Hansen's way of dealing with inconvenient history

[RollingThunder]

I guess you hadn't noticed that there are SEVEN ski resorts that are STILL OPEN! Here it is the Fourth of July and ski resorts are still getting paying customers. What I find particularly amusing is when it really was warm (before the year 2000) the mantra from you guys was there would be no more snow in winter. Now that it is getting cold your mantra is "well when it gets hot you get more snow because of water vapor....so riddle us this batman, why didn't it happen just a few years ago when it was really warmer? Hmmmm? You guys are a hoot!

You gotta love the "logic" of deniers, there's snow in the mountains so the whole globe is cooling. The decade AFTER 2000 was the WARMEST decade in the history of direct instrument measurement.

No, once again you don't get it. Try again.

LOLOLOLOL.....tooo much, walleyed.....you are one of those who NEVER "get it". You are one of the most clueless and confused denier cult retards on this forum. You can't seem to comprehend the fact that AGW has warmed the oceans and that has produced increased water vapor levels in the atmosphere and that is what is causing increased rain and snowfall.

You once again display your denier cult dementia and your usual disconnect with reality with your statement: "...when it really was warm (before the year 2000)...". LOLOLOL.

Warmest years

The list of warmest years on record is dominated by years from this millennium; each of the last 10 years (2001–2010) features as one of the 11 warmest on record. Although the NCDC temperature record begins in 1880, less accurate reconstructions of earlier temperatures suggest these years may be the warmest for several centuries to millennia.

20 warmest years on record
(°C anomaly from 1901–2000 mean)

Year↓ Global↓ _Land↓ _Ocean↓
2005 __0.6183 _0.9593 _0.4896
2010 __0.6171 _0.9642 _0.4885
1998 __0.5984 _0.8320 _0.5090
2003 __0.5832 _0.7735 _0.5108
2002 __0.5762 _0.8318 _0.4798
2006 __0.5591 _0.7595 _0.4848
2007 __0.5509 _0.9852 _0.3900
2004 __0.5441 _0.7115 _0.4819
2001 __0.5188 _0.7207 _0.4419
2008 __0.4842 _0.7801 _0.3745
1997 __0.4799 _0.5583 _0.4502
1999 __0.4210 _0.6759 _0.3240
1995 __0.4097 _0.6533 _0.3196
2000 __0.3899 _0.5174 _0.3409
1990 __0.3879 _0.5479 _0.3283
1991 __0.3380 _0.4087 _0.3110
1988 __0.3028 _0.4192 _0.2595
1987 __0.2991 _0.2959 _0.3005
1994 __0.2954 _0.3604 _0.2704
1983 __0.2839 _0.3715 _0.2513
.

 

[flacaltenn]

I see two graphs above, one labeled US, the other Global. And a blink comparator that seems to be comparing them under the label of US.

Interestingly enough, when you realize that the VERTICAL scales are about 2:1 different, the two graphs generally agree UNTIL about 1990 or so..

When was it that funding started to flow for Global Warming Studies?

Ahhhh --- that explains it.. The US WAS in perfect sync with the rest of the world until we started studying it!!!. What's that theorem about changing the system simply by observing it?

 

[CrusaderFrank]

I see two graphs above, one labeled US, the other Global. And a blink comparator that seems to be comparing them under the label of US.

Interestingly enough, when you realize that the VERTICAL scales are about 2:1 different, the two graphs generally agree UNTIL about 1990 or so..

When was it that funding started to flow for Global Warming Studies?

Ahhhh --- that explains it.. The US WAS in perfect sync with the rest of the world until we started studying it!!!. What's that theorem about changing the system simply by observing it?

AGW Theorem: AGW = f($ to prove mankind is melting the ice caps)

 

[RollingThunder]

I see two graphs above, one labeled US, the other Global. And a blink comparator that seems to be comparing them under the label of US.

Interestingly enough, when you realize that the VERTICAL scales are about 2:1 different, the two graphs generally agree UNTIL about 1990 or so.

When was it that funding started to flow for Global Warming Studies?

Ahhhh --- that explains it.. The US WAS in perfect sync with the rest of the world until we started studying it!!!. What's that theorem about changing the system simply by observing it?

LOLOLOL....hilarious example of 'Denier Cult Physics for Hopeless Dingbats': 'Ahem, from a quick glance I just took, it seems like "the two graphs generally agree UNTIL about 1990 or so" and that obviously means that "the US WAS in perfect sync with the rest of the world until"...something nebulous with "funding" maybe happened.....well, it must all be a fraud'.

"When was it that funding started to flow for Global Warming Studies?" - in the fifties and sixties, numbnuts. By the eighties, there was so much research going on worldwide that in 1988 an international, intergovernmental panel on climate change was created to coordinate and summarize the findings of all that research and the conclusions of the best expert climate scientists for the benefit and guidance of world leaders and governments. Your insanely paranoid conspiracy theory is based on ignorant presumptions and faulty logic.

The Discovery of Global Warming
American Institute of Physics
(excerpts)

In the 1930s, people realized that the United States and North Atlantic region had warmed significantly during the previous half-century. Scientists supposed this was just a phase of some mild natural cycle, with unknown causes. Only one lone voice, the amateur G.S. Callendar, insisted that greenhouse warming was on the way. Whatever the cause of warming, everyone thought that if it happened to continue for the next few centuries, so much the better.

