It has taken me a while to follow up on this letter I sent to Gavin Schmidt on 5 March, 2010. It will come as no surprise to anyone that he hasn’t deigned to answer my email. However, as it expresses succinctly some of the main defences against the “denier” appellation I’ll put it up for comment.

Dear Dr Schmidt,

I’m disappointed to hear you quoted (below) apparently referring to climate “sceptics” as “nutters”.

For it is not mental instability that requires me to want evidence of AGW. It is not insanity to want someone to describe in simple words, without taking too long, without referring me to the hundreds of unfriendly pages of the AR4, the evidence for AGW.

Not, note, evidence for the greenhouse effect, which is indisputable. Read more… »

Alexa NZ rankings

The best in New Zealand is no. 1. All others fall into line astern according to their number. So far, we at the Climate Conversation are proud of our standing. However, should this ranking fall, we will still be proud of our standing.

Latest rankings – 21 June, 2011

(The closer the number is to 1, the more popular the site.)

Climate Conversation – 928    SciBlogs – 1879    Hot Topic – 3478    Open Parachute – 3602

This is a dose of reality. Has the warmist bluster lost its lustre?

20 June, 2011 — CCG 989;           SB —;           HT 4204;           OP —

14 June, 2011 — CCG 1021;           SB 1709;           HT 4142;           OP 4988

12 June, 2011 — CCG 1038;           SB 1611;           HT 4398;           OP 6013

9 June, 2011 — CCG 1045;           SB 1584;           HT 4122;           OP 7113

8 June, 2011 — CCG 1100;           SB 1541;           HT 4113;           OP 6504

Our trusty family axe. The handle has been replaced four or five times and I know the head has been lost at least once. But it’s over 150 years old and it’s a family heirloom — we’d never part with it.

UPDATE: March 27, 8:50 p.m.

A reader points out that a replacement requires the virtual death of the previous version. As the traditional British announcement on the death of the sovereign (“The King is dead; long live the King!”) makes clear, you cannot have two of them. He’s reminded of Barry Brill’s recent post here 7SS – R.I.P. about the Monty Python parrot, whose death proved in the end impossible to ignore. Thanks, Australis.

NIWA’s minister has made a bizarre assertion to the Parliament which signals NIWA’s inability to admit its mistakes.

Last December, NIWA published a report reviewing the NZ Temperature Record which was based on its 18-year-old Seven-station Series (7SS). The 169-page report included a new spreadsheet and graph (which NIWA called the NZT7) and stated, on page 3, that “the revised temperature series supersedes the previous version posted in February 2010.”

When it was published, the previous 7SS was taken off NIWA’s temperature web page and the NZT7 was posted in its place.

But there’s some deception going on, because here’s the thing: NIWA’s web site describes the new graph as a replacement, but a few days ago Parliament was officially told the very opposite — that the NZT7 is not a replacement. As Hansard shows: Read more… »

Here is my submission to the 2050 Emissions Reduction Target Consultation, as invited by the Minister for Climate Change Issues, the Hon Dr Nick Smith, in his position paper Gazetting New Zealand’s 2050 Emissions Target, published last month. The central argument is a challenge to the Minister and his department to show us the evidence of a dangerous human influence on the global temperature. For without that, there is no need to “fight climate change” and they have no right to tax us. They have already raised the prices of petrol and electricity by their ETS scheme. This submission also available as a pdf (50KB).

The Hon Dr Nick Smith. Campaigner against dangerous influences on global temperature caused by human activities. Recently was dead against the idea and warned the rest of us against it in no uncertain terms.

I operate a blog, the Climate Conversation Group, whose well-informed readers over the past four years have had thousands of conversations about climate, climate changes, their causes and likely effects. We oppose the Minister’s intention to gazette the country’s 2050 target reductions in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. These are our objections to the gazetting.

Noting that 39 years remain in which to achieve these so-called “reductions”, the gazetting strikes us as primarily a marketing exercise rather than a sincere attempt to influence the climate. The Government’s intention to achieve mere public relations purposes is confirmed when the Minister denies even the possibility of influencing the climate and in the same breath talks instead about our reputation.

New Zealand alone cannot have much impact on global climate change… As a trading nation, New Zealand depends on its international reputation and its strong clean and green image.

Who is to say whether the natural course of New Zealand’s emissions during the next 39 years will be upwards or downwards? It could be that the emission levels specified here will at some time in the future be achieved only by increasing our emissions. Who is to say what technological innovations will improve our ability to generate energy without GHG emissions? What if we embrace nuclear power generation? What if the climate cools? Read more… »

 

Questions raised over review of NZ temps

On 16 December, 2010, just before Christmas, just after the Parliament had risen for the year, just as the citizenry were rushing around doing Christmassy things and just as, necessarily, their oh-so-short memories of the year just gone were fading, NIWA released their long-promised review of the official New Zealand temperature record (NZTR).

The Australian Bureau of Meteorology gave it some luke-warm approval. In a letter dated 14 December, following their ‘peer review’ of NIWA’s ‘Review Report,’ Neil Plummer, Acting Assistant Director (Climate Information Services), at first gives this description of what the review would involve:

In this context ‘scientific review’ means a critical inspection/examination of the station reports taking into account the range of supporting evidence provided. The ideas, methods and conclusions of the papers are assessed for scientific error, internal consistency, clarity and scientific logic.

The data and methodology provided in the reports from NIWA are taken as an accurate representation of the actual analyses undertaken. We are not in a position to question all of the underlying analyses and data that have contributed to the final results, such as methods used to compile raw data taken at stations. We do, however, perform some independent analyses as appropriate to the aims of the review as outlined above.

