Further significant doubts have been cast on the accuracy of global surface temperature results following the discovery that electronic thermometers in Australia have read up to 0.7°C higher than traditional mercury glass units. The Australian dataset is a major component of global compilations since it provides an important guide to one of the largest land masses in the southern hemisphere. After many years of trying, local freedom of information requests from scientists have forced the Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) to release comparative information from the two measuring devices around Brisbane airport. It shows that automatic readings are higher 41% of the time, compared with 32% when the temperatures were the same.
Electronic temperatures devices have been in general use in Australia since 1995. The guidance of the World Meteorological Organisation suggests averaging temperatures over a minute to remove corruptions caused by temporary effects such as a sudden gust of hot air. But the BoM records highs for just a second, something that basic mercury thermometers cannot do. For years, the BoM has refused to release comparative instrument data.
The Australian journalist Jo Nova takes a sceptical view as to why the BoM has been so stubborn. Potentially, the electronic sensors “offer a bonanza of propaganda headlines for the Green Blob to pick from, especially when ‘coldest ever days’ get ignored by the media”. The sensors are offering many more headlines of records for heat, heatwaves, hottest nights, more days over 35°C, she continued, adding, “there are many cherries to be picked here”.
The use of highly sensitive measuring equipment to produce temperature records and hence whip up climate emergency fears is common throughout the world. Last year In the U.K., the Met Office promoted a ‘record’ high of 40.3°C halfway down the runway at RAF Coningsby on the afternoon of July 19th. Admittedly, the record was declared to have stood for longer than a second – 60 seconds to be precise. To this day, the Met Office has refused to answer a number of Daily Sceptic enquiries about possible non-climatic causes of this widely promoted record. In the light of the Australian disclosures, we wonder if the Met Office should re-examine the way it declares heat records and compare the results of its measuring devices with those produced by basic mercury thermometers.
Dr. Jennifer Marohasy analysed the three years of Australian data that was eventually squeezed out of the BoM and found significant differences between the two measuring devises. In the most extreme cases, the modern probe was 0.7°C hotter than the mercury reading. She said it contradicted claims by the Bureau’s director Andrew Johnson that measurements from the two instruments are equivalent. Marohasy estimates the BoM holds data for a total of 38 different locations across Australia. The small Brisbane airport cache is thought to be the first public release of this data.
The former Liberal MP and noted climate sceptic Craig Kelly was merciless in his condemnation of the BoM actions. Noting the Bureau’s decision to reduce the size of protective Stevenson screens, which he said was known to artificially increase temperature recordings by up to 1°C, he concluded that Australia’s temperature records “have been cooked to artificially manufacture ‘hottest day ever’ headlines in the media”. Heads must roll, he demanded, but with the new Labor Government protecting this “malfeasance” at the BoM “they’ll get away with it”.
The Australian weighed in by suggesting that the Brisbane revelations raised some “difficult questions” about the BoM’s ability to claim new temperature records are being broken. “Given that new records are claimed on the basis of readings that are only a tiny fraction of a degree warmer, the problem is obvious,” it said in an editorial. The lengths to which the Bureau has gone not to cooperate with FOI requests, it continued, “gives the impression of an organisation with something to hide”. The newspaper said it was “truly astonishing” that the Bureau should suggest that understanding the effect of instrumentation was of no public interest. “This is particularly so given the Bureau was simultaneously publishing reports and giving media interviews claiming that a temperature increase of 1.5°C would have devastating consequences for the planet,” the editorial said.
The BoM information from 38 sites is of more than academic interest, noted the newspaper. This is because much of it eventually finds its way into what becomes the international global temperature record, on which climate change policy is based. The information is the property of the public, it states, and all the parallel records “should be made immediately available alongside all of the other data the Bureau prides itself on making public”.
These disturbing revelations about temperature gathering in Australia add to the numerous concerns that are mounting about the entire global surface temperature record. The Daily Sceptic has covered this story in great detail (see here, here and here). In this case, it seems that modern gauges have been used to establish new ‘records’, compared with the old mercury recordings. In addition, there may be a slight warming bias over the last 30 years, and if confirmed this will add to further corruption of global results. The BoM claimed its new electronic sensors were adjusted in light of mercury readings, but the Brisbane release suggests otherwise. It is particularly disturbing when public officials refuse to release scientific figures for no apparent good reason. The example of Climategate shows that when activists and scientists refuse to release basic data, it is time to start counting the spoons, if not undertaking an audit of the whole canteen.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor.
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Science! Just listened to someone from Imperial College on R2 news spouting their latest propaganda about air quality. Always the same groups with the same rubbish
Yep. You only have to look at the groups name or title, to get an overview of its publication contents, if they discredit the climate change scenario they will loose their place in the game, equally any QANGO serving a government that has climate doom in it’s own interest will continue to publish climate doom, otherwise they will be out of a very lucrative job.
If their models are correct, they should be able to run it with say 1980’s parameters for air pollution (i.e. prior to unleaded fuels) and it should predict correctly the number of deaths related to respiratory conditions. If they can’t do this then it’s worthless.
Imperial College?
Say no more.”
“Air quality”: Vax injury & Lockdown excuse Number UmpTeenth. I heard the same report; Last week it was nail gel, this week air quality and every report is the same ascribing blame for “miscarriages, cause low sperm count and stunt children’s lung growth” all exacerbated by Vax and lockdown.
Can anyone trust anything that comes out of Imperial college?
I certainly don’t.
Devising statistics based on a variety of devices (sic) and saying nothing about the accuracy, and the level of tolerance of each device is selective with the truth, is it not? The terms “tolerance” and “accuracy” related to measurement are worth studying a bit, especially when planning to compare one thing with another.
You mean “devises”, right?