In the 1950s, Callendar's claims provoked a few scientists to look into the question with improved techniques and calculations. What made that possible was a sharp increase of government funding, especially from military agencies with Cold War concerns about the weather and the seas. The new studies showed that, contrary to earlier crude estimates, carbon dioxide could indeed build up in the atmosphere and should bring warming. Painstaking measurements drove home the point in 1960 by showing that the level of the gas was in fact rising, year by year.

The world's governments had created a panel to give them the most reliable possible advice, as negotiated among thousands of climate experts and officials. By 2001 this Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) managed to establish a consensus, phrased so cautiously that scarcely any expert or government representative dissented. They announced that although the climate system was so complex that scientists would never reach complete certainty, it was much more likely than not that our civilization faced severe global warming. At that point the discovery of global warming was essentially completed. Scientists knew the most important things about how the climate could change during the 21st century. How the climate would actually change now depended chiefly on what policies humanity would choose for its greenhouse gas emissions.

Since 2001, greatly improved computer models and an abundance of data of many kinds strengthened the conclusion that human emissions are very likely to cause serious climate change. The IPCC's conclusions were reviewed and endorsed by the national science academies of every major nation from the United States to China, along with leading scientific societies and indeed virtually every organization that could speak for a scientific consensus. Specialists meanwhile improved their understanding of some less probable but more severe possibilities. On the one hand, a dangerous change in ocean circulation seemed unlikely in the next century or two. On the other hand, there were signs that disintegrating ice sheets could raise sea levels faster than most scientists had expected. Worse, new evidence suggested that the warming was itself starting to cause changes that would generate still more warming.

In 2007 the IPCC reported that scientists were more confident than ever that humans were changing the climate. Although only a small fraction of the predicted warming had happened so far, effects were already becoming visible in some regions — more deadly heat waves, stronger floods and droughts, heat-related changes in the ranges and behavior of sensitive species. (See the summary of expected impacts.) But the scientists had not been able to narrow the range of possibilities. Depending on what steps people took to restrict emissions, by the end of the century we could expect the planet’s average temperature to rise anywhere between about 1.4 and 6°C (2.5 - 11°F).

 

[editec]

Amazing.

The scientific community cannot even agree on matters as clear as that of temperature.

Now I can definitely understand how they might disagree about casuation, but in matter of FACT (like temperature), one would hope that there was no debate.

No such luck.

 

[westwall]

Amazing.

The scientific community cannot even agree on matters as clear as that of temperature.

Now I can definitely understand how they might disagree about casuation, but in matter of FACT (like temperature), one would hope that there was no debate.

No such luck.

I have to agree. There has been so much falsification of data that it is almost impossible to do a comparison with past temperatures. Hansen and Co. have systematically gone back over 50 years and altered the past temperature record with no explanation for why they did it. In New Zealand the group that did the same thing were forced to retract all of their adjustments. They then quit en masse. A huge blot against the formerly sterling record of NIWA.

 

[edthecynic]

Amazing.

The scientific community cannot even agree on matters as clear as that of temperature.

Now I can definitely understand how they might disagree about casuation, but in matter of FACT (like temperature), one would hope that there was no debate.

No such luck.

I have to agree. There has been so much falsification of data that it is almost impossible to do a comparison with past temperatures. Hansen and Co. have systematically gone back over 50 years and altered the past temperature record with no explanation for why they did it. In New Zealand the group that did the same thing were forced to retract all of their adjustments. They then quit en masse. A huge blot against the formerly sterling record of NIWA.

You are just a pathological liar!!!! Every time they make a change they post a summery with an explanation for download.

NCDC: Global Surface Temperature Anomalies

 

[westwall]

Amazing.

The scientific community cannot even agree on matters as clear as that of temperature.

Now I can definitely understand how they might disagree about casuation, but in matter of FACT (like temperature), one would hope that there was no debate.

No such luck.

I have to agree. There has been so much falsification of data that it is almost impossible to do a comparison with past temperatures. Hansen and Co. have systematically gone back over 50 years and altered the past temperature record with no explanation for why they did it. In New Zealand the group that did the same thing were forced to retract all of their adjustments. They then quit en masse. A huge blot against the formerly sterling record of NIWA.

You are just a pathological liar!!!! Every time they make a change they post a summery with an explanation for download.

NCDC: Global Surface Temperature Anomalies

Dude, you're a loon.

 

[edthecynic]

I have to agree. There has been so much falsification of data that it is almost impossible to do a comparison with past temperatures. Hansen and Co. have systematically gone back over 50 years and altered the past temperature record with no explanation for why they did it. In New Zealand the group that did the same thing were forced to retract all of their adjustments. They then quit en masse. A huge blot against the formerly sterling record of NIWA.

You are just a pathological liar!!!! Every time they make a change they post a summery with an explanation for download.

NCDC: Global Surface Temperature Anomalies

Dude, you're a loon.

Coming from you that is a high compliment, but it does not make you any less of a liar.

