why should ACORN 2 be considered any more accurate or reliable?
“Don’t be surprised to see a slight increase in the southern hemisphere’s historic land area temperature trend.”
I would be surprised. GISS and NOAA do not use ACORN adjustments, and many of the ACORN stations are not in GHCN V3 Monthly, still the basic data used.
I don’t know why no link to the BoM report was given. It is here. On pp 32 and 33, they list the reasons for the change in trend.
lol, pity you don’t scrutinize the absolute fraud going on at the BOM for years.
As usual adjustments lead to cooling the past and warming thereafter.
Every time there is a correction it means more warming, be it NOAA NASA GISS BOM RSS
confirmation bias at best, in the case of BOM, they are self mandated to provide more warming. BOM are the worst of the lot, there is deep corruption there
You see people? I told you everything is on the up and up. Nick says so.
Nick
Your credibility is reaching towards the ridiculous. After every update the past gets colder, even you with your blinders on have to see it.
“reaching towards the ridiculous”
Really? So what did I say that strains credibility? I said the global indices do not use ACORN – do you think they do? And I gave a link to the report under discussion. Did it not work?
“Your credibility is reaching towards the ridiculous. After every update the past gets colder, even you with your blinders on have to see it.”
Actually what is “ridiculous” is the reflexive attacks on Nick, merely for making a comment.
In this case a purely factual one, which, to boot, he enabled a method to check.
At odds with the numerous hand-waving cheers from the faithful.
The reason why it is so wearing to point out facts amongst the echoes here.
You really think this place is a paragon of factual reporting?
Heck, that’s blindingly obvious to anyone who comes here armed with more than the usual craving to vent anger via the confirmation on offer to denizens.
Oh, and (hopefully) one day this place will get properly moderated.
Charles has told me there are “plans afoot”.
It is actually hillarious reading the BOM report they have even go int the background of the World Meteorological Organization establishing a Task Team for Homogenization .. worth a good laugh .. the fact they have a team to do this junk is priceless.
This is a total statistical adjustment based solely because a value “doesn’t look right” when tested against neighbour cells. What is more ironic is they admit they do no actual reference testing, it like much of climate science is just declared as okay to do. I saw Nick trying to blend temperature on coastal sites not remotely understanding the physics at play and this is right up there with that stupidity.
I actually wonder if any of these guys actually get there head out of their statistics and actually think about what they are doing … in theory they are supposedly trying to do book keeping on earth energy balance and what they are doing is butchering the very thing they are trying to measure.
I agree whole heartedly. They put all their efforts into smoothing data values over 1,000km distances, while not recognising prevailing winds, mountain ranges, rain shadows, and the complete lack of connection between those two sites.
Just statistical manipulation of unrelated values, bearing no correlation whatsoever with the world at large (which they are pretending to measure).
And which they are pretending to measure to a fantastical degree of precision.
Nick,
What would be your recommendations if a researcher, not familiar with the BOM adjustment history, asked you how the treatment of overall errors in this temperature data should be expressed?
Should the error envelope now be constructed around ACORN-SAT version 2, or should it enclose Raw, AWAPS, Version 1, Version 2 and the earlier HQ sets?
Some are, after all, models of the single set of original observations and could be amenable to an ‘ensemble mean’ approach like the CMIP treatment.
Geoff
“…I would be surprised. GISS and NOAA do not use ACORN adjustments…”
Not yet, at least.
WTF is the point of this dataset that is so fraught with issues and not good enough for GISS, HadCRUT, etc., to incorporate? Is the BoM that set on being a laughingstock?
ACORN v1 was widely-ridiculed and clearly lacking in QA/QC. 7 years later, and this is the best that they can do?
“…I don’t know why no link to the BoM report was given…”
If I were associated with the BoM, I wouldn’t want the link given, either.
