Discredited graph flourishes still
Richard Treadgold | November 27, 2010
On NIWA’s web site their discredited graph of New Zealand’s temperature history still clings to life. Look at it — it seems to flutter its wiggly lines, hoarsely whispering: “believe me, believe me.”
This is the graph NIWA’s lawyers completely disown in a declaration to the High Court that it is “not an official graph.”
Why do they continue to display it? It lacks any kind of scientific justification or integrity. The main authority describing its methodology has never been cited, never been copied, never been peer reviewed.
None of the seven weather stations (only seven for the whole country, out of hundreds?) showed significant warming in their raw readings. But six have had a “temperature rise” imposed by adjustments, 90% of which served to create warming.
Have NIWA no shame? They should have withdrawn this spurious piece of scientific chicanery months ago. Instead, it remains there to lie to our children.
We’re still waiting for the new version, reviewed by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, promised by NIWA last March. Will we see it before Christmas 2010? When we finally do see it, will it still show nearly a degree of warming over the 20th Century?
If it does, how will they justify that? If it doesn’t, how will they face their public, for what will happen to their claims of anthropogenic global warming?
There’s a great deal hanging on the new version of this innocent-looking graph. And I mean “hanging.”
This graph gets an indirect mention on WUWT
Examination of CRU data suggests no statistically significant warming
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/11/26/examination-of-cru-data-suggests-no-statistically-significant-warming/
where the author states:
We have a clear isolated example from New Zealand where cherry picked data and time windows have resulted in a ridiculous ‘data merging’ that completely obliterates the raw data.
http://strata-sphere.com/blog/index.php/archives/11542
Yes, I saw that mention Andy and it made me wonder has anyone done with NZ’s raw data which I understand is contained in CliFlo what Ken Stewart has done in Aust with BOM’s raw data
As a matter of interest I was prowling Warwick Hughes site today and came across this little gem http://www.warwickhughes.com/cru86/tr027/index.htm
Jones PD , Raper SCB, Goodess CM, Cherry BSG, Wigley TML, (1986) TR027 A Grid Point Surface Air Temperature Data Set for the Southern Hemisphere. Office of Energy Research , Carbon Dioxide Research Division, US Department of Energy. Under Contract
linked from Warwick’s post USA Dept of Energy Jones et al 1986 350 pages station documentation now online in pdf
http://www.warwickhughes.com/blog/?cat=2
Salinger gets a couple of mentions
Just for interest if you haven’t seen it
Basically just shows a warm/cool cycle overlaid on a general warming trend – with spin.
“The SHT series shows little overall trend during the nineteenth century (Figure 6). After 1900, the series shows a warming trend to the mid 1940s. Between about 1945 and 1970 no trend can be seen. Since 1970 a strong warming trend has set in. The three warmest years of the entire record are 1980, 1981 and 1983. The overall warming trend since 1900 is about 0.5 , of which roughly 0.3 C occurred between 1900 and 1945 and 0.2 C since 1970.
The history of land-based Southern Hemisphere temperature series is, therefore, not dissimilar to that for the Northern Hemisphere. However, the early twentieth century warming up to 1940 is smaller in magnitude and the cooling evident in the Northern Hemisphere between 1940 and 1965 appears only as a hiatus in the longer-term warming trend. Further discussions of this data set and comparisons with the marine data for the Southern Hemisphere are given in Jones et al. (1986b)”
“Since 1970 a strong warming trend has set in.”
Which stalled at the end of the century and been flat since – another “hiatus”? Or has a warm cycle topped out?
Yes as Louis Hissink said to me today on Jo Nova’s site (another subject but just as relevant)
It’s the principal reason I rejected the Mann et al Hockey Stick graph from the outset – it’s variation was within +/- 0.5 Kelvin and less than the measuring accuracy of the instruments used to produce the raw data. I never bothered to prove it using the data at the time since it was unavailable.
I would, however, not go so far to accuse them of deliberate falsification. Rather, I’ve always maintained that its due to incompetence and/or ignorance of the measurement of data and what one can, and cannot, do with intensive variables, of which temperature is one of many.
