Dennis Jensen MP — Calls for audit on the BOM and CSIRO data

Dennis Jensen, M.P. in the Australian Parliament, made a formal parliamentary request for an audit of the BOM and CSIRO data handling processes.

This is an excellent request, something Australia desperately needs. Good data on the climate.

Given how important our climate is, I’m sure Tim Flannery, The Climate Council, The Australian Conversation Foundation, and The Australian Greens will join us in demanding that the BOM and CSIRO datasets are independently audited. Naturally, all of us would want to ensure our climate data is of the highest quality possible and not subject to any kinds of confirmation bias, or inexplicable adjustments. Right? And maybe its even worse than we thought, so they will want to check, yes?

Let’s leave no stone unturned in making sure we understand the threats to the Australian environment, the impact on our farms and homes, and on our National Balance Sheet! How could any Green disagree?


Dennis Jensen talks about the response he got from the BOM and the questions he did not get answered:

” ... the BOM state the temperature trend prior to 1910 is unreliable. But the IPCC use data on Australia going back to 1850. So the question is, how to reconcile unreliable Australian data prior to 1910, with supposedly reliable data going back to 1850. Let’s suppose Australia has the most unreliable data on the planet…. even then, … how can their global estimates be reliable.

How then can global average temperatures be reliable prior to 1910…?

Has the BOM advised the IPCC in writing that Australia’s data before 1910 is unreliable? If so what was the IPCC response?

…we have a similar rate of warming from 1910 to 1945 and from  1975 to 1998, after which there was a haitus… the simple fact is the warming from 1910-1945 cannot be blamed on CO2.

Why are our old historic and detailed temperature records being ignored? Why does the BOM use mysterious methods without full and complete details to adjust our datasets?

He refers to the APS panel discussions, to the Darwin adjustments, to the strange way the oceans are now taking up the missing heat, but why did this mechanism only become operative after 1998?  What is that mysterious mechanism? Why, if they are taking up heat, is the the sea level rise not accelerating? Why is there a lack of an upper tropospheric hot spot.

Dennis Jensen is the only science based PhD in the Australian Parliament. He’s the only one asking questions which are so crucial to spending billions of dollars. He is an under-recognised asset. (Who else would ask these essential but detailed questions?) We need more politicians with his analytical background. Give Dennis our support.

Jennifer Marohasy has been in contact with Dennis Jensen and is keeping me informed (the information below comes from her blog).

Marohasy sent a letter to Greg Hunt, Minister for The Environment with 7 questions in early March. This is part of question 4.

Q4. Given potential and actual conflicts of interest, could the Australian Bureau of Statistics, (ABS) rather than the Bureau of Meteorology, be tasked with the job of leading the high quality and objective interpretation of the historical temperature record for Australia?

Confirmation bias is a tendency for people to treat data selectively and favor information that confirms their beliefs. Such bias can quickly spread through an organization unless there are procedures in place to guard against groupthink. Groupthink – Psychological Studies of Policy Decisions and Fiascos (Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1983) by Irving L Janis is the seminal text in the area and outlines how irrespective of the personality characteristics and other predispositions of the members of a policy-making group, the groupthink syndrome is likely to emerge given particular conditions; including that the decision-makers constitute a cohesive group, lack norms requiring methodical procedures and are under stress from external threats. This can lead to illusions of invulnerability and belief in the inherent morality of the group leading to self-censorship, illusions of unanimity and an incomplete consideration of alternative solutions to the issue at hand. All of these characteristics can be applied to the Bureau, which is particularly convinced of the inherent moral good in both its cause and approach to the issue of global warming.

Climategate emails revealed a mindset of scientific tribalism:

These emails show that managers at the Bureau including David Jones and Neil Plummer, rely on other climate scientists, particularly those at the heart of Climategate, for statistical advice and share the general contempt of the mainstream climate science community for rigorous scientific analysis.

For example, in an email dated 7th September 2007 Dr Jones wrote to Phil Jones from the Climate Research Unit that, “Truth be know,[sic] climate change here is now running so rampant that we don’t need meteorological data to see it.” In an email dated 5th January 2005, David Parker from the UK Met Office wrote to Mr Plummer resisting a suggestion that the period used to calculate temperature anomalies be corrected on the basis that “the impression of global warming will be muted.”

Edward Wegman pointed out that it is common practice in the regulation of pharmaceuticals to involve statisticians. Since billions of dollars, and potentially lives are at risk, why wouldn’t we use similar standards for environmental work?

To read it all, visit Jennifer Marohasy’s blog.

 

9.8 out of 10 based on 152 ratings

182 comments to Dennis Jensen MP — Calls for audit on the BOM and CSIRO data

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    the Griss

    One site that analyses BOM temperature data is “Kenskingdom”

    I have emailed a link to Dr. Jensen.

    Maybe he can even use an audit to find out the people actually driving this scam.

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      bullocky


      Audit BoM?

      Perhaps NIWA could do it: a bit of trans-Tasman-mutual-back-scratching (it’s easier to write it than say it!)

      Or if they’re busy, Mr Justice Venning may oblige?

      http://nzclimatescience.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogsection&id=14&Itemid=47

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      the Griss

      WoW (and yes, I did)…. but look 3 red thumbs..

      Seems I got under some skin.

      Is it the mention of Kenskingdom…….

      or the mention of hunting down the key perpetrators of “The Climate Lie”

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        Bones

        Griss,maybe Dennis Jensen should just wait till next week and let the IPCC hang themselves if the UK telegraph story from Pat yesterday is correct.

        The latest report from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is due out next week. If the leaked draft is reflected in the published report, it will constitute the formal moving on of the debate from the past, futile focus upon “mitigation” to a new debate about resilience and adaptation.

        Adapting to climate change(if needed at all),now where have I heard that before,what a novel idea.

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    Popeye

    How bloody BRILLIANT!!

    First the American Physical Society changes tack and appoints three sceptics to its review panel and now this.

    Go get em Dennis!!

    Oh how I love the sound of wheels falling off scams first thing in the morning evening 🙂

    Cheers,

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      Streetcred

      Pop, I read somewhere recently that they were not “appointed”, just invited to make submissions. The APS will likely ignore them and use the opportunity to slightly tone down their ill informed climate change rhetoric … a gentle back-pedaling, if you will.

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    graphicconception

    Good questions and quite similar to my list.

    I wonder if Steve McIntyre is available?

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    Paul Nebauer

    Data massaging, unreliable data, the missing hotspot, models that don’t work. It was all there. Is that the light at the end of the tunnel???

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      Bones

      Paul,with the warmer wallys,no matter what scam is revealed,they just tell you you’re wrong and the light at the end of the tunnel is the gravy train coming at full speed.They do not care how many times they are caught in a lie or with a failed prediction.

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        Bones, there will be no catastrophic warming of wallys in 20 years. Ahhh!

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        Leigh

        “Such bias can quickly spread through an organization unless there are procedures in place to guard against groupthink.”
        Bones,that doesn’t just happen by coincidence.
        There is but one “Wally warmer” who is calling all the global warmists “plays”at the BOM.
        Their is one main man that rubber stamps everybody below him.
        Nothing that could upset the gravy train would be released or responded to without, (I’m assuming he’s a he)
        “the”mans okay.
        Yeh sure their all part of the fraud at the BOM but only because they want to be.
        They would be properly vetted before getting the job and if they didnt measure up they wouldn’t be working there.
        Some ONE is the boss.
        Pardon the pun but expose his butt to the blow torch of public scutiny and you might be half way there to getting some action on an independant audit.

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    Geoffrey Williams

    Hurrah! Absolutely Brilliant! At last someone with an understanding of the issues of Climate Science has spoken out in Paliment. Dr Dennis Jensen, a qualified phd in science has landed a killer blow to the global warming alarmists!
    His questions to the Australian Bureau of Meteorology are sharp and concise and to the point. They will have to be addressed. The BOM will be held to account and the truth will out!
    Joanne you are also to be congratulated on you continued efforts to reveal the truth about climate to the Australian people. (wouldn’t it be just great if Jo was alongside Dr Dennis Jensen in the Australian Parliament!
    GEOFF W- SYDNEY

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    gbees

    I raised this a long time ago but couldn’t we (meaning us) do a Watts type audit of the sighting of the ground based temperature station’s in Australia? I’m happy to take photos and investigate the ones within my area. Is anyone else up to it?

    http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/surfacestationsreport_spring09.pdf#page=1&zoom=auto,0,792

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      Peter C

      Good idea gbees.
      I think someone might have already started on the project.
      The BOM actually puts up some information themselves on station siting and the local environment of the Stevensen Screen.

      There is a Stevenson Screen box at the Waikerie Airfield. It is no longer in use. It would appear to be well sited to most inspections. What is not always apparent is that the engine blast from the Flying Doctor turbo prop aircraft is directed straight at it during the engine run up. FD calls in about 10 times per week.

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      Steve

      Happy to audit my local area…anyone else up for this?

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    Peter Miller

    A climate data audit by independents?

    Why not? Obviously a great idea.

    But the Global Warming Industry does not want to be audited for obvious reasons. Audits are supposed to highlight weaknesses, confirm the quality of input and disclose fraud – those are the obvious reasons for not wanting an audit.

    The Distinguished Professor Mann is at the top of the list of climate warriors who do not want to have their data and ‘science’ audited, once again for obvious reasons.

    If Mann is anything to go by, then the BOM will fight tooth and nail against the idea of an independent audit, the greenies will howl with outrage and lefty politicians will whine about ‘our distinguished institutions being brought into disrepute’ by this process. Media with a left wing bent, like the ABC, will whinge about ‘this unnecessary waste of taxpayers’ funds’.

    My guess is the first step will be to suggest a pal review designed to whitewash the BOM, hoping the problem of an independent audit will slowly wither away in a deliberately long attrition process.

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      Peter, they shouldn’t have any problem with regard to “distinguished institutions being brought into disrepute by this process” if their research is above board.
      As the lefties keep telling us as they kerb our freedoms under the pretence of national security and saving humanity the biodiversity (which, it would seem humans are not part of) of the planet from the dire threat of climate change if they have done nothing wrong, they have nothing to fear form an independent audit.

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    Congratulations, Dennis Jensen. Well presented!

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    janama

    A climate data audit by independents?

    That has been underway for years now, it’s their work which is the basis of Jennifer’s letter to Minister Hunt and Dr Jensen’s report to parliament.

