Where weather stations are moved a change in calculating temperature is required.
We live about 15 ks from where temperature is officially measured. We live in a more elevated area than where the weather station is, and our house is set back from the coast; whereas, the weather station is very close to the coast. We get frosts where there would be few if any where the weather station is. So the temperature we experience is often higher or lower than experienced at the weather station.

But, as stated many times; climate change does not hinge on temperature measured, the environment displays changes in temperature:
.thawing of permafrost
.the atmosphere holding more water vapour
.problems running the Iditarod dog sled race due to lack of snow and ice experienced over more than a decade.
.high temperatures in freshwater and ocean water bodies. Shown by the moving of marine creatures North and South of the Equator. The Gulf of Mexico has had quite an influence on recent rain bombs experienced by the US.
.glaciers disappearing.

Real data always trumps manipulated data.

Ant - the measuring station was in a paddock on the flat plains surrounding Rutherglen - your inane comment has nothing to do with this case.

Some boofheads may mess around filling in Census. However Oz has a growing population right. Visibly more houses. Some drowning deniers clutch at straws.

Ant so you say forget about the actual evidence of what happened on the actual temperatures and concentrate of a dog race?
Yep this is why I think you people are full of it!

erm .. do you mean the actual temp at Rutherglen 67 years ago before breakfast or the actual world?

77

Nicknamenick, the world temperature is made up of thousands of Rutherglens. Shouldn't we get them right?

Got it in one Ant! Cherry picked, strictly regional data proves little other than a willingness to obfuscate?

A sun in a waning (cooling) phase since the mid seventies (NASA) simply does not produce a warming trend, back to back warmest years on record, and the recorded changes you've alluded to!
Alan B.

>But this is a travesty:

Only if you're an idiot, you're not, so what's your ulterior motive ? to sew FUD ?

>the adjusted values may be quite different from the actual recorded values – the real observations.

Of course they're different, tress grow, buildings are erected, stations are moved as land uses changes, times of the day when the weather was read will have changed. You're inferring that if a building goes up next to the weather station, they should not correct for this ? eg they might move a station 500m, run the two of them for a few days, see the difference is on average 3C, then correct all the previous records by 3C to compensate so they can use the combined readings, otherwise they'd not have a 'continual record'. Similarly, they might have had the old postmaster take the reading at midday, now with automated reading they would need to correct back to make sense of the combined readings, so they could produce an unbroken record.. None of this is nefarious, it makes sense !

fine Valley - but none of those apply to Rutherglen which has been in an open paddock since 1913. No trees, no buildings, no moves.

Congratulations, Jennifer, on rising to the challenge and writing an intelligent article about the temperature data homogenisation.

You could well have discovered an error made by the BOM. I suggest you ask them exactly what the past references say which is inconsistent with its current location.

Regarding the bushfire day reading, could it be that the higher unadjusted temperature was a direct result of the fire itself?

Thanks Aidan. Its always dangerous to assume. The Bureau actually adjusted the temperature up for the day of the 1939 bushfire; and that period more generally. They have recognised the summer of 1938-1939 as an outlier, but perhaps not realized its physical cause: drought and bushfires. Hard to believe; but they are very muddled. Also, Ruthergen is just to the north of the 13 January 1939 firestorm. It was much hotter the day before and the day after at Rutherglen - looking at the unadjusted values. The homogenising of the results makes for more hot days - including on 13 January at Rutherglen, which was to the north of the actual fires.

Aidan, To be clear: the Bureau's treatment of the temperature minima and temperature maxima at Rutherglen are not the same - they adjust one up, and the other down for this period. Yet if the adjustments really corresponded with the move up or down a hill, this would not be the case. As I said they are completely muddled: except the end result of all the muddling is a mean temperature (the average of the max and min) that shows an overall warming trend consistent with global warming theory.

I have long since lost confidence in BOM's historical data.

Nowadays when I hear about the wettest... driest.. or any other claims.... I ignore them

Deliberate destruction of Government documents is a criminal offence nor is ignorance a defence.

