Australian Temperature- Satellites or Surface Stations?

For years we have been very sceptical about the official Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) temperature record which is based on 104 surface stations in the ACORN-SAT (Acorn) network.  In this post I look at one of the main reasons for doubting the veracity of the surface record- the increasing divergence from the satellite record.

First up I should say that the two records should not necessarily agree, because they measure two completely different things.  Surface stations measure the temperature of the air 1.2 metres above the ground and report the highest and lowest one second samples each day at 104 locations.  These are combined in a grid average to give monthly, seasonal, and annual temperatures.  Satellites measure temperatures of the atmosphere from the ground to many kilometres up, every second, over a wide area for each pass.  These are similarly combined by algorithms to calculate a monthly average for (in this case) the land area of Australia’s Temperature of the Lower Troposphere (TLT). 

They are both useful for different purposes but are not easily compared.  Because minimum surface temperatures poorly match TLT, mean surface temperature is also a poor match.  Maxima are a better match, but still not perfect.

For this post I use data from the University of Alabama (Huntsville) (UAH) which calculates anomalies from 1991 to 2020 means.  I have converted Acorn data from anomalies from 1961-1990 means, to anomalies from 1991-2020 means, to match.

Figure 1 shows monthly Acorn maxima data and UAH means from December 1978.

Figure 1: Monthly Surface Tmax and UAH data

Although surface maxima have a much larger range than TLT anomalies, they plainly follow similar trajectories.  12 month running means smooth the data and allow easier visual comparison.

Figure 2: Running 12 Month Means: Surface Tmax and UAH data

Similar, but different at several times.   Annual means show that in some years Tmax and TLT are close to identical, while in other years they have large differences.

Figure 3: Annual Means: Surface Tmax and UAH data

In 2015 I showed the reason for these differences (but not the difference in trends).  The differences between the two datasets are very largely due to variations in rainfall.  In wet years surface maxima are relatively much cooler than TLT; in dry years surface maxima are much warmer.  In Figure 4 I have calculated rainfall anomalies scaled down by a factor of 20 and inverted, to compare with the difference between Tmax and TLT.

Figure 4: Running 12 month Means: Surface Tmax minus UAH and Inverted Rainfall

The match is close.  Figure 5 shows annual values, and trend lines.

Figure 5: Annual Means: Surface Tmax minus UAH and Inverted Rainfall

While annual rain has been slightly increasing (it’s inverted, remember) the relative difference between surface temperature and atmospheric temperature has been increasing at a rate of one degree per hundred years.  That’s odd.  Figure 6 shows the relationship between the temperature difference and rainfall.

Figure 6: Annual Surface Tmax minus UAH versus Scaled Rainfall

For every extra 20mm of rainfall, the difference between surface maxima and TLT decreases by 0.85 degrees Celsius.  The trend lines in Figure 5 should be close to parallel, not diverging.

As well, as rainfall increases, Tmax should decrease, as Figure 7 shows.

Figure 7: Surface Tmax as a Product of Rain

But as we saw in Figure 3, Tmax is increasing faster than UAH.

Furthermore, as surface Tmax increases, TLT should be increasing as well, which it is, but at a slower rate.

Figure 8:  Atmospheric Temperature as a Product of Surface Tmax

Is the atmospheric temperature lagging behind surface temperature?  Figure 9 shows the last two years of monthly values.

Figure 9:  Monthly Atmospheric Temperature and Surface Tmax, January 2020-March 2022

The values are mostly synchronous, with sometimes a delay in one or the other of one month.  (Remember, we are comparing data from 104 stations scattered across the continent, with that of the atmosphere with constantly changing and circulating winds).  When the land warms, the atmosphere warms with it; when the land cools, so does the atmosphere.

Conclusion:

Tmax should not be increasing faster than atmospheric temperature.  There is no real delay in any temperature change, as the atmosphere is heated each day by the land.  Therefore it appears that there must be some fault with the maximum temperatures reported by ACORN-SAT, which appears to be warming too rapidly.

Explanation of the mechanism for rainfall moderation of surface-atmospheric temperature differences:

In wet years more moisture carried upwards condenses, releasing heat, thus warming the atmosphere, while the surface is cooled by cloud cover, evaporation, and transpiration.  In dry years much less moisture is convected, so less heat is released in the atmosphere, while the surface is hotter because of less cloud cover and less evaporation and transpiration.  Thus dry years have a greater relative difference between Tmax and TLT than wet years.