From the above link:

Note: Effective May 2, 2011, the GHCN-M version 3 dataset of monthly mean temperature replaced the GHCN-M version 2 monthly mean temperature dataset. Beginning with the April 2011 Global monthly State of the Climate Report, GHCN-M version 3 is used for NCDC climate monitoring activities, including calculation of global land surface temperature anomalies and trends.
For more information about this newest version, please see the Summary of Recent Changes in the GHCN-M Temperature Dataset and Merged Land-Ocean Surface Temperature Analyses.

 

[IanC]

edthecynic- as you are so well versed in the updates to these temperature data sets, could you point me to the year of revision, and the reason for the revision that led to

continental US temps
Year Old New 2011
1934 1.23 1.25 1.195
1998 1.24 1.23 1.318
1921 1.12 1.15 1.080
2006 1.23 1.13 1.292
1931 1.08 1.08 0.965
1999 0.94 0.93 1.068
1953 0.91 0.90 0.859
1990 0.88 0.87 0.918
1938 0.85 0.86 0.750
1939 0.84 0.85 0.773
(New was 2007)

I would be really interested in finding out why such wholesale changes are constantly being made, especially in records that are decades old

 

[RollingThunder]

There has been so much falsification of data that it is almost impossible to do a comparison with past temperatures.

That's one of your denier cult myths that has nothing to do with reality. None of the data climate scientists use was "falsified", although most of the psuedo-science you dimwitted denier cultists cling to was definitely falsified by the stooges for the fossil fuel industry.

Hansen and Co. have systematically gone back over 50 years and altered the past temperature record with no explanation for why they did it.

A flat-out lie coming from an ignorant fool.

In New Zealand the group that did the same thing were forced to retract all of their adjustments. They then quit en masse. A huge blot against the formerly sterling record of NIWA.

Another flat-out lie. No retractions, no mass resignations, no "blot" on their record. Just more nonsense from another fossil fuel industry sponsored denier cult front group.


NZ temps: warming real, record robust, sceptics wrong
(excerpts)

The National Institute for Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA), accused last week of fiddling the long term New Zealand temperature record to create spurious warming, has released information showing that the attack mounted by the NZ Climate “Science” Coalition and Climate Conversation Group has no merit.

The NIWA announcement shows that the warming trend in the long term record is also found when weather stations with long term records that require no corrections are used. From the release:

Dr Jim Salinger has identified from the NIWA climate archive a set of 11 stations with long records where there have been no significant site changes. When the annual temperatures from all of these sites are averaged to form a temperature series for New Zealand, the best-fit linear trend is a warming of 1°C from 1931 to 2008. We will be placing more information about this on the web later this week.​

I’ll have more detail on that series when it’s made available. So the warming in the record is robust, found in sites all round New Zealand, and doesn’t depend on mysterious adjustments. But the Treadgold/CSC report also made claims about data being hidden:

Requests for this information from Dr Salinger himself over the years, by different scientists, have long gone unanswered, but now we might discover the truth.​

That’s an outright lie, as the NIWA release shows.

For more than two years, New Zealand Climate Science Coalition members have known of the need to adjust the “seven station” data. They have had access to:

* the raw data
* the adjusted data (anomalies)
* information needed to identify the adjustments made by Dr Salinger
* information needed to develop their own adjustments.​

The NIWA release cites emails to CSC members Vincent Grey and Warwick Hughes in July 2006, which provided all the references required to calculate the necessary adjustments themselves. In particular, all the information about the station site changes has been publicly available since 1992 and details of the methodology since 1993!

 

[westwall]

There has been so much falsification of data that it is almost impossible to do a comparison with past temperatures.

That's one of your denier cult myths that has nothing to do with reality. None of the data climate scientists use was "falsified", although most of the psuedo-science you dimwitted denier cultists cling to was definitely falsified by the stooges for the fossil fuel industry.

Hansen and Co. have systematically gone back over 50 years and altered the past temperature record with no explanation for why they did it.

A flat-out lie coming from an ignorant fool.

In New Zealand the group that did the same thing were forced to retract all of their adjustments. They then quit en masse. A huge blot against the formerly sterling record of NIWA.

Another flat-out lie. No retractions, no mass resignations, no "blot" on their record. Just more nonsense from another fossil fuel industry sponsored denier cult front group.


NZ temps: warming real, record robust, sceptics wrong
(excerpts)

The National Institute for Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA), accused last week of fiddling the long term New Zealand temperature record to create spurious warming, has released information showing that the attack mounted by the NZ Climate “Science” Coalition and Climate Conversation Group has no merit.

The NIWA announcement shows that the warming trend in the long term record is also found when weather stations with long term records that require no corrections are used. From the release:

Dr Jim Salinger has identified from the NIWA climate archive a set of 11 stations with long records where there have been no significant site changes. When the annual temperatures from all of these sites are averaged to form a temperature series for New Zealand, the best-fit linear trend is a warming of 1°C from 1931 to 2008. We will be placing more information about this on the web later this week.​

I’ll have more detail on that series when it’s made available. So the warming in the record is robust, found in sites all round New Zealand, and doesn’t depend on mysterious adjustments. But the Treadgold/CSC report also made claims about data being hidden:

Requests for this information from Dr Salinger himself over the years, by different scientists, have long gone unanswered, but now we might discover the truth.​

That’s an outright lie, as the NIWA release shows.