Engineering goes to great lengths to iron out short term fluctuations, from large sprung masses in skyscrapers to counter earthquake shocks to small electronic capacitor/inductor combinations to flatten voltage peaks.
Engineering makes science work in the real world; it appears to be absent from meteorology.
The Temperature record of earth has been adjusted and fiddled about with more than a Lady of the Nights knickers.———– The IPCC estimates that the average global temperature rise has been about 6 C in the last 50 years with most of that due to human activity. (which is really just politically motivated opinion). But the margin of error is apparently 3 times higher than the claimed warming. —————Eh WHAT? ———-This kind of thing is rife in the Climate Change issue. You see things like “The warmest year ever recorded”, where the alleged warming is maybe 0.1 C but the error margin might be 10 times higher which makes the claim absurd. But it isn’t just absurd, it is downright fraudulent.——–Then you have this secretive practice of not revealing data, the most famous of which was around the Mann Hockey Stick Graph which purported to show a steady temperature for 1000 years and then a sudden surge upwards in the 20th century allegedly due to humans and our CO2 emissions. But statistician Stephen McIntyre eventually exposed this graph as statistically flawed. (and that is me being polite) ————————When I say “eventually”, I mean that McIntyre had tried and failed to get data, computer code and methodology from Mr Mann for 5 years because he would not reveal any of it. Here we had a situation where the IPCC were using a graph in their reports to justify massive changes to people’s lives and a reshaping of the global economy supposedly to fight climate change, and the person responsible for that graph was hindering legitimate inquiry. It is vitally important in science that work can be checked by others for obvious reasons. ———Then there is the matter of the retrospective “adjustments” (manipulations).——– In today’s world governments are apparently less trusted than ever before. People don’t believe a word they say. Yet because people think it is “scientists” running around in white coats with barely time to make a cheese roll, and then warning government about the unfolding “climate emergency”, people are reluctant to challenge any of it. They tend to fall for this idea that “All scientists are saying it’s true therefore who am I to disagree with that”? But this mostly isn’t about science. It is all computer modelling. We are being told that the climate is going to do x y and z in 50 -100 years time because models full of assumptions say so. ——-But the difference between what climate models are projecting and what actual real world observations show are diverging with each year that passes. The models then get tweaked to fall more in line with observations. ———This is NOT science. When claims cannot be falsified they are NOT science. When you refuse to debate and reveal data and obscure and manipulate findings you are NOT indulging in science, and it is obvious that what we have here is a manufactured crisis for political purposes.
I’m not sure they wear them any more. The meteorologists that is.
C’mon guys. You are not paying attention. ——I said there had been an estimated temperature rise of 6 C……That ofcourse should have been 0.6 C
Electronic temperatures devices have been in general use in Australia since 1995.
So even if electronic devices do measure higher than conventional thermometers it will not have affected the temperature trend since 1995.
Provided 1995 was universally used as year zero for so-called global warming, electronic measurement devices which have been in use since then ought to provided an accurate idea of relative temperature changes since then, if they weren’t replaced, redajusted or became more inaccurate due to wear and tear.
Subject to the accuracy and tolerance values for the instruments in use. Nothing is 100% accurate (even when they are brand new), so when comparing one with another, the overall accuracy is less than that of each one (for a pair of them). If they were honest up front, they could state how wide the value is for the comparison to mean anything, subject to the built-in inaccuracy.
If an organisation has been caught promoting bare faced lies and exaggerations time after time, why would you believe them about anything?
We seem to treat scientist with a certain reverence. Back in the day that was probably justified, today I am not so sure especially in the fields of medicine and climatology.
If an issue is politicised there is every reason to suspect that the “science” has been hijacked for political purposes, and it is clear that is what has occurred here. We need to understand the difference between “science” and “official science”
We do indeed.
When you hear the phase “THE science”, what is being discussed is ideology, not science as we used to know it.
The null hypothesis of climate is that natural variability runs the show. Until that is shown not to be true, other hypotheses are irrelevant. Worth noting also that the hypothesis “CO2 controls temperature” is VERY straightforward; yet there is no formal proof.
Indeed, both long and short term analyses show no correlation of ANY significance whatsoever
LONG TERM
SHORT TERM
And this is what we are being told is a “climate crisis”.
I fart in their general direction
Or you can represent the same data THIS way – to terrify people
Our BOM recently tried unsuccessfully to change its nickname. They wanted us to call it “The Bureau”. No one did. BOM stuck.
I think it’s a case of nominative determinism.
Clouseau’s?
That would be berrrm.
The BoM claimed its new electronic sensors were adjusted in light of mercury readings
Red flag here. If these are really miniature temperature measurement computers they will have a range of settable base parameters. This means their readings are principally open to hidden manipulation in ways those of mechanical thermometers are not and an unqualified adjusted in light of the mercury readings may as well mean adjusted to ensure higher readings. Possibly even repeat-adjusted, ie, whenever the readings turn out to be consistently lower than a climate modeller believes they should really be, well, it’s adjustment time again!
There are more than considerable amounts of money at stake here and the people overseeing use of these device are politically required to produce the desired results and will very likely have to face personal repercussions if they don’t.
Thermometers? Made in China no doubt.
Smart meters must be a lot worse.
Stop Press: Australian police are seeking to arrest Fred and Wilma Flintstone for their involvement in the last Ice Age
Fascinating. I have been recording daily temperature where I live in Virginia for 15 years. At some point I got a Digital device that shows inside and outside temperature and placed the sensor near my standard thermometer. It wasn’t long before I noticed that the temperature shown by the digital was higher than the standard, sometimes by as much as 8-10 degrees F. Oddly, the colder the temperature, the more closely the two aligned, becoming almost the same once temps dropped below about 20 degrees F.