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    Neville

    Bravo to Dr Jensen for stating the obvious. Interesting to look at his two warming trends 1910 to 1945 and 1975 to 1998 here from WFTs. This is using HAD 3 unadjusted and HAD 3 variance adjusted. That’s using 4 trends.

    http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1910/to:1945/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1975/to:1998/trend/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1910/to:1945/trend/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1975/to:1998/trend
    The first much longer trend (36 years) is actually the higher trend and the more recent 24 year trend is not as steep.
    Little wonder they changed to HAD 4. But why is the later and shorter but supposedly co2 impacted trend not as steep as the earlier trend? IOW where is the co2 influence?

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      the Griss

      If you do an “un-adjustment” on the Hadley set, you would possibly end up with something like this.

      This is an el-quicko 3 point bit-map un-adjustment based on the following
      a) pre-adjustment data put the 1940 about the same as 1998.
      b) use “anti-adjustments” from Steve Goddard’s site to fix 1970-2000 period a bit.. ie to remove the fabricated trend.
      c) realign to match up.

      Now, as you can see, the trend 1977-2007 is obviously LESS than the trend from 1915-1945 (using 30 year periods)

      And that is DESPITE … probable quite large UHI effects, the strongest solar sequence in 1000+ years, and a steady increase in atmospheric plant food.

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    Bloke down the pub

    The popping sound you can hear is that of heads coming up over the parapet.

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    Neville

    If the period in the first HAD 3 record is reduced to just 24 years or 1922 to 1945 that earlier trend is much steeper than 1975 to 1998.
    So where is the co2 effect, in fact it’s the reverse. What a con and what a fraud and yet we are wasting billions $ on this corruption.

    http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1922/to:1945/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1975/to:1998/trend/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1922/to:1945/trend/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1975/to:1998/trend

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    Paul-83

    The BoM have used the excuse that Stephenson screens were not necessarily used prior to 1910, but there is ample evidence that most weather stations were using them from 1880 and measurements were taken with the same care by the colonial staff as by, often the same people, after 1910. Most of these early stations recorded the very warm decade of the 1890s in Australia which the BoM appears to try to hide. The heatwaves of that time were well recorded in the newspapers and there is no need to doubt the continuity of quality of the data before and after the BoM took over.

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      Graeme No.3

      Melbourne had a Stevenson screen in 1869 or earlier. Adelaide had two (one on Mt. Lofty) in the 1870’s as Clement Wragge wrote an article in 1880 using the data, about the time he left for Queensland which had one in Brisbane by that time. Unlikely that NSW or Tasmania were behind, if at all.

      WA lagged through lack of funds but by 1899 – 1906 were installing Stevenson screens in a number of country areas.

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    Graeme Bird

    I don’t know how we all got lucky enough to get Denis Jensen. We are somewhat unworthy. Or rather the other guys except for him, are unworthy of us. I don’t know why we deserve him. I don’t know why we deserve Jo-Anne. Whenever I see good people I worry for their safety. I think Jo Nova is safe now. But two years ago I was very seriously worried …

    I must say I like Barnaby Joyce. I like Denis Jensen and Barnaby Joyce. And I am NOT a homosexual. But I think these are good blokes. I like Joanne too. But remember she doesn’t agree with my point of view. Don’t hang it on her.

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      Peter C

      I hope Jo is not in danger Graeme, but if she is we must all rally round and protect her,

      Your comment reminded me of this marvellous contribution from Grant Burfield 29 Jan 2013

      No, The Conversation should be kept alive and encouraged. The Climate Change articles bring me a huge amount of amusement and enjoyment. The have a swag of commenters who rabbit on about nothing much in particular but get very angry if a “denier” lobs up and craps in their nest. Here’s Alice Kelly, one of their regulars whose profile informs us that she is a “sole parent…Grow things, Food and more food, also tricky exotic spectacular onco, regelia, eupogon and pogon iris….”
      She holds the hostess and commenters here in high regard and comments –

      No, I’ve ventured onto Jo Nova’s abhorrent site in the last couple of days for the first time and got into a slanging match with the woman herself. What is it with these conservative semi-beautiful women who want to play their persona, in order to have a hoard of adoring white men fawn over every word. There are a few in the media, particularly at News Corp. I mean, these temptress misinformers of science wouldn’t want to meet any of their audience, unwashed the lot of them.

      “So take that Ms Nova, … you, … you semi-beautiful misinforming temptress you.”

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        bullocky


        “So take that Ms Nova, … you, … you semi-beautiful misinforming temptress you.” ..(Alice Kelly)

        Too much Catherine Deveny and not enough Graham Readfearn!

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        Steve

        Odd…it sounded like it was woman writing it…..oh dear.

        Thsi is site lives or dies based on solid science.

        As usual , to use an analogy, the warmists are playing the woman, not the ball…..which is the type of average stuff we have come to expect when they start losing the debate.

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          Yonniestone

          I actually found this outburst to be firstly strange then quite intriguing and reminded me of past debates into the psychology of women especially around the subject of competitive natures vs social behavior, http://psychology.about.com/od/sigmundfreud/p/freud_women.htm

          Now while everyone can pontificate their opinions of the ways of the fairer sex I can only say from a personal POV that individual personalities play a big part in a persons social behavior and is often an overlooked element when examining the psychological makeup of people.

          Considering this I conclude that Ms Nova has a lot more personality and achievement than Ms Kelly could ever dream of and therefore Ms Kelly is simply projecting her angst and self loathing in a personal slight that is more directed to herself than Ms Nova.

          Many men would consider my musings above to be both brave and stupid or even masochistic, but I figure some fool has to go there so why not me?

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    PhilJourdan

    It is a welcome call, but I have to ask, how likely is it to come about? We have many members of congress here, calling for similar audits, and nothing ever materializes. Or, as in the case of the IRS scandal, the “bureaucracy” ate their homework.

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    While we penalise our western economies to avert a projected warming, someone else is grabbing warm water ports. Has Vlad been getting different climate advice?

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      Graeme No.3

      Of course he has.

      The Russian scientific community is noted for their sceptical attitude to claims of warming.

      “German meteorologists say that the start of 2013 is now the coldest in 208 years – and now German media has quoted Russian scientist Dr Habibullo Abdussamatov from the St. Petersburg Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory [saying this] is proof as he said earlier that we are heading for a “Mini Ice Age.” Talking to German media the scientist who first made his prediction in 2005 said that after studying sunspots and their relationship with climate change on Earth, we are now on an ‘unavoidable advance towards a deep temperature drop.’”

      quoted Yuri Nagovitsyn of the Pulkovo Observatory saying, “Evidently, solar activity is on the decrease. The 11-year cycle doesn’t bring about considerable climate change – only 1-2%. The impact of the 200-year cycle is greater – up to 50%. In this respect, we could be in for a cooling period that lasts 200-250 years.” In other words, another Little Ice Age.

      And there was that International Conference dust-up with Lord King making a fool of himself. Sorry, no ref. but this is on topic.
      http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterferrara/2013/05/26/to-the-horror-of-global-warming-alarmists-global-cooling-is-here/

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        JenJ

        The Russian scientific community was also noted for Lysenkoism.

        …. also noted for Abdumassatov’s prediction of a “mini-iceage” which begins this year…

        Anyone placing bets?

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          Rereke Whakaaro

          The Russian scientific community was also noted for Lysenkoism.

          Yes, the parallels with Climate Change are quite striking — consensus science, appeals to authority, a closed shop scientifically …

          But the Russians learnt from Lysenkoism, which is why so many are highly sceptical of the claims of ever increasing warming.

          But history does repeat in science, which is why solar activity needs to be heeded and understood. Having spent a number of years analysing solar cycles, especially the eleven year “subspot” cycle, its affects on the Ionosphere, and the electromagnetic noise that is introduced into electronic measurement systems, I have to say that modern cycles are mapping surprisingly closely to those on record for previous cycles.

          So yes, I’m placing bets.

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            JenJ

            You have that completely wrong – Lysenkoism was an example of an extremist political ideology promoting one scientist over all the others (ie, politics opposing the scientific consensus).

            Maybe you’re as flaky on history as you are on science?

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              bullocky


              ‘Lysenkoism is used metaphorically to describe the manipulation or distortion of the scientific process as a way to reach a predetermined conclusion as dictated by an ideological bias, often related to social or political objectives.’

              http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism

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              PhilJourdan

              And that is what is happening since all the alarmists are getting the grants from government.

              You do not think before you write, do you?

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          bullocky

          “…..prediction of a “mini-iceage” which begins this year…

          Anyone placing bets?”

          Ask Professor Brian Schmidt; he’s a big risk taker!

          http://joannenova.com.au/2014/01/i-already-have-a-climate-bet-with-a-brian-schmidt-id-like-to-do-another/

          (sarc)

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    Eliza

    They wont do it (BOM) Its run by diehard warmistas.

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      scaper...

      Getting close to the point of no choice.

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        el gordo

        Methinks 2014 is a tipping point year.

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          JenJ

          The beauty about this prediction is that, like John McLean’s abysmally failed prediction 3 years ago, it gets tested very soon and we can within 9 months judge whether you were sufficiently sceptical when you believed it.

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            Dear Jen, I realize you get very excited that one skeptic once made a prediction that didn’t pan out. Since there were no dollars and no lives dependent on that, and it’s success or failure made no difference to skeptical arguments, I’ve decided that each time you repeat it, I’ll add a note asking you if you think it was more important than the utterly failed IPCC projections from 1990.

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              John Brookes

              One? Since almost all “skeptic” predictions are of an imminent return to cooling, they are very often wrong.

              But this “audit” is a nonsense. The Australian government is supposedly trying to save money, and this is a waste of money.

              What is it trying to do? To show that its not warming? It clearly is, and endless futile attempts to prove otherwise are just a distraction.

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                markx

                Now THIS has really got Brooksey worried.

                Someone wants to check the data; “A waste of time and money” he says, “We already know what is happening, no need to look too closely”.

                You would think an audit would be very welcome, just to reinforce the integrity of the data.

                I am amused.

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                JenJ

                Markx is clearly hard-of-understanding: the adjusted data and the unadjusted data tell the same story.

                This is just more time-wasting and hand-waving from the merchants of doubt.

                [“what story?” SNIP Stop filling posts with empty bluster. Earn it. and Supply a real email please – Jo]

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                Sean McHugh

                John said:

                Wish I had seen this earlier:

                Since almost all “skeptic” predictions are of an imminent return to cooling, they are very often wrong.

                That’s fabricating to the point of lying. We don’t know what the temperature is going to do and either do you. That is actually the whole point. John, is the ’cause’ really worth the sacrifice of your integrity? Either way, don’t put your stupid words into our mouths. Is that asking too much?