Mr Plummer states clearly that they accept the data and the methodology presented by NIWA without questioning it. He also helpfully points out what the peer review will not do. Then he goes on in that vein at such length that he gives us the impression he doesn’t really want to review NIWA’s report at all. It would be too hard. Read more… »

 

NIWA refuses our OIA request—but why?

… continued from my initial post describing the weak endorsement from the Bureau of Meteorology of NIWA’s review of the official NZ temperature record (NZTR) and my subsequent demand under the OIA for copies of correspondence with the Bureau.

What has NIWA got to hide? They bought the Australian Bureau’s advice with taxpayer’s money — why is it being kept secret? Why can’t we see everything the Australians told their colleagues at NIWA? It’s only the temperature record, for goodness’ sake!

That’s not yet a state secret. It’s not like giving away the number of windmills we’re planning to build, or anything. Read more… »

Ken Perrott uses his mouth a lot. Now he puts his foot in it, along with his mate Gareth.

Then Renowden joins him

Our most vocal critic, Ken Perrott, has chanced upon a file I just posted, containing the unadjusted temperature data which was the subject of our paper, Are We Feeling Warmer Yet? (AWFWY), published here in November, 2009.

His response is to claim we made a big error. However, without realising it, Perrott actually accuses Dr Jim Salinger and NIWA itself of that error, because we just copied what Salinger did; what NIWA still does.

Most of Ken’s article at Open Parachute is pious ad hominem nonsense. There’s no reason to respond to all the arm-waving, so the sole point at issue is how to present an annual series with missing data.

The purpose of AWFWY was to compare the NIWA-adjusted Seven-station Series (7SS) with the unadjusted data. It was therefore necessary to use the same techniques as NIWA, insofar as they had been disclosed or were discernible. We had Salinger’s spreadsheet of adjusted readings, and we just did what Salinger did — he averaged years with missing data according to the number of available stations. Exactly what Perrott complains about.

You can see that from the spreadsheet. If you doubt that fact, just ask NIWA. Read more… »

Here’s a comment made today by Ken Perrott. Unfortunately his comments are copied immediately on Sciblogs, lending them a dignity they don’t deserve. Ken referred to the CCG as containing:

“puerile sarcasm aimed at denying the credibility of scientists and honest science.”

I don’t believe there is any “puerile sarcasm” here, and I would like to keep it that way. It’s acceptable to have one’s scientific thinking challenged or refuted, but the only way to brush off these insults is to be innocent of the alleged activity.

Anyway, we will agree, I’m sure, that Ken is fully skilled in judging the appearance and use of puerile sarcasm.

I encourage him now to address the scientific arguments given throughout this site against the theory of dangerous anthropogenic global warming.

But, considering his post simply offers juvenile mockery of those who disagree with him, I don’t expect very much. Perhaps he will surprise me.

The finger of God, which Man approaches so closely. Do they ever meet?

OH, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgment Seat;
But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,
When two strong men stand face to face, tho’ they come from the ends of the earth!

from The Ballad of East and West
by Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936)

Toward a conversation

A reader of the Climate Conversation, Matt Flaherty, has made some intelligent and generous comments after taking yours truly to task for issuing a partially misleading press release last December.

Those comments deserve proper consideration in this separate post, for Matt raises the superb subject of what we ought to call each other in the climate debate. I’d like us to have a go at resolving this.

It would be especially interesting to hear from the ‘pro-AGW’ readers who have commented here lately, like the perspicacious Keith Hunter, David Winter, Matt Flaherty of course, and any others who have been just lurking until now. How would you like to be characterised, if at all?

For simplicity, there are two sides: the ‘warmists’ and the ‘deniers’; those on the one hand compelled to believe that mankind is destroying the planet and those on the other hand who cannot believe it. Read more… »

James Delingpole—alive, well and, we hope, undamaged after the efforts of this uppity slayer.

Wherein Flaherty is thanked and congratulated, it is explained where Flaherty goes wrong in his criticisms of me, and the reader is reminded of what is still outstanding in connection with NIWA’s Review report. Delingpole gains a mention.

Matt Flaherty has been visiting us recently, questioning me about the New Zealand (you can’t believe it’s official!) Temperature Record. Matt wrote recently on James Delingpole and the “denialism” of “climate change.” That tells you where Matt’s understanding lies. Anyone who a) uses the term climate denier, and b) considers that an intelligent person is capable of denying that climate changes, something akin to denying the earth revolves around the sun, demonstrates a voluntary level of ignorance and a lack of incentive to listen.

Having somehow become aware of the CCG, he thought to use us as an example of

how one should deal with a denialist of Delingpole’s ilk

Matt elevates me to dizzying heights, for which I thank him. But I protest I’m unworthy, just an honest toiler for truth, not even in the same league as consummate wordsmiths like James (right about everything) Delingpole.

He cites the Daily Bayonet and Bishop Hill, who mangled the message of my Dec 2010 press release, but he is wrong to blame this messenger for that, and quotes (accurately) from that press release: Read more… »

UPDATE 1, 2 JAN 2011, 23:10 NZT

An answer for RW, of Hot Topic — see end.

There, I did it again — ventured over to Hot Topic. When will I learn?

Briefly optimistic someone wanted answers and really was listening, I was called liar and worse, then quickly censored. “Open and frank discussion forum”, indeed!

I’m posting the deleted response to Gareth’s demand for an apology and a reply to an HT reader. diessoli — see the end of this post for my response to your comments.

WARNING

What follows is just “I said, he said” argy-bargy. It’s not important and is posted simply to document my last encounter with the proprietor at Hot Topic, Gareth Renowden. I think the exchange typifies his lack of charity and his stubborn refusal to admit that NIWA has made or even could make a mistake, but others will have a different opinion.