Real Estate Agents and even Local Councils in Victoria won't warn house-property buyers that they are buying into:

an area that is regularly burnt out http://www.cfa.vic.gov.au/about/major-fires/

"Regular" varies. Houses burn down. Farms destroyed. People die.

But Real Estate Agents and even Local Councils choose to forget or do not maintain readily available records - see http://www.cfa.vic.gov.au/about/major-fires/

JBowyer

"Ant so you say forget about the actual evidence of what happened on the actual temperatures and concentrate of a dog race?"

The comment was about lack of snow and ice; problems created for the classic Iditarod dog sledge race. One recent year they were in part racing over pebbles and rocks, another year they had to change the starting position North, there are other examples in relation to the race.

A number of examples were given, interesting that you should pick on the one you believe to be weakest. Concentrating on the dog race is a marvel in relation to comprehension.
No comments about :
.thawing of permafrost
.the atmosphere holding more water vapour
.high temperatures in freshwater and ocean water bodies. Shown by the moving of marine creatures North and South of the Equator. The Gulf of Mexico has had quite an influence on recent rain bombs experienced by the US.
.glaciers disappearing.

The evidence is so clear in relation to these matters.

We're really going to trust Jennifer after the LAST debacle? Basically, she just makes me laugh. She's out there with the "Moon Landing was faked" crowd.

"Another site at Rutherglen had data adjusted to account for two intervals – 1966 and 1974 – when its thought the site was moved from close to buildings to low-flat ground.

Marohasy wants heads to roll [rolls eyes] because she claims that the Rutherglen site was never moved and so there was no need to homogenise the data.

However, the bureau has documentary evidence showing that sometime before the 1970s the weather station was not in the place where it is now.

The bureau had initially spotted a break or jump in the data that pointed to a likely move at Rutherglen.

Perhaps all of these movements of temperature stations was a conspiracy in itself, cooked up in the 1950s?"
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/planet-oz/2014/aug/27/climate-sceptics-see-a-conspiracy-in-australias-record-breaking-heat

Hi Jennifer,
Like a dog with a bone.

If you wish to disprove the climate change science, just review the climate change enhancement of hundreds of extreme events world wide - noting that the great majority of such events refect increasing atmospheric and ocean warmth.

And not many record events associated with cooler than normal temperatures.

And explain how hundreds of research organisations world wide have come to very similar conclusions about global warming. And, if you, like the majority of denialists, claim a global conspiracy, ....... Just a laugh, really.

Your lengthy time on this topic is, as it always has been, a huge waste of effort. Even the support you used to get on this site has withered away.

Is it a touch of IPA neoliberalism driving chaotic thought processes?

@Shadow Minister, real intelligence trumps gullibility and stupidity.

@Janama, prove your unfounded claim about where "Rutherglen" weather station has or hasn't been located, and when. You have none. Marohasy has none either. All she has are questions, innuendo and sophistry. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophism#Modern_usage

@JBowyer, who cares what you think besides yourself? Intelligent knowledgeable people do not.

@Janama: "the world temperature is made up of thousands of Rutherglens"

No, it's from tens upon tens of thousands in fact. Marohasy has Rutherglen = 0.00001% of all weather stations. You call that "evidence"?

Only a gullible fool would believe Marohasy by ignoring the other thousands in Australia, the tens of thousands overseas, the ocean temps, satellite records, melting sea ice, the GBR impacts, the accumulated science of 30,000+ more than Marohasy can find to agree with her.

Educate yourself about the Real SCIENCE.

7 years people have been waiting for something of substance to come Marohasy and Abbot. Huge claims, non-stop promises, and zero results. Abbot should have stuck with using that software for his stock market investments instead of living off 'the charity' of other denialists.

@Jennifer says: "Its always dangerous to assume."

Then stop doing that Jennifer. Or you may get more 'burnt' than the Rutherglen region did on Black Friday 1939!

