From Jennifer Marohasy’s Weblog
It has handiest taken ten years, this is how lengthy a couple of folks were detailing main issues of how the Australian Bureau of Meteorology measures day-to-day temperatures. Now, I’m knowledgeable, the Bureau are ditching the present machine and having a look to undertake an in a foreign country type that it claims will likely be extra dependable.
There will likely be no media liberate.
There used to be no media liberate when the Bureau ditched its rainfall forecasting machine (POAMA) as soon as described as state-of-the-art, and quietly followed ACCESS-S1 in keeping with the United Kingdom Met Place of work GloSea5-GC2. (As even though the British are any higher at correct rainfall and blizzard forecasts.)
Till the day prior to this the Bureau has claimed one-second spot temperature readings from its custom-designed resistance probes, didn’t want to be numerically averaged; one thing in a foreign country bureaus mechanically do in an strive to reach consistency with measurements from the extra inert conventional mercury thermometers.
Consistency throughout lengthy temperature sequence is, in fact, vital to appropriately assessing local weather variability and alter.
The Australian Bureau has lengthy claimed numerical averaging is no longer essential as a result of its ‘thick’ probe design precisely mimicked a mercury thermometer.
Then this design used to be phased out and changed with the ‘slimline’. Nonetheless no inter-comparison research.
I welcome the transfer to ‘the in a foreign country type’ if which means that the Bureau will start numerical averaging of spot readings from its resistance probes based on International Meteorological Organisation suggestions.
However the issue of dependable temperature measurements doesn’t start or finish with numerical averaging.
The Bureau, and the Met Place of work in the United Kingdom, were tinkering with how they measure temperatures for the reason that transition from mercury thermometers to resistance probes started within the Nineteen Nineties. No longer handiest with how they moderate – or no longer, however with probe design, and likewise with energy provide.
You will need to needless to say resistance probes hooked-up to data-loggers measure temperature as a metamorphosis in electric resistance throughout a work of platinum. And, that is the vital bit, the voltage dropped at the probe is important for correct temperature dimension. No longer simply in Australia, however world wide. And there aren’t any requirements.
When the usage of a conventional mercury thermometer, temperature is learn from a scale alongside a pitcher tube that presentations adjustments within the thermal enlargement of that liquid, which occurs to be mercury. The mercury thermometer used to be as soon as the sector same old.
The brand new, computerized, and probably extra exact means for measuring temperatures by the use of platinum resistance, is dependable in managed environments; satellites which might be measuring temperatures at other depths inside the setting use those resistance probes. But it surely will get a lot more sophisticated when seeking to measure temperatures on Earth, and particularly at busy puts like airports, that have develop into a number one website online for the automatic digital climate methods the usage of platinum resistance probes from which international moderate temperatures are actually derived.
At airports, {the electrical} machine relied upon to measure temperatures very exactly, should be insulated from different electric methods together with radar or even chatter between a pilot short of to land his jumbo and the keep an eye on tower.
The electronics now used to measure local weather exchange, aren’t handiest at risk of electric interference at those airports, but additionally adjustments in voltage that may be led to by means of one thing so simple as turning off and on runway lighting fixtures – at nightfall and break of day.
To know the way dependable, the brand new machine is, we’d like the parallel records no longer only for Australia, however for in a foreign country airports together with Heathrow and Cochin – in India, the sector’s first airport totally powered by means of solar power.
To grasp that warming globally has no longer, a minimum of partly, been led to by means of a transfer to resistance probes, we want to see the inter-comparison records appearing the an identical temperature measurements from mercury thermometers on the identical position and at the identical day.
I’m reliably knowledgeable by means of a previous Bureau worker that upgrading energy provides in 2012 led to a zero.3-to-0.5-degree Celsius build up throughout about 30 p.c of the Australian community. (That will get us some solution to the 1.5 diploma Celsius tipping level, despite the fact that we closed down each and every coal-fired energy station.)
Perth-based researcher Chris Gillham documented this uptick in Australian temperatures in correspondence to me ultimate October, and as an abrupt exchange within the distinction between the Bureau’s per thirty days imply temperature as reported from ACORN-SAT and the satellite tv for pc records for Australian as measured by means of the College of Alabama Huntsville.
The step-up in warming within the reliable records for all of the Australian continent could also be famous in peer-review publications by means of local weather scientists together with Sophie Lewis and David Karoly. I’ve written to Sophie Lewis in regards to the issues in depending on Bureau records. However as a substitute of attributing the exchange to apparatus and voltage, Lewis, Karoly and different local weather scientists ascribe it to anthropogenic greenhouse warming.
As a result of college local weather scientists forget about my correspondence, and depend whole on recommendation from the Bureau’s present control, they may no longer know in a different way. The Bureau’s present control refuse to record this variation documented by means of its technicians and communicated to me unofficially by means of retired former managers.
A related query: why did the Bureau’s Leader Govt Andrew Johnson no longer record the 0.3-to-0.5-degree Celsius build up throughout about 30 p.c of the Australian community (led to totally by means of a metamorphosis to the ability provide, no longer air temperatures) in its 2013-14 Bureau of Meteorology Annual Report back to Federal Parliament?
