Guest essay by Dr. Jennifer Marohasy
The hubris of the Australian Bureau of Meteorology is on full display with its most recent remodelling of the historic temperature record for Darwin. The Bureau has further dramatically increased the rate of global warming at Darwin by further artificially lowering historic temperatures.
This begins by shortening the historical temperature record so that it begins just after the very hot years of the Federation drought. Then by changing the daily values: that is changing the observed measured temperatures to something else.
For example, on 1st January 1910 the maximum temperature recorded at the Darwin post office was 34.2 degrees Celsius.
A few years ago, the Bureau changed this to 33.8 degrees Celsius, cooling the recorded temperature by 0.4 degrees. In its most recent re-revision of Darwin’s climate history the temperature on this day has been further reduced, and is now just 32.8.
Environmental reporter for the Australian newspaper, Graham Lloyd, asked the Bureau why it had made such changes earlier in the week. A spokesperson is quoted in The Weekend Australian as follows:
“For the case of Darwin, a downward adjustment to older records is applied to account for differences between the older sites and the current site, and difference¬s between older thermometers and the current automated sensor.
“In other words, the adjustments estimate what historical temperatures would look like if they were recorded with today’s equipment at the current site.”
Yet this is a version of exactly the same reason given by the Bureau just six years ago for reducing the temperature on 1 January 1910 by ‘only’ 0.4 degrees.
Neither the equipment, nor the site has changed since ACORN-SAT Version 1 was published in 2012.
Yet another 1 degree has been shaven from the historical temperature record!
To be clear, the weather station has been at the airport since February 1941, and an automatic weather station was installed on 1 October 1990. A Stevenson screen was first installed at the post office site in 1894, and has always been used at the airport site.
So, why was the temperature dropped down by a further one degree for 1 January 1910 in the most recent revision – undertaken just a few months ago? There is no logical or reasonable explanation.
Apparently, at the Bureau, the future is certain and the past can be continually changed – history can be continually revised.
When the daily values are added-up, and compared between versions as annual mean maximum temperatures we see the magnitude of the change – and its effect on temperature trends.
The warming trend of 1.3 degrees C per 100 years in ACORN V1 has been changed to 1.8 degrees C per 100 years in Version 2. The annual average maximum temperature for 1942, as one example, has been reduced by 0.5 degrees.
In the maximum temperature record as actually measured at Darwin from 1895 to the present — and taking into consideration the move from the airport to the post office –- there is no warming trend in the Darwin temperature record. This is consistent with other locations in northern Australia with long high-quality records, for example Richmond in north western Queensland.
What the Bureau has done to the historical temperature record for Darwin is indefensible. The Bureau has artificially shortened and cooled Darwin’s climate history to make it consistent with the theory of human-caused global warming.
Published originally on Dr. Jennifer Marohasy’s website, republished here at her suggestion.
Willis Eschenbach has covered the issues with the Darwin climate station in the past here and here at WUWT. Worth a read.
To borrow from “Good Morning Vietnam” –
Roosevelt, what town are you stationed in?. “I’m stationed in Darwin.”
Well, thank you, Roosevelt. What’s the weather like out there?
“It’s hot. Damn hot! Real hot!
Hottest things is my shorts. I could cook things in it. A little crotch pot cooking.”
Well, can you tell me what it feels like. “Fool, it’s hot! I told you again!
No worries, I predict Stokes will be by soon to justify all of this.
I suspect he will not, unless somebody makes a mistaken claim that he can jump all over while studiously ignoring the question of BoM malfeasance.
It’s simple really.
The BoM’s method of homogenization is based on temperature distribution, which then gets resolved into percentiles (and it’s the relationship between the percentiles that matters). When the ~6 years of data between ACORN-SAT v1.0 and v2.0 were included the temperature distributions changed, which meant the percentiles changed.
I believe that the BoM’s homogenization method has several flaws but I accept that it has been applied consistently.
Having said that, I question the ethics of of determining historical data adjustments according to recent temperature distributions rather than the temperature distributions at the time of the adjustment.
A general bull sh*t alert has been issued for the Bureau of Misinformation ( BOM ) following on from it’s attempts to revise PAST temperatures downwards in it’s new ACORN 2 climate study.
oh yes! couple of nights back the online bom for my town said it was 23c
Ishould have put my thermometer outdie cos it was NOT that warm ..I had shut windows and put warmer clothes on, would have been closer to 15, and i am just 1/4mile from airport
of course the tarmac there upped the night reads i guess.
It’s been cold the past week for February in my part of South Australia.
