Presenting the Facts of AGW

The public’s belief in man-made global warming (AGW) is fading, but it has a long way to go before our politicians realise that Australians don’t accept that we should lead the world in trying to stabilise the global climate.

It is of the utmost importance that expenditure of taxpayers’ money on futile schemes designed to reduce usage of fossil fuels is stopped asap.

One way to expedite this cessation is to try to educate the many journalists who have so far been uninterested in the facts, and the many gullible politicians who believe that the IPCC reports are equivalent to Moses’ tablets.

It is planned to bring to Australia one of the world’s leading educators on climate issues, Prof. Chris Essex, to make some public presentations and speak to journalists and politicians in small groups so that they receive factual information from an expert source.  Prof. Essex is Chairman of the Permanent Monitoring Panel on Climate of the World Federation of Scientists, and Professor and Associate Chair, Department of Applied Mathematics at the University of Western Ontario, London, Canada.

The visit is to take place in February to coincide with the first 2014 sitting of Parliament when climate issues will be a current topic. One point of focus would be to have our presenter highlight the developments on climate change since the Abbott government assumed office last July. These, we believe, provide additional strong support for changing existing government policies.

The cost of this project has been budgeted at $100,000 and your generous support is requested to achieve this level of funding.  Please advise if you are prepared to commit to funding or make a contribution now. Contributions can be made via a direct credit into the bank account (see below), or click the Paypal “donate” button on the web site (www.galileomovement.com.au ); reference “Essex visit” (if the visit does not eventuate, any contribution will be refunded).

All surplus funds will go to the Royal Flying Doctor Service.

Des Moore, Director IPE, former Deputy Secretary, Treasury

Case Smit, Director, Galileo Movement

P.S. As time is short, could we please have your response by January 27^th.

Galileo Movement Pty Limited, National Australia Bank Ltd.

BSB: 084855,Acc. No. 191696855

Global warming update: hot with a lot of ice

by Anthony Cox

Originally published by ON LINE opinion

The Bureau of Meteorology [BOM] has released its report for Australian climate during 2013.

According to the BOM 2013 was the hottest year on record, in Australia. However both satellite temperatures, RSS and UAH, and a global surface temperature, GHCN, all found other Australian years to be warmer:

Naturally the pro-AGW people have been all over the BOM report claiming it as evidence for AGW, while ignoring the results from the other equally valid sources for temperature. But even if the BOM report is correct it is problematic whether AGW is the cause of the temperature. It is doubtful because during 2013 and for at least a decade the Diurnal Temperature Range [DTR] has not been decreasing but increasing.


Given this a simple test of whether the hottest year in Australia was due to AGW would be to measure the DTR. Ken Stewart has done this:

Since 1979 it is plain the gap between the maximum and minimum temperature has increased. So, in fact the DTR in Australia has increased not decreased.

Still, there is no doubt 2013 was a relatively warm year for Australia. It was certainly warmer than the year in the Antarctic. Professor Chris Turney and team of fellow scientists and media, and as it turns out family members, hired a ship apparently at taxpayers' expense and sailed to the Antarctic to retrace Mawson's steps from 100 years ago.


There is a certain irony in an expert climate scientist being trapped in sea ice. Despite this Professor Turney and his supporters such as the well-known Professor Lewandowsky have maintained the sea ice which trapped Professor Turney's boat, the Akademik Shokalskiy, was due to AGW.

Turney says:

• The 120km long ice berg B09B that is grounded in Commonwealth Bay broke away from the continent three years ago, very likely as a result of climate change.
  
• B09B collided with the Mertz Glacier, smashing a large ice tongue that released the ice into that area.
  
• It was a mix of this ice that was blown across the path of the Shokalskiy, which led to it being trapped and explains why much of the ice surrounding the ship is old ice.
  