It started with a visit to read about an ‘award’ HT published (actually recycled from the Pacific Institute) — the 2010 Climate B.S. of the Year Award. NOTE: BS means Bad Science, apparently. Anyway, you can verify my conversation there if you’ve a mind to hurt yourself.

I left a short note pointing out the hilarity of awarding a prize to four unrelated statements and making a couple of comments. Gareth asked me, as he often does, to apologise for my “smear campaign against NZ climate scientists.”

I sent this response: Read more… »

Prof Keith Hunter — making a name for colourful language.

BoMshell: where is the real review? Go to end

I’ve discovered an extraordinary exchange on a warmist blog in which a senior NZ scientist, supportive of the CAGW theory and now a top university administrator, is goaded beyond his endurance and discards his carefully-nurtured, hard-won scientific training, descending into gutter language.

I seldom visit this warmist blog, it being for the most part misleading vitriol. But this exchange offers unexpectedly an irresistible deliciousness.

At Hot Topic on December 22, Gareth Renowden posted “A Christmas cracker for the cranks” (he loves that word ‘crank’, pulls it out all the time, uses nothing else) which set off a bright burst of champion rhetoric on his blog.

An especially scintillating exchange occurred when Professor Keith Hunter, Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Sciences) at the University of Otago, turned up to support the comments Renowden made about the press releases from the CCG and the CSC regarding NIWA’s review of the NZ temperature record, released just before Christmas.

I know little about Keith Hunter, although he was the subject of comment here after an extraordinary peroration when we decided to take NIWA to court. He is making a name for colourful language.

Prof Hunter is a vice-president of the Royal Society of New Zealand and a former national president of the New Zealand Institute of Chemistry. He’s a senior scientist, an establishment heavyweight and quite probably a super person. Read more… »

The CCG has responded to this happy news by issuing a press release.

The foam from a glass of ale. A common example of the innocent utility of carbon dioxide and another explanation of why, in our quest to reduce our so-called “carbon footprint”, some areas of life will always be out-of-bounds.

Wrong again, huh?

Hot Topic, in a post endearingly headed “I’ve been wrong before“, berates the CCG for reporting a criticism of the Royal Society. Chemist Dr Klaus L. E. Kaiser published evidence of miscalculations by the RS which was supported by Swedish Professor of Applied Mathematics, Claes Johnson.

But unfortunately the confidence shown by Gareth Renowden in rebutting this criticism of the Royal Society does not extend to admitting the extent of uncertainty about the carbon dioxide cycle. To listen to Gareth, you’d think the science was settled, but in fact there are substantial unknowns.

He introduces his rebuttal (ignoring his opening paragraph, which contains ad hominem remarks) with this:

Unfortunately for Kaiser and Sullivan, the Royal Society (otherwise known as the most august of scientific institutions, 350 years old this year) didn’t make any schoolboy errors. The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is determined by the interchange of carbon between the atmosphere, oceans and biosphere. Over the last few hundred years the ocean and biosphere have been doing us a big favour by absorbing two thirds of the CO2 we’ve emitted. The balance has been steadily accumulating, which is why atmospheric CO2 has risen from 280 ppm to 390 ppm.

This seems to be true, although the proportion of human emissions being absorbed by natural processes is specified variously, by different authorities, between about 45% and the 66% Gareth mentions. But whatever figure you take, it does leave a “balance” of an amount which “steadily accumulates”, accounting for a rise in atmospheric concentration from about 280 ppmv to about 390 ppmv now.

But watch the pea under the cup. Read more… »

I’ve activated a new theme, called Blocks2. No, BLOCKS2!! It gives comment numbers, which makes it really easy to refer to the comment you’re responding to, plus it allows threaded comments, letting you reply to a particular comment, indenting as it goes.

Let’s see how it works for a few days; let me know when something seems broken. I’m keen to make things easier, not more difficult!

Now we can refer directly to comment numbers, which are consistent and unchanging within a thread.

Let me know of problems.

— Richard T

Rodney Hide, Minister of Local Government and Leader of the ACT Party. Just made the Climate Conversation Group an offer we can’t refuse: suggest questions to ask Nick Smith and Wayne Mapp in the Parliament.

We have been offered, dear reader, an outstanding opportunity to engage in climate activism.

A reader, Huub Bakker, commented yesterday on What’s left of the NIWA case, saying:

Where does all this leave the Government legally? Should all the previous conclusions be re-evaluated? Will the plastering job of the new NZTR be sufficient? Any thoughts from Rodney Hide, who I know reads this blog?

And this afternoon Rodney responded:

Amazing! And very disturbing about the state of science at NIWA.

What next? I am not sure.

Perhaps readers could suggest questions for the Minister Responsible for Climate Change Issues, Nick Smith, and the Minister of Research, Science and Technology (in Charge of NIWA), Wayne Mapp?

No other country can do this

That’s a remarkable offer, Rodney, and we’ll take you up on that, thank you.

Folks: let’s not underestimate either the significance of Rodney’s suggestion or the power of our questions. For overseas readers: Ministers of the Crown are under an obligation to answer correctly-phrased questions in the Parliament; they cannot decline. The difficulty is that you need to be a member of the House to ask the questions. Hence the importance of Rodney’s suggestion. Let us use it wisely.

Overseas readers included

Read more… »

NIWA makes some strange denials in their statement of defence. But Renowden, stupidly, tries to deny their denials.

Just a quick response to Hot Topic’s insipid rebuttal to my update on Wednesday to our stoush with NIWA. I’ll write in more detail later.

In NIWA V CRANKS 4: SHOOT OUT AT THE FANTASY FACTORY this morning, Renowden, in typically slippery style, omits in every material instance the fact that NIWA’s statements in their Statement of Defence are precisely what I say they were.

