I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. 14 months on from the start of the Treadgold/Climate “Science” Coalition/ACT campaign to cast doubt on the long term New Zealand temperature record, after parliamentary questions, much mud slinging at Jim Salinger and NIWA, legal action, and the expensive and time-wasting reconstruction of a temperature series that’s pretty much identical to the original, diligent digging by Open Parachute/Sciblogs blogger Ken Perrott has revealed a stunning level of statistical incompetence in the “paper” that started it all. Written and published by Richard Treadgold of the Climate Conversation Group, that “paper” contained a graph purporting to show a long term NZ temperature series constructed without adjustments for station moves.
A day or two ago, Treadgold posted a link to the underlying data at his blog, and Perrott — who has been requesting this information for most of the last year — was quick to download it and take a peek “under the hood” of Treadgold’s graph. And what he found was truly remarkable. Treadgold makes no allowances for missing data, makes no attempt to create a valid composite series, simply averages the numbers and plots them on a graph. There are a lot of gaps in the data — especially in the early years — so the “NZ” temperature is in some years just Dunedin, or Dunedin plus Wellington, or Wellington plus Auckland, and so on. Treadgold’s incredible statistical naivete allows him to not just compare apples to oranges, but to feijoas and konini berries as well. The result, of course, is a dog’s breakfast. To make matters worse, he then computed a trend on the data, and announced:
Straight away you can see there’s no slope—either up or down. The temperatures are remarkably constant way back to the 1850s. Of course, the temperature still varies from year to year, but the trend stays level—statistically insignificant at 0.06°C per century since 1850.
A whole political campaign has been constructed on the back of this statistical idiocy. Variations of Treadgold’s claim have been used in questions in Parliament. Valuable scientists’ time and tax payer money has been wasted pursuing his folly. The Climate “Science” Coalition are still desperately trying to keep the issue alive, hoping that if they can create enough smoke everyone will assume there’s a fire somewhere. Unfortunately for Barry Brill and his colleagues, Treadgold’s statistical incompetence undercuts their whole campaign. Do they really think the NZ public and politicians will take the word of a bunch that sling mud and smear scientists, when they are incapable of doing their own simple sums?
Congratulations to Ken for unmasking this fraud. I eagerly await the fulsome apology Treadgold owes to Jim Salinger, NIWA and the public of New Zealand. Perhaps the NZ C”S”C might offer to repay some of the tax payer funds wasted on this affair. But I won’t be holding my breath…
Meanwhile, I think it’s worth repeating the conclusion to my first post on this affair:
None of these cranks should be accorded any respect in future. By their words shall we know them, and their words show them to be ignorant, bullying fools. De Freitas [science advisor to the CSC] should withdraw and apologise, or resign from his post at Auckland University, and if Treadgold, Dunleavy, McShane, Leyland,or any other member of the NZ CSC want to partake in public debate on the subject of climate science, they should expect derision to be heaped on them and their views.
[Update 10/2: Prompted by Manfred’s comment below, I checked back over the original 7SS data and Treadgold’s spreadsheet — as well as with one or two people who might be expected to know 
— and it appears that taking a simple average of the annual anomalies in years where some stations reported no data was NIWA’s practise for the original 7 station series. It’s not ideal, particularly in the very early years when there are large gaps in the data, but it’s how it was done. Treadgold was therefore following established practise, in that one respect. I therefore apologise to Richard for echoing that specific allegation without first checking the data. However, this does not get him off the hook for the rest of his “analysis”, nor prompt me to change my overall conclusions. I accused him of “statistical idiocy” and that charge stands — not least because he derives his anomalies by taking unadjusted or raw station data and relating it to a 1971-2000 baseline derived from different stations at different locations using different measurement equipment, and then pretends that he’s made the warming disappear. Tell that to the glaciers…]
“Utter contempt” would be far too mild a phrase to describe the maunderings of this moron!
Oh dear!. How embarrassing for Treadgold.
Unbelievable.
I would call him a bullshit artist but that would be too generous.
> malfunction: irony meter goes off scale!… >
And there goes yet another half hour cleaning spillages out of the keyboard. (Embellished by placating the grumpy spouse awakened by a piercing cry of Whaaaat!!)
A simple review of the data by a number of experts would have stopped this in its tracks, hence scientists use peer review. These individuals however don’t care do they, 14 months of delay and BS thanks to their total lack of expertise.
Send the Treadgold/Climate “Science†Coalition/ACT campaign the bill for all the associated costs.
Actions have consequences and I rather suspect the NZ tax payer would like their money back.
Yes, it is going to be interesting to see who picks up the bill for the NZCSET court case…
be nice to see some transparency around the funding, that’s for sure
I hope, in fact I demand from NZ Herald and other news agencies that they will run this in a prominent place to set the public record straight.
Has anybody talked to the press about this? A mention on on column inch on a corner on page A14 will not do!
As far as Peer Review undertaken by the deniers: They do not have peers in their ranks to undertake such review and any capable scientist who would undertake such a review would tell them what they do not want to hear.
“Do they really think the NZ public and politicians will take the word of a bunch that sling mud and smear scientists, when they are incapable of doing their own simple sums?”
Sadly for the Rodney’s of the world I think they still will.
Absolutely second you Thomas, the record needs to be set straight very publicly somehow. News cameras in Treadgold’s and his political supporter’s faces asking for apologies would be nice.
notice how our in-house deniers have flocked in to denounce these statistical shenanigans? motes and beams…
Why are we not surprised? NZC”S”C is nothing but a franchise distributing propaganda to foster the lie that climate change is still a matter of “scientific debate”.
Their work here is done, which is why they and their sock puppets don’t even bother to defend their “research”.
Contemptible, but predictable – details matter less than headlines that manufacture doubt in the public sphere.
Why aren’t the deniaists decrying Treadgolds woo? I told you already no denialist can criticse another . Where would it stop?
The reason none of the denialists can bring themselves to say EG Beck’s claims are idiocy is because Bob Carter says he believes EG Beck. Similarly once they admit Treadgold is doubleplus wrong here then it opens everything else he has said to unsurvivable scrutiny.
I’m afraid it’s actually Ken who must apologise, not only to Richard Treadgold, but also to NIWA, Salinger and the NZ public. It seems he didn’t check – Treadgold actually used NIWA’s own methodology. Gareth also didn’t check, and now looks a bit foolish.
A quick glance here:
http://www.niwa.co.nz/news-and-publications/news/all/2009/nz-temp-record/temperature-trends-from-raw-data/technical-note-on-the-treatment-of-missing-data
will show you that both you and Ken have blundered badly with your posts:
A glance at the spreadsheets for the original 7SS, the 11SS and the new NZ7T series all confirm that NIWA calculates average anomalies using data from available sites where others are missing. Which is exactly what Treadgold has done, following their method.
Apologies are in order, I suspect.
BS
Utter tripe. Take an IQ test.
I posted earlier, but my comment hasn’t appeared. Perhaps the link caused a problem.
I have reproduced my comment at Open Parachute.