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            el gordo

            The hiatus cannot continue forever and in the absence of a strong El Nino there is a better than even chance that temperatures are about to slide. It might just be a typical break point, like the cool 1947 to 1976 and then warming again. On the other hand, it may well be the beginning of a mini ice age.

            Assuming CO2 does not cause gorebull worming, the Denialati believe 2014 will be a pivotal year in the debate.

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    Tim

    “…it is common practice in the regulation of pharmaceuticals to involve statisticians.”
    Really? These are the good guys?

    In a 2005 essay, “Why Most Published Research Findings are False,” and which is the most downloaded document of all time on PLoS, the Public Library of Medicine’s peer-reviewed, open access journal, John P. A Ioannidis explains in detail how “It can be proven that most claimed research findings are false.” And that “for many current scientific fields, claimed research findings may often be simply accurate measures of the prevailing bias.”

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    incoherent rambler

    Jo, this will be a serious fight. The BoM and CSIRO will fight to the death over the ownership (of our data).

    Stand back and wait for slurs to be thrown at Jensen.

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      Not at all. Dennis knows what he is talking about. He’s not a good target. I predict general silence unless they are forced to respond, in which case, bluff and bluster and don’t forget they can always ask the NIWA (NZ BOM) team for a return favour. I’m sure they could set up a committee audit that’s “independent” sounding.

      What we need are real statisticians doing the check, not more climate patsy’s.

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        Raven

        Joanne Nova:What we need are real statisticians doing the check, not more climate patsy’s.

        Lord Donoughue, UK Parliament, needed to ask a similar question six times before the Met Office finally and reluctantly coughed up.

        To ask Her Majesty’s Government … whether they consider a rise in global temperature of 0.8 degrees Celsius since 1880 to be significant.

        And apparently, depending on the choice of statistical model used, IT ISN’T.


        PS: pedantic typo alert:


        “The Australian Conversation Foundation”
        —> The Australian Conservation Foundation

        . . . a talkfest organisation? 😉

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      Winston

      The BoM and CSIRO will fight to the death over the ownership (of our data).

      They own nothing. They only exist at our behest, and through our good graces. If they don’t behave with due diligence and deference to the interests of their masters- (i.e we, the general tax-paying public), then they will eventually feel the impact of our collective wrath, and it won’t be pretty.

      It is our data, first foremost and always. If you tamper with it, you had better be bloody well prepared to defend it, and with the most transparent and full disclosure of the justification for any of said adjustments. The problem is these people think of this data as their own personal domain, to do with what they please.

      I’ve got news for them- It ain’t so.

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        Mark D.

        They own nothing. They only exist at our behest, and through our good graces.

        Clear, excellent thinking Winston.

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      Yonniestone

      They will fight hard indeed as the data (information) has a huge monetary value for whoever owns it http://www.thepowerofinformation.eu/#top the people involved in that link seem to think so and are going to great lengths to achieve their goal.

      Power, wealth, information have always been related.

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    speedy

    Evening all.

    The CSIRO is not necessarily united on the “science”. There are sections which are part of the scam, and which get the ARC grants. Then there are the poor cousins who work with industry (you know, the people who pay taxes); these divisions are poorly funded and are expected to act as branch offices of the tax department to feed the rest even more. These people can see what’s going on but are trying to keep their jobs – hence they keep quiet.

    The head of the CSIRO is Dr. Megan Clarke, who should be ashamed of herself.

    Speedy.

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    John Catley

    Perhaps Jo should send an email to Michael Mann to canvass his support:-)

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    BoM predicted 3 more cyclones for NE Oz a month or so ago. There were some fizzers, and a couple got classified when they were well off-shore, and showing very little of the tell-tail rotation.
    Anyone else checking out BoM’s new MetEye service?
    http://www.bom.gov.au/australia/meteye/
    If you turn on the sea surface temperature you get some rather surprising results. No way the sea out the front of my place is at 30°C, but these are claimed to be observations. Argo records seem to indicate 30 is the maximum even in the west Pacific warm pool.

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    richard

    hate doing this off topic stuff but sometimes you find something you want to pass on, well two things sea related.

    A new paper out –

    Response of benthic foraminifera to ocean acidification in their natural sediment environment: a long-term culturing experiment

    “A paper published today in Biogeosciences finds that prior claims about the effects of ocean “acidification” on calcifying plankton are highly exaggerated because the artificial laboratory conditions utilized do not correctly simulate the effects in natural seawater. The authors find exposure of the plankton to “acidification” from elevated CO2 concentrations of up to 3247 ppm [over 8 times higher than the present] had no effect on the life cycle (population density, growth and reproduction) of calcifying plankton when natural buffering sediment was present in the experiment”

    and this from DR. JOHN T. EVERETT who worked for NOAA for 31 years,

    Statement of
    DR. JOHN T. EVERETT
    Joint Hearing on
    “EPA’s Role in Protecting Ocean Health”
    before the
    Subcommittees on Oversight and on Water and Wildlife of the
    Committee on Environment and Public Works

    http://www.epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Files.View&FileStore_id=db302137-13f6-40cc-8968-3c9aac133b16

    It would be good to have somewhere we can post this kind of stuff rather than interrupt the flow of the above topic.

    Apologies but found the Dr Everett a good read.

    here is part of his concluding remarks if you cannot be bothered to read and ties in a little with the paper above on studies in a lab.

    “There is no reliable observational evidence of negative trends that can be traced definitively to
    lowered pH of the water. If there were, it would be suspect because there is insignificant change
    relative to past climates of the Earth. Scientific studies, and papers reviewing science studies,
    have similar messages. Papers that herald findings that show negative impacts need to be
    dismissed if they used acids rather than CO2 to reduce alkalinity, if they simulated CO2 values
    beyond triple those of today, while not reporting results at concentrations of half, present, double
    and triple, or as pointed out in several studies, they did not investigate adaptations over many
    generations. If there are reports of increases in ocean acidification in a region, the likely causes
    are upwelling, pollution, and rainfall (or runoff) and these all need to be addressed”

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      I saw a documentary a few years ago, where a Harvard professor of Chemistry did an experiment to show the effect of acidified oceans on shells. He used nitric acid rather than carbon dioxide just to increase the rate of the reaction.

      The look in his face was priceless. “What have I stooped to doing for a career in Science?”

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    Robert O

    In all honesty Dr. Jensen has asked some very pertinent questions which require answers, which as he says, should be settled before we spend a “brass razoo” on climate change. It is not a question of keeping up with the Jones as regards carbon abatement strategies, but having an impartial look at the scientific basis of AGW theory since there are many shortcomings that have to be explained. For example, one would expect a strong mathematical correlation between levels of carbon dioxide (which are rising) and global temperatures (which are stationary); obviously there is none, thus a carbon tax will achieve nought anyhow. The problem, as I see it, is the scientific illiteracy of parliamentary members accepting dubious advice from vested interest. For example, I seem to recall that both Mr. Shorten and Ms. Milne have stated that they believe in climate change and also voted against the Carbon tax repeal too boot. In view of the money being spent I would have thought that an independent commission into this subject would be as equally important as pink batts and union corruption, and also get it away from the realm of politics. Personally, although there may be some problems with pre 1910 data, my experience that it was well recorded by extremely dedicated people, and I for one would not dismiss them as unreliable. We know from many sources that the 1850’s were pretty cold and Roman times were warm; what has changed?

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    The institutions that really need audit are those that are responsible for looking after the global thermometer-based data, like NOAA and NASA. During the writing of my latest paper on the Arctic temperature patterns based on thermometer (and not this theoretical monster called ‘global temperature’ which needs killing without prejudice!) I came across the latest version update of GHCN which not only updated temperatures for the Arctic region between 2003 and 2013, but consistently changed historical data between 1890’s to 2003 as well!!!! Please check http://www.l4patterns.com/Data_and_Knowledge.html and the brief report there “Constant and systematic abuse of the historical thermometer-based data by the curators of those datasets: NASA, NOAA and GHCN”. It is an example of the scientific fraud of the greatest proportions. If any of you have datasets accessed via KNMI software do check your datasets before March 1 2014 and the same datasets since.

    Dr Darko Butina

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    Roy Hogue

    The question now is how far will Jensen get? Will BOM and CSIRO be audited and if they are will it be a serious audit or a whitewash job? I remember how the several inquiries into CRU were handled. It was shameful.

    I do not understand how anyone who takes a good honest, thorough look at global warming with an open mind can conclude that there’s a problem. Jensen mentions the lack of the hot spot, which goes all the way back to basics the warmists themselves said would be their confirming evidence. It still isn’t there.

    So Dennis, go for it! But watch your back.

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    MadJak

    I really do enjoy it when someone in a management or leadership position actually knows the site domain they’re leading/managing.

    It really gives the five minute experts and imitators the s****.

    IMO, for anything reasonably complex, you need managers and leaders who know the domain well for the right outcome.

    I wonder if anyone at the BOM or CSIRO are in the process of updating their resumes yet? Maybe not just yet.

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    pattoh

    Has anybody given a reasonable explanation or even dodgy hypothesis how all this “heat”/energy has managed to get from the sun to the ( deep ) ocean hide-out?

    I recall reading in the discourse here a few years back that the IR coming in, or the quanta hanging around for a few extra nanoseconds through the agency of the CO2, does not penetrate the sea surface too far.

    If it got there via the normal physical processes we observe in the physical world, convection, conduction & radiation how is it that the doomsayers have not had their dire predictions of wild increases in hurricanes & cyclones come to fruition?

    BoM & the CSIRO sing this mantra in their quarterly “State of the Climate” releases but for all their breast beating, none have successfully fulfilled their duty & explain their science.

    Time for the piper to tell us who writes his music(annoying jingles).

    GO DENNIS!!!!

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      What about the heat within the Earth? It is considered negligible but how can that be possible. 3 trillion tons of a compound diluted to 400 ppm in the atmosphere can cause catastrophic warming, with only a fraction of it that is 10+ km up and at about -50°C doing all the damage.

      There is a billion times more of 500°C+ molten rock less than 1km under the oceans (and peaking through in many places), and this is supposed to have a negligible effect on ocean currents and the variation in climate?

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        John Brookes

        Its negligible because it is. Just like the heat emitted by burning stuff is negligible.

        Do you really think that our oh so knowledgable “skeptics” would overlook arguments like these if they were any good?

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        You can’t calculate it with any degree of accuracy, and still the claim is that in the oceans it is comparable to the amount of back radiation. Do you understand that heated water becomes less dense and so rises? So its not about the total heat but about changes to the ocean currents. Exactly how much, no idea but I’m not prepared to accept negligible “just because it is.

        Its a bit like the claim from the US Geological Survey that volcanoes only emit 210 million tons of CO2. That came from about 71 volcanoes erupting per year and emitting 3 million tons of CO2.