The only energy source is solar radiation heating the land surface in daylight hours, which in turn heats the atmosphere by conduction and convection.  At night as radiation to space rapidly cools the earth, convection also rapidly decreases, so maxima, not minima, are responsible for the relationship with TLT. 

A complication is that in summer (and more so in very wet La Nina years) large volumes of very moist air from the tropical seas to the north converge over northern Australia and penetrate even into southern Australia.  This warm moist air cannot heat the surface but through condensation transfers heat to the upper atmosphere- therefore the difference between surface and atmosphere is even smaller.

More Problems With Australia’s Temperature Record: Part 3

We have seen in Parts 1 and 2 that every extra year of annual data can decrease the temperature trend at a weather station by from -0.02 to -0.03℃ per decade, and that less than half (47% actually) of Australia’s weather stations used for climate analysis have data from 1910, and three of them have insufficient data to calculate trends.

Figure 1 shows a map of non-urban Acorn stations with enough data to calculate trends, at 1910.  The others I have blanked out.

Figure 1: Acorn stations with data for 1910

The network is very sparse.  To estimate a national temperature for 1910 enormous weighting must be given to the values of a few remote stations like Alice Springs, Boulia and Kalgoorlie, so we hope they got the adjustments right!  Unfortunately, in 2015 I found adjustments at Kalgoorlie and Alice Springs were very problemmatic.

The Bureau explains the process of calculating average temperatures here.

Figure 2 shows the BOM map of trends from 1910 to 2020:

Figure 2:  Australian Tmean trends 1910-2020

Note that there a few “bullseyes” which surround stations whose temperature trends are out of phase with areas around them- e.g. Boulia is warmer, Marble Bar is cooler. 

Now here is a paradox.  As the years go by and more stations have data available, the area weighting for each station will decrease, however trends at the newer stations will show increased warming compared with the older ones.  However they will also have more variability.  This will result in oddities as I shall show, and reveals something of the difficulties with the BOM methods.

 Figure 2 is a plot of mean temperature from 1970 to 2020.

Figure 2:  Australian Tmean 1970-2020

The Acorn 2 trend is now +0.23℃ per decade or +2.3℃ per 100 years- a full degree more than the trend from 1910.

Now let’s look at the trend map for 1970 to2020:

Figure 3:  Australian Tmean trends 1970-2020

Note the little “bullseye” around Victoria River Downs, the little “balloon” around Halls Creek to the south-west of VRD, and the little surge to the south-southwest of VRD of 0.05 to 0.1℃ per decade.  Note also that north-eastern Arnhem Land, with no stations, has a warmer pocket.  Figure 4 is the BOM data for VRD.

Figure 4: Annual mean temperature at Victoria River Downs

VRD opened in 1965 and has too much data missing for BOM to calculate a trend.  The area weighting algorithm still gives it a cooling trend of between minus 0.05 and 0℃ per decade (Figure 3).  Que?

With more than 27% of data missing I wouldn’t calculate a trend either, but with only six of 43 years missing I can calculate a trend from 1978:

Figure 5: Annual mean temperature at Victoria River Downs

The trend is -0.09℃ per decade, which is a bit more cooling than the trend map (Figure 3) shows.  Now let’s look at trends from 1980 to 2020.

Figure 6:  Australian Tmean trends 1980-2020

There are more bullseyes, and I have shown temperature trends for some- Carnarvon, Meekatharra, Forrest, Thargomindah, and Gayndah.  But remember Figure 3’s little surge to the SSW?   It now has its own bullseye, and that is Rabbit Flat.

Figure 7: Annual mean temperature at Rabbit Flat

Rabbit Flat opened in 1970 and has a trend of +0.08℃ per decade, which agrees with the trend map in Figure 3.  Now from 1980:

Figure 8: Annual mean temperature at Rabbit Flat

What a difference a few years make in a short timeseries.  The trend of -0.06℃ per decade also agrees with the 1980-2020 trend map.

However, just 328km away Halls Creek shows a warming trend of +0.17C per decade from 1980 – 2020:

Figure 9: Annual mean temperature at Halls Creek 1980-2020

But from 1970 to 2020 Halls Ck is warmer still at +0.19C per decade:

Figure 10: Annual mean temperature at Halls Creek 1970-2020

And at Tennant Creek 441km away the 1970-2020 trend is +0.19C per decade:

Figure 11: Annual mean temperature at Tennant Creek 1970-2020

From 1980 it is +0.06C per decade.

Figure 12: Annual mean temperature at Tennant Creek 1980-2020

Temperatures are trending in different directions and wildly different rates at the closest stations: they can’t all be right!