Cant these things be cleared through some national scientific academy and save people and public lots of time and trouble.
Each government should have an official body set up to tackle these issues.
Were running out of time and we dont need these crap all the time.
Manfred, are you the same Manfred who wrote: “We should wait until such time as the science is either proven beyond doubt, or it is shown clearly that NZ is being in any way impacted by actual climate change.” ?
the links between smoking and cancer have never been 100% proven
Perrott has shot himself in both feet. He supports the 7SS and 11SS, in which NIWA average data over multiple years including those that have missing data. He has been defending them with total myopia and dedication for over 12 months. Now, he has belatedly decided that he doesn’t like NIWA’s approach.
The 11SS is most egregious example ever of a series whose trend is WHOLLY driven by missing data. Seven stations missing in 1931, three missing in 1941, one missing in 1951 and 1991. There is no trend at all shown by the years which have no missing data.
Compare this with Perrott’s criticism of Treadgold’s paper – where the missing data moved the trend by less than 0.1°C.
Denialist drivel.
Again you have no idea of what you are talking about.
I’ve had a glance at the spreadsheet snippet that Ken showed and had a think about the logic.
Obviously averaging the ‘temperature’ with missing data fields would be wrong ie Dunedin is highly unlikely to represent the NZ average but there wouldn’t seem to be anything particularly wrong with averaging the ‘anomaly’ even if Dunedin is the only site available.
Relative warming may be higher or lower from one end of the country year by year but in the longer term it should smooth out.
Ken was half right. In the original series, NIWA did in fact take the average of however many stations were available in each year, just as Treadgold did, so that particular charge is not valid.
However, NIWA have acknowledged that this leads to less reliable figures where the data are sparse, and so in the revised series they only take the composite anomaly when the full 7 stations are available, i.e. from 1909 onwards.
The big problem with Treadgold’s analysis remains that he splices together raw data from different stations as if they were one series (what he calls “unadjusted”), which is quite a neat trick to hide the incline.
Actually, the 7SS shows quite clearly that Dunedin has had the least warming, and Auckland the most – but they’ve all had significant warming.
Gareth, good to see your update of 10/2 to get this story properly sorted.
Mass attack of red ink from the trolls, I see.
or Troll…
I had rather assumed that when Rodney Hide rabbited on about lack of trends in the ‘unadjusted data’ it was the result of plonking a bunch of unrelated numbers side by side.
So there we are.
No, no. That’s ACT economic policy, isn’t it?
” in the revised series they [NIWA] only take the composite anomaly when the full 7 stations are available, i.e. from 1909 onwards”.
No, no – in the new series, they use the composite anomaly when all 7 stations are NOT available. eg 1909 – 1912. See page 5 of NIWA’s report on the Review.
But in the original 7SS and 11SS (especially) they averaged all years including those with missing stations – and Treadgold followed suit. So all of the bluster by Perrott has been horribly misplaced.
I have talked with some NIWA people involved with the 7SS and/or the 11SS. The nonsense being peddled here by these trolls has no foundation or justification. If the idiot Treadgold does end up in a court, he’ll get slaughtered.
” he derives his anomalies by taking unadjusted or raw station data and relating it to a 1971-2000 baseline derived from different stations at different locations using different measurement equipment”
NIWA also “derives his anomalies by taking [adjusted] station data and relating it to a 1971-2000 baseline derived from different stations at different locations using different measurement equipment”.
The only difference between the two methods is that NIWA adjusts the data from the older stations. Those adjustments should be random – and cancel out rather than accumulating to create a trend. So your refusal to apologise is simply based on your credo that the NIWA 7SS adjustments (now abandoned) were correct.
Bullshit.
The NIWA adjustments are fully explained in the report accompanying the revised series, and certainly have not been abandoned.
Look at Treadgold’s data. He has a series labelled “Wellington”. There is no such station as “Wellington”, so how did he come up with that series? By splicing together the series from Thorndon and Kelburn, without making any allowance for the difference in climatology between the two sites. In doing so, the anomalies he calculates for the Thorndon station in the early part of the series are based on the average temperature in Kelburn, meaning that Treadgold’s anomalies for the Thorndon part are 0.8°C warmer than they should be.
The reason for that 0.8°C adjustment is pure physics – it is the lapse rate difference expected from the 120m difference in alitutde between the two sites. Are you saying that we should ignore the laws of physics?
As for saying that the adjustments “should be random” and cancel out, that is utter nonsense. All the adjustments that have been made are to account for physical differences between the stations. A site move from a lower to a higher station will always result in a drop in average temperatures.
Bottom line is, Treadgold’s analysis is a load of unscientific crap.
Adjustments are necessary to correct for changes in the siting and instrumentation of each station. These are explained in detail in the Report on the Review of NIWA’s “Seven-Station†Temperature Series, December 2010. They are not random nor have they been abandoned by NIWA. Such adjustments are a necessary and standard procedure in compiling temperature records as confirmed in the Australian Bureau of Meteorology letter of peer-review. Anyone who thinks otherwise is willfully ignorant of best practice in this field.
It is also true that the latest NIWA report indicates that the “7-Station Composite Anomaly = Average of anomalies at individual sites where there is data for that year”. This means the full 7-station record cannot be extended back in time any further than 1913.
One way to account for those years with fewer than the full 7-stations reporting data (but more than single station) is to calculate an uncertainty on the value of the composite anomaly and use this to weight the data when performing a linear regression. The standard deviation of the mean (aka standard error) is the standard deviation divided by the square root of the number of stations in this case and has the effect of discounting data from years with fewer stations reporting – all other factors being equal. Applying this procedure to the (incorrectly) unadjusted composite anomaly data in Treadgold’s spreadsheet yields a more than significant warming trend of 0.37 ± 0.09 degC per century from 1857 to 2008. Hmm, just enough rope…
Treadgold is an ignorant disingenous fool. That anyone could just join up Thorndon and Kelburn, ignoring the 0.9C (nearest 10th) difference would be laughable if it weren’t tragic – tragic that anyone could take such drivel seriously. As for you Australis, go to NIWA and try a face-to-face argument with anyone involved – you’d be laughed out of the room, you scientific illiterate.
CTG: “A site move from a lower to a higher station will always result in a drop in average temperatures”.
Afraid not – check Hokitika and other locations. The Review Report makes it clear that the Kelburn-Thorndon offset was based on comparisons with Albert Park, Masterton, etc and was not driven by theoretical lapse rates.
Of the 52 adjustments contained in the old 7SS, 51 of them have been abandoned in the NZT7. Just compare the two series, station-by-station, as has been done at the Climate Conversation blog.
You don’t know what you’re talking about. I have just attended a presentation by a person responsible for working out the Wellington adjustments, amongst other things. If it comes to taking his word against yours – let alone matching scientific competence and intelligence – no contest. You talk unmitigated nonsense, and that’s putting it politely. The gall of you and your fellow-travellers is amazing.
The lapse rate is not theoretical, it is very solid physics based on centuries of observation. You are on pretty shaky ground if you are trying to suggest that the lapse rate is not a real effect. But then, you don’t have any actual science backing up your position, so I guess you have to start making shit up, eh?