        There was no calculation of what was being emitted by active volcanoes that did not erupt, of which there are about 1000 on the land. The number in the oceans is completely unknown and the amount from other sources is completely unknown except that makes the estimate for natural sources given by the USGS a couple of orders of magnitude off.

        As far as I am aware, I’m the only one who wrote a letter to the editor of my local paper pointing this out, but its pretty safe to assume even the most useless geologist spotted the BS.

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      Ted O'Brien.

      Heat cannot “hide” in the bottom of the ocean. No matter where it is in the ocean does it not cause the same expansion?

      So what do the sea levels say?

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        JenJ

        Ted, you are wrong in your assertion and your assumption.

        See below:
        http://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=kt167nb66r&chunk.id=d3_4_ch03&toc.id=ch03&brand=eschol

        Thermal Expansion. The coefficient of thermal expansion, e, defined by e = (l/αs,ϑ,p)(∂αs,ϑ,p/∂ϑ), is obtained, at atmospheric pressure, from the terms for D in Knudsen’s Hydrographical Tables, and at higher pressures from Ekman’s tables or formulae (p. 57). The coefficient for sea water is greater than that for pure water and increases with increasing pressure.

        Lucky we have scientists, eh?

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          Ted O'Brien.

          Thanks for that reference. However it seems to support my assertion.

          The question is, how much expansion would this “missing” heat cause?

          About the mentioned heat transfer with turbulence.

          When working outdoors on a hot, windy summer’s day, temp above 35 degrees, from time to time you may get hit with a gust of wind which seems to be much hotter than the prevailing wind. There may be a simple explanation, e.g. evaporation rate of perspiration, but the sensation is that even with the turbulence, the temperature is not homogenous. I always wished I had the means to check it out.

          I would expect that if the temp is in fact not homogenous, then a similar situation would apply in turbulent water.

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            JenJ

            How on earth could “The coefficient for sea water is greater than that for pure water and increases with increasing pressure” support your assertion when your assertion says the opposite?

            [SNIP bluster. You need a real email.- J]

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          The missing heat would increase the sea levels by 4-5 mm. Here is some ARGO data for you. This is for heat being spread out evenly throughout the oceans. If it went into the top 30 metres (90% of the heat goes into the oceans) then it would be 40-50 cm.

          You can see that the variation from the tidal influences of the Sun and Moon give an annual variation that is about 10 mm so there is no evidence that it did occur or did not occur, and the precision is obviously exaggerated like usual (what percentage of the time are measurements taken in swells less than 10 cm?).

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        John Brookes

        Still rising.

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    Neville

    I’ve looked at more trends from WFTs to try and compare the 20 years of warming ( 1979 to 1998) from the complete UAH satellite data and found more interesting results.

    http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1922/to:1941/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1910/to:1929/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1910/to:1929/trend/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1979/to:1998/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1979/to:1998/trend/plot/uah/from:1979%20/to:1998/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1922/to:1941/trend

    The earliest trends are from 1910 to 1929 and I’ve chosen HAD 3 and HAD 4. Next I’ve chosen HAD 3 and HAD 4 from 1922 to 1941.
    The last warming period is from 1979 to 1998 (to match UAH warming record) and again I’ve chosen HAD 3 and HAD 4. Of course UAH is added for this period as well and is a much lower trend.

    But the two earlier warming trends are much higher than 1979 to 1998. So I ask again, where is the co2 effect after 1979? In fact the later trends are lower not higher.
    Or perhaps I’m not using the software correctly?

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    Safetyguy66

    Excellent work by the Honorable Mr Jensen.

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    manalive

    According to the BOM website all areas of Australia have warmed annually and in all seasons since 1910, except for a small areas in northwest WA and northern NSW.
    The warming allegedly varies up to ~0.2 C/decade.
    I have an old copy of the 1890 Royal Atlas and Gazetteer of Australasia (it has been digitalised and available at The National Library) which includes two maps of the July and December isotherms for the continent.
    A comparison with the corresponding maps on the BOM website show that in July and December many areas have not warmed or in fact have cooled.
    The 1890 maps naturally are not as detailed as the current maps but the overall picture is revealing.
    For instance the 65F(18C) isotherm in July in 1890 roughly corresponds to the 15C isotherm on the current July mean temperature map.
    In general all the isotherms on the 1890 maps are more towards the south than on the current corresponding July and December BOM mean temperature maps yet most of the continent has allegedly warmed, some areas up to ~2C since 1910.
    Go figure.

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    The reason for adjustments (or homogenization) is that a shift in position of the station, a change in technology used or a change in the density of sites in different areas could cause a trend that does not reflect the real change in the climate. This also opens up the possibility that the adjustments cause the observed trend, of which there is plenty of evidence for.

    In the last ‘Weekend Unthreaded’, I showed that a moving linear regression over 12 months and smoothing over 15 years gave an estimate of the warming trend, and a cumulative plot of this trend fitted the actual HadCRUT4 data well.

    My suggestion is to compare the moving linear regressions of the daily maximum/minimum temperatures over 365 days. The average of the slope for each day can then be plotted with no adjustment due to the greater number of stations coming on line or changes in existing stations.

    Since the absolute temperatures are not important when measuring the rate of temperature change, changes in positioning or equipment will only affect the single year (which can be omitted). Weighting of sites can be ignored or corrections can be made as a better understanding of effects of latitude, positioning, UHI effect on changes in rate of temperature change are learnt. A cumulative plot can then be made of this, plus a constant so that the final temperature is the average maximum temperature over a year for all stations at the present.

    This is a simple enough technique for most physical scientists to follow and replicate the results. The latter is what distinguishes science from religion.

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    Jo et al. Great post. And three cheers for Dennis!

    Vic et al. Yes there is much potential advantage in considering the entire year’s data and trends over time. It would be wrong though to start with the assumption that temperatures have generally warming and that we are arguing over the magnitude of the warming. There is much evidence for an overall cooling at some locations in NSW and Queensland (at least) and warming at others. You will find some examples of both in the comment thread at this blog post… http://jennifermarohasy.com/2014/03/call-for-independent-audit-of-bureau-of-meteorology-by-dennis-jensen-in-australian-parliament/

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      scaper...

      Hi Jen, have you received a response to your letter from Greg or his department?

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      Hi Jennifer, I changed ‘warming rate’ to ‘rate of temperature change’ for that reason, when proof reading, except for the reference to the HadCRUT data.

      I don’t want to step on the toes of statistician, but doing it the way I suggested then comparing different sites before weighting would leave me a lot more confident about the homogenization.

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  • #
    handjive

    An investigation into the data & it’s collection can only benefit the BoM and it’s support of UN-IPCC claims of catastrophic manmade Global Warming.

    Especially if their data & methods are infallible, as they claim.

    The contrarians, deniers, skeptic, flat-earthers, knuckle draggers, or what ever name BoM/UN-IPCC scientists throw this week, will be shut-up & shut-down for good.

    It’s a win-win for our children’s children.

    What could possibly go wrong?

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    Vic et al. While considering individual years has its advantages, when you aggregate years, and, for example, consider each decade for an individual site then sometimes trends are more obvious, for example the Bathurst hot days at this link… http://jennifermarohasy.com/2012/05/trends-hot-days-west-of-sydney/

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    • #

      Can I ask as to whom the et al. refers to? And koalas do sometimes fall out of trees when the action between two koalas gets a bit hot.

      You might have misinterpreted my post. Instead of calculating averaging anomalies over a month, you remove the climate change of the seasons by doing a moving linear regression for each site over 365 days, then find the average rate for all sites for a particular day rather than the average anomaly from the long term mean. The average temperature for a site doesn’t matter, assuming that a degree of global temp change changes sites all around the world by a degree on average.

      You get the rate of change from which you can calculate the cumulative change that should have less noise.

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      • #
        Streetcred

        Simple question, so what happens when the BoM unilaterally cools the past ? … and the consequences are ?

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      • #

        BOM cools the past because it is correcting for bias before looking at the results. I’m for posting the results of a collection of temperature measurements with no adjustments first except to smooth some noise out.

        I think that the way I propose the data should be looked at would look similar to this similar approach to the HadCRUT4 data. It has been homogenized but when you look at the rate rather the anomalies, you see that the correlation with how the rate of fossil fuel is used doesn’t correlate well at all.

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    ianl8888

    I respect Jensen for his direct action 🙂

    But expecting a responsive reply is like Waiting for Godot

    A somewhat analogous situation occurred in the UK Parliament a while back, the substantive issue being the rubbery, move-the-goalposts attitude of the UK Bureau of Meteorology to the definition of statistical significance. After a half-dozen non-responsive, evasive answers (over quite a few months), it was announced that physical theory trumped statistical significance – ie. theory overwhelms data

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    TdeF

    Two articles overnight. One was a report that the growing seasons were getting longer in Europe, because vegetation had expanded in aerial photographs. Climate change. Of course. At least the CSIRO last year put the greening of Australia down to increased CO2, as we all know, the sole cause of all climate change. The funniest one was a filler article on giant prehistoric 30 metre sharks and the young commentator said no one knew why they had died out, but suggested perhaps Climate Change. I assume he means man made CO2 from fossil fuel producing Global Warming and killing the Megaladons as recently as 1.3 million years ago. Man made climate change is now killing lifeforms before Homo Sapiens existed.

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      Bones

      Man made climate change is now killing lifeforms before Homo Sapiens existed.

      TdeF,this just proves how we have excelled at evolution and the ability to CONtrol that evil ‘mother nature’
      For a full rundown on how we achieved this CONtact prof flim flam,he’s the man when it comes to evolution.

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        handjive

        Neanderthal extinction maybe due to extreme cold

        New research suggests that Western European Neanderthals were on the verge of extinction long before modern humans showed up.

        Neanderthals in Western Europe were nearly extinct, but then recovered long before they came into contact with modern humans, claims a new research study, in a demographic crisis that seemed to coincide with a period of extreme cold in Western Europe.

        “The fact that Neanderthals in Western Europe were nearly extinct, but then recovered long before they came into contact with modern humans came as a complete surprise to us,” said Dalén, associate professor at the Swedish Museum of Natural History in Stockholm.

        “This indicates that the Neanderthals may have been more sensitive to the dramatic climate changes that took place in the last Ice Age than was previously thought.”

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    Congratulations to Dr Dennis Jensen, (the only qualified Phd in science in Parliament) for landing a knockout blow on CAGW!
    The Australian Bureau of Meteorology must respond to these assertions.
    Congratulations to Joanne for bringing this to our attention.
    Would it be possible that Steve McIntyre could be available to fly over and do the Audit.
    The coming Ice Age could help to focus their attention on matters other than CAGW alarmism.

