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NZCPR
Guest
NIWA
and the
New Zealand
Climate Science Coalition
Bryan
Leyland
22
August
2010
The
New Zealand Climate Science Coalition has asked the High Court
to rule on the validity of NIWA's "Seven Station"
New Zealand Temperature Record (NZTR) that features
prominently on its website and is used in information it
passes on to schools and is also used to support the emission
trading scheme, resource consent applications for wind farms
and many other key aspects of policies designed to “fight
climate change”. If this action succeeds, NIWA will be
obliged to withdraw the Seven Station series and all the
advice that they had given based on it. They will also be
required to produce a new NZTR, which is both transparent and
independently peer reviewed.
From information available
on NIWA's website, Coalition members have been able to plot
temperatures from 1900 to the present based on the actual
readings of the thermometers and based on the readings from
the same thermometers after adjustment by NIWA. The unadjusted
readings showed a insignificant warming of 0.3°C per century
while the adjusted readings show a warming of 1°C per
century. The chart comparing the two temperature records is on
the Coalition's website http://climatescience.org.nz/images/PDFs/app3.graph.pdf.
Because 1° per century is
higher than the generally accepted figure for global
temperatures of 0.7° per century and because Dr David Wratt
of NIWA has also stated that New Zealand would be expected to
have a smaller temperature rise than the rest of the world
(because it is surrounded by ocean), the Coalition asked for
the “schedule of adjustments” that should show exactly how
each temperature record was adjusted over time. (Some
adjustments are often desirable because of changes to site
and, in particular because of the urban heat island effect
that produces an artificial warming effect as rural areas
become urbanized.) After many requests, including requests
under the Freedom of Information Act, appeals to the chairman
of NIWA and questions in Parliament, NIWA have not produced
this information. Instead, they have referred us to the 1981
Ph.D. thesis of Dr Jim Salinger that discusses methods of
adjusting temperature data. They have insisted that this is
all we need
.
Here is an analogy of the
situation we are in. "You go to someone's place for
afternoon tea and they bring out a lovely cake. You admire it
greatly and ask for the recipe. The host promises to post it
to you. When you get it, you find it is a simple list of
ingredients without quantities and without instructions. So
you ask again for the recipe and are told that a list of
ingredients is all you need and that it should be quite easy
to reverse engineer the cake from the list of ingredients.
Yeah, right!"
Our key point is that an
essential aspect of science is that findings are be
independently verified and that assumptions and techniques are
fully documented. Other scientists must be able to replicate
what was done and report on any problems that they have with
the data or methods. Science advances step by step and the soundness of each should
be tested. The "hockey stick" graph was a good
example of why this should be done. Because its creators
refused to release their data and methods it was years before
it could be properly investigated. It is now confirmed that
they had used "unusual" statistical methods and
ignored data that did not suit their objective. In the
end, Steve McIntyre (climateaudit.org) was able to show that by using their methods, a
“hockey stick” could be generated from random numbers.
Honesty, openness and full
disclosure of methods and data are the hallmarks of good
science. "Trust us" is often said by people with
something to hide.
Richard
Treadgold explains the whole saga very well at: http://www.climateconversation.wordshine.co.nz/2010/05/niwa-climate-denialists/
The plain fact is that
NIWA's
New Zealand
temperature record (Seven-station Series) cannot be
substantiated. Apparently, the record was originally produced
by Jim Salinger in the 1990s after his return from the
University
of
East Anglia
where he had been working with Phil Jones of “climategate”
fame. Jim relied upon data from his old thesis, despite the
fact that all record of the associated calculations had since
been lost by VUW when they changed computers. It seems that
the NIWA accepted Jim's temperature record [NZTR] without
question, without having it peer-reviewed and without
insisting that it be properly documented and archived. Yet
they have a legal duty under the Public Records Act to keep
“full and accurate records”.
NIWA have published the
monthly averaged actual temperature readings for an 11-station
series and, strangely, claim that because these unadjusted
temperature data shows warming, this adds credibility to
the adjusted 7 station series.The logic is difficult to
follow. This record has been critiqued in Barry Brill's
article at http://www.quadrant.org.au/blogs/doomed-planet/2010/06/nz-climate-crisis-gets-worse.
John Maunder is a highly
respected meteorologist who is now retired. He led the NZ
meteorological office for many years and was President of the
World Meteorological Organisation and now lives in Tauranga.
He has produced a temperature record for Tauranga (one of the
11 station series) that he has adjusted for changes in
location. It shows a slight cooling since 1913 and no warming
since 1932. NIWA's unadjusted Tauranga data starts at 1932 and
shows considerable warming in a
period when man-made emissions of carbon dioxide were quite
low and less warming in recent years when the atmospheric
concentration of carbon dioxide had risen significantly.
New Zealand
's temperature record has a disproportionate effect on global estimates, because there are very few
long-term temperature stations in the
Pacific Ocean
. It influences government policies, at central, regional and
local level, in their policies to “fight climate change”.
These include the economically damaging emissions trading
scheme, devaluing seaside properties because of fears of
extreme sea level rise, incentives for expensive and
ineffective windfarms and disincentives for what could be
really useful – new fossil-fuel power generation.
This
NZTR is continuing to wreak damage, despite NIWA knowing it is
flawed. The only responsible option is for NIWA to remove it
from their website and produce a new NZTR that accords with
international standards and is peer-reviewed by independent
climate scientists. The whole process should be carefully
documented and made publicly available for any scientist to
replicate or suggest improvements.
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