The lapse rate predicts a difference of 0.8°C between Kelburn and Thorndon, which is the adjustment that Salinger originally used. The revised report uses an adjustment of 0.89°C. Yes, I can see how they totally threw the lapse rate out of the window when they came up with that figure.
It’s a specious argument to say that the adjustments were abandoned, when the revised report also uses adjustments, just slightly different numbers. Remember, Treadgold’s argument was not that they had used the wrong numbers for the adjustments, but that adjustments were not required at all.
You have still completely failed to address the issue of the fatal flaw in Treadgold’s analysis, i.e. the splicing together of incompatible temperature series, and using the wrong average to calculate anomalies.
The lapse rate is not theoretical
Of course it is, just like snow skiing. Totally theoretical. All that white stuff on the tops of tall mountains?, dandruff from angels.
CTG,
I think you’re wrong to say that Treadgold argued adjustments were not required. Where does he say it?
His paper says: “What did we find? First, the station histories are unremarkable. There are no reasons for any large corrections.”
Then: “There is nothing in the station histories to warrant these adjustments and to date Dr Salinger and NIWA have not revealed why they did this.”
The histories, the metadata, showed no reasons for big adjustments. He doesn’t say that adjustments are never needed, although he asks what they were. Have I missed something?
Why is it even important? Because the paper points out: “About half the adjustments actually created a warming trend where none existed; the other half greatly exaggerated existing warming. All the adjustments increased or even created a warming trend, with only one (Dunedin) going the other way and slightly reducing the original trend.”
The major conclusion (of warming) from the 7SS was created by manual adjustments. That’s potentially fine, but wouldn’t you ask some questions?
Nonsense. If you troubled yourself to read the original article and the hundreds of posts in response (some months back), you would see that these points were answered long ago. Treadgold’s assertions are pathetically stupid.
You appear to be another sock puppet, and clearly have no knowledge whatsoever of NZ climatology.
As for “fired up” – moral indignation is an appropriate response to the disingenuous tripe peddled by the never-ending succession of trolls who visit this site.
Apologies for jumping in first, CTG.
So if Treadgold agreed that adjustments were required, why does he have a graph of unadjusted temperature series?
What methodology did Treadgold use to create composite series from different stations in his unadjusted graph?
Trengolds work apears to be invalid, but even Trengolds graph above shows an upward “trend” from around 1920, similar to the predominant global trend.
You would expect it to be possibly less in the Southern Hemisphere, compared to prior temperatures going back into the little ice age. So what is he really on about? Saying its flat from 1850 – 2010 doesnt prove anything. His own questionable graph supports the post 1910 / CO2 related global temperature increase.
Ehm, has anyone here noticed that Ken’s analysis was shown to have been mistaken on his own website? Maybe its irrelevant here.
Secondly, my understanding is that NIWA was unable to account specifically for their adjustments. In my quality world, absent audit trail of the data makes it unacceptable as an official record and is just heresay, not science. NIWA wisely disowned the record before the trial. But crucially, even if they repeated the studies and got similar results, it does not make the original science either correct or good.
Thirdly, I believe that the reconstruction’s ‘international’ review was by none other than our own Aussie climate convert BOM. And did their review not clearly state they did not look at the original data?
“Unable to account”? Garbage. This is the sort of thing that makes my contacts pretty angry. “Heresay” (sic) my ****.
“You’re a loser – get off the stage”.
RW,
Why are you so fired up? “You’re a loser”??!! Why don’t you explain the issues?
NIWA was asked to describe the adjustments but they didn’t. So either they refused (incredible) or they couldn’t (more reasonable).
MichaelC58 said: “NIWA was unable to account specifically for their adjustments.” He is literally correct, and their behaviour demonstrated it.
First they recalculated Hokitika, then the rest of the stations. If they had simply “accounted” for the original corrections, it would’ve been easier, quicker and cheaper.
So why didn’t they, brainbox?
They did, but obviously you can’t read.
I predict your tenure on this blog will be short, Treadgold-clone.
The 7SS is not “the official record”. It never has been, and never will be.
What exactly do you imagine to be the purpose of an official temperature record?
The 7SS is merely one way of reconstructing the temperature history at a national level. It is useful in the context of looking at how NZ will fare if the climate continues to warm. Even as the world as a whole warms, there will be some regions that cool down. Is NZ one of those regions? By looking at the 7SS, we can see that warming in NZ has generally followed the global pattern, with some periods where our climate behaved differently due to our geographical location. So to that extent, the 7SS can tell us that we should prepare for more warming, not cooling.
Other than that, does the 7SS influence government policy? Not really. It is not used in deciding whether or not global warming is occurring – it is the global temperature record that matters for that. It is not used to determine local adaptation plans, either, because regional climatology is much more significant than a national composite record.
I have never yet seen Treadgold or his band of merry men explain exactly what they believe an “official temperature record” is or what it is used for. Perhaps they could enlighten us?
Hint: if you’re going to critique such things please take the time to construct your sentences in English. Otherwise we might be inclined to immediately assume ‘your understanding’ is pretty limited.
Given we can probably assume ‘heresay’ is ‘hearsay’ and not ‘heresy’ you certainly appear to have devoted as much time to research as you did to grammar!
Also ‘climate convert’ = scientific organization.
MichaelC58 – Errrmm, have you ever noticed that nature’s thermometers in New Zealand don’t agree with Treadgold and his fellow cranks either?. You know glaciers and frost days. Does that at least not give you pause for thought?.
@ RW & Bill – your main objection to my concerns is my one misspelt word and that “You’re a loser – get off the stage”. Incredible, but thank you, keep it up. You do excellent work for us sceptics.
@CTG, thank you for response, which is the NIWA defence of “oh, it was never meant to be taken notice of”. Sorry, but to anyone outside your circles this defence appears to be an own goal.
What is NIWA’s counterpoint by saying it’s not official? They are publicly funded to produce it, made it public, spent years aggressively defending it’s accuracy and when pressed legally, they throw it under the bus by saying it’s not official. Wow! What…it now doesn’t need to be correct – it’s only of academic strength – we don’t need accountability? Don’t you see how bad that looks to the public?
But even if not official, SS7 appears to be the most authoritative record (or is there a competing record)? Even you, CTG, with respect, are conflicted with their contradictory argument – You say “…does the 7SS influence government policy? Not really.” immediately after saying “So to that extent, the 7SS can tell us that we should prepare for more warming, not cooling.” Well, who is the ‘us’ in your sentence, who will be preparing, if not the NZ population and its government. Do they mean it’s good enough for climate advocacy but not accountable as an official record?
As a scientist and a medical quality professional I am all too familiar with the tension between academic research, drug companies, public risk management and regulations. The climate wars problem is not that different.