There is a URL in the post to a page with all the analysis and data sources, including the bureau’s ACORN 2 research report, just beneath the second chart. Unfortunately, it hasn’t been linked.
http://www.waclimate.net/acorn2/index.html is where you go for charts and data summaries of the ACORN 2 vs ACORN 1 vs RAW comparisons nationally and for each of the 57 weather stations that have a start year of 1910 through to 2017. The page dissects various different data trends and averages than in the post above, with further analysis and dataset comparisons yet to see the light of day.
There are also 116 weighty Excels on the page containing daily temps from all three datasets plus tabulated calculations of their seperate annual, weekday and monthly averages for each year. In the Excels, the final column AX in the second sheet has the annual temps calculated from dailies in accordance with ACORN protocols.
The page also notes that ACORN 2 has created a new hottest daytime maximum ever recorded in Australia … Carnarvon at 51C.
Well there is a surprise. Nick Stokes tries to defend the BAU BoM, what did Harry say, “making sh*t” up!
“Nickified?”
None of you who have criticized nick have actually quoted his words and explained exactly what it is about them that you object to.
Philip, no need to feign ignorance on the matter. Nick refuses to admit the glaring fraud, and always comes to the defense of adjustments, as they always reinforce his faith.
At this point, he has zero credibility because of his unyielding deference to the official narrative.
You know this very well so stop pretending, it’s unbecoming
Well said!
Data molesters. Pseuds.
Following in the grand old traditions of Climate Science.
If the data doesn’t match the models, change the data.
If the second model is correct is there any reason why everyone involved in the first model should not be sacked for incompetence?
Quite possibly the same people in both cases.
This darn climate change has been making the world fatter-
“Obesity in North Africa and the Middle East is a notable health issue. In 2005, the World Health Organization measured that 1.6 billion people were overweight and 400 million were obese. It estimates that by the year 2015, 2.3 billion people will be overweight and 700 million will be obese.[1] The Middle East, including the Arabian Peninsula, Eastern Mediterranean, Turkey and Iran, and North Africa, are no exception to the worldwide increase in obesity. Subsequently, some call this trend the New World Syndrome.[2] The lifestyle changes associated with the discovery of oil and the subsequent increase in wealth is one contributing factor”
2017- “Almost 30% of People In the World Are Obese or Overweight”
The increase in C02 leads to weight increase.
The increase in CO2 leads to more vigorous plant growth which leads to more food which leads to obesity.
Imagine a world where obesity is the leading food problem, not famine.
Famine and constant fear of famine is the base line condition of humanity.
Famine is one of the four horsemen. Fossil fuels are bridling it, and leading it to the barn. Pestilence will soon follow. Can war be far behind?
This is wonderful news.
This is why I say that the entire temperature history worldwide is worthless.
There is no scientific discipline that allows one to change the raw data because it introduces bias. And that bias can clearly be seen in this adjustment.
Not worthless but like it was before ‘settled science ‘ was claimed in no shape to support the claims of accuracy placed upon it. For despite how ‘important ‘ its os claimed to be and how there is ‘no time to waste’ our ability to take accurate and meaningful mesurements of such issue as sea levels has not improve a great deal over the last 50 years and ‘better than nothing ‘ is still very much the rule for much of the data .
The BoM seem to be a bit out on a limb with ACORN-SAT, probably because of one man, Blair Trewin, who is head of climatology. Since hundreds of PhDs are created in climatology each year it is a major problem to find something original for all these theses, and Blair Trewin ended up with the obscure topic of homogenisation of daily temperatures, which nobody else is much interested in. He then ended up as boss at the BoM, and made them create a dataset based on his thesis.
The DAILY part of ACORN-SAT stretches credulity, since its impossible to figure out how stations differ in temperature on every day, something that would require detailed input from weather forecasting models and reanalysis, which is not done.
Another problem with ACORN-SAT is its excessive focus on a very small number of stations, making it very sensitive to errors in their data, a set of regional averages would be better IMHO, in which all data is weighted equally.
The BoM now employs Linden Ashcroft, who looked at instrumental data before 1910 in her thesis, so they have no excuse for not extending the start date of ACORN SAT version 2, except of course for the silly insistence on daily data, which is probably difficult to obtain for the 19th century.