And the leaves of deciduous trees are in my garden are turning brown as well.
Probably from lack of water as In don’t water them. I water only the fruit trees.
But maybe Summer is back from today for a while
There’s no reason to question the “ethics” of data adjustments. Adjusting the data after collection, and without the original measuring device, is just wrong. After you’ve collected the data, that’s it. You could, I suppose, discard it as inaccurate providing you could prove that claim. Otherwise, it’s just the data.
Agreed! “Data” should NEVER be “adjusted.” The “adjusted” number simply IS NOT DATA. Data is what your measured with an instrument at the time of measurement. Anything else is guesswork. Any data “issues” should be dealt with PURELY by increasing ERROR RANGES. That would at least be more honest, since it would serve to highlight just how bad the “data” and all of the largely spurious “trends” calculated from it really IS, and how completely unfit it is for the purpose of driving policy.
Well said
The alarmist win with their rhetoric tricks the minute we accepted terms like “raw data” and “adjusted data”. Measured “raw” data is what it is and all the “adjustments” are interpretations of the data. Some interpretations might be necessary but they need to be explained with scientific precision. The point is that as long as alarmists are allowed to fool people to think that “adjusted data” is something else than the scientists interpretation of the data, some fools (and most journalists) will believe them without any questions asked.
Generally the Raw part of the graph is RAW (Adjusted) … Not RAW data,
I always thought that the man made theory hinged on slower warming at the equator than the poles, something like 1:6 equator to poles so a 1.8oC warming would mean the poles have each warmed over 10oC right? pfft.
So much money is at stake in the renewable energy hustle. Lots of green hedge funds and investors like Tom Steyer have gone long on wind and solar. The hustle must continue at any price. Someone is getting paid off to make these changes, to keep the scam going. And with IPCC AR6 CMIP6 efforts underway, the hustlers and their record keepers have got to start now, trying to avoid a major embarrassment of nature not cooperating with models when the report has to be written.
While Trump was disaster for the climate hustlers like Steyer, it will nature that is about to doom their hustle.
PS: Epic snowfall occurring here in Tucson. And it is still snowing here this morning as I write this. Yeah, I know weather is not climate, but this was not supposed to be happening in late February of 2019 according to the climate hustlers from their Y2K climate scriptures.
It was reported on KNX (the local CBS affiliate) yesterday that it snowed on Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu, California. Probably just a light dusting, which probably didn’t last very long, but snow at almost sea level in Southern California. The overnight temperatures in the valleys in LA County were forecast to be in the upper 20’s (F) to lower 30’s (F).
This dosen’t disprove the hypothesis of CAGW. But it sure is odd. I would dare say “unprecedented”, but I won’t.
There was a hail storm/violent winds/rain/uncharacteristic low temperatures at the Pebble Beach Pro-Am is this consistent with your snowfall event?
In fact the Venture Genesis Tourney at Riviera was also unseasonable cold.
Just started up again – cleared for a few minutes around 3 PM (a bit of sun) – and now dusting us again.
Max accumulation in my back yard (so far, anyway) was about 3.25″.
Of course, it is supposed to be pushing 70F by Sunday (after a hard freeze tonight). Again, anyone around here, be VERY careful if you absolutely have to go out. I had to pick up my son from work around 2 PM (when it was still fairly heavy snowfall) and an idiot decided to pass me (where there IS no passing zone) because I was a whole two miles under the limit. Phaugh!
Joel, one of the accumulated weekly rainfall maps showed a huge amount in central AZ (changes daily):
Richard Lindzen said it was beyond suspicious that the temperature adjustments were always in the same direction. If ‘they’ were correcting actual errors, the positive and negative adjustments should roughly cancel.
It is hard to dispute the validity of any individual adjustment. In this case, we have a pattern of conduct. ‘They’ are guilty as heck.
It’s not beyond suspicion at all. I selected a US station at random and looked at both the unadjusted and adjusted data from NASA/GISS. Some adjustments were upwards, some were downwards.
But here’s the thing … each adjustment changed all previous data by a fixed amount. Most external non-meteorological influences on temperature are those that gradually increase until there’s a deliberate – dare I say it? – man-made correction. The homogenization methods identify step changes but don’t identify gradual distortions. They identify a step caused by relocating a badly urbanized station, a step when nearby vegetation removed and where the old screen was replaced.
The adjustment might be correct for the data just prior to the “correction” but the earlier data is over-adjusted because the non-meteorological distortion wasn’t as strong.
And yet we have this.
Since 2009, all NASA/GISS data is adjusted data, including the “Raw” data.
The Climate Gamers are at it again.