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      Gee Aye

      And what does a Ph.D provide qualifications for?

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      • #
        Backslider

        Think about it Gee.

        Wouldn’t you agree that an independent audit could only be a good thing?

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          Tim

          “And what does a Ph.D provide qualifications for?”

          Try asking the well-known mammalogist/ palaeontologist who’s bizarrely the Australian guru on climate change.

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        • #

          ok the answer is nothing.

          It is a not a qualification it is just a level of attainment. It is not a drivers licence it is just an acknowledgement of sustained effort with external assessment. Maybe all a PhD can do is recognise lots of sorts of cars and how they might best be driven. It does not mean they can drive them. It is likely, although not always true, that the recipient has some smarts.

          This is not a surprise to the old timers here (although they might not believe it) is that I have one, indeed I actually outlined my post nominals in the famous post nominal thread. So I have no reason to diss a Ph D.

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      • #
        Rereke Whakaaro

        Philosophy.

        10

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        the Griss

        Well Gee, why do you not try getting a SC first..

        small step Gee, small steps ! 🙂

        10

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        Akatsukami

        If I am not mistaken, Dr. Jensen’s degree is in materials science.

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    Axelatoz

    About time.
    Anyone who is involved in the lodging an NGER (National Greenhouse & Energy Reporting Act)annual return, which forms the calculation basis of the “Carbon” Tax, will appreciate the rigour required in the measurement, recording, calculation and, yes AUDITING of the results. This annual process in many cases, results in annual compliance costs amounting to millions of dollars. This annual impost is before paying any tax which may accrue. I have often thought that if the organisations that were responsible for the temperature data collection and collation and subsequent “processing” which ultimately led to the implementation of this flawed taxation policy, were subjected to a similar auditing process they would score a convincing “fail”. On a cautionary note, the big auditors (we in the business world know who they are)derive their major income from auditing major financial institutions who seem to be almost universally in favour of Emission Trading Schemes whereby they can extract there “slice of the action”.

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    JenJ

    So, the guy who says, “the only argument for AGW is models”, is right, and CSIRO and BoM are wrong, is that it?

    You *sure* you don’t feel the slightest bit sceptical about Jensen?
    [There are three important factors in the accuracy of any model: the degree of understanding of the underlying scientific principles, the appropriateness of the mathematical functions used to describe those underlying principles, and quality of the input data supplied to the models. A comprehensive audit that demonstrates the veracity of the science would need to look at all three. Is that not reasonable?]

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    Peter Carabot

    I am looking forward to the next 7.30 report on the ABC, about the results of the audit……………
    Maybe QA might debate the various party……
    maybe pigs will fly…..

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    JenJ

    “Dennis Jensen is the only science based PhD in the Australian Parliament. ”

    I guess I could only accuse you of hypocrisy if your apparent argument from authority was laying any kind of claim that Jensen is in any way trained or qualified in a relevant field.

    [I didn’t claim Jensen was right because he has a PhD, which would be argument from authority. I claimed that he had a deeper understanding of climate issues than other pollies because of the topics and points he raised which I cited (and which you don’t seem to have a criticism of). I said we need more pollies like him that are hard-science trained. To prove me wrong, you can always find a politician with a better understanding of climate science who does not have science training. Go right ahead. Because I don’t believe a qualification guarantees anything anymore. Some of the worst scientists I’ve seen are professors. – Jo]

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    Glen Michel

    At last DR Jensen has raised this subject and the rather strange arrangements to the data.Congratulations! And congratulations to this site and Jennifer Marohasy and her blog for keeping the channels open in this battle about “the settled science”. Amen.

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    handjive

    Steve Goddard weighs in with some timely news articles that the BoM chooses to ignore.

    Fraud Is The New Normal For “Top” Australian Climate Scientists

    “Here’s something that will raise the temperature of the global warming debate even further. Australian scientists have concluded that the island continent’s heatwave last year only broke records because of man-made climate change.”

    The Heat wave of 1896.
    “Visualise the heat! Never under 100 degrees for six weeks, day or night!”

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    Pete of Perth

    Maybe Dr Jensen should attend this public lecture by Prof Garnaut and ask the same questions. “Climate change is a Western Australian Issue – an economic perspective” where PRG will address the “diabolical policy problem”. 3rd April – City of Vincent function centre -$40/head.

    … and the gravy train rolls on.

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      Mattb

      Seriously how do I only find out about this kind of stuff here?

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        Dave

        MattyB

        Use Google and you can book a TICKET

        If you looked at your council meeting minutes you will find that City of Vincent is assisting?

        “Presented by EcoCarbon with the assistance of SEA, City of Vincent and Curtin University.”

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    Bob of Castlemaine

    It is common knowledge that even friends of the BOM have complained (off the record) that the Australian data is a “load of garbage”. From the climategate emails we heard that:

    I am very sorry to report that the rest of the databases seem to be in nearly as poor a state as Australia was. There are hundreds if not thousands of pairs of dummy stations, one with no WMO and one with, usually overlapping and with the same station name and very similar coordinates. I know it could be old and new stations, but why such large overlaps if that’s the case? Aarrggghhh! There truly is no end in sight… So, we can have a proper result, but only by including a load of garbage!

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    handjive

    Monash letters reveal secretive attitude over fossil fuel investments

    “Former Liberal Party leader, economist John Hewson, recently sent the world’s top 300 universities questionnaires about their investment decisions in order to rate their response to climate risk.

    Monash’s chief financial officer, David Pitt, inadvertently sent John Hewson the advice he privately gave his vice chancellor.

    Monash scientists were among the first to alert the world to global warming.
    One of them, David Karoly, a lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change …

    Lateline
    Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC)
    Broadcast: 27/03/2014

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    Mattb

    “the simple fact is the warming from 1910-1945 cannot be blamed on CO2.”

    Is 100% not a simple fact. It is made up.

    p.s. I note it’s got so bad you guys don;t even feel the need to have a thread lampooning Earth Hour this year:)

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      Bones

      Mattb,are you at work and bored,earth hour tomorrow and you are the first one to bring it up.Thanks I nearly forgot to leave my lights on when I go out.

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      Pre 1945 CO2 was nastier?

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      Heywood

      “on;t even feel the need to have a thread lampooning Earth Hour this year:)”

      Earth hour? Oh. You mean Human Achievement Hour.

      Whilst the leftard progressives are sitting in the dark feeling smug about themselves and participating in a mutual circle jerk of self congratulation, most of us will be shining our lights bright and proud to celebrate the majesty of electricity that has given us so much.

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      Just Thinkin'

      I fully intend to have ALL OF MY LIGHTS “ON”, and anything else I can turn on for that hour.
      Gotta make it fair, eh.

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        scaper...

        Yeah, Earth Hour is cool.

        The only night of the year I get to wear sunnies.

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          Heywood

          I’ll also make sure the Pilot Activated Lighting at the local airfield is triggered too. All those high wattage globes should undo Matt’s Earth Hour contributions just nicely. Should also negate BilB’s electric car for a while too.

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    aussiebear

    An audit would certainly reveal things…It will be like shining a light in a roach-infested kitchen! Watch those who have been dishonest quickly scurry!

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    pat

    more madness at the link:

    27 March: UK Daily Mail: David Martosko: Climate jazz-hands: Federal government’s National Science Foundation paid $697,177 for New York City musical theater production about global warming
    ‘The Great Immensity’ opens in April, funded by U.S. taxpayers
    The National Science Foundation awarded a grant of nearly $700,000 in 2010 to a New York City theater company so it could write and produce a play about climate change.
    ‘The play uses real places and stories drawn from interviews conducted by the artists to create an experience that is part investigative journalism and part inventive theater,’ according to the grant’s online description.
    ‘Attendance at the performances is projected to be about 75,000.’
    ‘The initiative … intends to create and evaluate a new model for how theater can increase public awareness, knowledge, and engagement with important science-related societal issues,’ according to the government bureaucrats who awarded the funds…
    ‘The Great Immensity,’ a play scheduled for an April 11 premiere in Brooklyn, is about a woman who hunts for a friend who disappeared from a tropical island. As she moves from place to place, she ‘uncovers a mysterious plot surrounding the upcoming international climate summit,’ reads an online plot summary…
    The theater company producing ‘The Great Immensity’ is The Civilians, a Brooklyn fixture whose artistic director Steve Crosson wrote and directs the play…
    The show’s first musical number, called ‘Margin of Error,’ recounts global-warming poll numbers that the producers say ‘were all reported by the New York Times.’
    ‘Forty-four per cent’ of Americans ‘think that it should be more of a priority, but not if it costs too much, and less than health care or the economy,’ reads one lyric. ‘Thirty-six per cent think it’s caused by humans – or maybe 47 per cent – or 51 per cent, maybe, think it’s a combination of human and natural causes.’
    The song’s one laugh line: ‘Ten per cent believe the snow they shoveled last winter precludes any chance of climate change.’…
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2590817/Outrage-Federal-governments-National-Science-Foundation-paid-697-177-New-York-City-musical-theater-production-global-warming.html#ixzz2xBQlsoua

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     D J  C o t t o n 

    Well, OK, they can examine data sets, but they will observe some natural warming and still blame it on carbon dioxide. Instead it is the underlying physics which needs to be examined, and any alternative explanation to the greenhouse paradigm.

    There is such an explanation in the gravito-thermal effect, and here is a summary of key points often raised which cannot be explained with the greenhouse paradigm, but are explained easily with the gravito-thermal paradigm which, in time, the world will see to be the correct one …

    The Second Law of Thermodynamics never mentions thermal equilibrium or heat transfers from hot to cold. It is all about evolving towards thermodynamic equilibrium which is quite a different thing, involving mechanical equilibrium as well, and thus gravitational potential energy.

    The Ranque-Hilsch vortex tube is indeed constantly evolving towards thermodynamic equilibrium and it generates over 10^6g and hence creates an easily measured gravito-thermal effect. How else could the air in the centre cool to around -50C? There has been no other valid explanation in many years and so, as I have said in Wikipedia, the gravito-thermal effect is the most probable explanation.

    The Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution is derived theoretically for a non-gravitational field. Hence it is not strictly correct when a state of thermodynamic equilibrium (or close to such) exists and you are considering molecules at different altitudes, although it will apply in any horizontal plane.

    It is a red herring to postulate a gas that does not absorb any solar radiation and re-emit it. If such an atmosphere did exist it would still exhibit a thermal gradient but, by the assumption made, it would be just as if it weren’t there at all as far as radiation is concerned. Of course if it got too cold near the top, some would solidify and collapse.