The method of drawing trend maps is to use anomalies of temperatures of all years of all stations whether or not an individual trend can be calculated, then calculate a gridded average, and from that calculate trends, then spread those trends hundreds of kilometres in every direction- even across the Gulf of Carpentaria from Horn Island to Arnhem Land, as seen in Figures 3 and 6- averaged with the trends propagated by other stations.  If a site has data missing, the grid is infilled with the weighted data from other sites.  

In recent decades this causes great variability because of the short records, which leads to grave doubts about the reliability of some records.  Further back in time, there is less variability because there are more stations, and the longer records smooth and decrease the trends- however the weighting has to be much greater because of the large areas with no data at all for many years. 

The problem is: we can have either a long record, or an accurate record, but not both.

This leads to the obvious conclusion:

The official temperature record since 1910 is just a guesstimate.

More Problems With Australia’s Temperature Record: Part 2

My colleague Chris Gillham at WAClimate uses 58 long term weather stations for his analyses.

And with good reason.  Here’s why.

Figure 1 is a screenshot of the annual mean temperature record at a typical Acorn station, Longreach (Qld) with the linear trend shown.

Figure 1: Annual mean temperature at Longreach

The linear trend is +0.12℃ per decade.  Nine (9) of the 111 years of data from 1910 to 2020 are missing, leaving 102 years.

Australia’s official climate record is based on 112 sites like Longreach.  Of those, 8 are not used for seasonal and annual analyses because they are affected by Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect.  Five (5) of the non-urban stations have more than 20% of their data missing, so the BOM does not calculate trends for them. Of those remaining, only 50 started in 1910, and another 8 before 1915.  What is the effect of different length records on our understanding of how temperatures have changed over the years?

Figure 2 is a plot of the trends of mean temperatures per decade as a factor of the number of years of annual temperature data on record at those 107 Acorn stations with enough data to calculate trends.

Figure 2:  Trend as a factor of amount of data

Stations with  longer data records have lower trends.  The trends at stations with shorter records vary wildly, with some obvious outliers. 

At those stations with UHI effect, the relationship is even stronger.

Figure 3:  Trend as a factor of amount of data at sites with UHI

These sites are in larger towns and cities, possibly with better maintenance and observation practices (although not necessarily better siting).

The slope of the trendlines in the above two figures show that for every additional year of data, temperature trend decreases by about -0.02 to -0.03℃ per decade. In 100 years that could make a difference of as much as three degrees Celsius 0.3C at a well maintained site.

Figure 4 is a map of trends across Australia from 1910 to 2020.  I have shown the years of available data at each site (locations only approximate) and I have circled in blue those 5 sites that have insufficient data.

 Figure 4:  Years of data contributing to 1910 to 2020 trend map

Trends in different regions vary from less than 0.1C per decade to up to 0.3C per decade.  As you can see there is a large variation in the amount of available data in each different coloured band.  That’s for 1910 to 2020.  Note that there are only three (3) non-urban stations with no missing years- Carnarvon, Esperance, and Mt Gambier- which I have circled in red.  There are some big gaps.

In Part 3 I will look at some individual stations and how trends vary in the 51 years from 1970 to 2020.

More Problems With Australia’s Temperature Record: Part 1

Since 2010 I have been documenting problems with different versions of Australia’s official temperature record as produced by the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM).  Since the High Quality (HQ) dataset was quietly withdrawn in 2012 we have seen regularly updated versions of the Australian Climate Observation Reference Network- Surface Air Temperature (ACORN-SAT or Acorn).  We are now up to Version 2.2.  In this Part I shall show the effect of these changes on temperature trends.  In Part 2 I will show how record length affects trends, and in Part 3 I will look at the record since 1970 at some individual stations.

Figure 1 is from the BOM Climate Change Time Series page.

Figure 1:  Australian Official Temperature Record 1910 to 2021

The linear trend is shown as +0.13℃ per decade, or 1.3C per 100 years.  My colleague Chris Gillham of WAClimate has provided me with archived Acorn 1 annual mean temperature data to 2013 which allows this comparison:

Figure 2:  TMean: Acorn 1 and Acorn 2

The result of introducing Acorn 2 has been a much steeper trend:  Acorn 1 trend to 2013 was 0.9℃ per decade.  The trend has now become 0.13℃ per decade. (The extra 9 years have added an extra 0.017C per decade to the trend.)