Isn’t this a modern scientific journalism? They don’t report facts any more. Only opinions disguised as facts.
The original observers are spinning in their grave.
Synthetic temperature data sets are kind of a virus that has irreversibly infected climate science.
However, to the north of Melbourne there is a place called Echuca, place where climate synthetic data virus has not reached yet.
This place defies climate ‘science’, no early 1900s cooling, no 1930-1950 or 1980-90 warming, no AMO, no PDO, no el Nino, just unadulterated, direct (undelayed) solar magnetic (Hale) cycle!
http://www.vukcevic.co.uk/Echuca.htm
How about that?
Coincidence, no chance, just that the large areas of Australia are extremely rich in iron deposits.
To find out how the iron deposits link temperature data into solar magnetic cycle, I need an immodest size, no strings research grant.
If you’ve ever spent any time in Echuca, Vukcevic, you’d appreciate that NOTHING out of the ordinary ever happens in Echuca. :))
(It has a great pie shop there also because they never change the recipes)
Echuca is 574 km ESE of Adelaide and 187 km due north of Melbourne on the Murray River. Not surprisingly, it shows the same 22-year Hale-cycle pattern that is seen in the median summer-time maximum temperatures for Adelaide:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-RsGVz_DLr2w/T-nHkBIbjjI/AAAAAAAAAOw/E0jKXoKp88E/s1600/Adelaide_Sp.JPG
Both are influenced by the strength and vorticity of the semi-permanent high-pressure system that is located in either the Tasmanian Sea or the Great Australian Bight.
interesting
my area has a high iron content in whats locally called coffeerock cos itslike beans
if you drag a magnet over the ground its soon coated heavily in the bits of it
doesnt help me when trying to make sure no nails etc are on driveway or other dirt areas;-/
a huge swathe of the area is covered with this layer about 8 inches thick under a sandy topcoat from 1 to 3ft above it
the clay under the rock layer is also highly iron loaded and forms iron red rocks through it also
we do get higher areas that are absolute magnets:-) for lightning strikes as well
I can’t understand how they can alter historical records and keep a straight face. A location changes then it is a different data set and can’t be portrayed as the same. Different equipment which doesn’t properly mimic previous, then it’s not the same data set. Combining data sets is valid only if clearly marked as such.
It would be difficult to keep a straight face if only one group was doing it but there are now so many doing it that each gains courage from the other. It is the new norm.
Coolin’ the past and hottin’ the present, makes for a boilin’ future. It’s science!
They’re just ensuring that the observations match the settled science.
/sarc
It is not sarcasm if it is the hard truth.
“Those who control the present, control the past and those who control the past control the future.”
― George Orwell, 1984
What is odd about the Bureau’s claim regarding equipment is that the modified temperatures always go down. Why not up? After all, the greater sensitivity of today’s technology makes for higher temperatures; mercury simply did not, for it could not, react to a hot puff of air. It is all very confusing and leaves one with a nasty taste. And all this atop the strange dependence upon average temperatures; why not median?
If electronic means are used to measure temperature, and take the temperature every two minutes or so, then a puff of hot air would be easily recognised. It can then be homogenised to bring the overall temperature more in line with less sensitive mercury thermometers.
Sauce for the goose..
Not to worry. All this “adjustment” means is that forward predictions based on ACORN v2 will further over-predict Darwin/Australian average temperatures. The Australian Bureau of Meteorology—whether they realize it or not—is just postponing the day they will have to atone for their sins (against scientific integrity).
Knife with 2 edges. Often the case with fudged data.
Satellite data going forward is not likely to follow the manufactured trend.
You’re more optimistic than I am, Gordon. I think the climate scientists can spin this as long as they want.
If the historical adjustments to the temperature record are appropriate and justified they will improve the models. If they are not appropriate or justified they will distort any climate models using the data — making them run hot, such that predicted future warming is likely to exceed the actual trend.
Models HAVE been running hot. This is either an indication that the models are biased, or an indication that faulty data is biased, or both. Either way, it highlights the unreliability of one or the other, greatly reducing the justification for large infrastructure spending or radical steps to address climate change. Whatever one may believe about CO2, warming trends, or the risks involved, the business case for decarbonizing the worlds’ economy utterly fails.
What is amazing is that they keep doing this, keep getting caught, and yet keep doing it again, all provable and without justification. At some point folks need to be held to account in more than just the blogosphere.
They have a really thick skin.
