Category Archives: Jones et al

IPCC, Jones et al, Surface Record

Wattsup with Darwin Zero

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Many of us have seen the article by Willis Eschenbach over at the Anthony Watts site, “Smoking gun at Darwin Zero” (SGDZ) . I disagree with Willis that the strongly warming GHCN Darwin 0 data has been used by CRU.

Fig 1 in SGDZ shows a small IPCC diagram with a sketch temperature trend for Northern Australia for the period 1900’s to 2000. Willis found that the GHCN adjusted Zero version for Darwin warmed very strongly post 1940, see his Fig 8.

That trend in Fig 1 looks to me to agree with the land only CRUT3 trend that anyone can generate for that Northern Australia region using the useful KNMI Climate Explorer page which lets you interrogate many monthly global databases – enter link on right to Monthly observations.

Downloading CRUT3 and NCDC GHCN for the period 1907-2000 I get trends over the 94 years of 0.48 for CRUT3 and 0.87 for NCDC GHCN.

Following four graphics all from KNMI Climate Explorer

IPCC Northern Australia region – trend for CRUT3
IPCC Northern Australia region – trend for NCDC GHCN

Darwin grid cell – trend for CRUT3 (I think they are wrong to join Darwin Post Office to Aiport like that) No sign of Darwin Zero here.
Darwin CRUT3

Darwin grid cell – trend for NCDC GHCN
Darwin GHCN

To wrap up this section re Darwin Zero, I am saying the GHCN Darwin Zero data is not used in CRUT3. What a shambles the global T datasets are.

Willis says in SGDZ “One of the things that was revealed in the released CRU emails is that the CRU basically uses the Global Historical Climate Network (GHCN) dataset for its raw data.”

IMHO you have taken this idea too far Willis and this has lead to the mistaken impression that GHCN Zero is causing the trend in the Fig 1 IPCC graphic at SGDZ.

Jones et al 1986 constructed their foundation data before GHCN was even published !! We have Jones et al station documentation for those 20 year old versions of CRUT (they included Darwin from 1882) – that provided global warming trends for the commencing of the IPCC at the end of the 1980’s – the Rio Conference in 1992 – Jones et al 1986 was in every way the BIRTH OF GLOBAL WARMING as we now know it. The GHCN followed along afterwards and basically agreed.

Sure, from his Jones 1994 update – Jones inserted many more stations and common sense tells you many of these must equate to GHCN sites. But I would bet my bottom dollar that they were all carefully sifted, scrutinised and altered where required by Jones / CRU before being used. Remember we do have the Jones 94 station data – but we do NOT have 1994 station documentation equivalent to the 1986-1991 TR022 and TR027 books published by the US Dept of Energy, CDIAC, refs here

These books are out of print, I hope people ask CDIAC to do another print run of the 1991 edition. It would be great to ask CDIAC for updated documentation books with all current station data too. Remember the DoE have been funding Jones / CRU from the early 1980 and I bet still do.

Back to Willis’ contention that “..CRU basically uses the Global Historical Climate Network (GHCN) dataset..”.
The Jones & Moberg 2003 update was a monster cut n paste n fill – mix n match, as stations numbers blew out to over 5,000.

There was no station data or TR022-27 type documentation for this version – but we have to assume their methods were basically as set out in TR022 and TR027. IMHO around this time senior UKMO people got uneasy at the developing shambles that was CRUT2 and planned the ending of that series in 2005 and the migration of the project across to the UKMO / Hadley Centre as CRUT3 with Jones as the “tail end author” in the Brohan paper.

See my; Huge variations now between the 3 main global T datasets

An example in detail: Hadley Centre inserts more warming into New Zealand climate history

I notice 24 Nov 09 statements by CRU saying, “It is well known within the scientific community and particularly those who are sceptical of climate change that over 95% of the raw station data has been accessible through the Global Historical Climatology Network for several years”. IMHO that was a classic example of misinformation and obfuscation – of which there are many examples in the last 25 years of climate saga. We should not be lead astray by CRU / Jones attempts to divert us from requiring that they reveal all their station data. As I say above, any GHCN stations incorporated in Jones et al data would have been “..carefully sifted, scrutinised and altered where required by Jones / CRU before being used”.

Let me just finish by saying, nobody will ever understand what Jones / CRU have done by studying the GHCN – which is riddled with its own errors.

