In 2010 the New Zealand National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research Ltd (NIWA) with the assistance of four months help from the Australian BoM revised their seven station NZ temperature series to arrive at a national temperature trend from 1910. This is a much shorter period than the previous seven station series which was from before 1860.
The New Zealand Climate Science Coalition (NZCSC) started with an Official Information Act request on 21 December 2009 – attempting to obtain from NIWA details of the adjustments and construction of the seven station series from the many component data. These efforts did not succeed and I think in August 2010 they started court action against NIWA – which I understand is not over.
At the end of August 2010 NIWA sought the assistance of the Australian BoM to check their seven station series and in late December 2010 the revised NIWA seven station trend was published.
The NZ blog Climate Conversation Group has an article on 28th April “NIWA — show us the peer review!” – where they discuss the unsatisfactory state of affairs due to NIWA secretly adjusting raw station data to make their high warming seven station trend a trend that is unverifiable until NIWA releases details.
In February 2011 I lodged an FOI request with the BoM to release to me all documents and data connected with their work on the seven station series for NIWA. After a couple of extensions of time – on 6th May they emailed me the following pdf files which in a nutshell – tell me that all relevant documents and data are “fully exempt” from the FOI Act – and are thus still secret.
First the BoM reasons for refusal.
- Some relevant sections of the FOI Act
- Schedule of Documents – a very interesting list of 159 exempt documents comprising over 1600 pages plus 642 files – there may be some duplication.
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This schedule shows the “peer review” process started at the end of August 2010 and the list ends on Christmas Eve – pretty much four months.
I am hoping that people smarter than I might see ways to carry on the battle to get these papers and files released.
What can be so secret about the things publicly funded scientists and bureaucrats do to adjust common garden old weather records into a form that suits them? We are not talking about nuclear weapons secrets here.
There were two other pdf files
- References to papers on homogenising climate data;
- The BoM covering letter to NIWA 14 Dec 2010 already public.
Added 7.30pm 7 May: Please note the anti-spam function is catching many good comments now and holding them for approval. So please be patient if your comment does not appear quickly.
Warwick
This is pretty basic stuff.
Either the raw data has been manipulated for scientifically justifiable reasons or its been “fiddled”.
If they are continuing to hide behind a stonewall, they have something they can not defend in their (BoM’s) peer review or the inference is that BoM’s Australian data set & its “homogenization” will similarly not stand up to an open, transparent review.
Warwick, do NZ not have FOI? If they do, what reasons were given for not providing the data? It seems that the climate science community have learned nothing from the UEA experience. Every concealment of data and ‘adjustment’ of them will be interpreted as “manipulation” as far as the rest of the world is concerned. Perhaps the following job application (from another blog) should be redirected to the appropriate NZ authority
Dear Sir,
I am inquiring about the possibility of employment at the University.
I was recently sacked from my previous job for conspiring to distort company figures. Before that I was fired for gross incompetence and for losing critical corporate data; and before that for attempting to corrupt audits by getting my mates assigned to the role, and for attempting to cover-up my dishonesty by criminally inciting others to delete incriminating files and emails.
I was thinking maybe something in your Climate Research Unit, but I’m concerned I
may be over-qualified.
I also have two convictions for fraud. Is this enough?
Please advise soonest.
Yours Sincerely,
Warwick,
Keep the request(s) simple.
Ask for the original raw data (which will be an exclusively NZ product)
and the for the revised data, also NZ originated without foreign
entanglements. Ask for the processing code and data files… again
under the sole control of New Zealanders.
Send a separate request to the Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BoM)
for information on the peer review they conducted on the NIWA revised
data and it’s interpolation.
Pick it clean like a Christmas goose, don’t use a chain saw.
Warwick,
I quote
The purpose of the peer review is for a RECOGNISED EXPERT in the field, who generally remains ANONYMOUS, to critique and provide feedback in relation to the study and any report. (my emphasis)
Obviously they are afraid of an expert going over. How about changing your name (on the application)? Warwick ANONYMOUS would be too obvious. So would Al Gore, as everyone knows his lack of scientific understanding. Why not try Phil Jones, or Keith Trenberth? Or did they do the peer review?