Lizards with forked tongues and thick skin
The BoM’s latest v2 data set adjustments will make it into the Global records kept by NOAA/NASA/UKMET to keep the scam going. So much is riding on AR6, thus they are being driven to alter the observations to stay within some semblance of the 90% confidence interval of the upcoming CMIP6 ensemble average.
And I would guess the same kind of adjustments are underway elsewhere.
And any anomalies I see on weather sites are STILL based on 1970-2000 or 1980-2000. Why not on 1980-2010? (Rhetorical question)
“The BoM’s latest v2 data set adjustments will make it into the Global records”
No, they won’t. Global records use GHCN adjusted, which made this adjustment long ago, for the same reason. Change of sites. As a note to the post mentioned, Willis wailed about this nearly ten years ago. But I guess the story never loses its charm.
Wailed? Gee Nick, grouchy today?
Point is, cooling the past changes the trend, and the adjustment isn’t justifiable except with you government types.
The trend is that schoolchildren now lead the way. The time of tribal elders is over; now kids lead the tribe. Experience – or, God forbid, memory – is harmful. Look at those old Darwinians who could not even read a thermometer without making a 2 degree error. No more proof needed. Dinosaurs like me and you should just quietly dig our graves and stop bothering the progressives.
Nice slight of hand, Nick; the station change was acknowledged above. It was subsequent alterations that are at question.
It isn’t a subsequent alteration. GHCN made its adjustment to its adjusted record over ten years ago. BoM’s ACORN is a different adjustment to the raw data. With Darwin, ACORN has now made basically the same change to raw data for the same reason.
Nick, this is a fantastic place for you to start:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/hide-and-seek/201508/the-psychology-self-deception
“It isn’t a subsequent alteration”
AcornV1 has an adjustment over raw. AcornV2 has a subsequent alteration, which is what is in question.
For this: “..account for differences between the older sites and the current site, and differences between older thermometers and the current automated sensor”, I want to know how they work out what the “differences” are, and their proof that the adjustments are correct.
“Nick Stokes February 22, 2019 at 2:01 pm
It isn’t a subsequent alteration. GHCN made its adjustment to its adjusted record over ten years ago. BoM’s ACORN is a different adjustment to the raw data.”
Utter garbage data not fit for purpose. Thanks for confirming what has been suspected all along. Climate change *IS* adjustments of data by man. It’s a good thing “climate scientists” are not allowed anywhere near critical engineering systems.
My contention is that these BoM homogenization adjustments lays the foundation for NOAA to make there own additional homogenization adjustments to GHCN for these Aussie station obs. And adjustments at 1910 Historical Darwin obs will have an outsize impact due to the regional sparseness of Southern Hemisphere station data prior to 1930’s (due to infilling). The data manipulators clearly understand which stations obs and when offer the highest returns on manipulation.
They are probably guided by the following:
– Make the fewest adjustments necessary to keep from crossing an outrage threshold that even a compliant media couldn’t ignore.
– Making the fewest adjustments as necessary means they must be carefully picked for greatest impact.
– Use the homogenization excuse, even though the obs were previously homogenized, becasue well… progress.
Since the Australian Ice Age that ended in 1788…
And as expected, the white knight rushes in just in time to defend the indefensible.
How painful it must be, Mr. Stokes, to be a foregone conclusion. Your lack of awareness and loyalty to “the cause” will not save you from their plans. Don’t you know? Useful idiots were the first to be eliminated.
There is an apt Forest Gump quote floating around in my mind…
Clearly they need more “warmest year eva” in Darwin there must be a group holding out 🙂
You are correct Rud, but when the politicians all believe the climate ponzi scam to a greater or lesser extent, nothing is ever done.
The Australian BOM have publicly stated that their data manipulations require “human intervention” and that it would be unlikely that anybody outside the BOM could replicate their homogenisation process. In other words, a non-scientific procedure that cannot be replicated.
According to the CO2 amplification hypotheses the Poles should warm, but not the tropics.
Has BOM found new data that contradicts this hypotheses?
Could there be another one?
It is that station adjustments in the Southern Hemisphere will have a larger impact on the final anomaly number. This is due to the much higher amount of infilling that occurs in the southern hemisphere as the station data is much more sparse there.
And I would make the guess that the data manipulators at BoM/GISS/UKMet have realized that adjustments to Darwin (and probably a few others in the So Hem) are particularly effective at inducing out-size effects due to infilling across a large area. They would probably love to fiddle with measurements in Siberia, Africa, India, and Indonesia as well, it is just that they do not control those products. I mean it would look much more suspicious indeed if NOAA or GISS tried to manipulate Siberia or Indian subcontinent station records. But BoM adjusting 109 year old station data from its own Australian records they know won’t get the outcry that it deserves.