IPCC, Jones et al, News and Views

Exactly who was emailing who in Climategate

19 Comments

This social graph of CRU emails shows how miniscule is this IPCC “power group” if you ponder how many active climatologists there must be globally. Sent in by The Iconoclast. The software counts the To and CC lines but does not count the emedded emails, many of which are duplicates. The 300kb graphic is over 3000 pixels wide, best downloaded – it prints OK in A4 but A3 would be better.

BoM Australia, IPCC, Jones et al, Surface Record

Jones et al 1986 methodical insertion of warming bias

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Jones et al 1986 looked at 86 Australian stations and rejected 46 (25 Short term – 21 long term). Of the 40 they used 27 were short term and 13 long term. Of the long term there were 5 large cities.
The 27 short term stations were mostly only quoted from 1951 onward – regardless of what data was available. It just so happens that the years just post WWII were not prominently warm in Australia so an “automatic” warming trend was reinforced into the CRU Australian component.
Here are 11 examples where Jones et al systematically truncated pre-1951 data or ignored more rural data around many small town Australian stations. These graphics and text have been extracted from a 1992 vintage Word doc that somehow survived the decades and how many HDD’s. Note 27 Nov 09 to clear up any ambiguity – check my comment (WSH) 17 below.
Continue reading Jones et al 1986 methodical insertion of warming bias →

IPCC, Jones et al

Selection of Prof Phil Jones and CRU emails from over a decade now searchable online

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We have heard the amazing news broken by Anthony Watts of the Hadley Centre hack and download of the 61MB file named FOI2009.zip
Now gone from the original RU site but still available here.
In my opinion it is from Climate Research Unit (CRU) at U of East Anglia, Norwich – UK and is not from the UKMO’s Hadley Centre. It could have been released by a process as simple as a CRU staffer mistakenly leaving the file in a public part of the CRU FTP site.
Marc Morano has set up a very useful searchable list of the emails. I even found emails in there from me. Just over 1,000 email files all told, each one refs to more than one email – so probably several thousand all up. Amazing stuff.
Life changing for CRU.

BoM Australia, News and Views, Surface Record

Warmest winter on record for Victoria ? or BoM mistake ? (that’s Australian Bureau of Meteorology)

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TV news and weather presenters are gloating lately as they report Australia’s “hottest winter ever”. I was traveling by car on the 27th August and Dr David Jones of the Bureau of Meteorology National Climate Centre was being interviewed by the ABC 666 just after 9am. I suppose “interview” is not quite correct, a mutual gush session might be more accurate. Dr Jones was talking up the notion of our “hottest winter” despite there being a few more days yet to run.
Anyway, the BoM now have a new media release which is slightly less trumpeting. They say we just missed the “hottest winter” label except for New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia.
To get a handle on our winter warmth you can make contour maps of maximum temperature anomalies and minimum temperature anomalies at this useful BoM webpage.
Maximum temperature anomalies
and at night time
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Remember from the above BoM media release that the state of Victoria is mentioned as actually experiencing its “warmest winter on record”.
Now check the state of Victoria on both maps I say Victoria has been too near average this winter to have a “snowball chance in hell” of having its “warmest winter on record”.
So I say to the BoM – if your maps are right or near right – then your claim that Victoria has just experienced its “warmest winter on record” has to be wrong.

Atmospheric science, IPCC, Jones et al, Surface Record, Urban Heat Islands

More huge errors in HadCRUT3 gridded temperature data

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The brave prediction, “Sydney’s climate to ‘become like Brisbane’s'” for 2100 by staff at James Cook University means that Sydney Airport will warm by ~2.75 degrees C relative to Brisbane Airport (based on 1961-1990 averages) for this prediction to come true. It is obvious that the Sydney Urban Heat Island (UHI) has already notionally moved Sydney north but we will all be departed when it falls due to adjudicate on this claim by JCU staff in 90 odd years time.

However the review paper that this prediction was extracted from is titled, “Expansion of the tropics”. The authors do not seem to present evidence directly themselves, preferring to cherry pick quotes from a wide range of IPCC compliant literature.

I just want to point out that whatever merits this concept of the “expanding tropics” might have, the tropics are only warming slightly. According to 30 years of temperature trends in the lower troposphere generated by NASA satellites and calculated by the University of Alabama at Huntsville, the tropics are warming at about 0.05 C per decade. That trend is partly driven by cooling due to volcanoes early in the 30 year period then warming from the huge El Nino in 1998 – cooling early in the 30 years and warming late in the 30 years forms a couple which to some extent inserts a warming trend into the data.