Figure 3 shows when and how large the changes were:

Figure 3:  Difference between Acorn 1 and Acorn 2

Acorn2 is cooler than Acorn 1 before 1971 and warmer in all but three years since.  Since these were based on the same raw temperatures (with some small additions of digitised data and a couple of changes to stations) the changes were brought about entirely by adjustments to the data.

I calculated running trends from every year to 2013 for both datasets.  As trends shorter than 30 years become less reliable I truncated the running trends at 1984.  Figure 4 compares thre trends to 2013 of Acorn 1 and Acorn 2.

Figure 4:  Acorn 1 and Acorn 2 running trends per decade to 2013

The weather fluctuations of the mid-1970s to 1980s played havoc with trends.

Figure 5 shows the difference between the trends.

Figure 5:  Difference between Acorn 1 and Acorn 2 Trends

The difference ranges from +0.024C per decade for 1910 to 2013, to +0.039C for 1950 to 2013.  Having increased warming by from 0.25C to 0.4C per 100 years (just by making different adjustments) Acorn 2’s trend is much more alarming than Acorn 1’s.

Conclusion:

This is from the BOM’s explanation for Acorn:  

“A panel of world-leading experts convened in Melbourne in 2011 to review the methods used in developing the dataset. It ranked the Bureau’s procedures and data analysis as amongst the best in the world. ‘The Panel is convinced that, as the world’s first national-scale homogenised dataset of daily temperatures, the ACORNSAT dataset will be of great national and international value. We encourage the Bureau to consider the dataset an important long-term national asset.’” ACORN-SAT International Peer Review Panel Report, 2011.

 Acorn 1.0 was apparently such an important long-term asset that it was quickly superseded by Acorn 2 with a much more alarming trend.

Diurnal Temperature Range and the Australian Temperature Record: More Evidence

In an earlier post, I demonstrated through analysing Diurnal Temperature Range (DTR) that the Bureau of Meteorology is either incompetent or has knowingly allowed inaccurate data to garble the record.

A couple of readers suggested avenues for deeper analysis. 

Siliggy asked, “Is the exaggerated difference now caused by the deletion of old hot maximums and or whole old long warmer records?”

Graeme No. 3 asked, “Is there any way of extracting seasonal figures from this composition?”

This post seeks to answer both, and the short answer is “Yes”.

Using BOM Time Series data (from the thoroughly adjusted Acorn dataset) I have looked at data for Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter (although those seasons lose their meaning the further north you go).

DTR is very much governed by rainfall differences as shown by this plot.

Figure 1:  Winter DTR anomalies plotted against rainfall anomalies- all years 1910-2020

This shows that in winter DTR decreases with increasing rainfall.  The R squared value of 0.79 means that for the whole period, rainfall explained DTR 79% of the time on average.  However, the average conceals the long term changes in the relationship.

To show this, I simply calculated running 10 year correlations between DTR and Rainfall anomalies for each season, and squared these to show the “R squared” value.  This is a good rule of thumb indicator for how well DTR matches rainfall over 10 year periods.  A value of 0.5 indicates only half of the DTR for that decade can be explained by rainfall alone.  As you will see in the following figures, there are plenty of 10 year periods when the relationship was 0.9 or better, meaning it is ideally possible for 90% of DTR variation to be explained by rainfall.  Here are the results.

Figure 2:  Spring Running R-squared values: DTR vs Rain

There was a good relationship before 1930.  In the decades from then to the mid-1970s it was much worse, and very poor in the decade to 1946. It was poor again in the decade to 2001, and the 10 years to 2020 shows another smaller dip, showing something not quite right with 2020.

Figure 3: Summer Running R-squared values: DTR vs Rain

Summer values were very poor before the 1960s, especially the decades to 1944 and 1961, and dipped again in the 1990s.

Figure 4:  Autumn Running R-squared values: DTR vs Rain

The DTR/Rain relationship was very poor in the decades to 1928, and again before 2001.  The recent decade has also been poor- less than half of DTR to 2020 can be explained by rainfall.

Figure 5:  Winter Running R-squared values: DTR vs Rain

The DTR/rainfall relationship was fairly good, apart from two short episodes, until the 1990s.

I now turn to the northern half of the continent.

A large area of Northern Australia is dominated by just two seasons, wet and dry.  Here is the plot of northern DTR vs Rain for the wet season (October to April).

Figure 6:  Northern Australia Wet Season Running R-squared values: DTR vs Rain

Apart from the 1950s, the late 1970s-early 1980s, and 1998 to 2020, the DTR : Rainfall relationship is very poor, with a long period in the 1930s and 1940s in which rainfall explains less than half of DTR variation (only 13% in the decade to 1943). 

