Global warming?

[Undertoad]

A climate scientist in NZ has been found to have adjusted temps up. How: people got the actual, raw data and compared it to what he was publishing as NZ's climate history - and found the data to have been heavily massaged.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/2...-official-one/

What did we find? First, the station histories are unremarkable. There are no reasons for any large corrections. But we were astonished to find that strong adjustments have indeed been made.

About half the adjustments actually created a warming trend where none existed; the other half greatly exaggerated existing warming. All the adjustments increased or even created a warming trend, with only one (Dunedin) going the other way and slightly reducing the original trend.

The shocking truth is that the oldest readings have been cranked way down and later readings artificially lifted to give a false impression of warming, as documented below. There is nothing in the station histories to warrant these adjustments and to date Dr Salinger and NIWA have not revealed why they did this.

One station, Hokitika, had its early temperatures reduced by a huge 1.3°C, creating strong warming from a mild cooling, yet there’s no apparent reason for it.

We have discovered that the warming in New Zealand over the past 156 years was indeed man-made, but it had nothing to do with emissions of CO2—it was created by man-made adjustments of the temperature. It’s a disgrace.

[classicman]

ruh roh

[Clodfobble]

So wait, is this New Zealand scandal (collection of scandals?) separate from the one the hackers exposed, or the same one?

[Undertoad]

Separate.

Originally Posted by Undertoad

A climate scientist in NZ has been found to have adjusted temps up. How: people got the actual, raw data and compared it to what he was publishing as NZ's climate history - and found the data to have been heavily massaged.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/2...-official-one/

The NZ government agency explained the adjustments.

NIWA’s analysis of measured temperatures uses internationally accepted techniques, including making adjustments for changes such as movement of measurement sites. For example, in Wellington, early temperature measurements were made near sea level, but in 1928 the measurement site was moved from Thorndon (3 metres above sea level) to Kelburn (125 m above sea level). The Kelburn site is on average 0.8°C cooler than Thorndon, because of the extra height above sea level.

Such site differences are significant and must be accounted for when analysing long-term changes in temperature. The Climate Science Coalition has not done this.

NIWA climate scientists have previously explained to members of the Coalition why such corrections must be made. NIWA’s Chief Climate Scientist, Dr David Wratt, says he’s very disappointed that the Coalition continue to ignore such advice and therefore to present misleading analyses.

NIWA scientists are committed to providing robust information to help all New Zealanders make good decisions.

http://www.niwa.co.nz/news-and-publi...mperature-rise

A NIWA scandal or overblown (mis)representations by the CSC skeptics?

At the very least, it is reasonable to see both sides before jumping on another (?) scandal bandwagon.

[xoxoxoBruce]

So all but one of their measuring stations, except one, were moved to higher ground? Why would the lower the early readings, and raise the later ones? Sure makes it more difficult to keep track of "corrections".

[Undertoad]

Nobody said scandal.

And a mile away and up the hill is 0.8°C (~1.5°F) cooler? I don't find that level of fudge factor reassuring.

[Griff]

I wonder what the lay of the land is at the two sites? I sited my house on a hillside for a number of reasons including increased solar gain and because cold air drains into low lying areas lowering average temperatures.

We've known about the manipulation of data for a long time. I'd say it has more to do with a fear that they won't be taken seriously without clear trends than any socialist conspiracy that the Beckrushites are selling. It is political so truth will suffer.

[classicman]

Originally Posted by Redux

At the very least, it is reasonable to see both sides before jumping

I agree, most reasonable.

[Undertoad]

Originally Posted by Griff

I wonder what the lay of the land is at the two sites

The move was from Thorndon to Kelburn.

[Undertoad]

The less reassuring factor is that all of New Zealand's temperature is measured by seven locations. From those sites, an average temperature of all of New Zealand is extrapolated. Similarly an average temperature of the world is extrapolated from only the measuring sites. That's the instrumental record. But now, we see that it has been fraught with problems: mistakes, fraud, fudging, and stuff like urban heat islands which have not been accounted for.

Redux you should be happy to throw out this method of measuring anyway. It has not shown any global warming for ten years. And anyway, as I said before, there are other measurement methods that show warming, just not as extreme.

UT....my only point was not to jump on any bandwagon before knowing the facts...particularly when the allegations are made by a group called the NZ Climate Science Coalition, a skeptic organization with NO climate scientists.

More on how the CSC misrepresented the data. (biased? sure....just like the CSC)

As I said before, I would like to see the extremists on both ends -- the alarmists and the deniers - go away so that reasonable people might come together to discuss what, IMO, is the issue......whether it is in our best interest to continue to belch billions of tons of anthropogenic CO2 into the atmosphere every year or the time to make a serious commitment to energy conservation and renewable energy in a manner that is both environmentally and economically sustainable.

[TheMercenary]

More importantly should we belch billions of dollars into a problem that may or may not exist when countries with lables of "developing" get a pass.

[ZenGum]

when countries with lables of "developing" get a pass.

China? India? Watch the news, man.

I am presently marking another pile of essays on the Climate Debates. Ho fucking hum, but one interesting source pointed out that all the burning of fossil fuels (and the use of uranium etc) - completely apart from any CO2/greenhouse stuff - is taking a large amount of energy that had been locked up as chemical (or nuclear) energy, and releasing it to turn into heat. That warms the atmosphere. While a warmer atmosphere will emit more heat to space (ceteris paribus), it is less than 100% pass through and so this alone would/should/will/already-has cause(d) warming.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by ZenGum

China? India? Watch the news, man.

Oh I do/have/will. And both of those countries have been in the news a lot lately. It does not mean they are actually taking any concrete steps to fix their problems. I didn't hear anything about China slowing or stopping the building of coal fired plants or adding expensive scrubbers to their factories and power plants. And India is in the same boat. Meanwhile we are full steam ahead at a plan to bankrupt our country trying to fix a problem that will have little to no effect on global warming.