@Jennifer says: "..shows an overall warming trend consistent with global warming theory."

How inconvenient for your ideology but convenient for your attention-seeking behaviour Jennifer. When are you going to show your 'empirical evidence' peer-reviewed (WIT doesn't rate) that what you 'claim' has happened at Rutherglen and Darwin is replicated across all 122 sites being used, and the 1000+ others, and in all other nations on earth?

Do the work first Jennifer, then Put Up or Shut Up with your non-stop defamatory accusations of fraud against thousands of people across the world including decades of BOM staff.

You've been promising Victoria/Lighthouse data, where is it? You've been promising rainfall predictive output for ~5 years, where is it?

No reputable climate scientist recognizes you or Abbot as 'peers'.

More info?
http://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-M0yAR0UPhPbXkzb1RlVGJaZFU

http://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-M0yAR0UPhPT2xYM2ViOVBwTU0

http://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-M0yAR0UPhPd2prNmVhU3B3bEE

The promised ANAO FOIA request is underway :-)
-

Thomas,

The comment "real intelligence trumps gullibility and stupidity" looks like a crass attempt to disparage anyone that disagrees with you, and time has shown usually solidifies opposition.

The homogenisation of the data, whilst for all the right reasons is essentially presenting manipulated data, and if the adjustments need to be as high as 5°C then you have an Achilles heel in your credibility and are basically painting a huge target on your back.

It's known that the station at Rutherglen was moved, but if the data differs so drastically, then data should be split into separate measurements say Rutherglen A and B, or a similar smaller measuring point could be added to the old site as a comparison.

Hi Shadow minister,
I’m so glad you’re concerned about the data being manipulated. When a station is moved or trees grow over a vital point, cooling an area or a city moves closer, creating a local urban heat island effect, the data has been artificially manipulated.

The BOM is trying to correct these manipulations. Jennifer makes it sound like a nefarious crime, but that’s just her problem. She’s been answered prior to this, and I don’t know why OLO is prepared to appear so foolish by recycling her myths.

Max,

Manipulation is human adjustment of the data. It is more valid to keep the area constant i.e. in a park, or trim the trees rather than modify the data which will always raise the possibility of the subjectivity of the person applying the correction.

When the "adjustment" increases the measured temperature of a station by 5 degrees because it has moved a short distance, the manipulation has reached a level where the data is questionable and should be excluded.

Hi Max, ant :-)

@Shadow Minister1
You're wasting your time making a mountain out of a mole hill drawing. Give it up.

@Shadow Minister2 12 September 2016 4:59:51 AM
There are logical grounds why you're a poster on OLO and not employed at BOM nor doing Climate Science yourself. Any ideas what those grounds might be?

re: "essentially presenting manipulated data"

Nope it is DE-Manipulating it and taking out obvious ERRORS in the original recorded figures using best practice scientific statistical rigour not possible in 1939 or before.... in order to have a consistent basis to develop national and global mean temps.

Marohasy keeps distorting the truth and filling people's heads with BS - eg her stupid dishonest reference to temps/weather warnings about Bush Fires which DO NOT use those "112 homogenized" temp records but use ALL the data available from the BOM at a local regional level. DOH!

One could reasonably assert that yet again Marohasy is lying to her readers and spreading gross disinformation and planting distortions in her reader's heads! It could be intentional or merely rank incompetence, but I believe it is both and worse than just that.

Why do you (Shadow Minister and others) believe anything Marohasy "claims" when you have not seen it for yourself?

In her many "stories" she has claimed the Rutherglen site was NEVER MOVED. Which is it? - it moved - it didn't ? When did it switch to automated instruments?

Why does anyone believe Marohasy without a speck of evidence bar her Pixel dust on social media sites?

re: "then data should be split into separate measurements say Rutherglen A and B"

Who says? You? Why? Who decided you were the expert on weather station data collection and analysis and correcting errors? I already know Marohasy isn't.

A BOM FOIA request relating to Marohasy is underway as promised.

