Errors in IPCC climate science

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.

I came across this paper at the end of last year – hoping to obtain a pdf copy or find a library with a hard copy of the journal – or maybe a reader could scan the 14 pages.
Anyway, it is worth a post just for the title alone – particularly in view of recent publicity about subsidence in the Perth area.
See my post from last December.
To understand Perth sea-levels is a complex issue – much of the Perth plain has subsided in recent decades

Following on from the October 2012 ACT Election where the Greens lost three of four seats – early indications from the Western Australian upper house (Legislative Council) count is that they might have losses there too as the Liberal Govt was returned in a comfortable win, possibly of landslide proportions.
From ABC News – Greens disappointed with election result
It might take several days for WA Legislative Council trends to firm up.
I wonder what might be in store for the Greens at the 2013 Federal Election if the major parties come to their senses and promote the sensible idea to simply “number the Greens last”. I am interested to hear what readers think might be ways the Greens Nationally could try and turn this bad situation around. For example – could Bob Brown return as leader ?
Added 14 March – chart shows how Greens vote increased post 2000 as the Democrats faded away. The Democrats were a centrist group whose supporters could not decide between Labor and Liberal/National. Whereas the Greens are generally accepted as being to the left of Labor. So the Greens peak voting percentages in the years 2008-2011 must include some ex-Democrats who might be unhappy with the Greens performance in the GreenLabor Gillard July 2010-Sep 2013 Federal Government to date.

Particularly from second half 2012 after their long time leader Dr Bob Brown retired – also the Greens could be seen to be obstructing Labor efforts to close our open borders and then last month when the Green Leader Christine Milne accused Labor of “…walking away from its agreement with the Greens and into the arms of the big miners.”
Federal polls have the Greens at around 11%. The chart shows recent weakness in Green numbers in the ACT, WA and to a lesser extent Queensland.

A reader sent me this priceless NASA prediction of a “…30% to 50% stronger…” Solar Cycle 24. A timely reminder of how wrong these highly paid experts and huge taxpayer funded organizations can be. Somebody might have a URL to a chart showing the several NOAA/NASA failed predictions of the last half decade.
Readers can check my Solar category and you will see posts going back to late 2006 that have stood the test of time.
Readers can plot for themselves on this first chart of sunspot numbers since 1750 – just how wrong NASA were in 2006.

This chart of mine shows latest monthly numbers through February 2013.

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.

I thought the BBC would have known without having to ask the question, that warming can produce floods, rain that will not fill dams, deeper snow, more cold, larger hailstones, worse cyclones and storms – anything that IPCC supporters say.

Matt Ridley’s page “The greening of the planet” lead me to the work of Professor Ranga Myneni of Boston University. A page listing his publications has a link to this 2012 paper – “Surface Urban Heat Island Across 419 Global Big Cities”.

Peng et al., 2012 Surface Urban Heat Island Across 419 Global Big Cities, Environ. Sci. & Tech., Environ. Sci. Technol., 2012, 46 (2), pp 696-703, DOI:10.1021/es2030438
ABSTRACT: Urban heat island is among the most evident aspects of human impacts on the earth system. Here we assess the diurnal and seasonal variation of surface urban heat island intensity (SUHII) defined as the surface temperature difference between urban area and suburban area measured from the MODIS. Differences in SUHII are analyzed across 419 global big cities, and we assess several potential biophysical and socio-economic driving factors. Across the big cities, we show that the average annual daytime SUHII (1.5 ± 1.2 °C) is higher
than the annual nighttime SUHII (1.1 ± 0.5 °C) (P < 0.001). But no correlation is found between daytime and nighttime SUHII across big cities (P = 0.84), suggesting different driving mechanisms between day and night. The distribution of nighttime SUHII correlates positively with the difference in albedo and nighttime light between urban area and suburban area, while the distribution of daytime SUHII correlates negatively across cities with the difference of vegetation cover and activity between urban and suburban areas. Our results emphasize the key role of vegetation feedbacks in attenuating SUHII of big cities during the day, in particular during the growing season, further highlighting that increasing urban vegetation cover could be one effective way to mitigate the urban heat island effect.

My attention was caught by this loaded and evocative headline in the Canberra Times “Plant life losing battle with emissions”, for an article introducing the latest whizz-bang new CSIRO paper, “The Australian terrestrial carbon budget”, Haverd et al 2013.
Haverd et al say – “The Australian landscape soaked up one third of the carbon emitted by fossil fuels in Australia over the past twenty years…”
Which is at odds with the 1992 CSIRO paper by R.M.Gifford which said – “The present modelled rate of net sequestration is of a similar magnitude to CO2 emissions from continental fossil fuel burning and land clearing combined.”
What amazed me though was that the current paper does not reference Gifford 1992 when eight of the ten authors are from CSIRO.
I expect to have more to say later but here are a couple of graphics.
I have been trying to find the number for the size of the Australian carbon sink, not annual changes but gross size – the only figure I can find is from the 1998 website CompleXia titled, “HOW BIG IS AUSTRALIA’S SOIL CARBON STORE?” which says, “Preliminary estimates suggest that Australia’s soil carbon sink is of the order of 48 Gt (Gifford et al. 1992).” Thats 48 gigatonnes, 48,000,000,000 or 48 billion tonnes. Just to get that number on scale compared to the figures below, that is 48,000 Tg or terragrams used in Haverd et al and also 48,000 Mt or megatonnes used by Gifford – a megatonne is 1,000,000 tonnes, one million tonnes.
Summary of the Australian territorial carbon budget, 1990–2011. from Haverd et al 2013.

and Figure 1 from Gifford 1992

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