The main disconnect here is that global Public Policy is being driven by academic strength research. It is insane to build far reaching global public policy reform, affecting public health of millions if not billions on academic-strength research,
This was the real devastating effect of Climategate – not disproving cAGW or showing CRU to be evil, but exposing to the public the weaknesses of academic research generally (with ego’s, groupthink, sloppy data and harry_read_me.txt), compared to regulated research, of say the medical or aviation industry, which people assumed to be operating for such an important issue. Academic research is not bad, nor are the people, but is necessarily sloppy to be agile and affordable and thus group-error prone.
The NIWA case is a brilliant example – what people were sold as trustworthy authoritative record by a government research body melts away under closer scrutiny with lost adjustments, no accountability and becomes “just internal research data ” or whatever NIWA said. Reproducing the data, by the same body, even if identical misses the point of lost trust.
That is why no ‘vast body’ of academic research (not to mention model ‘research’) will convince the sceptics and increasingly the public that the sky is falling. The ball is in NIWA’s court to implement audited quality management systems and become transparent and accountable.
A lot of words, but they don’t alter the facts. Fail. Your insinuations and downright allegations of sloppy inadequate research are a direct and actionable slur on the intelligence and integrity of scientists I have known for a long time. Go and say your piece to them directly – you’d be roundly rebutted, so it’s a safe bet you wouldn’t dare to try. It’s pretty clear that your knowledge of climate science is negligible. The 7SS is sound, and the rants of all the “sceptical” prats that turn up saying otherwise say a lot about them, and nothing about the science. Please accept my undying contempt.
Oh dear, you really have drunk the kool-aid, haven’t you?
Tell me, is it groupthink that is causing the Arctic ice to melt?
Michael, you really don’t have any idea what you’re talking about when you accuse non-medical and aviation (“academic” in your words) researchers of being “sloppy” and “group-error prone”. Quality control is exerted in “academic” research by every other publishing researcher who lives for day of finding error and making a name for themselves in doing so whether in peer-review or after publication. I’ll paraphrase one of my favourite sayings for you: academic research doesn’t work despite academics being asses, it works because academics are asses.
I do have to give your credit for one statement. At least you’re man enough to admit that your views on AGW are not, and will never be, research-informed. Few contrarian ideologues are as honest.
Humans are currently engaged in the largest “clinical trial” imaginable – pumping hundreds of millions of years worth of naturally sequestered carbon into the atmosphere over about one century. Based on the best available current peer-reviewed scientific research on the physics of radiative energy transfer and reconstructions of Earth’s past, the planet will warm. How much, no one can be sure, but to ignore the accumulating evidence because it is research done by “academics” is stunning to hear from someone claiming to be a scientist.
Nice one. Michael C58 tries to pretend the South Island’s glaciers aren’t melting away and NZ frost days aren’t declining. No wonder they say climate change denial is a religion.
Michael – that really was an odd diatribe!
You suggest that the ‘public’ is so disillusioned with climate science and NIWA as to reject a properly constructed and audited temperature record because it might happen to look like the previous 7SS.
Well hey, I’m the public (or part of it) and I have every confidence in NIWA’s science and am distinctly unimpressed by the desperate attention seeking of Treadgold et al.
And I’m sure if someone was to hack your e-mail correspondence they’d discover no “ego’s [sic], groupthink, sloppy data and harry_read_me.txt”!
What a ridiculous argument.
Oh, and even though you’re an Aussie, you’re a 15 minute Google Wonder on NIWA and the NZ temperature record, we gather? I mean, you’ve gone from ‘my understanding is that NIWA was unable to account specifically for their adjustments’ to the above in less than 12 hours! Or did you perhaps get a little help at some rather more specific sites?
(Well, you apparently already knew all there is to know sufficient to conclude that the BoM are ‘climate converts’, so I guess it was time to move on…)
And yet another intriguingly abstract claim to expertise from a newly-arrived contrarian! I grant you you certainly have the ‘medical… professional’ arrogance pitch-perfect…
Oh, I hate to impose further on the time of such an important fellow, but regarding that first point you raised; did you bother to read the article all the way to the end? [Bats eyelids sweetly.] Thought not! That’s also par for the course…
That eyelid thing is very cute, Bill!
Ah, well, reason and evidence doesn’t seem to work with contrarians like Michael. Perhaps charm will do the trick.
(Bugger, I used the “trick” word! The worldwide conspiracy is outed again…. )
And another point – which these ignorant “sceptics” certainly wouldn’t be aware of despite much irrelevant nitpicking – is that the NZ temperature rise has occurred despite the M1 index being more “southerly” than hitherto for several decades now. If that mode of the index were to “flip”, the results could be “interesting”, to say the least.
You seem to think regulated research is better than academic research. Would that include the pharmaceutical companies and their drug “trials” ?
In any event even if the NZ temperature record was totally flat for the last 150 years what would government do? Ignore the global record, with its multiple sources and data, because there is some regional factor,anomaly, or unknown error in the NZ Record?
And regardless of Temperature trends here, we will still have sea level rise fron global temperaure rises.
I dont have time to research this issue in detail, but s far as I can see Trengold has stiched together disparate data and made basic errors.
But the main allegation is NIWA have lost some old calculations. So what is it you want? Put them in Jail? I stand to be corrected but the latest 7 station series performed adjustments using known methods on the old data and made the same conclusions.
Correction, there should be no apostrophe in “defending its accuracy ” 🙂
The point I am trying to make in good faith and without disrespect to anyone here, is that I believe climatologists will loose trust if they only talk at us and don’t listen to criticism. The public will view with concern when a government funded body vigorously defends an authoritative scientific record in the media for years, then admits it lost the adjustments and then virtually disowns it when challenged legally.
The simple answer would seem to have been for NIWA to learn and move on – say that yep, we should have retained the old correction data, we did not think it was that important at the time, but now it has become important, and we repeated the data set with proper audit trail and transparency and here it is and its the same and that’s how we’ll do things from now on. What is so difficult about that? Are you saying it is too ‘rude’ to ask for transparency? You know, I have just as big an interest in scientists retaining trust, not the least in case climate sensitivity does turn out to be on the high side.
@AndrewH, You say in essence that the public should have confidence now in the new “…properly constructed and audited temperature record … [notwithstanding] it might happen to look like the previous 7SS….†Thank you – my precise concern – the public is entitled to request from scientists “properly constructed and audited†data, mind you, not necessarily if it’s only about green frogs, but surely if its consequence is taking my money and the restructure the society my children will inherit.
You gus seem to not appreciate the significance of missing data in 7SS – in fact @Nigel, thinks data traceability is trivial: â€â€¦NIWA have lost some old calculations. So what is it you want?†and @RW’s indignation that wanting these ‘old calculations’ is a “…slur on the intelligence and integrity of scientists I have known for a long time.” This is called ‘circling the wagons’ guys and is one of the well known weaknesses of peer review.
I understand NIWA only had to produce the data and (critically) the worksheet of how and why each specific adjustment was made (and not just a general description of the method allegedly used) and pesky Treadgold would have bothered someone else.
