Tag: NIWA

A Christmas cracker for the cranks

The National Institute for Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) released details of its recalculated New Zealand temperature series last week and in the last couple of days Richard Treagold and the Climate “Science” Coalition have issued statements in reply. And what a contrast they provide: Bryan Leyland for the NZ C”S”C is all bluster, demanding the resignation of the NIWA chairman and a declaration that the new series is “not valid” (whatever that means). Treadgold, meanwhile, describes the NIWA study as a vindication of his original “report”. One hopes they attend different carol services, because they’re clearly singing from different hymnals.

Lets review events to date, and see what the latest NIWA report really demonstrates…

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NIWA’s new NZ temperature series: plus ça change…

NZtempsoldnew.png

Earlier this afternoon NIWA released its recalculated NZ temperature record [full report], and as expected the changes from the “old” seven station series are more or less negligible. The trend over the last 100 years is identical, 0.91ºC per century, as the graph above shows. There are minor differences in some years, and larger ones at some stations, but the net effect to is confirm what we already knew: New Zealand warmed significantly over the last century. Commenting on the new report, NIWA CEO John Morgan said:

“I am not surprised that this internationally peer reviewed 2010 report of the seven station temperature series has confirmed that NIWA’s science was sound. It adds to the scientific knowledge that shows that New Zealand’s temperature has risen by about 0.9 degrees over the past 100 years”.

I’m not surprised either. But I confidently predict that the NZ Climate “Science” Coalition and Richard Treadgold will still find something to whinge about. After all, they’re trying to sue NIWA to have the original seven station series declared invalid. Now it’s been replaced — by something that looks rather similar. Which just confirms how shonky their original complaint and their subsequent silly suit really were. (More on this later, when I’ve had a chance to read the report in detail).

NZ glaciers holding their own (just)

NIWAParkPass2010.jpg

New Zealand’s glaciers just about held their own over last summer, showing a very slight gain in mass on average according to NIWA’s annual end of summer snowline survey, released today. The Park Pass glacier (above) in the Mt Aspiring National Park between the Hollyford Valley and the head of Lake Wakatipu (map) is one of the 50 index glaciers in the NIWA survey. From the press release:

“A moderate El Niño developed in the tropical Pacific in spring last year. This brought more southwesterlies, with normal to below normal temperatures through last summer and into autumn this year. The overall effect was to hold snowlines in a near steady state this year,” says [NIWA scientist] Dr Hendrikx. The previous two years (2007–08 and 2008–09) had seen end-of-summer snowlines rise significantly as not enough snow fell to compensate for melting.

The impact of the El Niño shows as a (very) small uptick at the end of the ice mass graph, but the overall trend remains strongly downwards.

NIWAglaciermassbalance2010.gif

The full report (with lots of pictures from the aerial survey) can be downloaded from the NIWA web site. The Park Pass photo above was taken on March 6th this year on the fourth leg of NIWA’s alpine flight, and shows some spectacular icebergs in the proglacial lake. The extent of the glacier’s retreat can be seen in the Google Earth imagery at Mauri Pelto’s From A Glacier’s Perspective blog post on the nearby Donne Glacier. With a strong La Niña now influencing weather patterns in NZ, it’ll be interesting to see how the glaciers fare. I wonder if I can blag a seat on the 2011 flight? ;-)

I’ve been wrong before

It appears that the crank pantheon has a new hero: John O’Sullivan — the “world’s most popular Internet writer on the greenhouse gas theory” and the man unafraid of getting everything wrong. The last time we encountered him, he was getting everything wrong about the New Zealand Climate “Science” Coalition’s attempt to take NIWA to court. In his latest piece — Royal Society Humiliated by Global Warming Basic Math Error — he’s getting everything wrong about CO2 and, surprise, his piece is being touted round the crank echo chamber — Delingpole’s blogged it, Morano’s linked to it, and poor old Treadgold’s repeated it verbatim. According to O’Sullivan, an article by an obscure Canadian scientist proves that:

Top international experts prove British numbers on carbon dioxide are wrong. Royal Society blunder grossly exaggerates climate impact.

Oh really?

No.

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NIWA v Cranks 4: Shoot out at the fantasy factory

Earlier today a Hot Topic reader drew my attention to this article: Legal Defeat For Global Warming In Kiwigate Scandal, which Nigella Lawson’s father’s secretly-funded Global Warming Policy Foundation chose to feature on its web site. What’s “Kiwigate”, he wanted to know?

Turns out it’s the NIWA versus NZ Climate “Science” Education Trust court case, launched back in August. It also turns out that the article in question is wrong in just about every material respect, and possibly libellous to boot. And the source for this farrago? A post by Richard Treadgold at his Climate Conversation blog, where he claims (in characteristically long-winded fashion) that in NIWA’s “statement of defence” (the document supplied to the High Court as a response to the NZ CSET’s “statement of claim“) NIWA “formally denies all responsibility for the national temperature record (NZTR)“. Well, not quite. Let’s look first at the “Kiwigate” piece…

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