However one hopes that none of the papers reviewed and relied upon by our JCU academics are quoting the authoritative (much IPCC quoted) HadCRUT3 land sea gridded temperature data compiled by the University of Norwich, Climate Research Unit, Dr. P. D. Jones and the UK Met. Office Hadley Centre.

HadCRUT3 errors in tropical Africa

This graphic shows that for a huge region of tropical Africa the HadCRUT3 data has errors of about 0.8 degrees C over the 30 odd years.
And world leaders are discussing huge changes to our economies assuming all the science is settled.
I should have said I got my data from the The Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute useful website Climate Explorer. Follow the Monthly observations link on the right.

Climate indicators, Cryosphere, IPCC, News and Views, Surface Record

New York Times runs interesting story about impacts of “global warming” around Juneau – Alaska but temperature data show no warming.

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The New York Times reports how land is rising from the sea around Juneau and that this is due to glaciers melting. Whatever the relationships between these various phenomena – temperature data from NASA GISS – NCDC and University of Alabama at Huntsville satellite data for the lower troposphere – all point to there being no significant warming in the Juneau 2.5 degree grid box over 109 years 1900-2008.
Juneau T trends 109 yrs
Notes on the data – the GISS warm anomalies post the mid-1990’s look too warm compared to the other two datasets and the surface warmth in 1981 was not found in the lower troposphere. You would need to examine all available surface data to resolve the last 30 years better. As usual when T data are examined closely, you find problems.

BoM Australia, IPCC, Jones et al, Surface Record, Urban Heat Islands

ACT (Canberra) Commissioner for Sustainability and the Environment chides BoM re urbanization near Canberra Airport observations site

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Dr Maxine Cooper the ACT (Australian Capital Territory) Commissioner for Sustainability and the Environment has a page discussing ACT weather and if you scroll down about half way you see this headline. “Has development around Canberra International Airport adversely affected its use as a climate reference station?”

BoM Climate Ref Stations map
and list

Dr Cooper sees the encroaching of carparks and hangars only from 2005 but I would suggest to her that the increasing size of Canberra and associated increased urban warming over the last half century has been warping the Canberra AP data warmer for decades. Last February, air masses warmed by the SE Australian heatwaves travelled ~2500 km across the Tasman Sea to give Auckland its hottest day (32.4 on 12 Feb) since 1872. I think it is obvious that Canberra air warmed a few degrees by urban effects could at times limp its way the 10 km to the airport and affect readings there.

Anyway, the good Doctor asks the question, “How much do these developments affect the Bureau’s ability to keep using this site as a long-term reference station?”
Heavens above, if Dr Cooper is getting concerned about the Canberra AP site then the list of global sites that that Dr P. D. Jones and the Hadley Centre use to generate “global warming” trends for the IPCC should really give her cause to be alarmed.
And note, Canberra is on the Hadley Centre / Jones list.
949260 -353 -1492 578 CANBERRA AIRPORT AUSTRALIA
I have heard a term, “strain at a gnat while swallowing a camel”
Anthony Watts should be pleased that some well heeled Govt. group down-under is on the job, helping him.

BoM Australia, Cryosphere, IPCC, News and Views, Surface Record

BoM declines to give Australian journalist Antarctic temperature data

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Read this latest illustration of the famous saying by Sir Walter Scott along lines, “..what a tangled web we weave when we set out to deceive..”
May 2 article in “The Australian”, no compromise over the length of this headline.

“Bureau blows hot and cold over Antarctica warm-up as Bureau of Metereology backs down from a claim that temperatures at Australia’s three bases in Antarctica have been warming over the past three decades”

You need to read right to the end of the article for the lines,

“Dr Watkins declined to release the temperature data to The Weekend Australian. He said it had still to be fully analysed by the bureau.”

Can I please add – but the data was quite OK to be a base for Dr Watkins to trumpet his version to the media.