In other words, he doesn’t refute what I say. Anyone can verify this by getting the two Statements and comparing them; Read more… »

I apologise to our overseas friends, supporters and casual visitors who came here over the past 24 hours or so wanting to know the latest development in our long-running national temperature saga but instead found a story so hard to follow it was worse than finding footprints through a coal mine at night while wearing sunglasses.

I’m sorry we let you down

Our local supporters found it informative, but they’ve been following events more closely. For those who haven’t been so close it was very frustrating.

It was my fault. I completely misjudged the interest this story would generate. It was especially regrettable since I’m keen to encourage investigations into climate organisations around the world and this hardly gives a good example of how to proceed.

Your presence here has been a tremendous boost to everyone involved; the web traffic stats have gone through the roof and we’re grateful for your visits. It’s all helping to spread important anti-consensus messages where just a short time ago there were almost none.

But not only was the story difficult to penetrate, the two most important supporting documents weren’t yet available online. I thought it would be a simple matter of posting them on this web site, and what would it matter if they were posted a few hours after releasing the article (who would notice? — FAIL!) but the legal advisor said keep it on the originator’s official site. It took precious time for messages to go between the people involved and the files were posted late this morning (when I wasn’t here to announce it).

Pretty busy right now

On a personal note: I must earn a living, so most mornings I’m away from the home office. It means that for six to eight hours a day there’s no response on the web site. Also, the end of the university semester is a busy time, with students wanting their reports and papers edited, which takes up another two to six hours per day, so I have little time to spare on this most enjoyable climate pastime. If I am slow to respond, please forgive me; I will get around to answering you, but perhaps not quickly.

This climate work is at the moment a pastime; I would prefer it to be a full-time activity but I haven’t found a sponsor…

The next major job is to write a report on the temperature saga in a way that lets our overseas brothers and sisters share in the excitement. It won’t be tomorrow or even the day after, but it will arrive and it will be something to look forward to, I promise.

It will be as thrilling as any story about a disputed national temperature record, strange decisions in a public agency, unpaid sleuths fighting bureaucracy, ancient feuds, simmering tensions, budget blowouts, questions in the Parliament and conspiracies that circle the globe.

Who could miss it? Stay tuned.

Either that, or read all the previous posts, plus those Statements of Claim and Defence and write a story for us. We’ll post it if it’s good enough.

Cheers.

– Richard

The previous post here, Observations on NIWA’s Statement of Defence, referred to the Statement of Claim and the Statement of Defence concerning the Application for Judicial Review that the NZ Climate Science Education Trust is bringing against the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA).

My apologies to all our readers who would have expected immediate access to these documents which have been filed at the High Court in Auckland. They are now available on the NZ Climate Science Coalition web site here:

http://tinyurl.com/23eplfy

I look forward to some informed comments and perhaps enlightenment.

– Richard.

A letter sent to the NZ Herald on 25 August that remains unpublished.

Sir,

In “Exercise degrees of common sense“, on Wednesday August 18, Brian Rudman loses his journalistic poise and jeers gracelessly at the “flat-earth” members of the NZ Climate Science Coalition.

When he asserts that they deny “man-made global warming” he is dead wrong. He is welcome to interview us, which might stop him from consulting his imagination. The Coalition does not dispute that human activity possibly has an influence on the climate but it questions the magnitude of that influence.

The IPCC also questions it, for it claims only a 90% to 95% probability of human influence. Note that is an opinion without evidence, unless one considers flawed climate models to be evidence.

The Coalition knows there are good reasons to adjust temperature records; Rudman ignores the fact that, rather than challenging NIWA for making changes, we just asked them what the changes were. He should wonder why they have still not told us. If they did, we would promptly stop asking for them.

Brian Rudman, senior journalist.

He might also wonder why NIWA repeatedly give the example of an altitude change to the Thorndon/Kelburn temperature record, when they didn’t actually make any altitude-based changes to any stations.

Rudman’s reference to “mystery money-bags funding the coalition” is offensive nonsense. Members analyse, consult and write about climate matters in their own time for no payment. The Coalition is made up of volunteers, it is not wealthy and will rely on fund-raising if the suit must go to court.

The only “money-bags” able to buy staff and consultants in the climate debate are the great NGOs like WWF and Greenpeace, with annual budgets of around $600 million each. The giant enviros far out-muscle the marketing budgets of any group of sceptics. The energy companies climbed aboard the warming bandwagon long ago and don’t fund sceptics.

But our suit is not about the global warming debate. It asks for simple clarity and accuracy in public temperature records. We cannot submit a paper “backing our claims”, as some suggest, because we’re not making any claims — we’re wanting to review the national temperature record and we’re asking a couple of questions that NIWA hasn’t answered.

Since being asked by the Coalition to describe how they obtained the temperature record and finding they were unable to do so, NIWA are recreating it from scratch.

The sooner these simple facts are acknowledged by responsible journalists the sooner reason will return to this important matter of public interest. Kiwis deserve to have a national temperature record they can trust but at the moment it is dubious.

Baby stars developing in the Small Magellanic Cloud. An image taken in 2004, but it shows events that occurred 200,000 years ago. Still, in Time…

I want to revisit some false arguments fabricated ages ago by our critics: time-worn errors which need re-rebutting, because they are still surfacing. These smooth myths, one might say, are nicked all over with imperfections. And mists cover everything.

The main spurious argument holds that the Climate Science Coalition says there’s no reason to adjust the raw temperature readings. That is false: we think there are good reasons for adjustments. What we actually say is that NIWA has made changes but refuses to reveal what they are.