    It is energy from the Sun (mostly absorbed in the atmosphere) which heats the surface of Venus, for example, and actually raises its temperature from about 732K to 737K during the course of its 4-month-long daytime. But the whole temperature profile in the troposphere has to rise 5 degrees also for this surface warming to happen, and then indeed the surface is warmed by conduction from the base of the troposphere.

    All planetary temperatures in tropospheres and even beneath any surface are determined by the gravito-thermal effect, and they have nothing to do with any greenhouse radiative forcing or sensitivity to carbon dioxide.

    When they drilled the KTB borehole down to 9Km depth in Germany they were surprised at how much water they found underground. This then helps confirm that the gravito-thermal effect is also apparent in solids and liquids. At 9Km depth it was 270C, far hotter than they expected, with a thermal gradient in the outer crust at least 20 times as steep as the mean gradient to the centre of the core. That’s because specific heat increases very significantly with the hotter temperatures in the mantle and core.

    If you plotted just the temperatures between, say, 9Km and 4Km you would find that the near linear plot extrapolates quite well to the actual mean minimum daily temperatures at the surface.

    Why is it so?

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      Hey DJ Cotton

      Theory is important, and so is evidence.

      And I think you too quickly accept the proposition that there has been warming since 1850 or 1910. Does the unadjusted data for everywhere in the world, or everywhere in Australia show this? How is it that so many temperature series that I look at for Queensland and New South Wales, when unadjusted, showing cooling or no trend when the start date is 1850 and the there is no change in the physical location of the station.

      I understand that similar data for the US shows that the hottest years were in the late 1920s and/or 1930s.

      I think ‘the sceptics’ have too quickly accepted the proposition that there has been a general warming trend since the LIttle Ice Age.

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        Peter C

        Great to see you here Jennifer,

        You are right that skeptics have agreed too readily with some of the alarmists contentions.

        Regarding the Little ice Age and even the Ice Ages , John Kehr in the Inconvenient Skeptic suggests that these may be largely Northern Hemisphere events. The tropics and the oceanic southern hemisphere my be largely protected.

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          BilB

          That is a good point, PeterC. It does not mean that warming was not happening in the Southern Hemisphere, but it would appear differently here. Another complication is the Ozone over the Antarctic which reduces warming and is, I am guessing, a 20th Century phenomenon. The other two huge variables are aerosols and volcanic activity timing.

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            Peter C

            I see what you mean. However I was not supporting more warming here in the Southern Hemisphere, just that the past and future Ice Ages might not be as noticeable here.

            As for Ozone I suppose that everyone is guessing since previous measurements are not available.

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        incoherent rambler

        Agree with you Jennifer!

        I continue to struggle with issue of the quoted warming being less than the error margin for majority of the (unadjusted) records.
        Equally, there is strong evidence that CO2 levels may have been higher in the early 1800s.

        (Arguing either issue should always be in the context of the “hypothesis” that CO2 causes catastrophic warming. Methinks the hypothesis has been well and truly blown out of the water.)

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        BilB

        There is no point in asking questions, if you are going to ignore the answers. Most of the points raised in this thread are resolved in this compilation

        [SNIP]

        http://www.skepticalscience.com/How-Jo-Nova-doesnt-get-past-climate-change.html

        [SNIP]

        [SNIP]

        With the concluding remark that “while skeptics are entitled to their opinions they are not entitled to their own ‘facts'”.

        [Ahh Bil, see my mod didn’t want to release this, but I do. Are you interested in a real conversation, or are you here just to repeat Adverts for your faith? You raised the second link last week, and I responded in detail, showing how weak the Cook argument is. You had no reply. Before we can discuss the other mistaken pages you link too, you need to show if you are here for an honest conversation, not just to chant adverts. – Jo]

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          Other drivers of past climate change include variations in solar output, continental drift, orbital variations (known as Milankovitch cycles), volcanism, and ocean variability. Any conclusions that we draw from a perceived lack of correlation in the climate record between atmospheric CO2 and global temperatures must take into account these factors.

          In other words, enough parameters that can only be guessed at so that the plot could fit well to a drawing of an elephant, wiggling trunk and all. The point still stands: the temperatures were constant for a 100,000,000 years time when the CO2 concentration dropped by more than a half.

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          PhilJourdan

          Seems bilbee is the one that does not read. Those 3 fingers are working overtime with him.

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    pat

    WOW! i can hardly believe this was on Lateline. Stern’s responses are so weak…& ridiculous – no doubt he was in shock that Jones was questioning him in this manner. the Richard Tol stuff is so predictible:

    27 March: ABC Lateline: Back tracking on carbon pricing will damage Australia
    NICHOLAS STERN: What China is doing is growing rapidly and trying to reduce the fraction of coal in its energy portfolio and it’s succeeding in doing that.

    TONY JONES: Sorry, can I interrupt you there. Do you know what it is at the moment? I found it hard to actually find details of this. What is the percentage of power produced by coal?

    NICHOLAS STERN: I think it’s around – you’ll have to check this Tony but I think it’s just below 60 per cent coming down from considerably above 60 per cent.
    Don’t hold me on those numbers. All I can tell you is that it’s coming down pretty rapidly in China as a result of direct policy and notwithstanding a likely doubling of the economy in 10 years, that they aim, during that period, to find a peak in coal and then bring it on down thereafter.

    TONY JONES: The interesting thing is finding the peak in coal is happening at the moment and the peak may be very high because the extra production is six times the previous year, it is going up very fast. They aim to put, apparently, 850 million tonnes of new coal production into operation by 2015 at which rate won’t any clean-energy benefits be simply wiped out by this new coal production?

    NICHOLAS STERN: The real question there is consumption and China is importing coal so by increasing production they’re looking to reduce their coal inputs. The key figure to look at is consumption and it’s consumption they’re seeking to peak in the next 10 years or so.

    TONY JONES: The Chinese Greenpeace spokesman Deng Peng who’s based in Beijing says even though they’ve shut down some of their old and dirty coal-fired power stations, they’re hugely expanding coal production in north-west China and building coal bases on, according to him, not seen anywhere else in the world, with vast open-cut coal mines and power plants and coal chemical plants all linked together, massive expansion, so I’m just wondering if we’re seeing one thing with coal and hearing another thing – a sort of propaganda, if you like, about how much renewable energy is changing the equation?

    NICHOLAS STERN: I don’t think that’s the right way to look at it. As I said before, what you have to look at is consumption, how much coal are they burning and planning to burn? That is going to go on rising for around 10 years or so, the consumption of coal. They’re looking to produce more of the coal inside China and that means a reduction of their imports.
    At the moment they’re importing so I think we should see the extra production in China as an attempt to cut dependence on outside, including of course, imports from Australia. The key thing to look at in terms of their emissions is their consumption and it’s their consumption they’re intending to peak and I’ve talked in detail to the people working on that and I believe that that intention, ambition to peak the consumption of coal in the next 10 years is credible but it will be going up for that time and that is a problem but it takes a while to turn round a country as big as China but their intention is pretty clear.

    They don’t like depending on coal imports. The air in Beijing and other cities in large measure as a result of all that burning of coal, is pretty toxic and that is something they worry about very understandably.

    TONY JONES: When I first spoke to you in 2007 about the coal-fired dilemma in China, the coal-fired power dilemma, you said the answer ultimately would be to put a massive effort into carbon capture and storage, in other words putting CO2 underground, storing it underground. Is that actually happening anywhere in China at this point?

    NICHOLAS STERN: There’s interest, growing interest, but it’s not gone nearly as fast as many of us hoped six or seven years ago. I think one has to focus on phasing out of coal and thinking of the alternatives to coal and in China they’re thinking very strongly of expanding nuclear, maybe 150 nuclear power stations, one gigawatt in time in the next 15 years or so, big expansion of renewables, big expansion of hydro, and gradually that’s the way they’ll turn it round.
    If they do find carbon capture and storage then good luck to them. I would hope they could and it would work but it’s going quite slowly…

    TONY JONES: Yes it certainly is but renewables, although they’ve got a massive renewable program, even when you combine the renewables with the hydro, it’s still only currently 10 per cent as far as I can see of the energy that they burn at the moment so how quickly can they ramp that up?

    NICHOLAS STERN: I think that they can ramp up the renewables, the hydro and the nuclear pretty quickly but pretty quickly, you know, you have to talk horizons of 10, 20 years. It does take time to turn around but as I said, they plan to peak coal in around 10 years. That target’s not confirmed but my guess is that in the 13th 5-year plan to be published towards the end of next year, that’s the kind of target they’ll have. That’s the measure of how rapidly they’re trying to turn it round but you can’t do that just in one or two years. It needs a sustained program over 20 years or so.

    TONY JONES: Finally…

    NICHOLAS STERN: They’re absolutely committed on this, Tony. Coal consumption will rise for the next 10 years or so but after that it’s likely to turn down. During that 10 years, coal production is likely to go up but that will mean reduction in imports not a rise in consumption.

    TONY JONES: They have not committed to an overall national emissions reduction target of the type that Australia is trying to do and other countries are trying to do. Is there a chance they’ll move from that and have a proper national emissions reduction target?

    NICHOLAS STERN: Their emissions reductions target is emissions per unit of output and it was a pretty strong one, 40 to 45 per cent from 2005 to 2020 and they’re likely to meet that. My hope, and I think it’s quite likely it will turn out this way, is that when they do the 13th 5-year plan, which is the second half of this decade, that that will contain a reduction target in terms of absolute amounts rather than emissions per unit of output.

    My feeling is that’s coming…

    They’re taking this enormously seriously. They understand that, like Australia, they are very vulnerable to climate change…

    TONY JONES: Finally, as scientists meet in Japan to thrash out the final wording on the IPCC’s next assessment report on the impact of climate change, British economist Professor Richard Toll who was one of the lead authors, has asked for his name to be taken off the document, claiming it’s alarmist and has been changed from talking, as he says, about manageable risk to the four horsemen of the apocalypse. How much damage will his departure do to the credibility of the final report?

    NICHOLAS STERN: Not much. He’s always been somebody who as argued that the damages from climate change are there but very small. He’s an outlier really and I think his departure won’t make much difference.