For more than two years, New Zealand Climate Science Coalition members have known of the need to adjust the “seven station” data. They have had access to:

* the raw data
* the adjusted data (anomalies)
* information needed to identify the adjustments made by Dr Salinger
* information needed to develop their own adjustments.​

The NIWA release cites emails to CSC members Vincent Grey and Warwick Hughes in July 2006, which provided all the references required to calculate the necessary adjustments themselves. In particular, all the information about the station site changes has been publicly available since 1992 and details of the methodology since 1993!

You might want to get some more current information there my friend. The first link is the original posting that details the complaint made against NIWA. the second is NIWA's capitulation. I highlighted the part where NIWA claims they aren't required to use the best possible information or methods!

That's not a denier saying that...oh no, that's one of your boys. Congrats.

One other thing, the lead scientist at the heart of KIWIGATE is Dr. Jim Sallinger, who studied at...wait for it....the CRU at East Anglia, home of Phil Jones and Co.


Observations on NIWA’s Statement of Defence
Richard Treadgold| October 6, 2010



NIWA has issued a Clayton’s statement of defence. You know – the defence you mount when you’ve decided to surrender.

Claytons: The drink you have when you’re not having a drink.

Three weeks ago NIWA released their Statement of Defence in response to the NZ Climate Science Coalition’s Statement of Claim regarding an Application for a Judicial Review. You have to be a lawyer (which I’m not) to see the ramifications and it’s taking a while to work through it, but these are my first reactions and I can’t hold them back any longer.

Most of this will upset NIWA’s supporters. If you’re a NIWA supporter, go find a buddy to hug before reading on. This will rock your world.

Because NIWA formally denies all responsibility for the national temperature record (NZTR).

Betrayal of supporters

Now that is surprising – shocking, really. Forget their defensive posturing since our paper criticising it last November – now they’ve given that up and say the NZTR isn’t their problem, they’re not responsible for maintaining it and apparently there’s no such thing as an “official” New Zealand Temperature Record anyway.

Will the MSM pick this up? I think they should, but I rather doubt they will.

If I was a long-term NIWA supporter, I’d be a bit miffed to hear this revelation. I’d think that NIWA had betrayed us. We’d been supporting them for months and months against scurrilous attacks on their reputation, arguing that they had good reasons for doing what they did, then they turn around and say the temperature graph is nothing to do with them!

NZCSC: “It’s faulty.” NIWA: “It’s not ours.”

How can this be the action of earnest, dedicated scientists — their answer to months of implied accusations of dishonest science? Having suffered, according to their supporters, attempts to smear their top scientists, how can NIWA respond by saying they don’t want to be held responsible?

They’re not defending the temperature record or the mistakes in it, they’re virtually saying: “You’re right, the dataset could be shonky, so we’re washing our hands of it.” Which gives us no confidence in the “science” they might have applied to it. What the hell’s going on? I actually hope their lawyers know a cunning trick to get them out of this, and it’s not what it seems. Because it’s my NIWA too!

But it gets worse.

NIWA has formally stated that, in their opinion, they are not required to use the best available information nor to apply the best scientific practices and techniques available at any given time. They don’t think that forms any part of their statutory obligation to pursue “excellence”.

And that little bombshell just does my head in. For how can they pursue excellence without using the best techniques?

NIWA denies there is any such thing as an “official” NZ Temperature Record, although they’re happy to create an acronym for it (NZTR). The famous “Seven-station series” (7SS) is completely unofficial and strictly for internal research purposes. Nobody else should rely on it.

It certainly looks like the NZ temperature record

So it doesn’t exist except as an acronym – and in the laboratory – and they aren’t obliged to look after it.

Wow (WOW).

If the 7SS – posted on their web site on a page headed “NZ temperature record” and looking for all the world like an official NZ temperature record – was unimpeachably correct, NIWA would be happy to claim it and to tenderly look after it. The only reason to wash their hands of it is because it’s crippled with faults – fatally flawed – just as we’ve been saying.

We were right all along.

Wow.

But if the 7SS is a dead duck, what will NIWA say in future if the Government or the Courts ask whether New Zealand has warmed or cooled over the last 100 years? Well, they are getting a new NZTR, and they expect the replacement one to be a bit more defensible. We’ll have to wait and see what it concludes about cooling or warming.

$70,000 to fix and we found it for nothing

Back in February, when the NZ Climate Science Coalition wrote to Chris Mace, the chairman of NIWA, pointing out a mass of shonky aspects of the 7SS, Mr Mace promised that it would be formally “reviewed”. Minister Wayne Mapp later told Parliament that the “review” would involve five or six scientists working for about six months on justifying the NIWA adjustments. He also said that NIWA was getting an additional vote of $70,000 in the 2010 budget to cover the expenses of the “review”.

That’s a lot of time and resources to fix a problem we quickly unearthed without funding.

It’s all quite a compliment to Jim Salinger, too. After all, he made up the 7SS adjustments when he was a student back in the 1970s – with no taxpayer grants nor team of scientists to help. In 1992, 20 years later, NIWA didn’t even check Jim’s calculations (lost in a computer schemozzle) or update the methodology before adopting the whole thing as a NIWA taonga.

They seem to be doing their homework this time. Their statement of defence discloses that the new NZTR is all ready to go, subject only to peer review by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BOM). Before too long the 7SS will be history.

Victory without firing a shot! It’s great to be vindicated after the criticism we’ve copped, but what an anti-climax!