Because the northern half of Australia accounts for the bulk of Australian rainfall, and the wet season is from October to April, this perhaps explains the problems in spring, summer, and autumn for the whole country.

We can get some clues as to the reasons by comparing long term average maximum temperatures with inverted rain (as wet years are cool and dry years are warm).

Figure 7:  Northern Australia Wet Season Decadal Maxima and Rain

The divergence before 1972 and after 2001 is obvious.

The above plots show how poorly DTR (and therefore temperature, from which it is derived) has matched rainfall over the past 111 years.  Low correlations indicate something other than rainfall was influencing temperatures.

In reply to Siliggy, who asked “Is the exaggerated difference now caused by the deletion of old hot maximums and or whole old long warmer records?” the answer appears to be: both, however Figure 7 shows old temperatures (before 1972) appear incorrect, but recent temperatures are at fault too.

The mismatch shows that the Acorn temperature record is not to be trusted as an indicator of past temperatures- and even recent ones.

More Evidence That The Australian Temperature Record Is Complete Garbage

The Bureau of Meteorology is either incompetent or has knowingly allowed inaccurate data to garble the record.

My colleague Chris Gillham at http://www.waclimate.net/ has alerted me to growing problems with the BOM’s record for Diurnal Temperature Range (DTR).  DTR is the difference between daytime temperature (Tmax) and night-time temperature (Tmin). 

According to Dr Karl Braganza’s paper at https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2004GL019998 , “an index of climate change” is that DTR should decrease as greenhouse gases accumulate. To oversimplify, greenhouse gases will enhance daytime temperature while at night greenhouse gases will slow down cooling.  With increasing greenhouse gas concentration, daytime maxima are expected to increase, certainly, but the effect on night-time minima will be relatively greater.  Thus, minimum temperatures will increase faster than maxima, and DTR will decrease.  While Dr Braganza was referring to global values, Australia is a large dry continent where DTR should show up clearly.

We now have 111 years of temperature data in ACORN-SAT (Australian Climate Observation Reporting Network- Surface Air Temperatures).  In this post I only use Acorn temperature data and corresponding rainfall data.  Skeptics have been bagging Acorn ever since it was introduced, and for good reasons as you will see.

Figure 1 is straight from the Bureau’s climate time series page, and shows how DTR has varied over the years.  There is a centred 15 year running mean overlaid. 

Figure 1: Official plot of annual DTR

Melbourne, We Have A Problem… DTR has been increasing recently.

I have used BOM data to make plots that show this more clearly.  First, Figure 2 shows annual DTR from 1910 to 2020 has no trend.  It should be decreasing.

Figure 2:  Annual DTR

There appears to be a distinct step up around 2000-2002.

Figure 3 shows the same data for the last 70 years, broken into two periods, from 1951 to 2000, and 2001 to 2020.

Figure 3:  DTR since 1951

From 1951 to 2000, DTR behaves as it should, with a long term decrease.  After 2000, DTR steps up well above expected values.  The average from 1981-2000 is -0.12 C.  From 2001-2020 the average is +0.35C.  DTR suddenly increases by nearly 0.5C. Why?

DTR is very much governed by that other greenhouse gas, H2O.  Dry days, months and years produce hot days and cooler nights; wet periods result in cooler than average days and warmer than average nights.  This relationship is shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4:  DTR anomalies plotted against rainfall anomalies- all years 1910-2020

As rainfall increases, DTR decreases.  The effect is more marked in very wet (>100mm above average) and very dry (100mm or more below average) years.

Figure 5 shows time series of DTR (as in Figure 2) and rainfall.  Rainfall has been inverted and scaled down by a factor of 250.

Figure 5:  DTR and Inverted, Scaled Rainfall

There is close match between the two.

Using 10 year averages in Figure 6 makes the change after 2001 much clearer.

Figure 6:  Decadal means of DTR and inverted, scaled rainfall

The 10 year average rainfall to 2020 is about the same as the 1961-1990 average (the period the BOM uses for calculating anomalies).  The 10 year average DTR should be about the same value- not at a record level.

As DTR decrease due to greenhouse gas accumulation is caused by minimum temperatures increasing faster than maximum temperatures, Figure 7 shows 10 year averages of maxima and minima for all years to 2020.

Figure 7:  10 year running means of Tmax and Tmin

Tmax has clearly accelerated in the last 20 years, increasing much faster than Tmin.