The plot comes to a screeching halt at the end of 2009. The plot at the NIWA website has a cool anomaly showing last.
I wonder if there’s some inconvenient data in the pipeline along the lines “No warming trend over the last decade”. .
I just feel sorry for NZ, Im now resident in Jo Nova land! I want my ETS TAX back Mr English!
Save some “sorry” for yourself Quentin, you might need it.
“Labor’s real carbon target to hit hard” – smh
The two-year fixed carbon price of $20 a tonne proposed by the Greens to break the deadlock with Labor was also calculated to begin the task of reducing emissions by 5 per cent.
But to cut emissions by 15 per cent would require a starting price closer to $30 or $35 a tonne, depending on how quickly the price was scheduled to rise over time and what other programs the government undertook. It would also vastly increase the estimated $3.2 billion cost of Mr Abbott’s ”direct action” plan over just its first four years.
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/conservation/labors-real-carbon-target-to-hit-hard-20101129-18e0d.html
And you’ll need some “sorry” after you bang you head against the wall over this silliness
“Taxpayers bear risk for carbon dumps” -smh
MILLIONS of tonnes of greenhouses gases, injected deep underground to cut carbon emissions to the atmosphere, would become the public’s responsibility under laws being considered by Parliament.
The NSW legislation says once a company has satisfied the government that an injection site is safe and there are no leaks back to the surface, the Crown will assume liability for the site.
Critics of ”clean coal” technology said the public could be left with a dangerous and expensive legacy of managing huge reservoirs of greenhouse gases, mainly from coal-fired power stations, and the stored gas may not always behave as expected.
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/conservation/taxpayers-bear-risk-for-carbon-dumps-20101129-18e0m.html
Sea level rise is one of the pillars upon which the concern over global warming is built. One of the most commonly reported projections of sea level rise for the 21st century comes from a Proceedings of the December 2009 National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) article “Global Sea level linked to Global Temperatures” by Vermeer and Rahmstorf.
Two profound problems with the Vermeer and Rahmstorf article are the fact that they used out-dated sea level data and did not incorporate a vital correction for water that is added to the oceans through depletion of groundwater aquifers.
Their source for sea level data, Church and White, updated their data at about the same time that the PNAS article was published. A Geophysical Research Letters article this year has provided very good information on the effect of the groundwater depletion. When the updated Church and White data and the groundwater depletion are accounted for, Vermeer’s and Rahmstorf’s model yields sea level rise projections for the 21st century that are only half of what they reported.
As far as I can tell, Vermeer and Rahmstorf have never acknowledged the updated Church and White data. They have not published new calculations or a retraction of their projections. Their extreme projection of 1.8 meters for the 21st century still finds its way into various documents and is widely echoed on the internet.
The concept of their model was bogus to start with. But even their bogus model yields sea level rises half of what they reported when proper data is input.
I have written a variety of posts concerning what I see as very serious flaws in this widely read article. Here is a URL to an index of those posts…
http://climatesanity.wordpress.com/critique-of-global-sea-level-linked-to-global-temperature-by-vermeer-and-rahmstor/
Parts 9 & 10 cover the effect of using the updated Church and White sea level data and the groundwater depletion correction. If you feel so inclined, please have a look. I would appreciate any criticisms on content or style that you could offer. If you feel my conclusions are valid and important, then it would be helpful if you
could alert your readers and provide a link to the above URL.
Best Regards,
Tom Moriarty
ClimateSanity.wordpress.com
Tom,
I’ve just stumbled upon your Vermeer and Rahmstorf series via The Hockey Schtick having missed your comment addition here.
There is also a “Sea levels” category at this site under Open Threads (button on top bar) where your series is also linked now.
See http://www.climateconversation.wordshine.co.nz/open-threads/climate/climate-science/sea-levels-001/#comment-30622
Thanks for dropping by. There’s lot’s of sea level info at this site and your series is a valuable addition (10 parts – we’ve got some reading to do).
Cheers.
Hi, Tom. Thanks for dropping by.
I’m several decades from the maths I learned, so I look forward to comments from others on this! But, assuming you’re right, it’s a familiar story, I regret to say. One wonders how long it will take climate science to become credible again.
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