As for the starry eyed teenage faith in a magical peer review exhibited by some here, it is fascinating how quickly climate idealists can swap between pouring scorn on peer reviewed trials sponsored by evil drug companies (@nigelj “Would that include the pharmaceutical companies and their drug “trials— and in the next breath defend the purity of peer review in climate science, a field 5 minutes old and symbiotic with a trillion dollar green industry and green, lets say, enthusiasts. (For interesting soul searching about peer review in medicine – see here).
@Michael Palin says: “…academic research doesn’t work despite academics being asses, it works because academics are asses.â€. Cute and I agree, but it ‘works’ for what purposes. For trailblazing scientific advances – definitely. Once you pour money or politics into the mix when you use it to change public policy, then clearly its not enough. That’ll be why we have the FDA scrutinizing every patient record – ‘trust but verify’. Otherwise what are you saying, that influence of money and ideology and confirmation bias does not exist in Climate Science?
What exactly about the revised series does not do the things you ask?
What has NIWA left out in the report? It looks pretty comprehensive to me. All of the station adjustments are explained in a lot of detail. Is there some aspect of the adjustments that you feel is missed out? What information from the original adjustments do you think would shed more light on things?
It seems that there is a lot of goalpost shifting going on. Treadgold’s original argument was that no adjustments of any sort were required at all (hence his use of the word “unadjusted” in his graphs).
Now we have Australis and MichaelC58 complaining about adjustments being “abandoned”, and missing audit trails. Just what exactly does NIWA have to do to please you people?
NIWA has to prove 0=1. In sceptic troll world however, the inhabitants are implicitly (or perhaps deliberately in the case of the marginally more intelligent ones) making use of the tautology 0=>x = 1 (regardless of x); i.e. by starting from their false premisses, they can say anything they like without violating formal logic. Hence “no adjustments required” => “adjustments required” !
Exactly.
a priori argument in the end demonstrates nothing. But that is what these fools are indulging in. It reminds one of the foolish learned scholars of Galileo’s time. They did not need to look, because they could deduce their conclusions from syllogistic logic.
The facts speak for themselves – but these fools are deafened by preconceived propositions.
They earnestly talk rubbish and nitpick, and all the while the Earth burns.
CTG,
Wrong. Have you read his paper? His original argument was: “This is NIWA’s official graph from their web site. This is a graph of the data NIWA posted on the web site. They’re different. Why?”
Then he graphs the naked and adjusted data at each station.
Any comments?
“Then he graphs the naked and adjusted data at each station.”
That is an outright lie.
The spreadsheet linked to above has series labelled “Auckland, Wellington, Nelson, Hokitika, Lincoln/Christchurch, Dunedin, Masterton”.
These do not correspond to the names of weather stations in the CliFlo database, so cannot possibly represent “naked and unadjusted data at each station”.
Please explain this discrepancy.
Also, Michael, your “good faith” would be a bit more convincing if you didn’t treat NIWA as guilty until proven innocent.
The burden of proof is on Treadgold and co to prove their charges, not on NIWA to prove their innocence. So far, Treadgold has not produced the slightest shred of evidence to support his case.
Which means that you are participating in slander.
Exactly. There is nothing whatever to suggest that there is anything wrong with the 7SS, or that NIWA (or more precisely, Salinger in the original calculations, NIWA later) have either made mistakes or been dishonest. That of course would never stop any ignorant Johnny-come-lately “sceptic” from blundering in and in the process displaying an abysmal ignorance of New Zealand’s climatology, along with a penchant for slander.
WTF Michael? You accuse academic researchers of being “sloppy” and “error-prone” and then have the gall (or loss of memory) to claim that your comments are made “in good faith and without disrespect to anyone here”.
Your children and mine with have hell to pay if the inevitable switch from fossil fuels to renewables is further delayed (see these cost-benefit analyses of mitigation versus adaption).
Interesting to note that if you follow the link under “MichaelC58”, but drop the .au on the end, you arrive at The Climate Skeptic Shop, where a Dr Michael Cejnar exhorts everyone to buy “Climate Skeptic” branded products — there are caps, polo shirts, bags, and a mug. I suppose you might regard it as capitalism at its finest. Forgive me if I think it tacky and tasteless.
Wearing one of Dr Cejnar’s shirts would be equivalent to walking around with a dunces hat on…
My favourite is the “Climate Skeptic Bag” – fits securely over head for the remarkably low price of $AUD 4.00.
Correction – sorry stuffed up the HTML – the whole last paragraph is the link.
[Fixed. GR]
@CTG. Thanks.
No goalpost shifting. As I said several times, I believe NIWA scored its own goal with the public by not being transparent with their original long standing temperature record adjustments, and their 11th hour claim that the record was not official. The release of the new proper report will not cause the public to get amnesia about how much effort and bad blood it took to force the proper transparency. Now, will all future data from your friends at NIWA have supporting data available, particularly whenever virtually the entire trend appears made up by adjustments?
I have not attacked NIWA scientists personally or specifically accused anyone of fraud – go back and read my posts (OK, I said BOM were climate converts). I love science, I do science and I drag my kids through every science museum (San Francisco Exploratorium is to be believed). But I am aware of the weaknesses of establishment science, as you all would be.
Onus of proof of a theory or accuracy of data in relation to issues of public policy should be on the scientists. When FDA audits me, they assume I am guilty until I prove to them that I am innocent of misdeeds. This may be the crux of our disagreement – I assume you think is impolite to challenge respected scientists for their data – as in, dare I say, Climategate, while I think the public has a duty.
@Mike Palin – so its down to the “but think of the children” exclamation. If you truly believe in Al Gore and IPCC alarm without reservation, then I can see that we sceptics must be extremely frustrating – in fact, for the sake of the children, the logical conclusion to your argument is to, as our one Australian greens candidate and I think Hansen said, democracy may need to be suspended, and presumably a totalitarian green state instigated and sceptics presumably shut up one way or another, to save our children, of course.
Just so you know, that is the future I am fighting to avoid for my children, and because I was brought up under communism, it’s a lot more probable and more scary than <1.0 DegC warming by 2100, which I understand (not 'believe') non-speculative science indicates.
“The release of the new proper report will not cause the public to get amnesia about how much effort and bad blood it took to force the proper transparency.”
I think you would find most of the NZ public haven’t noticed this issue and don’t care.
Agreed, Carol. It’s a very small and self-selected group who are doing the shouting on this one.
Still an authority on the NZ temperature record and NIWA, I note. Even more so, in fact. Well well well. Despite being an Australian. And a ‘quality medical professional’ (or is that ‘medical quality professional’ ?) who also sells hats and coffee mugs. Taking ‘argument from authority [by proxy]’ to a new level there…
I was at an event last year that was crashed by some boorish oafs from your party. On top of being loud, abrasive and using a megaphone to shout people down, one of them drove a large F100 through one of Adelaide’s public squares while a rally was in progress at a blatantly reckless speed and it was only by good fortune that no-one was injured.
So, in the circumstances you’ll excuse me if I am also unimpressed by your website’s claims of ‘our gradual recognition as citizens of integrity’.