Such as Marohasy's Abbot's self-seeking 'pseudo-papers' published at the seriously flaky Wessex Institute of Technology?
http://www.witpress.com/elibrary/wit-transactions-on-ecology-and-the-environment/196/34171

List of Bogus Fake Journals/Pseudo-Science
http://www.google.com.au/#q=%22Wessex+institute%22+journal+bogus%3F&gws_rd=cr

http://theaimn.com/coalition-environment-committee/

http://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-M0yAR0UPhPbXkzb1RlVGJaZFU

"When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?"
John Maynard Keynes

Thomas,

You are tilting at windmills, I suspect you don't grasp what I am trying to say, because what you post does not relate.

Secondly, as a young engineer I did some post grad work on Antarctic atmospheric condition focusing on the Aurora and its influence on radio transmissions, so I have a more than passing understanding. (I am curious as to your qualifications as I can't locate any), and the main reason I don't work as a climate scientist is because I earn 2-3 times as much as an engineer.

From my posts:

1 I am not disputing climate change,
2 I know Rutherglen was moved and never disputed this,
3 I know and understand why the data is harmogenized.

However, harmogenizing the data is politically a stupid move as the skeptics can now claim that the climate lobby is manipulating the data (which it is), with the reasoning given sounding like excuses, and instead of simplifying things for the unwashed masses, it comes across like VW fudging their emission tests.

Get it now?

To get the masses moving the climate scientists need to maintain their credibility with the people, and this oversight has blown a big hole in it.

So it's a matter of how the data is presented? Semantics? I don't think BOM did anything wrong: I think Jennifer did the wrong. And the longer she writes, the 'wronger' she gets. But when your job is on the line, what can you do? (Oh, I know, when CIVILISATION is at stake, maybe change jobs and stop lying?)

easier to blame the idiotic gw faith for bushfires than fighting the Greens in order to have sensible clearing policies. Difficult to believe how adults have fallen for such a deceptive faith. Academia has certainly managed to dumb down the masses.

"Difficult to believe how adults have fallen for such a deceptive faith."

I struggle to understand how people maintain their conspiracy theory faith. Now *that's* a weird religion!

Please don't just switch off your brain and sit in a simplistic conspiracy theory and discount all the science as 'lies'. Think about what you are suggesting!

From Wikipedia:
>>The existence of the greenhouse effect was argued for by Joseph Fourier in 1824. The argument and the evidence was further strengthened by Claude Pouillet in 1827 and 1838, and reasoned from experimental observations by John Tyndall in 1859.[12] The effect was more fully quantified by Svante Arrhenius in 1896.[13] However, the term "greenhouse" wasn't used to describe the effect by any of these scientists; the term was first used in this way by Nils Gustaf Ekholm in 1901.[14][15] In 1917 Alexander Graham Bell wrote "[The unchecked burning of fossil fuels] would have a sort of greenhouse effect", and "The net result is the greenhouse becomes a sort of hot-house."[16][17] Bell went on to also advocate the use of alternate energy sources, such as solar energy.[18]<<
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_effect#History

This short history shows that any 'conspiracy' Deniers believe in must span nearly 2 centuries. Just *think* about what they are suggesting! Some world-wide scientific conspiracy started just after the Napoleonic wars, and continued through WW1, WW2, the Cold War, the fall of the Soviet Union, the re-unification of Germany, etc. Such a conspiracy surviving all these different world-changing political changes boggles the imagination. Deniers must live in a very scary world, and believe in an organisation that dwarfs James Bond's "Spectre"!

Max,

Remember the July election when labor ran the lie about the libs wanting to privatize medicare? It was a complete fabrication, but convinced a large enough portion of the electorate to almost win the election, and that was based on a lot less.

People that you need to convince are the men in the street who will bear the brunt of the high cost of power and who have a vested interest in rejecting climate action.

My skepticism lies more in the accuracy of the predictions, and the remedies (Strong proponent of nuclear) given the chronic difficulties of balancing a network without base load generation.