    ***TONY JONES: Do you think it’s been orchestrated in some way? Is that what you’re suggesting?

    NICHOLAS STERN: I don’t know whether it’s orchestrated or not. He’s making his own statements and he’s entitled to do that but I think he’s seen as a bit of an outlier in terms of someone who thinks the damages are much smaller than the rest of us fear and this is risk management, Tony.
    You have to be very, very confident that the risks are going to be very small because the science tells us the risks could be very big and it is irreversibility here, as the concentrations in the atmosphere ratchet up, the high-carbon capital and infrastructure gets locked in. Delay is very dangerous so one person saying he thinks the risks might be very small is a very marginal part of the argument because most of the science is telling us that the risks are very big and with the irreversibility that we see in this, any kind of common sense or risk analysis says we should act strongly…
    http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2014/s3973198.htm

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      ianl8888

      I see that Stern carries on about China’s coal imports and how the Chinese authorities are trying to reduce this dependence

      As commented a number of times before, Chinese coal imports are almost all coking coal for steel manufacture, as they lack significant domestic coking coal deposits. They do not lack domestic thermal coal deposits; these have been mined in some form or other for over 3000 years

      As demand for steel waxes and wanes a bit in accordance with economic activity, coking coal demand rises and falls with it. So Stern and the irascibly ignorant Jones ascribe these fluctuations to China trying to go green (or not) by reducing power generation using coal-fired stations … ho hum

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    pat

    ***Alister – as if you needed Tol to “acknowledge” the obvious:

    27 March: Reuters: Alister Doyle: UN author says draft climate report alarmist, pulls out of team
    One of the 70 authors of a draft U.N. report on climate change said he had pulled out of the writing team because it was “alarmist” about the threat.Richard Tol told Reuters he disagreed with some findings of the summary to be issued in Japan on March 31.
    “The drafts became too alarmist,” the Dutch professor of economics at Sussex University in England said by telephone from Yokohama, Japan, where governments and scientists are meeting to edit and approve the report.
    ***But he acknowledged some other authors “strongly disagree with me”…
    Another expert criticized Tol, saying his IPCC chapter exaggerated possible benefits.
    “Of the 19 studies he surveyed only one shows net positive benefits from warming. And it’s the one he wrote,” said Bob Ward, policy and communications director of the Grantham Research Unit on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics…
    Among rare examples of past dissent within the IPCC, Richard Landsea, a U.S. meteorologist, pulled out of the last report published in 2007, accusing the IPCC of overstating evidence that global warming was aggravating Atlantic hurricanes.
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/27/us-climatechange-idUSBREA2Q1FX20140327

    to be fair, ABC is carrying this reuters report, with tired old Bob Ward, as always.

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    pat

    EU carbon dives 11 pct to 2-mth low in record volume
    LONDON, March 27 (Reuters) – European carbon prices tumbled 11 percent in record volume on Thursday to their lowest since January, as speculators weighed on the oversupplied market and falling German power prices prompted some utilities to unwind positions…
    https://www.pointcarbon.com/news/reutersnews/1.4619990

    Europe’s regulated GHG emissions fell 3.8 pct in 2013- analysts
    LONDON, March 27 (Reuters) – Greenhouse gas emissions regulated under Europe’s carbon market fell by about 3.8 percent last year as industrial production slumped, estimates from four analysts suggested on Thursday.
    https://www.pointcarbon.com/news/reutersnews/1.4623294

    Fairfax cherry-picks from Reuters & Bloomberg to get this rosy picture!

    28 March: SMH: Bloomberg, Reuters:UK reneweables surge as carbon emissions slide
    UK renewable power generation rose 28 per cent last year as more wind farms and solar plants came online, while the country’s greenhouse gas emissions dropped 1.9 per cent, the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) said…
    The surge was mainly due to higher wind capacity…
    However, the fall in emissions is unlikely to mean Britain’s carbon permit demand declined in 2013.
    An ETS rule change from January 2013 means most EU utilities received no free allowances last year and must pay in full for the scheme’s 2013-2020 phase…
    http://www.smh.com.au/environment/uk-reneweables-surge-as-carbon-emissions-slide-20140328-35mfx.html

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    pat

    ABC has glowing praise for Dow, his Obama connection & imagines his stern questioning of our Govt!

    27 March: ABC 7.30 Report: Greg Hoy: Gas exports, price boom threaten
    100,000 Australian jobs: manufacturers
    The head of global chemical giant Dow, Andrew Liveris, is one of Australia’s most successful business exports.
    Born in Darwin, he is now co-chairman of US president Barack Obama’s Advanced Manufacturing Partnership and chairman of the US Business Council.
    “Our Dow Australia factories here in Melbourne are seeing a doubling of gas prices when our contract expires here this year, which is going to render them pretty uncompetitive,” Mr Liveris said…
    On a whirlwind visit to Australia , Mr Liveris has taken his message to Canberra.
    His meetings with the Federal Government were private – but there is little doubt what stern question he raised.
    “I think in this next period of time you will not like the answer, as the Alcoa’s and other companies start shutting down and you haven’t got a plan to start re-skilling your workforce to the advanced economy,”Mr Liveris said.
    “I think that pressure has arrived and I think what will happen is the Government will have to respond.”
    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-03-27/gas-boom-threatens-australian-manufacturing-jobs/5349822

    uh-oh…looks like Dow – & Alcoa- aren’t too happy with ABC’s beloved Obama!

    24 March: WSJ: Amy Harder: Approval of Natural-Gas Export Project Gets Mixed
    Reaction From Lawmakers
    A coalition of major companies, including Dow Chemical Co. and Alcoa Inc., that use natural gas in production processes issued a statement Monday criticizing the administration’s move.
    “This is a grievous error that puts billions of dollars of investment and
    millions of jobs at risk,” the group America’s Energy Advantage wrote in a
    statement. “This latest export approval will raise domestic natural gas, electricity, home-heating and propane prices for every American, undermine our manufacturing competitiveness and cost the nation good-paying jobs.”…
    The Obama administration is restricted by a law that establishes regulatory hurdles for the U.S. to export natural gas to countries that aren’t free-trade partners, which include most of the countries that most want U.S. gas: Japan, India and European nations. To comply with the export law, the
    Energy Department must determine that the gas shipments are in America’s national interest after considering several factors, such as economic, environmental and geopolitical issues…
    http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303725404579459313806209976?mg=reno64-wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB10001424052702303725404579459313806209976.html

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      Geoff Sherrington

      Hi Pat,
      Yes, saw that on TV.
      I’ve been writing for a decade now that Australia is not any more a favoured country for companies seeking to establish or expand electricity-intensive industry.
      Usually, I include the example that engineers don’t have a mind set that imagines aluminium smelters to be driven by windmills. One of the prime criteria is reliability 24/7 and that is a weak point of windmills. The next generation of such plants will go to places with huge hydro (China 3 Gorges) or huge nuclear (China grid). Anything else that used to be competitive, like big generators on big brown coal deposits is now lower down the list because greenies are publicly opposed to coal and so sovereign risk in increased where greens are considered a voting block of significance.

      Liveris is sly and wrong because he does not state the present reality, which is that the effect of alternative energy mandated schemes is so high that the national grid is nor too uncompetitive as to price. If all subsidies and anti free market schemes were removed, domestic gas prices would become economic globally in a short time. We have a lot of gas, it is cheap to extract, so where does a high global cost come from? Only from artificial schemes that try to ignore the market.

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    pat

    handjive –

    fairfax are carrying the Monash/Lateline story. as with ABC, Fairfax has a CAGW alarmist spin to it all. light on the hypocrisy angle:

    28 March: Brisbane Times: Tom Arup: Email suggests top universities won’t reveal fossil fuel investments
    http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/environment/email-suggests-top-universities-wont-reveal-fossil-fuel-investments-20140328-35n9x.html

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    manalive

    Dr Jensen mentioned the oceans, Antarctica, Africa, Asia etc. in relation to the HadCrut series dated back to ~1850.
    Livingston got lost in darkest Africa in the 1860s, it was not until the 1870s that Warburton Forrest and Giles crossed the centre of Australia, Joseph Conrad wrote Heart of Darkness about his journey in the Congo Basin in 1890s, the TransSiberian railway was not completed until 1916 and so on, and yet we are expected to believe that there is detailed accurate global temperature data dating back to 1850.
    Fair suck of the sauce bottle.

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    Poa

    Actually temperature data is likely to be pretty good…which is why these adjustments of old data are so suspicious.
    It’s been known for a very long time that water boils at a certain air pressure (760 mm of Mercury) at 100 deg and freezes at 0 deg C with a straight line in between. It’s the basis of the Celcius scale. They even knew that a salt solution at a certain concentration froze at that pressure at a further lowerj temp.
    Ie they got a 3 point calibration. With 19th Century technology. 1850 odd.
    Gee. Makes these ” corrections” smell. Even worse when they all seem to make the old data ” colder”.

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    pat

    what a headline from BBC? not for the first time we are being told the young don’t want cars. no hint that they can’t afford them:

    28 March: BBC: Matt McGrath: Is Japan playing hunger games with climate change?
    As environment correspondent Matt McGrath reports, a changing climate is one of a number of issues pushing Japan towards a food crisis.
    In the historic Ueno Park in the middle of Tokyo, seemingly normal people are earnestly staring at trees…
    But bear hugs from drunken businessmen are a minor threat to the cherries compared to a warming world, according to research.
    “There are already reports that the cherry trees are not doing as well as they usually do because the climate is changing,” said long time Tokyo resident Martin Frid, who works on food safety issues for the Consumer’s Union of Japan…
    Because of their cultural significance, the appearance of the blossoms has been recorded in some parts of Japan for over a thousand years.
    These records have enabled scientists to work out the impact of global warming on the trees: In recent years they’ve been blossoming about four days earlier than the long term average.
    Experts fear that under some warming scenarios, it could be a fortnight earlier by the end of this century…
    Martin Frid takes inspiration from the next generation that the challenges of providing enough to eat in a warming world can be met.
    “Kids in Japan don’t grow up wanting a car anymore, car ownership among young people is going down, partly because of the environment and the climate,” he says.
    “The car industry is having a lot of problems, because young people don’t see it as a trendy thing to do.”…
    http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-26756005

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    What a brilliant speech. Add to that Senator Ryan’s speech on free speech and you can begin to appreciate that there is a handful of intelligent, principled people amongst the ranks of Liberal parliamentarians. Bernardi, Jensen, Ryan and Cormann are the ones who come to mind immediately, but I’m sure there are many more. Cash and Fierravanti-Wells deserve a mention, too.

    There is, however, one very important matter Jensen did not address. In addition to pursuing the BOM and CSIRO about the integrity their data, research and procedures, Jensen should also look into the matter of whether there has been any criminal conduct on the part of individuals in those agencies. If it were found that public officials in these agencies had engaged in misconduct or fraud for the sake of attracting research monies, or, worse, pushing a personal political agenda, as a warning to others they should be dealt with harshly.