“it is just that they do not control those products”
Bad news for you. GHCN publishes two files, one unadjusted (which will not include ACORN adjustments) and one adjusted, which GISS etc use. The latter makes homogeneity corrections worldwide. They adjusted Darwin long ago.
Throw out data that needs adjusting. It isn’t fit for purpose. There, problem solved.
This has been my issue for years, if the data needs adjusting that much it is not fit for purpose, it is an estimate at best, and probably should be discarded. If these scientists were working in industry where there are legal ramifications on their output, they would understand that.
This is how the BoM and CSIRO do “science” in Australia. If the result does not fit what is expected, change in the input data (Or algorithm). Unfortunately, most Australians accept the BoM’s siting of devices at airports as OK. 10 of the 15 hottest records in Australia (And the world apparently) last summer were at an airfield, aerodrome or airport. Pointing this out to people is met with a blank stare!
You shattered the illusion that most surface data was reliable with your station-by-station analysis here in the US. Perhaps you could repost some of that. I remember stations next to building exhaust ducts, stations next to tarmacs, etc.
Kind of blew up the narrative that surface record was in any way reliable.
How is that bad news? It certainly isn’t news to me that GHCN raw data is also available. It is just they know that no one but data geeks and scientists will use it.
So of course we are talking about the adjusted data, not the raw data. The IPCC AR’s (and the upcoming AR6) all use the adjusted data sets that get compared to the CMIP ensemble average.
The only ones who actually care about raw data are working scientists in climate and the the data watchers like Marohasy, Homewood, Heller, and Eschenbach.
There’s your ‘man-made’ warming.
Again.
and once again the faithful zealots will defend the indefensible. It is so predictable the jokes aren’t even funny anymore.
meaning they are continuing to defend one way adjustments.
“The simple step of a courageous individual is not to take part in the lie. “One word of truth outweighs the world.”
― Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn
In the end it’s the lies that will beat them. Citizens of the Soviet Union believed what they were told for a very long time. Then they stopped believing and were silent. Then they stopped being silent.
Conclusion, the politician who’s portfolios includes the BOM simply does not understand that he is being fed rubbish, or does not care as it suits the “Scare the people “scenario. “”
Don’t expect the new Labour Government to improve things, they are already locked into a 50 % renewable.
Again its a case of having to wait until the lights and industry power fails.
MJE
Roughly half of the highest official temperatures on record for US weather stations were set in the 1930s. It’s taken nearly a century for many Dust Bowl tecords to be gradually surpassed by random regional heat waves, or very likely by urban heat island (UHI) effects.
… records …
If alarmists cannot agree about historic records how can anyone think they have accurate knowledge about the future. It’s like they keep changing their predictions ( when they are proven to be wrong so they think that makes it ok to change the past. These deliberate efforts to deceive need to be brought to account. Audit the BOM now!
On a somewhat related note, Chiefio shows how they get a hockey stick just by dropping out stations in rural areas.
There is a series of posts graphing stations by years.
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2019/02/12/ghcn-v3-3-stations-by-altitude-by-years-or-mountains-what-mountains/
or
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2019/02/10/an-intriguing-look-at-temperatures-in-australia/
and more.
Thanks for the pertinent link, which demonstrates what I have long argued is objectionable about GHCN’s modus operandi.
Since ca. 1990, their data has been subjected to the carnival trick of “station shuffle.” Instead of maintaining the same set they started with, stations that fail to perform as expected are quietly dropped and “good” performers are substituted. Induced step-changes are “homogenized” away. That’s how, in their tendentiously constructed “global” sample, they manage to nearly obliterate the deep cooling during the third quarter of the last century and fabricate a century-long warming trend.
I would not expect the BOM to appreciate irony however, their rather large “correction” of historical temperatures to compensate for a quite small geographic location calls into question all global temperature averages. The IPCC, BOM et al, use single site measurements to average across, in soms cases, hundreds of thousands of square kilometers of land and ocean. The error bars just got a lot wider.
But I thought warming only started after 1975, and since then it’s all been due to evil CO2.
So how often does this record get changed?
Andrew
Hi Andrew,
The first set of adjustments were by Torok and Nichols and published in 1996. Then there were changes made by Della Marta et al. a little later, creating what was known as the High Quality (HQ) dataset. Then ACORN-SAT Version 1 came out in 2012, and now we have ACORN-SAT Version 2.
Bad Andrew, they have a very hygienic approach to changing records at BoM –
it appears to be similar to the frequency with which underwear gets changed – too often is barely enough.