I'm not sure what you are saying here Jennifer?
If you are saying some districts seem to be getting hotter and some cooler; you could be right!
And hardly all that surprising due in many cases to changed locations, or wind chill factors, as city skylines grow, and funnel winds into some new areas, or block it at least partially from others/the chain whirlpool/vortex/Willie Willie effect, and so on. Moreover, as cities grow so does their heat signature, and the two way vortexes that creates!?
What goes up must be matched by what comes down; and demonstrated by the thermals that always precede storm cells are matched by much cooler descending air funnels! [Turbulence.]
Hit a few with a plane and it's like you've hit a series virtual holes (time on turbulence) in the air!
[And time to simply hurl the lunch into the vomit bag, if only to save time. Boom boom.]
However, if one is to establish a nation wide trend, for national ambient temperatures averages, and trend-line changes; then surely some critical homogenization is essential to that very endeavor; and ultimate accuracy!?
I would have thought someone of your knowledge, experience, background and intelligence, Jennifer, would have at least known that!
Unless intent on vexatious mischief?
Surely not? Or why?
Even if such vexatious mischief on the part of a "respected" scientist, seems to serve the denialist cause!?
Rhrosty.

Boring.

If Jenifer thinks the "practice of homogenisation is indefensible" then she is no real scientist, rather - just a fog-horn for an ideological agenda.

The IPA comes to mind.

As I see it Jennifer is accusing the Bureau of "changing received evidence to fit a preferred storyline", and (by her choice of headline) of deception. What is her evidence? The Bureau's record of adjustments at two stations, Rutherglen and Bathurst, at one of which (Bathurst) changes have been "in different directions at different times". That's two stations out of hundreds (of which she admits "most, if not all" have been subject to this treatment).

If Jennifer is any sort of scientist she will have plenty of knowledge of experimental records, and, in particular, records of the the reasoning underlying decisions to take particular analytical or experimental approaches being inadequate. (And this isn't so much a criticism of those who make those records, but of the fact that it's hard to foresee the determination with which such decisions may be challenged decades later). Anyone who doubts this should look at legal cases depending on forensic evidence which have been overturned on appeal (and remember, forensic labs _are_ expecting their work to be challenged at every step).

So in this case, what's to distinguish "changing received evidence to fit a preferred storyline" from inadequate record-keeping?

So Jennifer is making wild accusations on the basis of the flimsiest of evidence. If scientists generally operated like this the sceptics might have a point.

But in fact - who is being unethical?

I have always been of the opinion that anyone who doesn't take truth seriously in small matters cannot be trusted in large ones either. But it seems that the first few to comment at this thread would have use think that fiddling with the received evidence is OK, especially if its only with a few records and the adjustments generally work to "improve" the record.

In fact, changing the magnitude and direction of a temperature trend can not be justified in science. Furthermore we are not dealing with a few isolated instances. Last week 28-pages of 'adjustments' were released by the BOM. They change the recorded values in almost all the temperatures series used to calculate the annual average trends.

I know why this is "necessary", because contrary to what you have been lead to believe, when the entire instrumental temperature record for Australia unhomogenised is considered… the hottest year was not 2013, but 1878.

Here is another example, to add to the many… http://tinyurl.com/nbm54ts

DavidK

Boring.

If you think ad hominem is defensible, then you are no real scientists, just a fog-horn for an ideological agenda.

Snouts in the public trough come to mind.

More twaddle from the Queen of twaddle stick to writing for the IPA & the moron Murdoch papers