Comments on: The 11SS — a Dog that didn’t bark

By: Climate Conversation Group » NIWA versus NOAA

Climate Conversation Group » NIWA versus NOAA — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 04:56:09 +0000

[...] have previously exposed the conspicuous absence of the 11SS from NIWA’s recently published Review [...]

By: Bob D

Bob D — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 23:44:21 +0000

It appears to me that all they have done is read the report, and rubber-stamp it with qualifying statements to avoid responsibility if it all goes pear-shaped. By not examining the data in any detail their “peer-review” is pretty weak.

By: Doug Proctor

Doug Proctor — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 23:32:58 +0000

Thank you for the followup to my question. So, the 11SS is out, as being bad data poorly treated. The 7SS is at least partly out, as it is not an officially sanctioned record at this time. These were supposed to be superior stations, right? So what is left? Does the Australian BOM have any real data to work with? Is the BOM simply going to limit themselves to the PROCEDURES through which the NZ temperatures were adjusted, and stand ouside any opinion/position on the veracity of the records?

By: Richard C (NZ)

Richard C (NZ) — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 19:19:56 +0000

For some reason I was thinking that the 11 SS started earlier than 1931. The 11SS trends from linear regression of inconsistent data are meaningless and especially so in that time frame.

It’s such a mish-mash of rubbish that it should be shredded or used as a case study of bad science. Calling it a dog gives mangy mutts a bad name I think.

By: Richard Treadgold

Richard Treadgold — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 10:03:14 +0000

Clarence,

That’s a great way of describing it! It puts the slender grasp it has of the truth into clear relief!

It’s obvious the 7SS and 11SS cannot be compared because they are very different fruits.

A NIWA climate scientist should turn red with shame at any mention of the 11SS, which is a blatant exercise in cherry-picking. They said they went looking for stations that showed warming and guess what — they found some! Whoop-de-bloody-doo. They also said the stations hadn’t moved — but whoopsy-doodle, they lied.

Remember, too, that the exercise was sparked by our paper which showed how the raw data exhibited no real warming, then asked why the adjustments had been made.

Their scientific answer? “There has so been warming!” Nuts.

By: Clarence

Clarence — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 08:31:31 +0000

The 11SS doesn’t begin until 1954. There’s a 10SS before 1949, and a 4SS before 1939 and even a 2SS in 1931.

See the reference to the “Quadrant Online” article in Richard’s post above.

By: Richard C (NZ)

Richard C (NZ) — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 23:08:52 +0000

OK, I’m getting the picture.

Are the 7SS and 11SS consistent over 1909 – 1955?

Using composite actuals eliminates any anomaly disparity. The concept of a “normal” 30 year flat average climate that moves either by convention or arbitrarily should be removed from this exercise to avoid unnecessary complication I think.

By: Clarence

Clarence — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 22:16:29 +0000

The 11SS was designed to mirror the 7SS, and achieves this quite well. And that’s no surprise after about 1955, as there are very few post-war adjustments in the 7SS – and all 18 anomalies were more-or-less in synch.

But the 11SS curve during its first 20 years is wholly an artifact of moving stations in and out, rather than following the average temperatures of 11 sites.

The ‘Normals’ or benchmarks of the 7SS (1970-2000) and 11SS (1960-90) are different, so their respective anomalies cannot be properly compared.

By: Richard C (NZ)

Richard C (NZ) — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 21:42:07 +0000

Doug is referring to “What does the re-analysis show?” in the NIWA press release.

The 7SS definitely shows cooling prior to 1953 usind a 15 year moving average, however the use of a moving average is an inappropriate statistical technique to use on a temperature series for data smoothing. Empirical Mode Decomposition (EMD) is appropriate and shows slight warming 1910-1940, steep warming 1940-1980 and slight warming from there on.

What is clear from using EMD is that a 100 year time frame is too short to extract the intrinsic natural trend.

That still leaves 7SS – 11SS inconsistency.

By: Richard Treadgold

Richard Treadgold — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 21:13:32 +0000

Doug, I cannot reconcile those statements. The 11SS does indeed show most warming before about 1951, but the 7SS does not show cooling before 1952, see the original 7SS graph.