Love those ‘coming soon’ “high-integrity” “very reasonable” buttons and bumper stickers, by the way; ‘Stop climate Fraud’ ‘Climate Skeptic Scam Denier’. ‘Good Faith’, would you say? And here was I thinking this might all be just some shouty Tea Party spin off… and Ring Tones! One can hardly wait… do they loudly declaim things like ‘CO2 is plant food!’ or ‘Volcanoes emit more CO2 than humans!’ perhaps? What a hit on the train!
Incidentally, which ‘we’ has the FDA? Because, forgive me again, I was beginning to wonder if you were even an Australian for a moment there. But I see you’re a graduate of the University of Sydney and are a cardiologist and electrophysiologist. Can’t find anything on your atmospheric chemistry work, but there you go…
As for your strawman about Peer Review – I put it to you that Peer Review, like Democracy, is the worst system we have, apart from all the others.
In fact, given that it’s topical at the moment, I suggest you take it up with these guys, who are very bright cookies indeed. As a medical man I’m sure you’ll understand if I tell you I’d wager they’ll end up tearing you a new, um… orifice.
Dude, you’re the one who brought up “the society my children will inherit.” Memory loss again?
I’m sorry that you are haunted by having been brought up under communism, but the concept that “establishment science” is conspiring with a “trillion dollar green industry” to rule the world is a delusion. Been to the petrol station lately?
(I do like those black
hoodsbags though!)“<1.0 DegC warming by 2100, which I understand (not 'believe') non-speculative science indicates."
Your understanding must be pretty limited then.
The amount of warming is dependent on two factors: the amount of CO2e released, and the Earth System Sensitivity (ESS) to CO2-forced warming (expressed as °C per doubling of CO2).
If we take the course of action you want to pursue, i.e. burn every last drop of oil and lump of coal, then atmospheric CO2 will likely end up well in excess of 1000ppm (more if the peak-oilers are wrong). That would be at least two doublings over pre-industrial levels.
Now the accepted range of ESS is between 2.1 and 4.4°C. This means that we can expect between 4 and 8°C of warming by 2100 under your preferred scenario. The effects of this would be devastating.
When I say accepted range, this refers to the 95% confidence limits around the ESS value. Yes it is possible that the value is below 2.1°C, but it is equally likely that it is above 4.4°C. There is only one climate scientist who proposes that ESS is at the lower end, Richard Lindzen. There is very little empirical evidence to support Lindzen's hypothesis, and it is extremely difficult to explain past changes in climate if ESS is really as low as Lindzen says. In particular, it is impossible for the MWP to have been as warm as skeptics claim it was if the ESS is really as low as Lindzen says. So which is it: warm MWP or low ESS? You can't have both.
So, to sum up, the probability of there being "<1.0 DegC warming by 2100" is less than 2.5%. That's one hell of a gamble that you want the planet to take.
“But I am aware of the weaknesses of establishment science, as you all would be.”
Really? What exactly would those be? Nice strawman there, btw.
“establishment”. Can you define what you mean by that nicely loaded word?
Well done, you got Al Gore in there – no idea what relevance he has to anything being discussed here.
“the logical conclusion to your argument is to, as our one Australian greens candidate and I think Hansen said, democracy may need to be suspended, and presumably a totalitarian green state instigated and sceptics presumably shut up one way or another, to save our children, of course.” Now this gets quite offensive, Michael. Ironic too, because people with your attitude are doing a fine job of making drastic political action much more likely in the future.
You might need to come up with some real science to back up your assertion that 1 degree warming is what “non-speculative” science suggest by 2100. Michael, what you are putting forward has great deal to do with your beliefs, and not much to do with understanding at all.
offended @johnmackmot
(‘establishment’ – sorry, no loading intended, just any science).
You’re damn right it’s offensive John, but it’s pure extrapolation to a logical end point and also not my words. They are the words of your fellow travellers:
1. Clive Hamilton, Greens candidate for Higgins by-election, Oct 2009:
(T)he implications of 3C, let alone 4C or 5C, are so horrible that we look to any possible scenario to head it off, including the canvassing of “emergency†responses such as the suspension of democratic processes…. I mean, the truth is, unless we do that, I mean we seriously are in trouble, because we know that Gaia is revolting against the impact of human beings on it.
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/hamilton_stands_for_the_grees_and_for_fear_and_less_democracy/
2. ‘The Climate Change Challenge and the Failure of Democracy`, which Shearman co-authored with Joseph Wayne Smith. Prof. David Shearman, MD, (mountlofty@ozemail.com.au) is Emeritus Prof. of U. of Adelaide: ‘Argues liberal democracy is an impediment to finding ecologically sustainable solutions for planet’ — ‘Global warming presents such a massive and immediate danger that democracy no longer cuts it, and an authoritarian ecological government of ‘natural elites’ will have to be found to replace it’
http://www.climaterealists.org.nz/node/700
I won’t bore you with links to UN’s kind offer for global ‘governance’ of energy use, global taxation etc.
Now John please re-read your post – “people with your attitude are doing a fine job of making drastic political action much more likely in the future”. Wow. That’s strong. Taking over the world to save it? You mean like in ‘I Robot’? In a scientists, such conviction would give some heavy duty confirmation bias. Maybe more – for the sake of the children.
As I said, too much is at stake with cAGW to rely on pal review – in both directions. I, and I suggest, the public should and will want independent examiners audit climate data down to the handwriting in field log books before it will be convinced drastic changes to society are needed. That should be more popular and a lot easier to achieve than John taking over the world.
Now, I’ve probably ranted enough, so Cheers.
Michael, imagine you are driving along a long, straight road at 100 kmh. About 2km ahead, you can see a traffic light change from green to red. You have two course of action open:
1) Take your foot off the accelerator, then gently apply the brakes once you know that the light is not going to turn green in time.
2) Keep travelling at 100 kmh, hoping that the light will turn green before you get to it. If it doesn’t, you slam on the brakes at the last possible minute, hoping to stop in time.
Which course of action is better for the tyres? Which course of action gives you the better chance of stopping in time? Which course of action is riskier?
What John was referring to is option 2 – if we don’t start to mitigate the effects of future climate change now, while we can do it easily, then at some point in the future it is going to require a massive effort. There are 70+ cities with more than a million inhabitants on coasts around the world. If those cities need to be relocated because of rising sea levels, do you think market forces are going to achieve that? Or do you think it might require some heavy-handed government?
So, it is precisely to avoid the sort of big government that you despise that we need to start acting now.
‘Rant’ is spot on!
‘Your fellow travellers’! Genuinely irritating! Even using the cold-war lingo! Sheesh, how about ‘your mate’ Delingpole and his ‘there just aren’t enough bullets‘ to deal with the AGW mongers?
First it’s instant-expertise about NZ’s weather history. Having found himself in rather deep water there, now it’s this ridiculous distraction. Another bloody denier cut-and-paste festival.
It’s all over the denier blogosphere – little known Adelaide medical doctor now an ‘IPCC Professor’ or ‘IPCC doctor’ according to the major links that come up on Google. He isn’t, of course – what the hell is an ‘IPCC doctor’? – but who cares? Oh, and the book was written in 2007, can be read online to get the flavour in context, went nowhere, has been supported by no-one – but it’s C’n’P flavour of the month at the moment!