After the country has a well-founded temperature record, I wonder if anyone will remember to thank us?




Quadrant Online - NZ climate crisis gets worse

http://www.climateconversation.wordshine.co.nz/2010/10/observations-on-niwas-statement-of-defence/

http://www.suite101.com/content/legal-defeat-for-global-warming-in-kiwigate-scandal-a294157

 

[RollingThunder]

There has been so much falsification of data that it is almost impossible to do a comparison with past temperatures.

That's one of your denier cult myths that has nothing to do with reality. None of the data climate scientists use was "falsified", although most of the psuedo-science you dimwitted denier cultists cling to was definitely falsified by the stooges for the fossil fuel industry.

In New Zealand the group that did the same thing were forced to retract all of their adjustments. They then quit en masse. A huge blot against the formerly sterling record of NIWA.

Another flat-out lie. No retractions, no mass resignations, no "blot" on their record. Just more nonsense from another fossil fuel industry sponsored denier cult front group.

NZ temps: warming real, record robust, sceptics wrong
(excerpts)

The National Institute for Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA), accused last week of fiddling the long term New Zealand temperature record to create spurious warming, has released information showing that the attack mounted by the NZ Climate “Science” Coalition and Climate Conversation Group has no merit.

The NIWA announcement shows that the warming trend in the long term record is also found when weather stations with long term records that require no corrections are used. From the release:

Dr Jim Salinger has identified from the NIWA climate archive a set of 11 stations with long records where there have been no significant site changes. When the annual temperatures from all of these sites are averaged to form a temperature series for New Zealand, the best-fit linear trend is a warming of 1°C from 1931 to 2008. We will be placing more information about this on the web later this week.​

I’ll have more detail on that series when it’s made available. So the warming in the record is robust, found in sites all round New Zealand, and doesn’t depend on mysterious adjustments. But the Treadgold/CSC report also made claims about data being hidden:

Requests for this information from Dr Salinger himself over the years, by different scientists, have long gone unanswered, but now we might discover the truth.​

That’s an outright lie, as the NIWA release shows.

For more than two years, New Zealand Climate Science Coalition members have known of the need to adjust the “seven station” data. They have had access to:

* the raw data
* the adjusted data (anomalies)
* information needed to identify the adjustments made by Dr Salinger
* information needed to develop their own adjustments.​

The NIWA release cites emails to CSC members Vincent Grey and Warwick Hughes in July 2006, which provided all the references required to calculate the necessary adjustments themselves. In particular, all the information about the station site changes has been publicly available since 1992 and details of the methodology since 1993!

You might want to get some more current information there my friend.

I have accurate information. You have dimwitted propaganda and misinformation.

The first link is the original posting that details the complaint made against NIWA. the second is NIWA's capitulation. I highlighted the part where NIWA claims they aren't required to use the best possible information or methods!

That's not a denier saying that...oh no, that's one of your boys. Congrats.

Just more denier cult spun up nonsense from the usual stooges for the fossil fuel industry.

NIWA v Cranks 4: Shoot out at the fantasy factory
(excerpts)

Earlier today a Hot Topic reader drew my attention to this article: Legal Defeat For Global Warming In Kiwigate Scandal, which Nigella Lawson’s father’s secretly-funded Global Warming Policy Foundation chose to feature on its web site. What’s “Kiwigate”, he wanted to know?

Turns out it’s the NIWA versus NZ Climate “Science” Education Trust court case, launched back in August. It also turns out that the article in question is wrong in just about every material respect, and possibly libellous to boot. And the source for this farrago? A post by Richard Treadgold at his Climate Conversation blog, where he claims (in characteristically long-winded fashion) that in NIWA’s “statement of defence” (the document supplied to the High Court as a response to the NZ CSET’s “statement of claim“) NIWA “formally denies all responsibility for the national temperature record (NZTR)“. Well, not quite. Let’s look first at the “Kiwigate” piece…

The “Kiwigate article” is by one John O’Sullivan, who claims to be “the world’s most popular Internet writer on the greenhouse gas theory”, and first appeared at Suite 101. Here’s the intro and opening paragraph:

In the climate controversy dubbed Kiwigate New Zealand skeptics inflict shock courtroom defeat on climatologists implicated in temperature data fraud.

New Zealand’s government via its National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) has announced it has nothing to do with the country’s “official” climate record in what commentators are calling a capitulation from the tainted climate reconstruction.​

Remarkably, just about every assertion in these two sentences is false. The case hasn’t come before a judge, let alone reached a courtroom. I understand there have been meetings between lawyers, but little else so far. NIWA has made no “announcement” about anything, and the “commentators” O’Sullivan is relying on appear to be singular and called Treadgold. The “Kiwigate” coinage appears to be his own, and has found little favour elsewhere.

The rest of the article is no improvement, and includes potentially libellous references to Jim Salinger and Michael Mann. Interesting that Lord Lawson and his team feel free to repeat those allegations by a hosting them at their site. O’Sullivan’s story/fairytale has also been enthusiastically featured at Bishop Hill, Lubos Motl’s Reference Frame blog, and Morano’s Climate Depot. Fact-checking is clearly optional when the story suits your world view.

But let’s go to the source: Treadgold. Yesterday he wrote about his interpretation of NIWA’s statement of defence:

… NIWA formally denies all responsibility for the national temperature record (NZTR).

