Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) has a long history of ignoring faults in HadCRU global temperature series – temperature data that birthed “global warming”

In 1986 the Jones et al team published papers for both hemispheres compiling temperature data from weather stations into long term trends.
Northern Hemisphere Surface Air Temperature Variations: 1851-1984
P.D. Jones, S.C.B. Raper, P.M. Kelly, and T.M.L. Wigley, R.S. Bradley and H.F. Diaz; Journal of Applied Meteorology: Vol. 25, No. 2, pp. 161-179.
and
Southern Hemisphere Surface Air Temperature Variations: 1851-1984
P.D. Jones, S.C.B. Raper, and T.M.L. Wigley;
Journal of Applied Meteorology: Vol. 25, No. 9, pp. 1213-1230.
The journal papers are about what Jones et al want readers to see. The Northern Hemisphere TR022 and Southern Hemisphere TR027 books published by the US Dept of Energy (long term funders of Professor Jones) tell you more about what was done.
Links to free downloads of above journal papers and DoE books below.
Jones PD , Raper SCB, Cherry BSG, Goodess CM, Wigley TML, Santer B, Kelly PM, Bradley RS, Diaz HF, (1985) TR022 A Grid Point Surface Air Temperature Data Set for the Northern Hemisphere. Office of Energy Research , Carbon Dioxide Research Division, US Department of Energy. Under Contract No. DE-ACO2-79EV10098 – available as pdf files
and – Jones PD , Raper SCB, Cherry BSG, Goodess CM, Wigley TML, (1986c) TR027 A Grid Point Surface Air Temperature Data Set for the Southern Hemisphere. Office of Energy Research , Carbon Dioxide Research Division, US Department of Energy. Under Contract No. DE-ACO2-79EV10098 – available as html version.

The BoM did not comment to the journal despite Jones et al use of all Australian urban heat island affected State Capitals. In fact there were no comments on either journal paper published in the Journal of Applied Meteorology – an amazing fact considering this huge research project touched on all the worlds met services. Maybe comments were sent in to the editor but never made it to print – somebody might know.
Then in 1988 a critique of the papers by Dr Fred B Wood appeared in an Elsevier journal. Wood, F.B. 1988, “Comment: On the need for Validation of the Jones et al. Temperature Trends with respect to Urban Warming”, Climatic Change 12, 297-312.
There was a reply. Wigley, T.M.L. and Jones, P.D. 1988; “Do large-area-average temperature series have an urban warming bias ?”, Climatic Change 12, 314-318.
Dr Fred B Wood was from the Office of Technology Assessment, United States Congress and no previous publication of his was referenced in his Comment – although he did gratefully acknowledge “…useful suggestions and/or critiques of earlier drafts…” from 16 named people and several anonymous reviewers. So it makes for a fascinating story that nobody with a meteorology or climate background commented on the Jones et al papers which touched on data from every “weather service” on planet earth and nobody stood up as a co-author with Dr Fred Wood.
In 1990 the BoM produced a draft paper which was circulated to the IPCC – M.J. Coughlan, R. Tapp and W.R. Kininmonth; 1990, “Trends in Australian Temperature Records” (scroll down). Coughlan, et al 1990 studied urban/rural pairs at Capital cities and concluded re urbanization affected temperature trends – “These estimates are greater than those of the trends this century, reported by Jones et al. (1989), in annual mean Southern Hemisphere air temperature…”
I assume the BoM draft sunk without trace at the IPCC.
In 1991 I examined the Australian segment of the Jones et al compilation resulting in a draft paper – The Australian Record on “Global Warming” (TARGW) – Tasman Institute 1991 review of the Australian component of temperature records used in the 1986 Jones et al Southern Hemisphere paper, Executive Summary online scroll down page.
TARGW was circulated to the BoM who were generally critical but agreed –
[1] that capital cities data should be viewed “with suspicion” – and
[2] also that “long term stations (were) overlooked in the global dataset”.
More of TARGW is also online in a 2009 blog post – Jones et al 1986 methodical insertion of warming bias.
As an example of BoM criticism that I find inconsistent they said “Cunnamulla should not be considered a neighbouring station of Charleville”. OK I can see they are 180km apart but over flat terrain – it is the network we have, there is no other, the smaller centre shows less warming and of course Cunnamulla was rejected by Jones et al and Charleville trucated at 1951.
Where the BoM is inconsistent is I have never seen that they have criticised Jones et al who often compare Australian stations in excess of 1000km apart – see examples in table.

2 thoughts on “Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) has a long history of ignoring faults in HadCRU global temperature series – temperature data that birthed “global warming””

  1. Ouch, just noticed the misspelled ‘their’, darn it, on my previous comment, it was late. The implications of that new paper from Dr Evans is huge. All the nonsense over the last couple of decades about carbon taxes and carbon pricing will now show that billions have been spent for nothing, if this paper holds up. A number of expert comments are already showing that this climate ‘smoking gun’ may even be Nobel worthy. I don’t understand the maths myself, but this game changing paper can only mean we will have a popcorn munching front seat delight in watching the usual culprits go on the attack in fear of their life’s work going down the drain. Dr Evans and Joanne Nova are ready for them.

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