Errors in IPCC climate science

Guest article by Ed Thurstan – April 28, 2013
Abstract
The second release of ACORN-SAT confirms my 2012 contention that the Australian Bureau of Meteorology this temperature database should be withdrawn. The gross arithmetical errors it displayed in 2012 that were generated by the BoM’s data refining processes are still evident in the latest release. This indicates that the BoM either has not checked the product as stated, or they do not care that their errors are on public display.
Yet the BoM are using this database to support public statements about the climate, extreme temperature events and possible future trends.
Read full article in 600KB pdf

This puzzles me.
In early March I questioned the BoM about a possible discontinuity in Perth Metro readings in July 2011 which had the effect of seeming to increase Perth Metro temperatures relative to Perth Airport.
The BoM reply dated 21 March (see below) said that their readings at both sites were correct and that the 2011/12 summer heat in Perth Metro and Swanbourne relative to “sites further inland”, which I assume includes Perth Airport, were “…potentially attributable to very warm conditions recorded in local sea surface temperatures and observed weaker sea breezes.” My 22 March post re the first BoM reply – see my comment 2 with their second reply see below.

I am amazed the BoM never mentioned these SST and weaker sea breeze factors in their “Perth seasonal climate summaries” for 2011/2012 Perth in summer 2011/12: A wet and warm summer and 2012/2013 Perth in summer 2012/2013: One of hottest summer
If the warm SST ‘s and associated weaker sea breezes are a factor in hiking Perth Metro summer max temperatures up to near the warmth of Perth Airport – then this is surely vital and very interesting information about the Perth climate to share with Australians.

This article from the Perth newspaper “The Sunday Times” 24th Feb 2013 says it with crystal clarity in the first paragraph.

But what did reality look like ? Well Perth Metro daytimes were 1.7° under normal and nights were 0.5° under. I think the blue shading here conveys that we are not dealing with sweltering heat.

The actual Perth district daily max and min temperatures for March 2013 can be seen here – and I have saved a large copy.
I wonder if The Sunday Times would listen to being told about this BoM failure.

A reader wrote in commenting that Sydney based family had reported that – “This summer has been too hot!”. I thought I would quickly run this basic check.

I will leave it there for now – the graph raises a few issues and I do not have time just now to dig deeper. This paper by Pierre Gosselin downloadable in Word doc from GWPF is worth a read. Third down in list – Die Welt: “Scientists Warn Of Little Ice Age”, by Pierre L. Gosselin at No Tricks Zone.

In early March I posted – Perth Metro BoM station 09225 looks to be reading too warm from mid-2011 – could much publicised summer hot days be exaggerated ? – and sent the following fax to the BoM Perth Office asking if they would check this out and let me know what they found. I also faxed BoM head office. Read the rest of this entry »

Scientists at NOAA/NWS/NCEP Climate Prediction Center & RS Information System, Inc. McLean, Virginia have developed a “…station observation based global land monthly mean surface air temperature dataset at 0.5° x 0.5° latitude-longitude resolution for the period from 1948 to the present…”
The gridded data – 1948-now: CPC GHCN/CAMS t2m analysis (land) – is available at KNMI Climate Explorer Monthly Observations page and a 515KB pdf paper can be downloaded.
Choosing CPC GHCN/CAMS t2m data from 45°South to 10°South and 110°East to 155°East and comparing with the data constructing the BoM “Time series graphs” for Mean Temperature for Australia for Summer – then downloading the “Raw data set”.
Here is the comparison graphed.

It is obvious that the CPC GHCN/CAMS t2m analysis produces a very different ranking of Australian historic summer heat. While 2013 was the hottest summer in the BoM heavily adjusted ACORN SAT data – the CPC GHCN/CAMS t2m analysis finds that 1983 was a clear winner for the hottest summer and 1973 missed out by only 0.00135°C.
Here are the rankings of the top ten hot summers for each data set.

Thanks to Ian George for noticing this recent large change in the ranking of 2009 compared to 1998 in the BoM chart of annual mean temperature anomalies.
The charts come from the BoM Annual Australian Climate Statement 2011 and Annual Australian Climate Statement 2012.
Animation of the graphs for two years.

On page 10 of 23 the BoM “Special Climate Statement 43 – extreme heat in January 2013″ – Updated 1 February 2013 – says –
“2.5 Monthly mean temperatures for January
January 2013 was Australia’s hottest month on record. Averaged nationally, the
maximum temperature was 36.92°C, 2.28°C above the 1961-1990 average, and 0.11°C above the previous record of 36.81°C, set in January 1932. The monthly mean
temperature (day and night combined) also set a record. It was 29.68°C, 1.77°C above the 1961-1990 average and 0.27°C above the previous record of 29.41°C, also set in January 1932.”
Now making graphs for each of the States and Territory at this BoM web page. When you check out what I have done, make sure you set the page to Mean Temperature – choose your State – then pick January.
Read the rest of this entry »

Perth summers (Dec-Jan-Feb) as measured at Perth Metro in Mount Lawley looked too warm for 2012 and 2013 when compared with Perth Airport 09021. The differences for summer mean max between the Airport and the old Regional office (1898-1992) going back to 1945 and Perth Metro 1994-2013 show that 2012 and 2013 fall clearly outside a long established band.

I noticed there were instrument changes at Perth Metro in July 2011 – not sure if they were the instruments that read the daily max. I checked Perth Airport summers against Pearce RAAF 1994-2013 and all differences fell in a band – which also suggests that Perth Metro is faulty.
Anybody reading our media just now will find plenty of articles from the BoM spruiking the “hottest summer ever” for Australia.
Here the BoM were claiming the hottest summer ever in Perth before summer had ended.

Looking forward to hearing what others think of the Perth data.

Following my articles of a few days ago – BBC exaggerated warming trend in David Attenborough’s TV show “Africa” and – CRUT4 surface temperature grid box anomalies trend over Kenya compared to NASA satellites lower troposphere – the source of the David Attenborough 3.5° warming claim explained. I have dug into station data for the 5 degree grid box over Kenya and it looks clear after comparing anomalies with Garissa, that the Nairobi Airport data carries non-climatic warming from the late 1990′s. Although Garissa is almost 300km away in the NE of the grid box and both stations have many data gaps – the difference points to Nairobi Airport data being faulty.
Nairobi Airport temperature anomalies

Garissa temperature anomalies

Difference Nairobi Airport minus Garissa

It is a puzzle how Jones et al data can carry such obvious standout mistakes after years of polishing through how many versions? – plus years of input from the UKMO? IPCC science must surely be in a very shoddy state.