This is NOT what should be happening: indeed it is the exact opposite of what greenhouse theory predicts.

Something happened to Australian maximum temperature recording or reporting early this century.  I suspect that the BOM changed from using the highest one-minute average of temperatures recorded in Automatic Weather Systems to the current highest one-second value for the day becoming the reported maximum; or else the design of a significant number of AWS changed, with new, faster-responding probes replacing old ones.

I also suspect I know why this was allowed to happen and continue.

Warmer minimum temperatures at night and in winter are not very scary, but record high temperatures and heatwaves make headlines.

It would suit the Global Warming Enthusiasts in the Bureau for apparently rapidly rising maxima and ever higher records being broken to make headlines, frighten the public, put pressure on governments, and generally support The Narrative.

But someone forgot to tell the left hand what the right hand was doing.

The result is that they are now faced with a contradiction- Diurnal Temperature Range is not decreasing as it should. 

The Bureau is either incompetent or has knowingly allowed inaccurate data to garble the record.

Climate Change in Context

In my last post I showed some plots of temperature data derived from ice cores at Vostok base in Antarctica, which indicate we are close to the end of the Holocene.

Here are some more plots from the same data so we can put present concerns about warming in some context.  Please remember- temperatures calculated from ice cores have a resolution of from 20 years recently to 40 to 50 years in the mid-Holocene, to 80 to 85 years in the glacial maximum.  Temperatures shown may be regarded as a rough average of conditions over those intervals.  Also note this dataset is for one point on the earth’s surface, not a global average.  Nevertheless it is a very important dataset as it shows polar conditions over a very long period.

Figure 1:  Vostok temperatures relative to 1999 over the last 20,000 years

The previous glacial maximum had temperatures in the Antarctic about 9 degrees colder than now.  This was followed by a strong warming, the Termination of glacial conditions, resulting in 11,000 years of warm conditions, the Holocene.  The Holocene was not uniformly warm but featured fluctuations of up to 2 degrees above and below current temperatures.  I will look at this later, but first I shall take a closer look at the Termination.  

Figure 2:  Vostok temperatures during the Termination

Point A marks the start of the Termination warming.  Temperatures rose from A to B (by about 6.5 degrees in 3,000 years- about 0.2 degrees per 100 years- so not exactly “rapid” warming).  Temperatures then fell about 2 degrees, before rising even more sharply from C to D, the start of the Holocene.  Figure 3 shows temperatures in this final part of the Termination.

Figure 3:  Vostok temperatures in the steepest part of the Termination

Temperatures increased by about 5 degrees over a bit more than 1,100 years.  Yes, the warming rate was indeed steeper- 0.44 degrees per 100 years on average.  However, the temperature rose 1 degree in less than 50 years at the end of this period.

During the Termination, long term temperature rise was gradual, but punctuated by short periods of much more rapid rise.

Now let’s look at temperature change in the Holocene.

Figure 4:  Vostok temperatures 7,000 to 9,000 years ago

Conditions were not uniformly warm, with fluctuations from -1 to +.5C relative to 1999 over hundreds of years.  But there was one episode with a rise of 2.93 degrees in less than 100 years- now that’s rapid warming.

Figure 5:  Vostok temperatures in the last 2,020 years

More recently, temperatures rose 1.94 degrees in 155 years to 1602, and again 2.2 degrees in 44 years to 1809.

You will notice I have shown 3 datapoints showing 21 year mean annual surface air temperatures at Vostok (1970, 1990, and 2010, with zero at 1990).  This is merely for interest- instrumental air temperatures should never be appended to ice core data.  What it does show is that the rate of present temperature change is well within the range of natural variation.

This is also evident when a Greenland ice core series is compared with modern surface air temperatures.

Figure 6:  Greenland (GISP2) temperatures in the last 4,000 years

I have inserted the decadal average of -29.9 C at the GISP borehole from 2001-2010.  Notice how unremarkable that is.

As the fluctuations at GISP and Vostok have been occurring for thousands of years something other than carbon dioxide emissions must be responsible.

So what about carbon dioxide? Data in the next figure is from Dome Fuji, also in Antarctica.