Now that is surprising — shocking, really. Forget their defensive posturing since our paper criticising it last November — now they’ve given that up and say the NZTR isn’t their problem, they’re not responsible for maintaining it and apparently there’s no such thing as an “official” New Zealand Temperature Record anyway.​

Actually, it’s not shocking at all. I pointed out in my first post about their legal posturing that there was no such thing as an “official” NZ temperature record, certainly not one that had been relied upon by government as a basis for any policy. Let’s look at the legal statements in a bit more detail (you can download the full documents from the links in my opening paragraph). Here’s the relevant section of the NZ CSET statement of claim:

The New Zealand Temperature Record

7. As part of the National Climate Database, NIWA has responsibility for determining the official New Zealand Temperature Record (the NZTR), which is a statistical time series of the nationally-averaged annual mean surface temperatures experienced in New Zealand.

8. The NZTR is a public record and NIWA is a controlling authority as defined in the Public Records Act 2005.

9. The NZTR has important public consequences. It provides the historical base for most government policy and judicial decisions relating to climate change within New Zealand, and contributes to the rationale for such policy and decisions.​

NIWA’s reply says (translating from the legal formatting):

* There is no “official” or formal NZ temperature record, but a number of different “streams” of climate information derived from the full database of weather data, including the various long term series NIWA and Jim Salinger have worked on over the years.
* NIWA is the “controlling public office” for the climate database, and that’s the “public record” not the various series derived from it.
* NIWA denies that the NZTR has been the historical base for most government policy and judicial decisions relating to climate change in NZ.

Somehow Treadgold manages to parse this as a rejection of the various long-term temperature series NIWA and Jim Salinger have compiled. The truth is that NIWA robustly defends the original seven station series (7SS) — see paragraphs 11, 12 and 13 of their statement.

Treadgold’s comprehension failure then compounds itself:

NIWA has formally stated that, in their opinion, they are not required to use the best available information nor to apply the best scientific practices and techniques available at any given time. They don’t think that forms any part of their statutory obligation to pursue “excellence”.​

In fact, NIWA’s statement specifically points out that it is required to “pursue excellence in all its activities” (paragraph 4, quoting from the CRI Act 1992). Treadgold is, it appears, hoping no-one will actually read the details and see where he’s attempting to mislead.

Treadgold’s whole post reads a lot like a pre-emptive attempt to spin failure as victory. Here’s his conclusion:

They [NIWA] seem to be doing their homework this time. Their statement of defence discloses that the new NZTR is all ready to go, subject only to peer review by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BOM). Before too long the 7SS will be history.​

No, the 7SS will still exist, recalculated from the same data as before, and (I’m willing to bet) without much in the way of change. New Zealand will still be warming, and at about the same rate as before.

Victory without firing a shot! It’s great to be vindicated after the criticism we’ve copped, but what an anti-climax!​

Victory? The High Court will first decide whether the CSET’s case is worth hearing, and even if the case should reach court, the chances of NIWA being able to mount a successful defence look very good. Vindicated? Remember that the original Treadgold “report” claimed that warming in NZ “had nothing to do with emissions of CO2 — it was created by man-made adjustments of the temperature. It’s a disgrace.” But when the dust has settled, all the temperature records will still show that NZ has warmed, and the glaciers will still have retreated. How inconvenient for our little climate Quixotes… Here’s Treadgold’s poignant closing sentence:

After the country has a well-founded temperature record, I wonder if anyone will remember to thank us?​

I think it’s rather more likely they’ll send you the bill for the money and time wasted by a pointless, politically-inspired campaign to smear NZ scientists and cast doubt on the reality of warming in New Zealand.

 

[westwall]

That's one of your denier cult myths that has nothing to do with reality. None of the data climate scientists use was "falsified", although most of the psuedo-science you dimwitted denier cultists cling to was definitely falsified by the stooges for the fossil fuel industry.

You might want to get some more current information there my friend.

I have accurate information. You have dimwitted propaganda and misinformation.

The first link is the original posting that details the complaint made against NIWA. the second is NIWA's capitulation. I highlighted the part where NIWA claims they aren't required to use the best possible information or methods!

That's not a denier saying that...oh no, that's one of your boys. Congrats.

Just more denier cult spun up nonsense from the usual stooges for the fossil fuel industry.

NIWA v Cranks 4: Shoot out at the fantasy factory
(excerpts)

Earlier today a Hot Topic reader drew my attention to this article: Legal Defeat For Global Warming In Kiwigate Scandal, which Nigella Lawson’s father’s secretly-funded Global Warming Policy Foundation chose to feature on its web site. What’s “Kiwigate”, he wanted to know?

Turns out it’s the NIWA versus NZ Climate “Science” Education Trust court case, launched back in August. It also turns out that the article in question is wrong in just about every material respect, and possibly libellous to boot. And the source for this farrago? A post by Richard Treadgold at his Climate Conversation blog, where he claims (in characteristically long-winded fashion) that in NIWA’s “statement of defence” (the document supplied to the High Court as a response to the NZ CSET’s “statement of claim“) NIWA “formally denies all responsibility for the national temperature record (NZTR)“. Well, not quite. Let’s look first at the “Kiwigate” piece…

The “Kiwigate article” is by one John O’Sullivan, who claims to be “the world’s most popular Internet writer on the greenhouse gas theory”, and first appeared at Suite 101. Here’s the intro and opening paragraph:

In the climate controversy dubbed Kiwigate New Zealand skeptics inflict shock courtroom defeat on climatologists implicated in temperature data fraud.