A related myth is that NIWA has given us everything we asked for — simply by releasing the net arithmetical adjustments to each station. The reality is that, first, a net change isn’t enough because there could be multiple changes at a station. Second, the number by itself is useless; any reviewer needs the reason for each change. This is what NIWA has refused to tell us, yet both bits of data are required for any independent assessment of the accuracy of the temperature record. Read more… »

The book Hot Topic is as mistaken in its theme as in its angst-ridden depiction of a melting New Zealand. It is superfluous.

Yes, it was I, twice masquerading under another name, trying to inject some reason into the comments at Hot Topic.

I have always refused the notion of not signing my own opinion, but being censored over there forced my hand; unfortunately, being a neophyte forger unveiled it.

Nonetheless, I said nothing I haven’t said elsewhere or wouldn’t be prepared to say openly. But Renowden’s comments reveal a continued avoidance of every topic I raise, so I’ll go another round.

GR: “What a pity he doesn’t have the courage to post under his own name.”

A cheap shot, this; entirely personal and nothing to do with the matter. It’s also illogical, for every time I post a comment, Renowden refuses to publish it. To have the temerity then to criticise me provides the very definition of framing someone.

GR: “Earlier today he … all but called me a liar.”

Since he made three false statements, one could be justified in doing so. The more interesting comment was that, if Renowden still disagrees the [adjustment] methodology is unavailable, he is a truffle short of a lunch. He doesn’t respond to that, but good on him for ignoring the ad hominem bits, even when they’re amusing. Read more… »

This astonishing emotional outburst from Professor Hunter recalls some of the most desperate days of World War II. But all he achieves is to caricature NIWA’s position. Of his opinion on the factual matters of our suit against NIWA, we are not informed.

Keith Hunter becomes deeply afraid for the future as we announce our review of NIWA’s behaviour. Why?

He says this, all timorous, intimidated and grateful for the gentle haven that is Hot Topic (as long as you agree with them):

I want to say how gratified I am that on this day of reckoning, the scientific community and the blogosphere have got behind our friends at NIWA and come out with so many statements of support. Make no mistake, this effort by the NZ*C*S*C is an attack on science and and [sic] attack on integrity. I, for one, will not put up with it! I am hugely comforted by the letters and phone calls of support I have received today. Maybe finally the mainstream scientists of this country are waking up to what the NZ*C*S*C is trying to do. Let there be no doubt – this is another attack on integrity [sic] of the science system. We defeated this when the Nazis did it, we defeated it when the Soviets did it, and we will continue to defeat it! And in case you think it [sic], let me remind you – all it takes for scientific untruths to survive is for honest men and women to ignore them.

So it’s a day of reckoning. The Coalition mounts an attack on science and on integrity. He is not putting up, is hugely comforted and confident we will defeat it. As we did with the Nazis and the Soviets and shall continue.

One question: let you remind us in case we think what?

I fail to see how the question “what adjustments did you make and why” can be interpreted to mean all this.

I fail to see how this expostulating answers the assertion that ethical standards were not observed.

I cannot fail to observe how the scientist loses his grip on reality. A day of reckoning? An attack on science?!

Our application for an independent judicial examination of the national temperature record now featured on WUWT.

The tireless Anthony Watts reports our legal claim against NIWA (h/t to Andy).

May it encourage climate realists around the world to make a similar study of their national temperature history.

Has anyone actually read our application for a judicial examination of the national temperature record? Or the backgrounder we so thoughtfully prepared? Or seen our simple, spectacular graph?

Wow! What an explosion of nonsense.

Hearing some of the comments about our court action against NIWA, you could be forgiven for thinking that the Coalition was made up of stupid people.

But the stupid ones are those mouthing off a torrent of misinformation against us without reading what we’ve actually lodged with the High Court. I have time only for a couple.

Commentator the First

Gareth Renowden, of Hot Topic, was interviewed this morning on Radio NZ by Sean Plunket. He said, among other things, the following:

I’ve been following [the Coalition's] rather weird obsession with the New Zealand temperature record very closely on the blog.

It’s not a weird obsession, Gareth, it’s a weird and impenetrable temperature record, which you would know by now if you had bothered to take a look at it.

… all that Bryan [Leyland] wants is already there. The raw data you can download from NIWA. The adjustments that are required have been listed by NIWA; the methodology for doing it is available in the peer-reviewed literature; it’s incredibly non-controversial to climate scientists and meteorologists that you need to make adjustments.

Gareth here offers three false statements (I still hesitate to call them lies, though he has made them before) and a diversion. Read more… »

More about a judicial examination of the national temperature record.

The following sets out the background of the NZCSC’s application and provides some vital context.

The National Institute for Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) is a Crown Research Institute (CRI), contracted by the Government to be its sole adviser on scientific issues relating to climate change.

NIWA’s National Climate Centre is responsible for maintaining the National Climate database, mainly comprising records compiled by the NZ Met Service during the period 1853-1992. This archive finds its greatest significance in the New Zealand Temperature Record (NZTR), showing mean average surface temperatures throughout the twentieth century.

In 1999, the National Climate Centre adopted a “Seven-station Series” (7SS) as the basis of the NZTR. The stations (Auckland, Masterton, Wellington, Nelson, Hokitika, Lincoln & Dunedin) are geographically spread and considered to represent New Zealand as a whole. The 7SS graph and spreadsheet appear on NIWA’s website www.niwa.co.nz/news-and-publications/news/all/2009/nz-temp-record. Read more… »

NIWA’s temperature adjustments to be weighed in the scales of justice.

In an unprecedented move, the High Court at Auckland has been asked by the NZ Climate Science Coalition to invalidate NIWA’s official national temperatures.

Papers filed last week by the NZ Climate Science Education Trust ask the High Court to invalidate the New Zealand official temperature record (NZTR) developed and promoted by the Crown Research Institute, NIWA. NIWA maintains temperature archives for the past century, and attempts to forecast temperatures for the next century. These records form the basis of NIWA’s scientific advice to central and local government on issues relating to climate change.