I'm with you on that! I used to believe the myths: too expensive, dangerous, slow, limited (peak uranium?) and leaves waste forever. Now I realise nukes are EXACTLY the opposite, and that breeder reactors BURN nuclear waste, uranium from seawater could run us for a billion years... I'm happy!

Sadly, many groups quote Dr James Hansen on the problem of climate change, while ignoring his stated *solution*.
He says:
1. Believing in 100% RENEWABLES is like believing in the Easter Bunny or Tooth Fairy. (Yes, he's aware of all the 'studies' that say we can, but still thinks storage is ridiculously expensive and cannot do the job).
http://goo.gl/8qidgV

2. The world should build 115 reactors a year*
http://goo.gl/Xx61xU
(*Note: on a reactors-to-GDP ratio the French *already* beat this build rate back in the 70's under the Mesmer plan. 115 reactors a year should be easy for the world economy. France did it *faster* with older technology, and today's nukes can be mass produced on an assembly line. Also, GenIV breeders are coming that can eat nuclear waste and covert a 100,000 year storage problem into 1000 years of clean energy for America and 500 years for the UK with today's levels of nuclear waste).

@Max Green, first on the other page with JFaus, it was I who posted the Oceans algae doc not him. I was throwing you a bit 'humour' but neglected the smilie warnings. Sorry about that.

@Shadow Minister, it's off-topic but re "the libs wanting to privatize medicare? It was a complete fabrication", I'll say this. The ads were only partly fabricated and poorly done amounting to some spin/sophistry. However, a more holistic understanding and considering an accurate history of the LNP/Medicare up to the 2016 election there is much truth in what Labor the Unions and others were 'claiming'. The LNP would dump Medicare and the PBS in a heartbeat if they could get away with it.

@Shadow Minister, now I don't understand why your saying what I said was not related to you and the subject. You'll need to 'please explain'. My #1 point is that Marohasy is not credible, for multiple reasons, the main being she is simply a shrill shill - her 'evidence' does not support her claims. It's that simple to me, but one needs to recognise the whole of it and what she is up to here.
My comments here tell that story in detail. http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=18459

An absence of evidence does equate to evidence of absence. That Marohasy both ignores and does not have sufficient 'evidence' is the core issue. 5C at Rutherglen is hand-waving and is meaningless to the truth of homogenisation practices and it's valid and worlds best practice. Marohasy lives inside an echo-chamber. That John Nicol is an 'adviser' for her ClimateLab is sufficient to cast a blackshadow over everything they believe and do there, then there are all the other 'facts' - the devil is in the details.

My credentials are found in the validity of my arguments, my supporting evidence, logic and valid insights into human behaviour & Psychology. There's nothing new under the Sun. Everyone has a piece of 'paper' somewhere stamped 'credentials.' So what? An error is an error is an error. A lie is never the truth. The Truth Is.

Hi Thomas,
I hear you! I just went back to quote him and had that "ARrrghggggh" moment and it's not even Sept 19th yet! (International Talk Like a Pirate Day). I'll apologise to him in my next post tomorrow.

Thomas,

I gave the example of Labor's mediscare campaign which given Turnbull's commitments was a complete fabrication, especially sending fraudulent texts purporting to be from medicare etc, and based on half truths such as the desire to privatise the inefficient payments system, that convinced the uneducated.

Secondly, Jennifer is not simply a shrill, having personally been involved in research, the single greatest crime is to have manipulated data to provide the desired results. To modify the raw data, there needs to be a bloody good reason especially when the results of the modification significantly alter the results. The reason that Rutherglen has been targeted is because its data has been particularly badly handled. The measuring station appears to have been moved, but maps etc from the time give little indication of from where, or any indication of what, if any differences the move would have on the temperatures measured, or any scientific basis for altering the data. If I had presented a paper with such poorly handled data to my professor, it would have found its way swiftly to the bin.

The result is that this is a serious blow to the credibility of the results and a public relations disaster for the climate cause.