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      incoherent rambler

      I have a preference for a specialist commission to investigate, prosecute and hang the fraudsters.

      An international effort along the lines of the Nuremburg trials would appease me.

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      John Brookes

      Ah yes. Lets jail them. Those awful cheating scientists.

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        bullocky

        Typical!

        Just like cAGW, you don’t seem to think that proof is necessary!

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        the Griss

        “misconduct or fraud for the sake of attracting research monies”

        You work as a low-level organiser at a Uni.

        I suspect you actually condone this sort of thing.

        Its how you are paid, afterall.

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        PhilJourdan

        That is the alarmist position.

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        Mark D.

        Ah yes. Lets jail them. Those awful cheating scientists.

        John Brookes, what do you propose we do with awful cheating scientists?

        Sometimes I think Joanne must pay you for your comments. Not much mind you.

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    Tim

    Would you buy shares in a company that:

    Does not release important company information, does not answer shareholders’ questions, does not employ other than from one religion and does not divulge the parent company’s policies or agenda?

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    john robertson

    Having decked themselves out in the same clothes as their emperor claims to be wearing, those at the head of our bureaucracies will be feeling a growing chill.
    Finally a MP with guts and scientific training.
    Go Australia, you are leading the free world again.

    Of course the kleptos of your “Professional Civil Service” will play every part of the civil service handbook on CYA,FUD and drag out evade, misunderstand, require clarification,to gain the time they require to reach their personal retirement or moment of maximum pension, before they dare to actually answer this parliamentarians questions.
    Abbott will get results for the taxpayer faster, by retirements for health reasons of most of these same parasites.
    Of course it is possible, that as the public clues in, as to how badly they have been shafted by the operatives of this CAGW fraud, that these same persons may require protective custody…. for health reasons.

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    James Bradley

    Just a little OT, but within the subject of Accurate Data Analysis 27th March 2014 Lord Nicholas Stern, interviewed by ABC’s Tony Jones about Australia’s failure to seriously reduce carbon emissions, maintained an excellent example of a country reducing carbon emissions in that:

    “China is increasing its coal production in order to decrease its coal consumption.”

    How does that work?

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      Graeme No.3

      See the Drax power station in the UK. (Incidentally built over a coal seam).

      They switched half of their fuel to wood chip. (Drax is 6 modules so 3 went to wood).

      The wood chip comes from clear felled forest in the USA. After processing it is shipped across the Atlantic to specially built port facilities, railed (in purpose built rail trucks) and stored in vast custom built concrete bunkers. When burnt it only results in 3% MORE CO2 than coal – plus all that processing and transport emissions – and an overall INCREASE of 20-25%.

      They get a special subsidy for SAVING emissions.

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    KinkyKeith

    Pure Magic.

    KK

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    DT

    Dear Michael,

    About candles and the dioxide of carbon.

    I worked out the chemistry of it to find out how much CO2 is produced by a candle compared to that from an equivalent electric light bulb.

    Based on a paraffin wax candle which burns according to the equation:

    C25H52 + 38O2 –> 25CO2 + 26H2O Mol.wt. of C25H52 = (25×12)+(52×1) = 352 Mol.wt. of CO2 = (1×12)+(2×16) = 44 So 352g of wax yeilds (25×44) = 1100g of CO2

    A household candle of 50g will burn for about 4 hours, so 1 hour will burn 12.5g of candle,and produce 12.5/352 x 1100 = 39g of CO2 per hour.

    Coal burning power stations produce from about 0.8g to 1.35g of CO2 per Watt hour of generated power.

    If a 5 Watt bulb (night light) is taken as being equivalent to a candle, and assuming 1g per Watt hour as the CO2 produced by the power station, the 5 Watt bulb will produce only 5g of CO2 per hour, which is about 1/8th of the CO2 output of the candle.

    Obviously all candles should be burnt immediately to save the planet.

    Regards: Ian Macmillan

    FROM: Michael Smith News blog regarding Earth Hour

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     D J  C o t t o n 

    This is where we can pinpoint the key error in the radiative greenhouse conjecture promulgated by NASA, the IPCC et al …

    In the energy budgets (such as NASA’s here) they combine “Sunlight absorbed + IR back radiation” with components of 47.9% and 100% respectively. In other words, they are assuming that there is not only a warming effect from back radiation, but it is also just over twice the warming effect of the Sun. Hence, somehow the atmosphere supposedly multiplies the effect of the Sun by more than a factor of three.

    Now, they actually need to work with this combined amount of radiation (147.9% of incident solar radiation at top of atmosphere, or more than double the 70.3% that is not reflected) because that’s the only way they can get a realistic surface temperature when they use the total radiation figure in the Stefan-Boltzmann equation.

    However, the Stefan-Boltzmann equation is based on the assumption that the target (in this case the internal surface) acts as a true black or grey body which is not transparent to radiation and can only have its temperature raised if the radiative flux is sufficient and the source is hotter than itself, because otherwise entropy would decrease.

    Sadly about two-thirds of this combined radiation comes from a much colder atmosphere, and so doesn’t count in the process of raising surface temperatures.

    And even more sadly, the real surface that we are talking about, and which affects our temperature records, is a thin layer of less than 1 centimetre in depth which, for about 70% of Earth’s surface, is water. That 1cm thin layer of water is almost completely transparent, unlike a black or grey body, so most of the solar radiation (the only radiation that can warm) is passing straight through that thin layer. The weak back radiation doesn’t make it past the first molecule it strikes, from which it is immediately re-emitted.

    What it is really being warmed (to a much lower mean temperature) is the ocean thermocline which (as you can see here) extends quite a few metres beneath that one centimetre thin surface layer, and has a mean temperature roughly 8 to 10 degrees cooler.

    So if you get a gut feeling there’s something wrong in the NASA calculations, let me assure you that you are right.

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      Graeme No.3

      How many climatologists can dance on a pin head sized black body radiating into a vacuum?

      Answer: 97% of them.

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     D J  C o t t o n 

    Sorry – thermocline link is …

    “the ocean thermocline which (as you can see here) extends …”

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    Graeme Bird

    One time Dennis showed up on Catallaxy talking about the reality that we should have been lobbying the Americans to re-tool our air defence with the Raptor. This was one of the best blog events I’ve ever seen. Afterward the official meme came out that there was no way we could ever have the Raptor in the first place. But then how was it that there was an internal debate? I mean if the Americans are forcing us to play silly-buggers with our internal debates that is something that the Australian public ought to know about.

    In any case it highlighted to me that Dennis is one of the few MP’s who can get his head around the complex stuff. That night I got to talk to him directly. He is a smart fellow. We are lucky to have him in a system that promotes stupid, disloyal, and incompetent loony tunes into high office.

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    John Brookes

    Just one obvious question. What does the BEST study say about Australia’s temperature record? I believe (possibly wrongly) that they used raw (rather than adjusted) temperature data, Their results match the other major temperature indices.

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      jenj

      So what you are saying, John, is that we already know adjusted v. unadjusted gives the same result, therefore Jensen is exposing both his ignorance of the facts and his antipathy towards science in advocating the government waste loads of taxpayer resources investigating a non issue.
      Why would Joanne be supportive of this? I thought she was sceptical?

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        JB: Why is that obvious. BEST didn’t remove the bad stations, and even if it did, Jensens question was about the accuracy of records before 1910. If the BOM says they are unreliable why would BEST suddenly become reliable before 1910? You think if it produces the same mistakes Hadley does that makes them “verified”?

        Jen: Your ability to load meaningless keywords into sentences is impressive. JB wasn’t saying that. Jensen isn’t ignorant. The adjusted v unadjusted in Australia are not the same (see here, here and here). You don’t have any “facts” to refer to and Jensen is the strongest advocate of science in parliament.

        This is exactly the kind of waste-of-time vague allusions and innuendo that I and the mods are really bored of posting.

        If you care about the environment, why not write comments with actual quotes, and some facts.

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        bullocky



        JenJ; “So what you are saying, John, is that we already …….”


        Lucky we have scientists, eh?

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    Merv Sinclair

    The Australian Conversation Foundation?

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    Don Gaddes

    BEST,and the general promotion of the ‘red herring’ of surface temperatures takes no account of the passage around the planet of Solar induced ‘Dry’ Cycles. As these cycles pass over ‘temperature stations’ they cause a rise in surface temperature, which duly recedes in the following ‘Wet/Normal’ Period.
    Alex S. Gaddes identified and historically documented these cycles in his work ‘Tomorrow’s Weather’ (1990) The next ‘Dry’Cycle has started (mid February 2014) around the 110 degrees East of Prime meridian (circa Beijing) and will reach Australia in early January 2015. (thirty degrees/solar month, with the westward solar orbit of the Earth’s Magnetic Field.)
    This Cycle will herald a Dry Period of up to Five Years, consisting of a Three Year ‘Dry’ Cycle,(2015-17) followed by a One Year ‘Wet’/Normal Period,(2018) followed by a One Year ‘Dry’ Cycle,(2019) The One Year ‘Wet’/Normal Period of 2018 will fall under the influence of the Lunar Metonic Cycle, and may therefore be ‘Dry’.
    It is noted that these Cycles are Longitudinal in nature, and thus affect the planet simultaneously North and South. (Arctic and Antarctic at the same time.)
    This work debunks the forty year fantasy of ENSO (and subsequent developments such as Decadal Ocillations,)started and perpetuated in the early 1970s by such entities as the University of East Anglia.
    An updated version of the above work (including ‘Dry’ Cycle forecasts to 2055,)is available as a free pdf from [email protected]

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    Bruiser-101

    Bruiser-101 says:
    Dr Jensen could start his examination of data manipulation at the BOM. The very high temperatures experienced in Australia during 2013 have received a lot of comment by the CAGW camp. On the SS website, I commented that 2013 was hardly the poster child for CAGW because the country experienced record levels of solar radiation for most of the year (accompanied in most cases by very low relative humidity). The debate is still available here: https://www.skepticalscience.com/australias-hottest-year-humans-caused-it.html One issue that was raised was that the BOM chart showing average levels of solar radiation across the country for 2013 bore no resemblance to the actual data for individual sites and was out by over 2Mj/M^2/day in some instances. It seems that the BOM has been busy correcting the chart anomaly however instead of changing the chart to reflect the data recordings, the records have been systematically altered to reflect the values in the chart. Thus the inconvenient truth of high solar radiation has been erased from the record. Of the 11 cities where I kept copies of the data, radiation levels have been increased by up to 6% for Jan, Feb and March. For the rest of the year radiation levels have been decreased by up to 25%. The nett result is that average solar radiation levels for the 11 cities have been reduced by around 2Mj/M^2/day.

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