It strikes me as a fairly large adjustment given the level of precision (accuracy?) previously claimed.
Yes, but the error margins were was erroneous, now the error is waaay better.
Nick,
What would be your recommendations if a researcher, not familiar with the BOM adjustment history, asked you how the treatment of overall errors in this temperature data should be expressed?
Should the error envelope now be constructed around ACORN-SAT version 2, or should it enclose Raw, AWAPS, Version 1, Version 2 and the earlier HQ sets?
Some are, after all, models of the single set of original observations and could be amenable to an ‘ensemble mean’ approach like the CMIP treatment.
Geoff
I just found the place our weather is suposed to be from https://www.whereis.com/vic/kanagulk-3401
its over 50k away in farmland not a soul there
but our stevenson setup is IN the town half a mile from my home
I really MUST go have a look
The common person, no matter their stated beliefs about human sourced CO2 being or not being the driver, admit bold faced that artificial heat islands make it hotter in town. Every time they go find a cool spot outside city limits they are admitting temperature data fiddled with or not, has nothing whatsoever to do with human sourced CO2.
Maybe it’s best to let the BOM keep at it. Then when they get the overall temperature rise “since” fill-in-the-blank to the dreaded 1.5(+) degrees Celsius, we’ll have proof of how meaningless it is. ::grin::
There is a pattern of inappropriate temperature adjustments. Of course all ‘adjustments’ made to push CAGW.
Inappropriate temperature data adjustments, climategate type climate ‘science’, record sea ice in the Antarctic during the period, the fact that there is no tropical tropospheric warming at 8km, the fact that there has been no warming for 18 years, and so on, can and is hand waved away as either a plot to discredit the good work of the IPCC and/or as weather.
Temperature when it was going up kept the scam going.
It appears, the scam is over.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/environment/globalwarming/11395516/The-fiddling-with-temperature-data-is-the-biggest-science-scandal-ever.html
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/08/26/australian-scientist-calls-for-heads-to-roll-over-adjusted-temperature-data/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/06/06/noaas-national-climatic-data-center-caught-cooling-the-past-modern-processed-records-dont-match-paper-records/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/08/09/a-fascinating-new-interview-with-prof-richard-muller-quote-on-climategate-what-they-did-was-i-think-shameful-and-it-was-scientific-malpractice/
Climate Change should henceforth be called Data Change. The two are so closely linked that no one can tell the difference.
Can someone explain how pre-1974 temperature readings which were rounded down to .0 at the time of the measurement (i.e. in the raw data), need to lowered even more by Acorn1 and Acorn2? That’s bas-akwards to me.
Steve Goddard has documented these shenanigans in the US temperature record as well, and has found that in the US, record, NOAA’s temperature adjustments have a very, very, very high correlation to atmospheric CO2 levels. Coincidence?
https://realclimatescience.com/61-fake-data/
I’m confident that after another 30 years has passed , the BOM will acknowledge that temps in the first 20 years of this century were inflated by overzealous ecowarriors. They will then lower the temp records from today back to what they really were as a means of of lowering past temps to artificially show an increase in the rise of temperatures in the future. It is a wave that can be kept going forever without ever actually being measured.
Hoyt Clagwell –
I’m confident that after another 30 years has passed , the BOM will acknowledge that temps in the first 20 years of this century were inflated by overzealous ecowarriors. They will then lower the temp records from today back to what they really were as a means of of lowering past temps to artificially show an increase in the rise of temperatures in the future. It is a wave that can be kept going forever without ever actually being measured.
That was good. And probably pretty close to the truth.
Welcome to the Adjustocene.
Another bureau rewrite warms Australia’s climate history
NASA’s GISSTEMP rewrites their Land Ocean Temperature Index (LOTI) every month.
https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata_v3/GLB.Ts+dSST.txt
The current December 2018 issue consisting of 1668 monthly entries when compared to the November 2018 release changed 789 (47%) of them. Of 347 changes made to entries since 1972 all were increases except for December 2004. and of the 442 entries prior of 1972 90% were decreases. And 47 changes were made to entries from the 19th century. They are doing it in broad daylight and getting away with it.