Figure 7:  Insolation, temperature, and CO2 in the last 350,000 years

Notice that at no time in previous interglacials did carbon dioxide concentration exceed 300ppm, (and despite the higher temperatures than now there was no “runaway” warming.)    And as the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Centre says

There is a close correlation between Antarctic temperature and atmospheric concentrations of CO₂ (Barnola et al. 1987). The extension of the Vostok CO₂ record shows that the main trends of CO₂ are similar for each glacial cycle. Major transitions from the lowest to the highest values are associated with glacial-interglacial transitions. During these transitions, the atmospheric concentrations of CO₂ rises from 180 to 280-300 ppmv (Petit et al. 1999). The extension of the Vostok CO₂ record shows the present-day levels of CO₂ are unprecedented during the past 420 kyr. Pre-industrial Holocene levels (~280 ppmv) are found during all interglacials, with the highest values (~300 ppmv) found approximately 323 kyr BP. When the Vostok ice core data were compared with other ice core data (Delmas et al. 1980; Neftel et al. 1982) for the past 30,000 – 40,000 years, good agreement was found between the records: all show low CO₂ values [~200 parts per million by volume (ppmv)] during the Last Glacial Maximum and increased atmospheric CO₂ concentrations associated with the glacial-Holocene transition. According to Barnola et al. (1991) and Petit et al. (1999) these measurements indicate that, at the beginning of the deglaciations, the CO₂ increase either was in phase or lagged by less than ~1000 years with respect to the Antarctic temperature, whereas it clearly lagged behind the temperature at the onset of the glaciations. (My emphasis).

Therefore, carbon dioxide did not drive, but followed, temperature change in the past; past rapid warming did not lead to positive feedbacks and runaway warming; and the instrumental record is far too short to draw any definitive conclusion about recent warming, which cannot be differentiated from past Antarctic and Greenland temperature fluctuations.

There is no climate crisis.

How Accurate Is Australia’s Temperature Record? Part 1

In my last post I showed that maximum temperature (Tmax) as reported by ACORN-SAT (Australian Climate Observations Reference Network-Surface Air Temperature) appears to be responsible for the growing divergence of the difference between Tmax and tropospheric temperatures from Australia’s rainfall.

In this post I show how Tmax is related to rainfall, and show that while this relationship holds for discrete periods throughout the last 110 years, Tmax has apparently diverged from what we would expect.  In other words, the Acorn Tmax record is faulty and unreliable.

For much of this analysis I am indebted to Dr Bill Johnston who has posted a number of papers at Bomwatch using the relationship between Tmax and rainfall.

At any land based location annual maximum temperature varies with rainfall: wet years are cooler, dry years are warmer.  More rainfall (with accompanying clouds that reflect solar radiation) brings cooler air to the ground; provides more moisture in the air, streams, waterholes, and the soil which cools by evaporation; causes vegetation to grow, the extra vegetation shading the ground and retaining moisture, with transpiration providing further cooling; and in moist conditions deep convective overturning moves vast amounts of water and heat high into the troposphere- especially evident in thunderstorms.  Less rainfall means the opposite: more solar radiation reaches the ground with fewer clouds and less vegetation; there is less moisture available to evaporate; less vegetation growth and transpiration; and much less heat is transferred to the troposphere through convective overturning.

While more rainfall than the landscape can hold results in runoff in rivers and streams, thus removing some moisture from the immediate area, this affects large regions only in tropical coastal catchments- the Kimberleys, the Gulf rivers, the Burdekin and Fitzroy.  Across the bulk of Australia there is very little discharge of water to the oceans.  In the Murray-Darling Basin, on average less than 0.005% of rainfall is discharged from the Murray mouth. (BOM rainfall data and 1891-1985 discharge data from Simpson et al (1993))

This temperature ~ rainfall relationship is particularly evident in desert areas far from any marine influence.  Alice Springs provides a good example.  Figure 1 shows how annual maximum temperatures at Alice Springs Airport vary with rainfall since 1997.  Data are from ACORN.

Fig. 1: Tmax and Rainfall, Alice Springs

The slope of the trend line shows that for every extra millimetre of rain, Tmax falls by 0.0047 of a degree Celsius, which is about half a degree less for every 100 mm.  The R-squared value shows that there is a good fit for the data- 79% of temperature change is due to rainfall.

I said above that this relationship holds for land locations.  An island, with a little land surrounded by water, is mostly affected by sea temperature and wind direction.  Locations near the coast are also affected by marine influence.  At Amberley in south-east Queensland daily maximum temperature can be moderated by the time of arrival of a sea breeze or whether it arrives at all.  (Site changes also can change Tmax recorded.)

Fig. 2: Tmax and Rainfall, Amberley

Further inland, the relationship is strong: at Bathurst, there is 0.4C temperature variation per 100mm of rainfall and 61% of temperature change is due to rainfall alone.

