Australian Meteorologists Caught Fudging Numbers

Published September 19, 2014

Climate Change Weekly #139

The Australian Bureau of Meteorology (ABM) was recently forced to admit it alters the temperatures recorded at almost all the official weather stations in Australia. The ABM came clean on its temperature fiddling largely because of the fierce scrutiny of Graham Lloyd, environment editor for The Australian and The Weekend Australian, who published a series of articles on the ABM’s number-fudging.

Using a process it calls homogenization, ABM has replaced actual temperature measurements with massaged numbers. ABM claims anomalies have arisen in both the historical data and current measurements due to a wide variety of factors unrelated to climate, such as differing types of instruments used, choices of calibration or enclosure and where it was located, and the closure of some stations and opening of others. The ABM argues such factors justify homogenization of the numbers.

Critics point out a much worse anomaly in the homegenization process: Almost all the alterations resulted in higher temperatures being reported for the present and lower numbers for the past–with the higher numbers being used to demonstrate a historical warming trend–than the numbers that were actually recorded. Downward homogenizations in recent years were rare. In some areas, downward temperature trends measured over time showed a significantly increased temperature trend after homogenization. The difference between actually measured temperatures and homogenized temperatures topped 4 degrees Celsius over certain periods at some measuring stations.

This is perhaps not surprising, since on ABC radio, January 3, 2014, David Jones, head of Climate Monitoring and Predictions at ABM, stated, “We know every place across Australia is getting hotter, and very similarly almost every place on this planet. So, you know, we know it is getting hotter and we know it will continue to get hotter. It’s a reality, and something we will be living with for the rest of the century.”

Scientist Jennifer Marohasy wrote on her blog the temperature alterations were seemingly done at “whim,” resulting in what “amounts to corruption of the scientific process on a grand scale, with significant economic implications.”

Others interviewed by reporter D. Brady Nelson for The Heartland Institute supported Marohasy’s position. William Kininmonth, a retired meteorologist and former head of the National Climate Centre (NCC) at the Bureau of Meteorology, stated, “There is no justifiable basis to modify actual observations without evidence of changed instrumentation or environmental factors; where there is evidence of such changes the adjustments can only be considered speculative, especially if the adjustments are made on the basis of statistical links to independent observations from tens of kilometres away.”

Evidently ABM’s view is, when the question is climate change and you already know the answer, if the data do support the answer, change it.

SOURCE: jennifermahorasy.com


IN THIS ISSUE

Improper collusion between environmental lobbyists, EPA … UN climate summit not about climate … WMO omits temperature trends … The 97 percent climate ‘consensus:’ biased, misleading claim … Sierra Club: Trouble with the tax man? … CO2 rise helping yrees grow


IMPROPER COLLUSION BETWEEN ENVIRONMENTAL LOBBYISTS, EPA

President Barack Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) claims to be pursuing a moderate, common-sense climate change/environmental policy agenda, but internal emails reveal its agenda is ideological and is being shaped in collusion with radical environmental lobbying groups. EPA is operating in sharp contrast with Obama’s promises to limit the influence of special interests, stop the revolving door, and increase government transparency. Internal documents reveal various extreme environmental lobbying groups have unprecedented access to and influence over former colleagues and associates who are now EPA officials.

SOURCE: Energy & Environment Legal Institute


UPCOMING UN CLIMATE SUMMIT NOT ABOUT CLIMATE

Climate scientist Roy Spencer, Ph.D. has assembled an array of evidence showing next week’s UN climate summit to be held in New York City is neither about climate science nor effective climate policies. Instead, he says, it’s about political grandstanding and transferring wealth from the poor in rich countries to the rich in poor countries. Without world leaders from China, Germany, and India, which are among the countries emitting the largest amounts of greenhouse gases, one can hardly have a substantive meeting. The theme of the meeting might best be described as “Ignore the science, pass the money.”

SOURCE: Roy Spencer’s Global Warming Blog


WMO OMITS TEMPERATURE TRENDS

The 2014 WMO Greenhouse Gas Bulletin, published annually the past few years by the World Meteorological Organization, omits any discussion of temperature trends. As a result it abandons a critical scientific principle expressed by Einstein: “Do not omit critical data.”

There has been no significant warming trend in the atmosphere for more than a decade, and no warming trend on the surface for approximately 17 years, but the WMO failed to mention this data, which is fundamental to a proper assessment of the state of the changing climate.

SOURCE: Science and Environmental Policy Project


THE 97 PERCENT CLIMATE ‘CONSENSUS:’ BIASED, MISLEADING

Reports that 97 percent of published scientific papers support a supposed “consensus” that humans are causing potentially catastrophic global warming are largely based on a paper by John Cook, et al. Cook’s research shows no such thing. Instead, it shows only a consensus on two points, both of which climate skeptics largely accept: Carbon dioxide (CO2) is a greenhouse gas, and human activities have some effect on the climate. Not only are these findings trivial, and the claim of a consensus misleading, various researchers have shown Cook’s methodology demonstrates substantial biases and that he has misrepresented what his findings mean.

SOURCE: Global Warming Policy Foundation


SIERRA CLUB: TROUBLE WITH THE TAX MAN?

The Energy & Environment Legal Institute (E&E Legal) has formally requested the Internal Revenue Service investigate the Sierra Club and the Sierra Club Foundation for providing impermissible benefits to private parties and for failure to pay taxes on business income unrelated to their core business. As one example of the latter tax violation, the Sierra Club sends its members into communities to sell the products of a local solar panel company in various states in exchange for donations. This is a huge moneymaker for the organization and is a commercial enterprise, yet Sierra Club has paid no taxes on the income. The Sierra Club is a leading force among global warming alarmists, using a portion of its income to spread disinformation concerning climate change.

SOURCE: Watts Up With That?


CO2 RISE HELPING TREES GROW

A new study from the Technische Universität München in Germany provides more striking evidence of one of the benefits of increasing carbon dioxide levels: Trees are growing faster. Trees have been growing significantly faster since the 1960s, as much as 70 percent faster, based on long-term evidence from experimental forest plots that have been tracked since the 1870s. In the 1960s and early ’70s scientists seriously debated whether many forest ecosystems would even survive, as “forest dieback” was the topic de jure. Thanks largely to increased CO2 levels, the latest studies show forests have been growing at a faster rate.

SOURCE: Watts Up With That?

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