Australian Bureau of Meteorology finally decides to be scientifically objective.
The digital thermometers have been giving dodgy readings for many years, inflating temperatures
A great victory: BOM agrees to use World Meteorological Foundation standards for digital thermometers.
For at least ten years the Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) has been resisting following World Meteorological Foundation standards for temperature measurements. After a great deal of lobbying and just criticism by Australian Scientist Jennifer Marohasy over the last ten years they have finally agreed to use the World Meteorological Foundation standards.
Digital Thermometers take measurements every second. The measurements need to be averaged over 60 seconds to match old mercury thermometers.
Since the inception of digital thermometers which make measurements every second, BOM has been giving the highest reading every minute as the maximum for that minute, and then gives the maximum of all of these readings as the daily maximum.
The World Meteorological Foundation recommends, when using data from digital thermometers, that all 60 seconds of data should be averaged to provide the maximum for a minute. This actually provides a good approximation for the measurements from old mercury thermometers, for the mercury is of course slow to move and cannot record a one second temperature change.
If you record the one second temperatures without averaging them, then every time a random gust of wind goes past that is hotter than the maximum of that minute, or a car goes past and its exhaust hits the Stephenson Screen, or someone lights a cigarette lighter near the thermometer, you will get a higher reading than one would otherwise get, which inflates the daily maxima, sometimes quite considerably, compared to what a mercury thermometer would have recorded.
Jennifer Marohasy is a scientist who has been working for ten years to try to get the BOM to change their data methods so the new data from the digital thermometers is comparable to the old data from mercury thermometers. She blogs about this regularly.
A peer reviewed article commissioned by the Bureau, Ayers and Warne, quite astonishingly claims that BOM’s method is acceptable, however this paper should be withdrawn as in it they claim that the BOM is taking the last second of every minute every day and using the highest of these as the maximum. They are not: the BOM are using the highest second of every minute and taking the highest of these as the maximum. The method the BOM is using is likely to give a higher temperature than the 60 second average and the last second of every minute method, which will generally be much closer to the 60 second average. It is worth reading Jennifer Marohasy’s blog post about this to get a more detailed technical description if you’re interested: https://jennifermarohasy.com/2023/05/averaging-last-seconds-versus-bureau-peer-review/
The Bureau has been denying that there is any problem for a long time.
Another staggering issue with the temperature series is that the BOM have been using ‘modelling’ - which in their definition means lowering historical temperatures. This has the effect of making it look as though global warming is affecting Australian temperatures. This amounts to Stalinist revisionism, really, and is quite unworthy of a scientific organisation that purports to be objective.
WEF chum Greg Hunt killed the idea of measuring temperatures accurately.
In one of her blog posts Jennifer Marohasy explains how the BOM and the Australian government have long resisted the changes:
Back in 2014, when Tony Abbott was Prime Minister of Australia, and after a series of damning articles in The Australian newspaper showing the extent to which the Bureau of Meteorology remodel historic temperature series exaggerating warming, there was opportunity for a review.
There was real opportunity for an overhaul of how the Bureau not only change recorded temperatures, but also forecasts the weather.
The plan went to Cabinet, and it was ‘shut down’ by then Environment Minister Greg Hunt. He is on the public record proudly explaining that he ‘killed’ the idea.
Greg Hunt ought to be familiar to Australians, as he was Health Minister from January 2017 to May 2022, and oversaw the Federal Covid response, which amounted to looking the other way while the States offended against the Australian Constitution which prohibits ‘medical conscription’ (the High Court interpreted this in 19491 as meaning medical mandates) by mandating the Covid injections. The Federal Government ought to have compelled the States to follow the constitution. Greg Hunt held the position of Director of Strategy at the World Economic Forum from 2000–2001, so that might give us an idea of where he’s coming from.
More problems with the BOM’s readings.
Jennifer Marohasy has found many more problems with the temperature readings.
For instance, the minimum temperatures are capped at -10 degrees celsius. This, of course, means that the statistical anomalies in the maximums will not be affecting the minimum temperatures, and this overall reinforces the illusion that the temperatures are increasing in line with global warming predictions.
The use of solar panels affects the temperature readings too: battery maintenance on solar systems is causing temperature readings to increase, the satellite upload, which drains the battery every night, causes the temperature to drop 1.5 degrees, an upgrade to the solar power supplies caused an increase of 0.3-0.5 degrees.
The resistance of the BOM and the Australian Government to changing their methods to solve these problems that give incorrect measurements, has continued for so long that it really amounts to dishonesty. Notice that all the issues tend towards one direction, to making temperatures appear higher (except the battery draining, but the lower limit of minus 10 degrees Celsius means that the lower minimums are limited to what is ‘acceptable’ to the warmistas.)
More questions tabled in Parliament.
Jennifer Marohasy recently passed on to Senator Rennick the following questions to table in Parliament:
Can the Australian Bureau of Meteorology please confirm the nature of the electrical problems causing artificial variations in daily temperatures across the automatic weather station network, in particular:
1. Is it true, given the nature of the platinum resistance probes and how they are hooked-up to the data loggers, that applying a 100Hz frequency to a power circuit to extend the life of a battery – necessary with solar systems – can cause maximum temperatures to drift up by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius on sunny days? (To be clear, as the electrical current increased the recorded temperature increased additional to any actual change in air temperature.)
2. Can the Bureau confirm the number of remote locations where temperatures have dropped by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius on the hour, at the same time every hour through the night, as the battery is drained with each satellite upload of temperature data?
3. Can the Bureau confirm that upgrading power supplies in 2012 caused a 0.3-to-0.5-degree Celsius increase across 30 percent of the Australian network?
4. When is the Bureau going to inform university and CSIRO scientist of potential problems with the temperature data it has supplied, following the 2012 upgrade? (The increase in temperatures was reported by David Karoly and Sophie Lewis, for example, as due to greenhouse gases when it may at least in part have been due to changes in the power supply to the AWS network.)
5. Which overseas model for measuring temperatures is the Bureau going to adopt as a replacement for the current AWS network that has proven unreliable?
The BOM’s decision to use the World Meteorological Foundation standards for digital thermometers is a great victory for everyone who believes in scientific objectivity.
God bless you, Jennifer Marohasy! The truth is important and benefits everyone.
It was 1949, not 1951 as I originally said. https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/the-law/2021/07/constitutionally-inoculated-to-resist-coercion/
Great to see one of our genuine Senators, Sen. Rennick, putting forward the meticulous work of Jennifer Mahorasy and also getting a result. It would be good to see the C/C spiel pegged back a bit, or done away with altogether [even though that's not likely].
Great news, thank you.
Keep plugging away!