New Zealand’s government via its National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) has announced it has nothing to do with the country’s “official” climate record in what commentators are calling a capitulation from the tainted climate reconstruction.​

Remarkably, just about every assertion in these two sentences is false. The case hasn’t come before a judge, let alone reached a courtroom. I understand there have been meetings between lawyers, but little else so far. NIWA has made no “announcement” about anything, and the “commentators” O’Sullivan is relying on appear to be singular and called Treadgold. The “Kiwigate” coinage appears to be his own, and has found little favour elsewhere.

The rest of the article is no improvement, and includes potentially libellous references to Jim Salinger and Michael Mann. Interesting that Lord Lawson and his team feel free to repeat those allegations by a hosting them at their site. O’Sullivan’s story/fairytale has also been enthusiastically featured at Bishop Hill, Lubos Motl’s Reference Frame blog, and Morano’s Climate Depot. Fact-checking is clearly optional when the story suits your world view.

But let’s go to the source: Treadgold. Yesterday he wrote about his interpretation of NIWA’s statement of defence:

… NIWA formally denies all responsibility for the national temperature record (NZTR).

Now that is surprising — shocking, really. Forget their defensive posturing since our paper criticising it last November — now they’ve given that up and say the NZTR isn’t their problem, they’re not responsible for maintaining it and apparently there’s no such thing as an “official” New Zealand Temperature Record anyway.​

Actually, it’s not shocking at all. I pointed out in my first post about their legal posturing that there was no such thing as an “official” NZ temperature record, certainly not one that had been relied upon by government as a basis for any policy. Let’s look at the legal statements in a bit more detail (you can download the full documents from the links in my opening paragraph). Here’s the relevant section of the NZ CSET statement of claim:

The New Zealand Temperature Record

7. As part of the National Climate Database, NIWA has responsibility for determining the official New Zealand Temperature Record (the NZTR), which is a statistical time series of the nationally-averaged annual mean surface temperatures experienced in New Zealand.

8. The NZTR is a public record and NIWA is a controlling authority as defined in the Public Records Act 2005.

9. The NZTR has important public consequences. It provides the historical base for most government policy and judicial decisions relating to climate change within New Zealand, and contributes to the rationale for such policy and decisions.​

NIWA’s reply says (translating from the legal formatting):

* There is no “official” or formal NZ temperature record, but a number of different “streams” of climate information derived from the full database of weather data, including the various long term series NIWA and Jim Salinger have worked on over the years.
* NIWA is the “controlling public office” for the climate database, and that’s the “public record” not the various series derived from it.
* NIWA denies that the NZTR has been the historical base for most government policy and judicial decisions relating to climate change in NZ.

Somehow Treadgold manages to parse this as a rejection of the various long-term temperature series NIWA and Jim Salinger have compiled. The truth is that NIWA robustly defends the original seven station series (7SS) — see paragraphs 11, 12 and 13 of their statement.

Treadgold’s comprehension failure then compounds itself:

NIWA has formally stated that, in their opinion, they are not required to use the best available information nor to apply the best scientific practices and techniques available at any given time. They don’t think that forms any part of their statutory obligation to pursue “excellence”.​

In fact, NIWA’s statement specifically points out that it is required to “pursue excellence in all its activities” (paragraph 4, quoting from the CRI Act 1992). Treadgold is, it appears, hoping no-one will actually read the details and see where he’s attempting to mislead.

Treadgold’s whole post reads a lot like a pre-emptive attempt to spin failure as victory. Here’s his conclusion:

They [NIWA] seem to be doing their homework this time. Their statement of defence discloses that the new NZTR is all ready to go, subject only to peer review by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BOM). Before too long the 7SS will be history.​

No, the 7SS will still exist, recalculated from the same data as before, and (I’m willing to bet) without much in the way of change. New Zealand will still be warming, and at about the same rate as before.

Victory without firing a shot! It’s great to be vindicated after the criticism we’ve copped, but what an anti-climax!​

Victory? The High Court will first decide whether the CSET’s case is worth hearing, and even if the case should reach court, the chances of NIWA being able to mount a successful defence look very good. Vindicated? Remember that the original Treadgold “report” claimed that warming in NZ “had nothing to do with emissions of CO2 — it was created by man-made adjustments of the temperature. It’s a disgrace.” But when the dust has settled, all the temperature records will still show that NZ has warmed, and the glaciers will still have retreated. How inconvenient for our little climate Quixotes… Here’s Treadgold’s poignant closing sentence:

After the country has a well-founded temperature record, I wonder if anyone will remember to thank us?​

I think it’s rather more likely they’ll send you the bill for the money and time wasted by a pointless, politically-inspired campaign to smear NZ scientists and cast doubt on the reality of warming in New Zealand.