All manner of documents published by NIWA claim that NZ’s temperature rose over the last hundred years by 0.9°C, supported by their specially-adjusted readings from their specially-selected weather stations.

Around the world, temperature records have been coming under closer scrutiny as people have discovered quality problems and even outright dishonesty affecting their national temperature history. Read more… »

Nick Smith, one of our leaders. We would hold him to account for many of his statements on the ETS.

Dr Smith will be at the Royal Akarana Yacht Club tonight, speaking on the Emissions Trading Scheme. The meeting begins at 7:30 pm.

I’ll be there. I encourage anyone of a sceptical cast of mind to attend also and together we can put some pointed questions.

Come early, introduce yourself to me (white beard, black jacket). We can support each other and the cause of truth.

Shiny links. Here you can find all the articles we’ve written on the NIWAgate fiasco. There is (or there will be) historical and miscellaneous material linked here, too, such as recent letters.

About six months ago, on November 25, 2009, the CCG and the NZ Climate Science Coalition (CSC) published a brief study entitled Are we feeling warmer yet? that proved to be fairly controversial.

Since then the ACT Party, through John Boscawen and Rodney Hide, have applied considerable pressure in the Parliament to NIWA and its minister, Wayne Mapp. The questions they have asked have delivered copious information about the official New Zealand temperature record produced by NIWA.

The Climate Conversation blog has teased out the detail of most of the relevant issues over the six months since we first revealed the existence of these problems. However, locating all the relevant threads is far too difficult. This summary article will sketch out what has happened, from publication of our paper to now, loosely chronological but also bunching some related issues together. Its purpose is to provide a series of links to all the articles, in an easy-to-follow form.

It will include links to evidentiary material like the correspondence with Mace and historical records such as the Hessell 1980 paper, etc.

For now, it must be a work in progress, since it’s time-consuming to locate all the material. But this is a start.

I’ve decided to add a tag or two to the relevant posts, which will make it easy to find them. That will take some time. You can search our site for specific topics marked with tags. Scroll down until you find the heading Tags in the right-hand panel. Click a tag to list all the articles relevant to that topic.

Topics containing most of the stories of our fight with NIWA over the official national temperature record include:

NIWA
Climate research
Climate science

Some stories are filed under:

Climate Conversation Group
Global warming (though almost everything is filed there!)

You’ll find some posts dealing with the parliamentary questions filed under:
ACT
Parliament

Over the next few days I’ll add the magic tags “NZ temperature records” and “NIWAgate” to relevant stories so they will be truly easy to find. I’ll update this post as I make substantial changes.

Please accept my apologies for not making it easier for you to find the relevant stories. I’ll fix it as soon as I can.

Peeling the onion in the Parliament. Like the onion, everything associated with Parliament has layers. As we make our way through the Parliamentary questions we discover more and more.

We’re working through several answers from the Hon Wayne Mapp, Minister of Research, Science and Technology, concerning questions posed by ACT about the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA). This is a real good one, you just have to know what happened elsewhen to appreciate the depth of its stupidity.

Proposed NIWA-gate screenplay

Weekly NIWA management meeting

“OK, Dave, we’ve received a request from the Coalition for all the info from when Jim put together … no, old Jim … put together the national temp series. It’s pretty dusty, but there’s something in those old boxes, I’ve seen them moving. What should we send them?”

“Damn! Who the hell told them about the Act! Look, don’t SEND them ANYthing. Official information! That Act doesn’t really apply to us. This is war, we’re trying to save the planet, ah, national security’s at stake here, ah, these are operational matters and ah, we don’t have to answer questions. Oh, Tim, don’t look so worried, Wayne’ll back us up; he always has. He doesn’t have a clue what’s going on. Let’s move forward. What’s next? Come on.”

Actually, boys, the game is up.

When the Hon Dr Mapp was asked in the Parliament “what source material was consulted in [the] preparation [of the specific document of adjustments to the Hokitika site]“, why did you advise the minister to answer this week as follows? Read more… »

All the posts on NIWA’s web site criticising the Coalition, me and the study we published have just been removed. The articles defending NIWA’s performance regarding the national temperature record have also been removed from the web site.

Is this the start of something fresh and open from the Board of Directors?

The book Hot Topic is as mistaken in its theme as in its angst-ridden depiction of a melting New Zealand. It’s author defends NIWA, no matter what, yet NIWA’s own graph demonstrates no New Zealand warming since about 1950. Why doesn’t he believe what they’re telling us? His book is entirely superfluous.

I see now that two days ago Ken Perrott made a short but incorrect comment at Hot Topic which should be rebutted:

My comments at Treadgold’s blog are now deleted.

Ken, whose repetitive comments here, with their artificial argumentation, became quite vexing, risks misleading Hot Topic’s readers into believing I deleted all his comments. For that is not true.

Actually, only Ken’s latest comment was deleted, for being derogatory, personal and in bad taste. I deleted a comment only after repeated warnings not to indulge in ad hominem remarks, which he ignored. It’s easy to verify that all his previous comments are still sitting here, ready to illuminate us.

Just stand around shouting insults

No doubt pluralising his “comment” was indeliberate and I look forward to his apology when he hears of my rebuttal.

Looking at some of the other comments, I’m surprised to see that scarcely a sentence mentions the national temperature record, which is what I’m talking about. Or perhaps not surprised, having noticed before that most contributors there (but not all) seem happy just to stand around muttering insults.

I might say that some of the remarks are in the most dreadfully poor taste. It’s a wonder that Mr Renowden lets them stand.

