NIWA has big win in the New Zealand Supreme Court
September 9th, 2012 by Warwick HughesThe NIWA vs NZCET court result will be picked apart on more notable blogs than this – however I am curious about a few things in the 49 page “Judgement of Venning J”. My interest is mainly on the Clauses on the subject of the station data. To start though I want to look at Clause 176 – I will be interested to hear what readers think.
My press release from 2006 is still online here.
Here is Clause 176 from the Judgement -
I can not see that Judge Vennings paraphrasing of what Dr Wratt said about contrasting winds before and after 1945 – can have any bearing on the point in my press release which was that two IPCC compliant expert groups (Jones/CRU and NIWA) – both with access to the same database of station data – disagreed greatly about the long term New Zealand temperature trend – over whatever exact period chosen. I was pointing out how the science is not settled.
Wind affects equally the station data used by CRU & NIWA and is not a cause of the CRU – NIWA long-term trend divergence – as Venning J seems to conclude Dr Wratt has shown.
Posted in NZ Climate Science Coalition, Surface Record | 4 Comments »
September 9th, 2012 at 10:49 am
Have you people seen this commentary from John O’Sullivan ?
Pulls no punches.
September 10th, 2012 at 1:05 am
Quite so. Also notice the NZ National Business Review article on this highlights Venning’s finding that:
“I am satisfied that the methodology applied by NIWA was in accordance with internationally recognised and credible scientific methodology”
If it was, and Jones/CRU also was, how did they come up with such different answers?
Moreover, as you say Warwick, Dr Wratt’s reported evidence about colder winds in the early 20th century, whether true or not, appears totally irrelevant to the question whether CRU or NIWA’s 20th century trend is correct. It is hard to believe the judge read your press release. For he says, correctly, that “It is apparent that these matters will be affected by the starting date for the data set” without appearing to notice that your release compares both the NIWA and CRU figures way back into the 19th century. Whatever he means by the “earlier part of the 1945 period” [a confused expression in itself], Wratt’s remark can have no bearing on why CRU and NIWA trends diverge so sharply and suddenly before about 1960.
I suspect there are quite a few other howlers in this judgement. I also notice para 167 which reports Dr Wratt and his mates as being unable to find an urban warming signal in Auckland. If they can’t find urban warming in the biggest city in the country, when the population has grown at an average 2.5% a year for a century (Table 2 here), then maybe they should go back to undergrad and try an easier subject.
September 11th, 2012 at 9:33 am
From the NZ Herald Opinion pages, commentary on the NIWA court case.
by Chris de Freitas:
Global warming: Court no substitute for science
October 16th, 2012 at 5:27 pm
NIWA is apparently asking for $118,000 costs. See www.climateconversation.wordshine.co.nz/2012/10/government-against-the-people/
I’ve made a lengthy comment there
As Richard Treadgold says in his blog post