Slender stuff indeed.
Way to give out his email address, by the way! Shall we quote you out of context and simultaneously publish yours, while we’re at it?
Oh, and a quote from Bolt’s freakin’ blog! Why did I just know he’d have to be in there somewhere? On Hamilton – someone who I have a lot of time for.
(Why can’t you just find the bloody originals, it’s not like it’s hard? And it might even appear that you did some of the work yourself!)
Here’s Hamilton. Also in 2007, and as noticed by Bolt in 2009. I suggest you actually read the thing all the way to the end (I know; it’s hard! but persist), including the quote in context, and tell me if Hamilton is warning that this is just one of the many risks we face in a super-heated world – who could argue? – or advocating something.
Bonk! Abject fail on this one.
(Who’d have though something coming out of Bolt’s blog would be distorted?)
And CTG handles the obvious point well.
C58 on matters of science you are plain wrong. AGW is happening, the 1Deg average warming is already here today and the effects show.
A business as usual attitude will definitely cause massive damage to the state of our ecosystem and the ability to provide sustenance for the billions alive today. Your activism against preventing this damage is deplorable and in my mind activism like this will in the future be deemed unlawful and actionable at court.
Compare your activism to say a medical snake oil dealer who advertises the virtue of taking his quackery because: a) he sells it, and b) he mistakenly believes or pretends to believe that its actually working.
You belong obviously into both categories, selling your activism online and spreading you falsehood. Like the health damage done by the snake oil dealer, your actions might contribute to massive harm to the future of our planet and therefore you should be held personally responsible, just as the snake oil dealer would be!
In what you are doing you are subverting the democratic process because misinformation and propaganda is the enemy of any success in free markets and the choices made by free people. Information and knowledge makes people free, not propaganda. If you want to maintain a free democratic society you must invest in proper science education and scientific literacy. At the current state of affairs (In the US a sizable proportion of people still believe Evolution is wrong and the world was created some 6000 years ago …) society can not make educated choices on matters involving science based on majority votes and is wide open to the type of manipulation you and your ilk are involved in!
In a scientifically literate population you would not matter as you would be simply ignored as most people ignore cranks trying to construct perpetual motion machines.
With so much at stake we might indeed need a legal framework that regulates malicious propaganda like yours just as we regulate tobacco advertising!
Michael C58
I disagree. You want independent examiners outside the climate community too audit climate science? You mean like psychologists or biologists? The only people with the knowledge are to do so are climate scientists, and its a small community.
Even if you could argue that some semi independednt body like physicists might be some use, they are only party qualified to do so, will have their own “biases” for or against agw etc.
In the end you cant escape climates scientists reviewing the data and because its a gigantic issue with thousands of papers on it a large panel reaching a consensus, like the IPCC. Tightly managed with internal checks and publically available data and methods.
The only thing I can think of is to consciously ensure more sceptics are “consulted”. Perhaps the IPCC looking some of the unpublished studies. But with with respect to sceptics even thats on shaky ground and goes against a century of good practice.
You cant end up decideing this thing like like deciding evolution by debate between equal teams of scientists and creationists, clearly stupid. Its science not a law court .
The best evidence is multiple lines of evidence ruthlessly torn into in the peer review literature.
A big breakthru agaisnt agw would win a nobel prize and every scientists wants that. Im sure exon mobil would be delighted. The fact that there hasnt been a breakthru sceptical argument or even a good one speaks volumes.
Oh come on is that the best you can do? A single candidate for public office and a single academic? Hardly evidence is it? You said “I think Hansen said this”. So I expect you went off and looked and couldn’t find any evidence for that then? Are you going to apologise for slurring Hansen? Plus it’s a logical fallacy isn’t it? Two people expressed those views so we all must have those views? What a load of tosh.
From Michael’s website: “Our mission is to enable the countless climate skeptics to show their true numbers in public.”
And when the countless were counted it turned out there were 25,758 of them. That was the number of people who voted (in the Senate) for Michael’s risible party in the 2010 Australian election.
The Greens, by comparison, pulled 1,601,664, just in the six states where both parties fielded candidates. That’s 62 to 1 worth of fail. Even the semi-joke Australian Sex Party drew 10 times as many votes as the Climate Skeptics.
For all Michaels handwaving about growing up under communism, democracy handed him his hat, while simultaneously handing those enemies of democracy the Greens six senate seats (and one in the House).
It’s time that ignorant fool left these pages. Objectively, his statements on climate are no better than the twaddle touted by Ken Ring.
The Australian Sex Party had some surprisingly reasonable policies and some surprisingly articulate spokespeople! (And surely putting Viagra and Cialis on the PBS should have romped them in? 😉 )
Also, for some reason the Climate Sceptics were incapable of discerning the ‘own goal’ aspects of decking themselves out in TShirts that say CRAP in large letters (Stands for ‘Carbon Really Ain’t Pollution’ – good, eh?).
Whether this was in sympathy with the scatalogically-inclined Tony Abbot (‘Climate change is crap!’ and now ‘Shit happens!’) is not clear…
“Verity Buff” appears likely to be a pseudonym adopted by Richard Treadgold.
Richard: you remain unwelcome here. You have your own site, go and play with your sycophants there.
It reminds me of the kind of name encountered in spam emails, especially the kind directed at worried males.
“Verity Buff”?
19th Century heroine? Cross-dressing cabaret act? Star of 70’s soft-core flicks?
I’m very afraid it’s supposed to suggest ‘fan of the truth’, but I don’t think it’s working!
(Or perhaps just an admirer of the genus Mimulus?)
Treadgold as cross-dresser! Let’s not go there, except to note that the blessed Ken Ring has been known to summon matronly assistance when beleaguered on blogs. Sock poppets, perhaps?
Not surprizingly, the santa cruz monkey flower, Verity Buff, is extinct in the wild.
He who uses the pseudonym could well do himself a favour and visit this page:
http://zipcodezoo.com/Trends/
he may also find a picture of himself on the same site 🙂
I see that the earlier comments 93-95 – abusive trollery from the presumed bosom-buddy of Treadgold et al.- have gone. That’s certainly raised the tone immediately.
“the latest 7 station series performed adjustments using known methods on the old data”.
Known methods? I understood NIWA had invented an entirely novel method for its new set of adjustments – dependent on comparisons with remote stations which are well-correlated.
Because all this is so innovative, NIWA has undertaken to publish a paper in a science journal showing that it really works.
Why don’t we all suspend judgment until that paper appears?
Once again, Australis, you pontificate before doing even the bare minimum of research. Here are three references to techniques for adjusting temperature time series due to station inhomogeneities. The Li and Dong (2008) paper, last on the list, is particularly interesting in that they describe a technique for detecting and correcting for undocumented discontinuities; in other words, they go well beyond NIWA’s approach, which only deals with documented discontinuities. I can’t wait for the NZC”S”C to start suing the Chinese government.