However, I should congratulate him on his writing this time. For a post that basically tells me to naff off from his blog, it is remarkably well-researched. I suppose I should feel flattered he went to such trouble over someone unimportant, without influence, not threatening or notable. Read more… »

Peeling the onion in the Parliament. Like the onion, everything associated with Parliament has layers. As we make our way through the Parliamentary questions we discover more and more.

We’re working through several answers from the Hon Wayne Mapp, Minister of Research, Science and Technology, concerning questions posed by ACT about the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA).

A further question asked the minister why he tabled the Hokitika analysis instead of an analysis for all seven stations, as Rodney Hide had asked and David Wratt had agreed to do during the December meeting of MPs. Nick Smith prevented a record being kept of that famous meeting, so the only account of it came from Rodney Hide in a late-night phone call. You can read it here on the CCG blog.

If you haven’t seen the “NIWA squirms” article before, I’ll ask you to take particular notice of this part:

Rodney said, “That’s the sort of thing [a description of the adjustments at Wellington] I want to see for every site.” Wratt admitted there were other adjustments at Hokitika. Rodney said, “Well, just explain those, then do the same for the other five sites” [Rodney thought that the Wellington adjustments had been described, so only five sites remained. It proved to be untrue — they have still not described Wellington, so there are six to go.]

Rodney’s request to see all seven stations is unambiguous and undeniable. Read more… »

Peeling the onion in the Parliament. Like the onion, everything associated with Parliament has layers. As we make our way through the Parliamentary questions we discover more and more.

We’re working through several answers from the Hon Wayne Mapp, Minister of Research, Science and Technology, concerning questions posed by ACT about the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA).

One question concerns the production of what we have referred to as the Schedule of Adjustments (SOA). It’s simply a statement of what changes were made to the raw temperature readings, why and when, in order to record the scientific justification for them.

The Climate Conversation Group (CCG) and the NZ Climate Science Coalition (CSC) have been asking NIWA since November to disclose the SOA. Privately, they have told us they are “reconstructing” the SOA, and, indeed, on February 9, they quietly posted a list of all the adjustments to the seven-station series together with a discussion of the reasons for Hokitika. Well done, them.

On January 30, Eloise Gibson wrote in the NZ Herald:

The country’s climate forecaster is bowing to public pressure and putting all of its temperature data and calculations on the internet because of mistrust fuelled by errors overseas.

Principal climate scientist James Renwick said Niwa had decided to bare all because “if we don’t we appear to be hiding something”.

Two people in Niwa’s climate group have prepared a full set of documents including all the data from climate stations and a full explanation of the adjustments made to records, which should be available online in about a week.

Read more… »

Peeling the onion in the Parliament. The NZ Parliament Building in the capital, Wellington. The attached “Beehive” (affectionate local name bestowed for obvious reasons), provides office accommodation for MPs and staff. Questions asked in the Parliament of ministers of the Crown must be answered unless they concern “operational matters”. Like the onion, everything associated with the Parliament has many layers. As we make our way through the Parliamentary questions it’s surprising what is being uncovered.

We’re working through several answers from the Hon Wayne Mapp, Minister of Research, Science and Technology, concerning questions posed by ACT about the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA). Some of the answers are bombshells. One reveals that NIWA lost vital worksheets used by Dr Salinger in constructing the national temperature record.

The next question I’ll discuss concerns adjustments NIWA made to the national temperature record. ACT asked a simple question about them, which was this:

… how many of the years before 1950 had their temperature adjusted downward in the NIWA “Seven-Station” Temperature Series and how many upward; and how many of the years after 1950 had their temperature adjusted downward and how many upward?

Read more… »

A destroyed hard disk drive. When it’s in this condition nobody can retrieve the information. Does this represent NIWA’s reputation?

NIWA have admitted that vital original material used to prepare the official New Zealand temperature records was deleted. They do not say when it happened, but it means that, in contravention of time-honoured principles of good science, NIWA is no longer able to verify the work done by Dr Jim Salinger.

The news came in an answer to a written parliamentary question from ACT and comes as NIWA is under pressure to justify the so-called “seven-station” time series that forms the centrepiece of their evidence of long-term warming.

The Climate Conversation Group (CCG), in association with the NZ Climate Science Coalition (CSC), published a report last November into apparent irregularities in the New Zealand temperature record. Read more… »

NIWA’s raw data from each site in graphical format, showing when each adjustment was made and its magnitude. These are the facts at the heart of our paper, no matter that our critics can talk only of the opinions it expresses. Instead, they should address their attention to these facts and recognise that NIWA refused, without reason, to release the adjustment details, giving us false references that sent us on a wild-goose chase. Then they ought to ask why NIWA did this.

The paper we published last November continues to attract attention. The sceptics like it since it seems to refute any warming in New Zealand and the warmists like it since it seems to present a loutish, unscientific punching bag.

The truth lies more moderately somewhere in between.

The sceptics shouldn’t look to our paper to refute local warming, because it doesn’t. It presents no evidence on the quality of the national temperature graph — it merely questions the data, expresses strong doubts about their accuracy and wonders what adjustments were made to them.

Salinger contradicts Wratt in writing

Those looking for a refutation of New Zealand warming actually need look no further than NIWA’s own graph of the New Zealand annual temperature series, which shows no significant warming since about 1950. Here’s a copy:

NIWA’s graph of the NZ annual temperature series.

In confirmation of this, Dr Jim Salinger expressly claims that the NZ temperature increase over the last 50 years is only 0.3°C. In an email to Vincent Gray in 2006 he said:

A linear trend fitted to the data over the period 1950 – 2005 is equivalent to an increase of 0.4°C over that period (or 0.3°C fitting a trend to the last 50 years, 1955 – 2005).