 

[IanC]

is RollingThunder really trying to defend the NZ debacle? its funny how there is always an 'explanation' after the fact that ignores the main issues and lets these jokers save some face.

it was deny, deny, deny until it totally blew up. now its 'it doesnt make much of a difference so whats the big deal'. that sounds like all the climategate conspirators. the big deal is the integrity of science. even an accurate answer (and Im not saying any of these jokers are right) obtained by incorrect methods is not the right answer, its just a lucky coincidence.

 

[edthecynic]

edthecynic- as you are so well versed in the updates to these temperature data sets, could you point me to the year of revision, and the reason for the revision that led to

continental US temps
Year Old New 2011
1934 1.23 1.25 1.195
1998 1.24 1.23 1.318
1921 1.12 1.15 1.080
2006 1.23 1.13 1.292
1931 1.08 1.08 0.965
1999 0.94 0.93 1.068
1953 0.91 0.90 0.859
1990 0.88 0.87 0.918
1938 0.85 0.86 0.750
1939 0.84 0.85 0.773
(New was 2007)

I would be really interested in finding out why such wholesale changes are constantly being made, especially in records that are decades old

Who knows where the hell you got those numbers, I alreade caught you trying to pass off phony numbers as coming from RSS AMSU when they came from some denier's imagination.
You prove that those are real numbers first.

 

[IanC]

edthecynic- as you are so well versed in the updates to these temperature data sets, could you point me to the year of revision, and the reason for the revision that led to

continental US temps
Year Old New 2011
1934 1.23 1.25 1.195
1998 1.24 1.23 1.318
1921 1.12 1.15 1.080
2006 1.23 1.13 1.292
1931 1.08 1.08 0.965
1999 0.94 0.93 1.068
1953 0.91 0.90 0.859
1990 0.88 0.87 0.918
1938 0.85 0.86 0.750
1939 0.84 0.85 0.773
(New was 2007)

I would be really interested in finding out why such wholesale changes are constantly being made, especially in records that are decades old

Who knows where the hell you got those numbers, I alreade caught you trying to pass off phony numbers as coming from RSS AMSU when they came from some denier's imagination.
You prove that those are real numbers first.

google change in warmest year USA 2007 and I am sure you will find news stories about the adjustments made to the GISS temps after McIntyre found the Y2K bug. the last column was GISS continental temps from 2 or 3 days ago. I think even you must admit the change in just 4 years has been spectacular. do you know the reason for decreasing the distant past temps and increasing the recent ones? was there some recent break through since 2007 that lets them go back and reread the thermometers or something?

 

[edthecynic]

edthecynic- as you are so well versed in the updates to these temperature data sets, could you point me to the year of revision, and the reason for the revision that led to

continental US temps
Year Old New 2011
1934 1.23 1.25 1.195
1998 1.24 1.23 1.318
1921 1.12 1.15 1.080
2006 1.23 1.13 1.292
1931 1.08 1.08 0.965
1999 0.94 0.93 1.068
1953 0.91 0.90 0.859
1990 0.88 0.87 0.918
1938 0.85 0.86 0.750
1939 0.84 0.85 0.773
(New was 2007)

I would be really interested in finding out why such wholesale changes are constantly being made, especially in records that are decades old

Who knows where the hell you got those numbers, I alreade caught you trying to pass off phony numbers as coming from RSS AMSU when they came from some denier's imagination.
You prove that those are real numbers first.

google change in warmest year USA 2007 and I am sure you will find news stories about the adjustments made to the GISS temps after McIntyre found the Y2K bug. the last column was GISS continental temps from 2 or 3 days ago. I think even you must admit the change in just 4 years has been spectacular. do you know the reason for decreasing the distant past temps and increasing the recent ones? was there some recent break through since 2007 that lets them go back and reread the thermometers or something?

The burden of proof is on you. I've already caught you using phony numbers on two other threads, I don't have to waste my time checking your non-linked numbers any more. You need to prove they are real numbers directly from the government source and not some denier website like you usually use for your phony numbers.

 

[IanC]

http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://data.giss. nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.D.txt

Arnost Khun says: Aug 8, 2007 at 6:13 PM A saved version of the data (excludes 2006) is available via the Wayback Machine here: http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://data.giss.nasa. gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.D.txt

I hate trying to link on my phone. you have select the whole thing up to Fig.D.txt and paste it into your browser

last year the wayback machine still had dates from 1999 and 2001 (or thereabouts) which were more in line with the first graph in the blinl comparitor. the numbers for 2007 are still there but by 2009 the links go to a 'Forbidden' title. the current figures are available at http://data.giss.nasa. gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.D.txt

my apologies for technical difficulties in providing direct links. anyone interested in learning more of the whole story can google 'climate audit, leaderboard'.

 

[edthecynic]

http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://data.giss. nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.D.txt

Arnost Khun says: Aug 8, 2007 at 6:13 PM A saved version of the data (excludes 2006) is available via the Wayback Machine here: http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://data.giss.nasa. gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.D.txt

I hate trying to link on my phone. you have select the whole thing up to Fig.D.txt and paste it into your browser

last year the wayback machine still had dates from 1999 and 2001 (or thereabouts) which were more in line with the first graph in the blinl comparitor. the numbers for 2007 are still there but by 2009 the links go to a 'Forbidden' title. the current figures are available at http://data.giss.nasa. gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.D.txt

my apologies for technical difficulties in providing direct links. anyone interested in learning more of the whole story can google 'climate audit, leaderboard'.

None of your links work.