Here you can see some graphics of BoM data from Australian Antarctic stations, thanks to Geoff Sherrington and to the stalwart observers who ventured out in thick and thin to record these data over the decades.
Thanks to Romanoz for his mention on another thread.
Below here for the article text, in case it vanishes.
Continue reading BoM declines to give Australian journalist Antarctic temperature data →

BoM Australia, IPCC, Jones et al, Surface Record, Urban Heat Islands

Some early contact with bias and mythology in the Australian Bureau of Meteorology BoM near two decades ago

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I first got to know the BoM in 1991 when GW was in its infancy and was surprised at the extent to which PC myths coloured peoples thinking.

I noted very early on that many long term small town sites were as warm in the 1880’s as they were in the 1980’s and when I asked about this – BoM sages wisely told me, “Ah yes, that is due to the introduction of the Stevenson screen thermometer enclosure into Australia in 1907 when the BoM was formed.” It was explained that older more primitive exposures could cause the higher readings. Nobody espoused an alternative view, it was group-think.

Ferreting in their very good library I came across proceedings from a number of Intercolonial Conferences from the 19C which referred to the Stevenson screen. I wrote up a draft paper trying to put the references into perspective and circulated it around including the BoM. A response came back from the BoM pointing out the multiple errors of my ways and I gave up any idea of publishing a paper. The story continues a few years later and I explain how I came to publish my paper as a Comment in The International Journal of Climatology in 1995, the 4 pages are scanned.

Some helpful soul in the BoM gave me a copy of the Jones et al 1986 Southern Hemisphere documentation paper; 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 referred to here.

The pattern of bias I detected in TR027 started me on the road to perdition which I am still travelling. That lead to my review of the Australian component of the Jones et al 1986 data, scroll down above page to.
[2] Tasman Institute 1991 review of the Australian component of temperature records used in the 1986 Jones et al Southern Hemisphere paper.

Recently I have found some of my original Word docs still readable on old HDD’s and one day will prep these for the www.

Scrolling down about 30% on the above page, you can read about a 1990 BoM study which defined, albeit in a simple way, urban warming at most of Australian capital cities.

The 1990 BoM draft Paper, M.J. Coughlan, R. Tapp and W.R. Kininmonth; 1990, “Trends in Australian Temperature Records” by three senior BoM staff, defined urban heat island (UHI) magnitudes by various comparisons between central city sites in all the Australian state capitals and their respective airports, more than one satellite site in the case of the larger cities.

I suggest you download the zip file of scanned pages of this paper.

After easily finding solid evidence of urban warming in Australian city data the BoM failed to Comment in the relevant Journal(s) on the patently wrong Jones et al methodology. I can only conclude that the BoM noted the irritable tone of the Jones and Wigley reply to Fred Wood’s 1988 critique of the Jones et al 1986 papers, read it all on my page.

Note the discussion re San Juan Puerto Rico in point 5 of my Table, two peer reviewed papers help highlight Jones error and I note, 785260 184 660 3 SAN JUAN INTL A PUERTO RICO, still stands in the CRUT3 station list.

The actual station data used is still top secret.

The BoM decided discretion was the better part of valour and decided not to discuss Australian urban warming with Dr Jones through a Journal. Not a battle they wanted to win anyway, no brownie points taking on Jones et al, better to hide, it might all go away.

It is ironic that in 2008 Chinese climate scientists have dragged Dr P D Jones to an acceptance that urban warming affects the Chinese component of his CRUTem3 global land data.

This Jones et al 2008 paper invalidates the entire CRUTem3 global data, it also puts a torpedo into the Jones et al 1990 Letter to Nature, a crucial IPCC defence still against claims that urban warming still affects IPCC GW trends. BoM staffers developed the Eastern Australian trend used in the 1990 Letter to Nature, much promoted by the BoM in the 1990’s. I had told them it was badly UHI affected and I circulated a little paper, titled I think, “Heat Islands in SE Australian Country Towns”. This was slammed by the BoM reviewers, as they slammed my critique of the Jones Australian component(added Apr 4: to be fair the BoM did agree Jones et al used too many cities and that rural data was under-represented), as they slammed my Stevenson screen draft paper.

The Chinese climate scientists have also torpedoed the Chinese component of the 1990 Letter to Nature, which does no good at all to the Eastern Australian trend quoted as being Rural.

I put actual numbers to their Eastern Australian bias in the paper “Eastern Australia temperature variations 1930-1992”. One of the few attempts to generate a near truly rural trend and way below the IPCC trend for the region.

Thats enough for now, I will try and answer questions where people are genuine, and will try to set down more material later, this sets some foundation to the early development of BoM bias.