That’s a far cry from 0.92°C over the last 100 years, which is what David Wratt last claimed. The first 50 years must have been scorching! Read more… »

A cold-blooded lizard has empathy and a sense of concern for its fellow creatures.

There continues such a stream of cold-blooded invective over at Hot Topic, one marvels they have the will to ignore the point for such long periods.

They discovered ACT’s questions in Parliament yesterday and have shared with the world the following pearls of understanding.

Gareth (after reading John’s first question): What “schedule of adjustments”? That’s just a term made up by Treadgold. Who writes your questions, John?

Picking up on that term is weak and quite ignores the thrust of the question. I didn’t make it up, but it’s jolly useful. James Renwick uses the term, so we’re in good company (or Renwick is).

Rob Taylor contributed: Evidently, ACT and NZ”C”SC are joined at the hip – one couple who truly do deserve each other!

Mindless twaddle.

password1: Speaker was ’sympathetic’ to the ACT’s member’s point of order. Transcript: [link]

Ah, some information!

Gareth: Hide’s supplementaries sound as though Treadgold wrote them for him. ACT are clearly hell-bent on supporting the CSC and CCG smear campaign. More fool them.

What’s wrong with me writing them (though I didn’t)? What smears? Show me a smear.

So, after this pointless arm-waving, what about NIWA not keeping a schedule of adjustments? You’re not enlightening us one bit, lads.

The inter the face egg.

It’s hard to know what Mr Renowden is trying to say in his post attacking me/us. Entitled Egg/face interface for Hide and the climate cranks, it asks for an apology from us/me but fails to mention what for.

I’ll have a closer look soon and comment on it. But it looks like the same tiresome stuff, I fear, as we’ve dealt with already. NIWA have told us that they don’t have all the records to give us a full answer but they will reconstruct them and show us why the adjustments are justified. To demonstrate that, they’ve just released the adjustment schedule for Hokitika.

There’s no reason for us to apologise, but we have thanked them.

We (our scientists) are looking at the Hokitika adjustments. We’re also examining Salinger’s thesis. Finally. Hurrah. It’s catastrophically long so any opinion will be a while in coming.

Gareth’s rant has attracted a great many comments, a lot of them rambling off the topic, but too few of any value and, regrettably common at Hot Topic, too many of none.

Good grief!

I’ve just come across this video of Godfrey Bloom, Member of the European Parliament for Yorkshire. He was speaking in Strasbourg during the debate on the outcome of the Copenhagen summit on climate change when he gave this furious tirade against the belief in global warming.

The surprise for us was that, near the end, announcing that the New Zealand temperature database was “fraudulent”, he suddenly brandishes a copy of our report, Are we feeling warmer yet? It’s a dramatic moment!

So how about that, then?

On December 7 last year, I was invited to a political meeting hosted by John Boscawen, ACT list MP and all-round good guy, at the Royal Akarana Yacht Club in Auckland. I described the history of the joint CCG/CSC campaign to get the temperature adjustments from NIWA. Somebody was running a video camera.

This is the first half (9:41):

Here’s the second half (9:41): Read more… »

It’s always nice to be asked for our opinion, and especially so when it’s for public consumption. The friendly Kiran Chug (yes, that’s her surname, lovely person) gave the Climate Conversation Group a mention yesterday in her article Kiwi aids climate-change research overhaul.

Here’s a portion, quoting Martin Manning:

The goal was to come up with a “better approach in the future” which better co-ordinated research from different scientific areas and made it more useful to policy makers, he said.

“This is not about admitting that anything that has been done in the past is wrong.”

However, Richard Treadgold, from the Climate Conversation Group, said the scientists’ group was pre-empting its findings by assuming its research would need to be acted on by policymakers.

A climate change sceptic, he did not accept that models predicting the future could be evidence of climate change.

“Evidence is from the real world, that’s been observed. There’s no way computer models fulfil those requirements.”

Wellington scientist and climate change sceptic Vincent Gray said the researchers were continually coming up with “new models” but they were still “fiddling the figures” and were unlikely to restore public confidence in their work until their projections were proven.

The two versions of the official NZ temperature data — the NIWA graph in the foreground has been “adjusted” but NIWA doesn’t know how; the graph behind it shows raw NIWA temperatures since 1850; there’s no warming. Both graphs use official NIWA data, but NIWA don’t know what changes created the warming and, until they produce a replacement, there’s no scientific reason to accept that version. See larger versions of the raw and adjusted temperatures.

Regular readers will know that we asked NIWA how they adjusted the NZ temperature series. In reply, they distracted, deceived and disparaged us. We checked what they told us and it was false. They lose.

They admit they never had the temperature adjustments we were asking for. Why didn’t they just say so in the beginning? We and the NZ public await an apology for their dissembling.

They’ve done the hard thing and admitted the truth. So the good news is they can now get on with some real science. They say they will “recreate” the adjustments. Whatever they mean by that, it must be an improvement on trying to denigrate us when we ask for information. It is also good that they reexamine the 30-year-old claims of warming that wobble now they lack any scientific support. In fact, there is evidence they are false. More on that later. Read more… »

UPDATE 1 1st Feb, 11:16 pm: The second paragraph should have stated that Jim Renwick was quoted in the Herald, not Jim Salinger. My apologies; this has been corrected.

The unadjusted temperature readings from the seven weather stations NIWA selected for the official NZ temperature graph, presented as anomalies. Can they really not explain why their graph is different from this one? (Are We Feeling Warmer Yet? – NZCSC, CCG, 2009).

Heads must roll

Turning into farce

In an astounding admission of ineptitude, after their former arm-waving and expostulations of injustice, NIWA have finally confessed that they cannot provide the adjustments they made to the original temperature readings in the official NZ temperature record. Read more… »