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Would you invest in a company which claims to be making a large audited profit, but which won’t tell you where the profit came from; how it was calculated; what were the running costs; who were the accountants; who were the auditors; nor who are the directors? Nor will they allow outside scrutiny of these accounts, but they promise a big profit sometime in the next 1,000 years. The only other thing known is that several of the Directors have convictions for dishonesty.
If so, then send your money (lots of it) to the Australian Labor Party (no refunds given).
This really takes the cake. Expensive legal challenge perhaps the only way out unless the minister is willing to step in. Like that’s going to happen.
Send the details to Senate estimates, might help raise awareness.
Warwick, you expressed interest at CCG in hearing “what Kiwi observers think of the extensive Schedule which started at the end of August”.
Having compiled my own reconstruction of location series from raw CliFlo data (e.g. Masterton) and obtaining similar results to NIWA by using alternative methods, I can offer this observation.
The step change methodology (contributor site raw values adjusted to reference site terms) used when there are site changes within a location is critical especially in the early years of a location. As a “what if” exercise, I have made some minor changes to early step values of the 3 sites that I consider outliers in the composite series – Auckland, Nelson and Hokitika. Auckland is an outlier in terms of absolute values (much warmer than the other 6) and all 3 are outliers in terms of trend. Those small changes had the effect that a steadily rising 3rd order polynomial trend changed to a cyclic trend similar to the other 4 locations. BTW, the most recent polynomial trend in the NIWA series is cooling, which probably explains why they prefer to use a linear trend in their PR.
Given the above, the most pertinent documents are those that answer 2 questions:-
1) Did BOM investigate alternative comparator sites to those that NIWA used (local vs the remote comparators that NIWA used) in arriving at the step change values or did they merely run their own statistical analysis over the step changes using the comparator sites that NIWA selected?
If the latter, the audit was next to useless as there would only be minor tweaking (which seems to have been the case). If the former, that would determine the validity or otherwise of the comparator site analysis result at each step change (unlikely because the review was not a scientific re-analysis).
2) To what generally accepted method did the statistical step change analysis comply?
Without divulging too much, be assured that considerable scrutiny is being applied by others to this question (I would like to say more on this but its not for me to do so).
The documents that should answer these questions, are the review structure and process (Docs 1 and 2) and the statistical analysis docs for each location.
Personally I am comfortable with the series except for the 3 outliers mentioned because there’s certainly nothing untoward or alarming when a polynomial or EMD trend is applied but the indication that a cooler clime is on the way is something that farmers, orchardists, energy sector etc should be hearing about (especially in the South Island) but they wont hear it from NIWA. It’s a similar situation to Australia being unprepared for rain because CSIRO/BOM were seeing the future through warm dry model outputs.
Sounds a bit familiar.
Warwick,
Gee you are a glutton for punishment – but as the whole issue is political, and as they are sensing they are losing the game, I suspect you will be facing an uphill battle on this one.
@ Pattoh
The contentious issue is the step change methodology which adjusts an entire site within a location to be in terms of the location reference site (usually the most recent open site).
It is a simple matter to access the raw CliFlo data (it’s publicly available) and reconstruct a location series (I’ve done it myself) even using alternative methods to arrive at appropriate step values. I can’t see any manipulation or fiddling but I can see potential cumulative error in NIWA’s method but it does not seem to have occurred. What is questionable is NIWA’s comparator site selection at each step (site change) and their statistical accept/reject criteria for appropriate comparators.
What I haven’t been able to find out is what NZ data is submitted to the global record. Anyone know what OZ data is used in the global record? Raw? Adjusted? Publicly available? What happens to it at CRU?
Good Evening Warwick,
Commissorations on your lack of success so far.