In that very same record Johnson does remark at the infrastructure upgrades that led to the substitute warming within the reliable temperature records.
In the meantime, the Bureau’s control, together with Johnson, continues to lament the desire for all Australians to paintings in opposition to maintaining temperatures underneath a 1.5 levels Celsius tipping level. Simply as of late we’re informed to be expecting some other hike in the cost of electrical energy as a result of the want to transition to renewables together with sun.
The Bureau continues to beef up a transition to renewable power, with out explaining the possible impact, even at the reliability of its temperature measurements. Because the Bureau has no longer defined the impact of the transition to resistance probes extra typically. (I’ve characterized the Ayers and Warne papers as faux in a 6-part jokers sequence, republished by means of WattsUpWithThat.)
An in a foreign country colleague has defined how one thing so simple as making use of a 100Hz frequency to an influence circuit to increase the lifetime of a battery – essential with sun methods – could cause most temperatures to float up on sunny days. To be transparent, because the voltage greater the recorded temperature greater further to any exact exchange in air temperature!
Pass to the NASA web page about temperature measuring and you’re going to see an image of somebody atop a mountain in Montana and a sun panel. That sun panel will likely be supplying to a battery that won’t handiest give you the voltage used to measure electric resistance around the platinum twine, but additionally for the periodic add of that very same temperature records to a satellite tv for pc.
Because the transition to the resistance probes that use voltage to measure temperature, issues at far off places from mountains to lighthouses have integrated ageing batteries – sun powered in fact – however not able to supply enough present at vital occasions.
I’ve been proven records from any such far off location, had been minimal temperatures reliably drop 2 levels Celsius at the hour, on the identical time each and every hour during the night time, because the battery is tired with every satellite tv for pc add of temperature records.
This is similar temperature records this is being utilized in Australia, and world wide, to justify excessive financial and social intervention within the identify of preventing local weather exchange.
IN SUMMARY
Within the Nineteen Nineties, no longer simply in Australia, however world wide, there used to be a elementary exchange within the apparatus and techniques used to measure temperatures.
This created a discontinuity within the lengthy temperatures sequence that start round 1880, and which might be utilized by the IPCC to measure local weather variability and alter.
However neither the IPCC, nor NASA, nor the United Kingdom Met Place of work have documented the impact of this variation.
I’ve been asking the Australian Bureau, that gives records into the worldwide databases, how they know that temperature measurements from the resistance probes at puts like Cape Otway lighthouse are in keeping with readings from mercury thermometers. (I’ve written broadly about how temperatures are measured at this lighthouse, together with as section 3 of my 8-part sequence about hyping day-to-day most temperatures.)
Now I ask, how can the bureau know that NASA and the United Kingdom Met Place of work are reliably measuring temperatures if they’ve no longer noticed the USA and UK parallel temperature datasets?
The parallel records are the recordings from the mercury thermometers measuring on the identical location and the similar position because the resistance probes. This knowledge will give some indication of the level of the numerous discontinuities created within the report by means of the exchange over to probes. I’ve estimated that the bureau is preserving parallel records for roughly 38 Australian places with on moderate 15 years of information.
When John Abbot first lodged a Freedom of Data request for a few of this information for Brisbane Airport again in 2019, he used to be informed that the parallel records did no longer exist.
Abbot took the problem to the Australian Data Commissioner, who sided with the bureau falsely confirming that it did no longer exist.
It used to be handiest after an look on the Administrative Attraction Tribunal in Brisbane on third February, the place I attended as a professional witness, and the drawn-out mediation procedure that adopted, that 3 years of Brisbane Airport parallel records used to be in any case made to be had.
As Graham Lloyd defined at the entrance web page of the Weekend Australia thereafter, my research of this information presentations that the resistance probes at Brisbane Airport measure temperatures which might be fairly other from the mercury thermometer more often than not. The Bureau has been neither ready to substantiate, nor deny, the statistical importance of the adaptation. But it surely doesn’t dispute the real numbers.
John Abbot lately lodged some other FOI for extra parallel records for Brisbane Airport. This time across the bureau has stated the life of the knowledge or even that one of the ‘box books’ have already been scanned, and so are to be had in an digital shape. However the bureau claims it is going to handiest be capable to liberate some other 3 years of information for this one website online (Brisbane Airport), once more this time – by no means thoughts the 15 years of parallel records that exists for Brisbane Airport and some other 37 places that adjust geographically and electrically. We’d like this comparative records, together with to evaluate the reliability of the present international warming forecasts.
I’ve been reliably knowledgeable, the Bureau is intent on drawing out provision of this parallel records to Abbot and me for Australia, whilst converting the ‘type’ it’s the usage of to measure temperatures as even though the in a foreign country methods are dependable.
So, I ask, once more, the place are those numbers for in a foreign country places, together with the parallel records for the in a foreign country mountains and airports – to not point out lighthouses?
It’s vital for everybody in an effort to see this information, particularly if the Australian bureau is to undertake an in a foreign country type for temperature measuring at the foundation it should be extra dependable.
*****
The function symbol presentations me on the Goulburn Airport climate station in past due July 2017. This climate stations used to be proven to have had a prohibit set on how chilly temperatures might be recorded for a duration of two decades.