All of this incorrect. As the Australian Antarctic Division notes:

B09B originally calved from the Ross Ice Shelf in 1987 and drifted round to the east of Mertz Glacier by 1992. It was grounded for many years and started moving in late 2009. - In mid-February 2010 B09B collided with the Mertz Glacier tongue – a section of the glacier that protruded about 100 km from the Antarctic coastline at about 145ºE. The collision precipitated the calving of another massive iceberg, C28, from the tongue, measuring 78 km long and between 33 and 39 km wide. This calving event removed about 80% of the tongue, leaving only a 20 km-long stub. The calving had been anticipated, as rifts cutting across the tongue had been developing over many years, but the timing and collision was not.

So the ice Turney says was from AGW in fact came from a calving event which occurred 26 years ago. This event had been well documented but there was no ice from this event in the area where Turney's expedition became entrapped in ice. Unfazed Turney continues:

I believe you are probably aware of a number of papers this year that show land ice on Antarctica is in decline and that only seasonal sea ice has been expanding, likely due to the increase in westerly winds and potentially because of the decrease in salinity.

This too is problematic. A 2012 NASA study by Zwally et al concluded that:

During 2003 to 2008, the mass gain of the Antarctic ice sheet from snow accumulation exceeded the mass loss from ice discharge by 49 Gt/yr (2.5% of input), as derived from ICESat laser measurements of elevation change.

This mass gain was notably in East Antarctic where Turney's expedition was heading.
In addition air temperature over the Antarctic has not increased since 1979:

Sea surface temperature [SST] has actually decreased during this period:

So we have sheet ice increasing, air temperature constant and SST declining; all ingredients likely to lead to an increase in sea ice which has been occurring for many years without any contribution from AGW.

The 3^rd piece of AGW news of note comes from Professor Steven Sherwood from the University of NSW Climate Change Research Centre. Sherwood's new paper concludes that things are worse than we thought because climate sensitivity, the temperature reaction of the climate system to AGW, is actually higher.

Sherwood reaches this conclusion by looking at which of his climate models were best at modelling and predicting the mixing rate of clouds and water in the lower atmosphere. Sherwood found that those models which predicted the highest temperatures were best at predicting the mixing rates.
The fallacy of this conclusion has several ingredients. Firstly even Sherwood concedes that knowledge of clouds is lacking and is responsible for most of the uncertainty with AGW predictions. How clouds form and effect climate depends on much more than the mixing rates in the lower atmosphere.

Just because Sherwood's warming models can model one aspect of cloud behaviour doesn't mean they model well any other aspect of clouds or climate. For instance In a critique of Sherwood's study Michaels and Knappenberger note that Sherwood's models which predicted mixing best were worst at predicting temperature:

Figure 1. Observed global average temperature evolution, 1951-2013, as compiled by the U.K's Hadley Center (black line), and the average temperature change projected by a collection of climate models used in the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report which have a climate sensitivity greater than 3.0°C (red line) and a collection of models with climate sensitivities less than 3.0°C (blue line) (climate model data source: Climate Explorer).

This paper by Sherwood is only the latest in a long line of papers where he has used models to prove AGW. For instance in 2008 Sherwood produced a paper proving the existence of a Tropical Hot Spot [THS], an essential prediction of AGW. In this paper, concerned that the temperature instruments showed no THS, Sherwood repudiated the instrument data and developed a windshear model which showed if there was windshear there would be warming. The irony here was that the instruments which Sherwood thought were not good enough for temperature were used by Sherwood to establish windshear and the model predicted temperature.


Sherwood's new paper received headline coverage, as did the BOM report. The ice entrapment of the Turney expedition also did but mention of the AGW purpose of the ill-fated expedition in the media was muted at best. Like the weather itself supporters of AGW run hot when the weather supports them and cold when it doesn't.

Requesting Verification of 2013 Temperature Record - Jennifer Marohasy

Re-blogged with permission from jennifermarohasy.com/

Dr David Jones
Manager of Climate Monitoring and Predictions
Australian Bureau of Meteorology

Dear Dr Jones

Re: Request Verification of 2013 Temperature Record

I am writing to request information be made publicly available to myself and others so we may have the opportunity to verify the claim made by you on behalf of the Australian Bureau of Meteorology that 2013 was the hottest year on record in Australia. In particular it is claimed that the average temperature was 1.20°C above the long-term average of 21.8°C, breaking the previous record set in 2005 by 0.17°C.