Perhaps you could tell them that your work is directly related to improving the prospects of getting New Zealand apples exported more easily into Australia..you watch them move faster than a ‘Lomu-intercept-try”.
Regards, reformed warmist, logan.
I looked at the BoM ‘review’ of NIWA’s ‘adjustment’ process here;
www.abc.net.au/unleashed/44734.html
The whole process is incestuous and the BoM ‘vindication’ of NIWA’s ‘adjustment’ process is unsurprising since BOM uses the same methods and relies on a paper by Della-Marta et al for ‘criteria’ for such adjustments; the problem is the paper provides a singular lack of information about such processes.
sorry Warwick; I composed a fairly long reply but lost it when I checked the BOM letter linked to your post
But I guess ultimately my reply came down to:
1) as to the much vaunted ‘confidentially of the peer review process’ by each of NIWA and BOM in my view anonymity does not apply when the topic relates to public temperature records of one of the parties and each of the parties are publically funded entities. NIWA was public about the review request and the BOM’s tepid and brief response dated 14 December 2010 is publicised on NIWA’s website (page 15 of the review document) from memory. So where’s the secrecy. This is not the same as the usual peer review pre publication process undergone by a scientist attempting to get a research paper published.
2) where’s the indication by NIWA that the review was to be ‘in confidence’ and what’s the necessity for that confidence, the subject of the review is temperature data not intellectual property; your New Zealand readers would be better up on the background but I understand there was a lot of publicity in New Zealand about discrepancy between NIWA’s 7SS series data which showed something like a 0.9C warming last century and other data which showed much less and questions were asked in Parliament – surely NIWA would now want to be open and transparent about changes to its 7SS data. After all it’s the publicly funded entity – it’s not up to members of the public to try to work out why changes have been made and on what basis
3) as to the damage in international relations it’s a sad case when even the temperature data of a country and its examination is blockaded by an iron curtain from the people who fund it namely the riff raff or Joe Public
Warwick, Good on you for doing this. On looking at the response and the relevant parts of the act, I think that their defense is quite vulnerable in many areas, one being whether the anonymity of peer review applies to the review or to the identity of the reviewer. I think only the latter, unless a confidentiality agreement has been entered into. Second, the public interest argument is weak. Finally section 27C treats ‘deliberative’ differently from ‘factual’ and ‘reports’ without good definition, so yeah, someone could take this on. This is arcane. Most professionals treat all correspondence as if it could be made public, don’t they?
In most professions reviews or opinions are not anonymous; there may be some say legal professional privilege which for example obliges a lawyer not to disclose to third parties advice given to his client but the client on the other hand has no such obligation to the lawyer and I can think of other professions where privilege applies. But that’s privilege. ‘Peer review’ in the scientific world as I understand it is a system of quality control. Steve McIntyre had an article not on this very point but the article included this para ….
climateaudit.org/2011/02/15/are-review-comments-confidential/
and I think David is right; I don’t think the anonymity of pre journal publication peer review that scientists go through applies to BOM/NIWA;
first, the reviewer was not anonymous,
second, it is in the public interest that there be a transparency of process so the public can be assured that temperature records are accurate and reliable and how can this be assessed by the public if a second opinion publicly asked for is not produced to the public,
third, where’s the duty of confidentiality? It’s not apparent to me
in fact that article of Steve’s refers to journals having different policies as to whether scientists can publish peer review comments
that article by the way indicates that there is no AMS policy against, nor any formal objection to, an author making the contents of anonymous reviews and responses public. If a reviewer provides his or her name, or if there is other information that makes it possible to discern the identity of the reviewer, such information should be redacted unless the reviewer grants permission
I’m not an expert on NZ law but in my many years of litigating in the US and UK I think you’ll find that on matters that impact public policy our shared common law mandates that government shall be open with the electorate as to what evidence it relies on for its decision making. Thus I’d concur with the remarks of Aussie lawyer, Val Majkus that the usual anonymity of the science journal peer-review process is entirely inapplicable in this matter.