So, Australis, the process of detecting and correcting for inhomogeneities is hardly novel.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/joc.3370150403/abstract
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/epubs/ndp/ushcn/ndp019.html
http://www.springerlink.com/content/n68m58g74643567g/
(I only include three links to avoid the spam filter; there is a lot more literature on this topic than that – it is left as an exercise for the reader to find out more).
Caught out in your ignorance yet again. You haven’t got a glimmer of a clue. And tell your red-ink mates to get back under their bridges while you’re licking your wounds.
If those are your three best shots, they’re not very impressive. None are mentioned in the bibliography of the Review, so obviously NIWA weren’t too taken by them, either.
The description of GHCN is irrelevant, and the Li & Dong (2008) paper goes on about UHI – which NIWA ignores in its NZT7. Only the Easterling effort has anything to say which might have helped the Review, and it describes methods that NIWA didn’t deploy.
So, are you looking forward to NIWA’s paper?
BTW, why do you claim that NIWA don’t deal with undocumented discontinuities?
Reading comprehension is obviously not your strong suit, so I will try and keep it simple for you.
Your claim was that NIWA’s adjustments are entirely novel. I supplied three random reference that I found in two minutes of googling to show that the process of adjusting temperature time series is well established.
I made no claims that NIWA was using any of the techniques in those references – indeed, I specifically made sure that none of the references I included were mentioned in the NIWA report, in order to demonstrate that there were independent studies doing similar things.
It is clear that “entirely novel” is not an accurate way to describe what NIWA have done. “Entirely consistent with accepted climatological practice” is how I would describe it.
It is also clear that NIWA makes changes that related to documented changes in the station histories – station moves, equipment changes and malfunctions. I thought that was pretty clear from the report. Maybe you didn’t actually read it?
Oh, and you are wrong about UHI as well. The description of the Auckland series quite specifically describes a possible UHI effect and a correction that can be applied. The correction makes very little difference to the overall 7SS.
Well, that’s quite a fail, Australis. What else you got?
Clearly Australis is an ignorant, obnoxious troll who never lets the facts spoil his fantasy stories – or more precisely, downright lies. Contemptible.
There was never any issue that literature on climatological adjustment exists – only that NIWA used a novel method. It will be described in the forthcoming paper, despite the fact CGT seems unaware of those announced plans.
NIWA does not confine itself to discontinuities noted in metadata. For examples, check the pre-1927 Lincoln adjustments.
There is no UHI adjustment in either the original or the revised 7SS – for Auckland or any other urban station. The Review says “more research” is required.
Gosh, what a lot of backpedalling.
We have gone from Treadgold’s original declaration that NIWA was engaged in serious fraud on a par with organised crime, down through “there is no audit trail”, and now all we are left with is the accusation that NIWA is doing science.
Er, isn’t that what they are supposed to be doing?
Gosh, what a lot of tripe. You people don’t seem to be thinking clearly.
Where did Trendbold mention serious fraud or organised crime?
Where did NIWA “account” for their adjustments? And if they did, as you say they did, why did they then reconstruct the whole series?
Idiot. DNFTT.
“Idiot”? “Don’t feed the trolls”? Well, I’m not well impressed with your attitude to visitors!
So you’re not very friendly here, you don’t like hearing sensible questions and your “host” doesn’t care to make you behave.
There’s no reason to return, is there?
You make two spelling mistakes just in writing Treadgold’s name, describe CTG’s remarks as “tripe”, and pose “questions” that have been addressed over and over again. That makes you (at best) a semi-literate troll. How dare you make those remarks about CTG’s contributions – especially since the odds are that you knowledge of NZ climatology is nil.
Sorry about the spelling mistakes. Slip of the fingertips.
Tripe: a colourful word meaning something of no value. I used it because CTG referred to:
But he made no declaration of that — ipso facto, the statement is worthless; tripe. Or is there a reference for that? It’s not in his paper, but maybe he said it elsewhere?
I don’t know why you should italicise “questions” — they were genuine enough. I quite obviously missed the earlier discussion/s, so would you be kind enough to give me a reference or repeat the answers, please?
From the public fact that NIWA reconstructed the temperature series at considerable expense and trouble, it’s obvious they couldn’t explain the adjustments. So, when Verity Buff asked about them, I was curious that Macro claimed that NIWA had, in fact, justified the old adjustments. Is Macro still around? Can anyone provide a reference, please?
My follow-up question remains the same: If the adjustments were properly described, why did NIWA reconstruct the series? That’s a reasonable question, isn’t it? Or have I trodden on someone’s invisible toes?
You know nothing about my knowledge of NZ climatology, so it’s strange to hear you give an assessment of it. You come across as hostile, calling me an idiot for asking questions.
I know that Treadgold didn’t use the words “organised crime”. That was exaggeration for comic effect – do you see what I did there?
Are you now saying that Treadgold did not accuse NIWA of fraud at all? If that is the case, then Treadgold really needs to brush up on his communication skills, because it certainly sounded for all the world as though that is what he was saying.
For example, look at the questions asked in parliament by the ACT party last year. These questions were either written by Treadgold himself, or else written by somebody who was very familiar with Treadgold’s work. These questions very clearly implied that NIWA were guilty of fraud (or scientific malpractice if you prefer).
If you are saying that Treadgold did not actually accuse NIWA of fraud, then there are some very upset people at NIWA that he needs to apologise to. Would you like to send Treadgold’s apologies, or shall I?
Oh, and if we are going to ask questions, then another perfectly reasonable question is: how exactly did Treadgold construct his “unadjusted” series?
I strongly suspect that Tiny Tim is another Treadgold sock puppet. Please ignore him.
Who cares if an individual believes in climate science or not, the REAL problem with deniers, trolls and their ilk is resistance to, and the fear of change along with the common misconception that everybody has the right to “assess risk” which unless you are a credible and qualified EXPERT you DON’T.
Non experts i.e. the rest of us have the role of “risk management” should you require to take part in the former go and get qualified and stop being “Climate Cowboys”
A possible way of sorting this problem out is to apply common sense and a good splodge of personal greed, as a way to circumvent the denier BS…
As the man says in the clip below…
“…So if you don’t give a dam about the environment, do it because you are a greedy bastard and you just want cheap power!”
When the movie comes out take your friends!
looks like an instant classic 🙂
@McGee 9.23: Read this (unfortunately also includes plenty of inanity from your fellow trolls strewn through it, along with some hilariously stupid remarks by the ultra-naive), instead of wasting my time. The typical tag-team tactics used by you lot are designed to do precisely that – distract and delay. If you had any genuine interest in learning something about the subject, you would have already found it, of course. Don’t come that “innocent enquirer” crap with me.
http://hot-topic.co.nz/nz-sceptics-lie-about-temp-records-try-to-smear-top-scientist/
You’re into DNFTT territory permanently as far as i’m concerned.
I realise this is a fairly old/cold thread, but I see that for some reason the C”S”C have chosen now to issue a press release about their “analysis” of the temperature record. Much of the substance of the release is stuff that has already been adressed or straight out lies, but they must have felt it was time to pop up again.