This claim is being extensively quoted, including in a report authored by Professor Will Steffen of the Climate Council, where he calls for the Australian government to commit to further deep reductions in greenhouse gas emissions because of this “record-breaking year”. Accurate climate records are not only of political interest, but are also of importance to those of us who rely on historical temperature data for research purposes. For example, the skill of the medium-term rainfall forecasts detailed in my recent peer-reviewed publications with John Abbot, have been influenced by the reliability of the historical temperature data that we inputted. From a very practical perspective, businesses will adjust their plans and operations based on climate data, and ordinary Australians worry and plan for the future based on anticipated climate trends.

Further, I note that you said in a radio interview on January 3, 2014, following your “hottest year on record” press release that:

“We know every place across Australia is getting hotter, and very similarly almost every place on this planet. So, you know, we know it is getting hotter and we know it will continue to get hotter. It’s a reality, and something we will be living with for the rest of this century.”

The Australian Bureau of Meteorology is the custodian of an extensive data network and over a long period now, questions have been asked about the legitimacy of the methodology used to make adjustments to the raw data in the development of the Australian Climate Observations Reference Network – Surface Air Temperatures (ACORN-SAT). Furthermore, questions have been asked about why particular stations that are subject to bias through the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect continue to be included in ACORN-SAT. In particular why is ‘Melbourne Regional Office’, a station at the corner of Victoria Parade and Latrobe Street (Melbourne CBD) still included in the ACORN-SAT network when this station is known to have become sheltered from previously cooling southerly winds following construction of office towers.

I understand ACORN-SAT was used to calculate the statistics indicating 2013 was the hottest year on record, but it is unclear specifically which stations from this network were used and how data may have been further adjusted in the development of the record breaking temperature anomaly.

Rockhampton-based blogger Ken Stewart, for example, has suggested that in the calculation of the annual average temperature for Australia, the eight sites acknowledged as having anomalous warming due to the UHI would not have been included. Is this the case? I had assumed that the Bureau used all 112 ACORN-SAT locations, and thus that the record hot temperature anomaly announced by you, actually includes a UHI bias.

Radio presenter Michael Smith has given some publicity to claims made by blogger Samuel Gordon-Stewart that the Bureau has overestimated the average Australian temperature by about 4 degrees. Mr Gordon-Stewart calculated average temperatures and temperature anomalies from data from all the weather stations listed by Weatherzone.

Furthermore, given many ACORN-SAT stations have continuous temperature records extending back to the mid-late 1800s and many stations were fitted with Stevenson screens by 1900, why does the Bureau only use data after 1909, all the while claiming that 2013 is the hottest year on record? Indeed it is well documented that the 1890s and early 1900s, years corresponding to the Federation drought, were exceptionally hot.

In summary, given the importance of the historical temperature record, and the claim that 2013 is the hottest year on record, could you please provide details concerning:

1. The specific stations used to calculate this statistic;
2. The specific databases and time intervals used for each of these stations;
3. The history of the use of Stevenson screens at each of these station;
4. How the yearly average temperature is defined; and
5. Clarify what if any interpolation, area weighting, and/or adjustments for UHI bias, may have been applied to the data in the calculation of the annual mean values.

Kind regards

Dr Jennifer Marohasy

The above text was sent as an email by Dr Marohasy. 

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 

From Warwick Hughes' Errors in IPCC Science:

The BoM much trumpeted claim that 2013 was our hottest year is less than robust because some global climate groups disagree

• GHCN CAMS finds that 2005 was a hotter year than 2013.
• RSS satellites finds that 2005, 1998 and 1980 were hotter years than 2013.
• UAH satellites finds that 2009 was a hotter year.