All those changes are minuscule 1 or 2 hundredths of a degree, but over time they add up. The earliest LOTI from the Internet WayBack Machine is from 1997 with data only back to 1950. When compared to a recent LOTI it can be shown that the rate of warming over the last century has been bumped up. Here’s what that looks like.
We used to be able to post images here.
Now only a selected few can do it
It should be required to publish the unadjusted data, side by side with adjusted data, and a legend with the reasons for adjustment. It is just too easy to draw sweeping false conclusions otherwise. Homogenization would be revealed as no data point versus an educated guess for most data points, thereby revealing its deficiencies.
Of course, the other conclusion that can be drawn from this is that BoM scientists are not only wrong, but are increasingly wrong as time goes by. That the records in the 1980s (or whenever the adjustments move from cooling down to warming up) don’t require adjustments shows that those scientists were competent and could do their jobs. As more recent records require even more adjustments, then it follows that modern BoM scientists are incompetent and becoming increasingly more so.
Each time there is a review, those reviewing it have an incentive to cook the books, which they duly do.
In the GFC the rating agencies got more fees for cooking the books in one direction; with each statistical review of BOM data those doing the review can enhance their careers and cater to their masters/organisation’s wishes in exactly the same way. Those who don’t statistically oblige aren’t invited back.
There has to be a way of doing all this without an incentive to make bad adjustments, just like the incentive to make bad bets and false loan ratings. Until the system is fixed, nothing will change, the system incentivises false adjustments, despite the best efforts of Alan Greenspan’s false hope- that institutions will look after the interests of shareholder or , in this context, community-based values. They don’t.
It is always the selection of the start year that is the main issue. Had the start date been 1890 then a totally different series of trends will emerge. For a start the 100 year cycle will be picked up for both maxima and minima. The very high temperatures recorded during the ‘Federation’ drought will affect all.
Ian … if you go to my ACORN 2 analysis page at http://www.waclimate.net/acorn2/ and look into the data summaries below the trend charts for each of the 57 long-term weather stations, you’ll see that I’ve averaged all available pre-1910 annual raw temps at that site for min and for max.
Your comment has prompted me to add a few lines to my ACORN 2 analysis page. I’ll be lazy and just paste them …
45 of the 57 ACORN stations below have RAW temperatures for different periods before 1910, and these are contained within data summaries below the charts.
When all pre-1910 averaged years of dailies (only years with all months including at least 15 days of observation) are collectively averaged, the maximum was 25.50C. This compares with the 1910-1963 collective average at those same 45 stations of 25.50C. There is no change to the average maximum.
When all pre-1910 averaged years of dailies are collectively averaged, the minimum was 13.08C. This compares with the 1910-1963 collective average at those same 45 stations of 13.46C. The averaged minimum increased 0.38C.
These averages comprise several hundreds years of daily temperature when totalled among the different locations but are in no way an accurate representation of pre-1910 averages across Australia, nor of themselves as there are widely differing timescales from one year to several decades before 1910, pre-Stevenson thermometer screens, etc.
If taken at face value as indicative of pre-1910 temperatures, the minimum warming might be due to the beginning of the urban heat island effect, climatic recovery from the Little Ice Age which ended in the late 1800s, or increased artificial warming of the 1910-1963 timescale. As climate warming is said to have begun in the 1970s, it is unlikely to be due to carbon dioxide.
I got to page i … the ISBN is listed as all X’s. If it’s not published requiring an ISBN, why even list it?
On page ii, the author’s email is, “b.trewin@bom.gov.au:” – whose email ends with a colon?
For the record, the previous report had an actual ISBN number to include and was able to avoid the colon http://cawcr.gov.au/technical-reports/CTR_049.pdf , so this isn’t some sort of Aussie standard.
Is that the sort of professionalism and QA/QC that can be expected of the rest of the publication, let alone the data processing?