I suggest this is something a NZ legal expert such as barrister, Barry Brill may want to pursue by applying case law and in the filing of a judicial review. Also, common law petition (mandamus) is one other legal tool at your disposal to prevent your government taking evidence in secret if it intends to apply such findings to policymaking.
For enthusiastic legal analysists here I recommend John O’Sullivan excellent article:
Feb 20Prosecuting climate fraud: The international dimension
algorelied.com/?tag=law
I’ve also found the two cases cited by the BOM and for enthusiastic readers here are the links:
www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/sinodisp/au/cases/cth/AATA/1986/247.html?stem=0&synonyms=0&query=“Robinson%20and%20Department%20of%20Foreign%20Affairs”
www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/sinodisp/au/cases/cth/AATA/1985/180.html?stem=0&synonyms=0&query=“Maher%20and%20Attorney-General’s%20Department%20(1985)”
I’ll look at them more closely later today
Warwick, you may be interested to see what the audited NZ series looks like with a 3rd order polynomial trend applied. The links below to shared docs require a Google account to view. I have truncated the series for the location comparison so that all 7 stations can be compared on a like-for-like basis (not all stations have data at the start of each series).
NZT7 Polynomial Trend
docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B4_i4MX8e3UaZDNlYzY2ZDUtYWVkZi00OGE2LTliZTUtZDVmZWUyNzFiZjVi&hl=en
NZT7 Location Polynomials
docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B4_i4MX8e3UaNGQ0NjZmYjAtMTc1NS00N2FjLWEzYzEtNWZiZTFiZjI3Mjdi&hl=en
As I see it, the outliers are Auckland, Nelson and Hokitika for the reasons I have outlined up-thread.
O.7 C of absolute warming subsequent to about 1945 has been attributed by Salinger et al to natural variation (mostly a change in prevailing wind direction). As you can see from the series, NZ seems to be exempt from CO2 induced warming given the natural variation (but we have an ETS just in case the observing systems are inadequate).
These are GISS ‘adjustments’ to Christchurch. First graph is basically the raw data.
data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=507937800000&data_set=1&num_neighbors=1
The next is the ‘homogenized’ data.
data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=507937800000&data_set=2&num_neighbors=1
Note the difference between the actual mid 50s temp and the homogenised temps – down around 0.5C.
No wonder they won’t release records.
The BoM hacked the trend back to start from 1910 compared to the earlier series at 1860 – classic CRU trick, just chop off anything you do not like.
What do people think that little is ever said about UHI in the cities – presumably NZ urban areas are exempt from normal laws of physics.
These very neat little GISS cartoons you posted Warwick describe elegantly how UHI is cemented into spliced trends. And as you said – this is what NIWA/BoM do – usually more than once in each of the seven series. Far more realistic in fact to leave the little steps in.
the Climate Conversation Group now have the NZCSC audit results of NIWA’s review of the NZ temperature record
links from here
www.climateconversation.wordshine.co.nz/2011/08/what-warming/
and the summary is
Just an update to FOI wars here and in NZ
Barry Brill has an excellent summary of events in New Zealand to date
www.climateconversation.wordshine.co.nz/2011/10/one-mans-mission/
More FOI shenanigans
wattsupwiththat.com/2011/10/17/breaking-an-ipcc-backchannel-cloud-was-apparently-established-to-hide-ipcc-deliberations-from-foia/#more-49364
BREAKING: An IPCC backchannel ‘cloud’ was apparently established to hide IPCC deliberations from FOIA.
CEI (Competitive Enterprise Institute) has learned of a UN plan recently put in place to hide official correspondence on non-governmental accounts, which correspondence a federal inspector general has already confirmed are subject to FOIA. This ‘cloud’ serves as a dead-drop of sorts for discussions by U.S. government employees over the next report being produced by the scandal-plagued IPCC, which is funded with millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars.
The FOI request is now linked to the WUWT article