Fig. 3: Tmax and Rainfall, Bathurst

The BOM has sophisticated algorithms for area averaging temperature and rainfall across Australia and provide national climate records back to 1900 for rainfall and 1910 for maxima.  Averaged across Australia individual station idiosyncrasies are submerged so that the 1997 to 2019 relationship between Tmax and rainfall is very strong (and similar to that of Alice Springs):

Fig. 4: Tmax and Rainfall, Australia 1997-2019

However, the relationship is not strong throughout the whole record:

Fig. 5: Tmax and Rainfall, Australia 1910-2019

The relationship from 1910 to 2019 is poor.

In the next figure I compare the Tmax – rainfall relationships for the first 10 years of the record with the last 10 years.

Fig. 6: Tmax and Rainfall, Australia, first and last decades

The trendlines are almost exactly parallel, with tight fits, showing strong relationships 100 years apart- but the trendline for 2010 to 2019 is about 1.7 degrees above that for 1910 – 1919.  How can that be?

It is possible to compare rainfall and temperature throughout the last 110 years.  In the next figure, rainfall is inverted and scaled down so as to match Tmax at 1910.

Fig. 7: Tmax and Inverted Scaled Rain, Australia

Running 10 year means allow us to see long term patterns of rainfall and temperature more easily:

Fig. 8: Tmax and Inverted Scaled Rain, Decadal Means, Australia

Rainfall has increased over the last 110 years (despite what you might hear in the media), and so apparently have maximum temperatures.  In the above figures Tmax and rainfall track roughly together until the mid-1950s, then Tmax takes off.

I calculated an “index” of temperature ~ rainfall variation by subtracting scaled, inverted rainfall from Tmax, commencing at zero in 1919.  This allows us to identify when temperature appears to diverge markedly from inverted rainfall:

Fig. 9: Index of Temperature ~ Rainfall Variation: Tmax minus Inverted Scaled Rain, Decadal Means, Australia

There is a small increase from the mid-1950s, but the really large divergence commences in the 1970s, with the decade from 1973 to 1982 about 0.6 units above the decade to 1972.  The index decreases to 1995, then there is another steep increase to 2007, and a final surge to 2019.

This index alone shows how poorly the official temperature record represents the temperature of the past.

 While there are other times, in the next figures I compare four periods: 1910 to 1972, 1973 to 1995, 1996 to 2007, and 2008 to 2019.  Here I use annual data.

Fig. 10: Tmax and Rainfall, Australia, four periods

Again, trendlines are almost parallel with similar slopes, showing that the Tmax ~ rainfall relationship is fairly constant for all periods- (about 0.5C per 100mm after 1995 and about 0.4C per 100mm before 1995).  However, the lines are separated.  Temperature for each later period is higher than the ones preceding, such that the temperature recorded now is about 1.5 degrees Celsius higher than it would have been for similar rainfall before 1973. And rainfall has increased in that time.

Global Warming Enthusiasts and apologists for the BOM will claim that these breaks between separate periods are real and caused by changes in circulation patterns due to climate change- in particular the Southern Annular Mode.  That will be the subject of Part 2.

Whatever the reasons, Australia wide the Tmax ~ rainfall relationship has remained constant for the past 110 years (as it should) but the temperatures reported in the Acorn dataset have increased by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius relative to rainfall.

Conclusion:

The ACORN-SAT temperature dataset is an unreliable record of Australia’s maximum temperatures.

Australia’s Wacky Weather Station Comparison 4: Penrith (NSW)

After surveying 666 weather stations across Australia and finding nearly half (49.25%) are not compliant with Bureau of Meteorology siting specifications, in this series of posts I compare daily temperature data from pairs of compliant and non-compliant stations. Here’s the first in this series.

Penrith and Richmond RAAF

These stations are in western Sydney, 16km apart.

Fig. 1:  Penrith map location per Google Maps

Fig.2:  Penrith and Richmond

Penrith Lakes AWS 67113 is beside a large area of excavation and bare soil, and 200 metres from a large artificial lake.

Fig. 3:  Penrith (Google satellite image 2019)

Richmond RAAF 67105 is at an Air Force base. It is open, flat, and at least 50 meters from any concrete or tarmac.

Fig. 4:  Richmond RAAF site plan 2016

Fig. 5:  Richmond RAAF (Google satellite image 2020)

Richmond is 6 metres higher than Penrith.  Both are Automatic Weather Stations with electronic temperature probes transmitting data every minute. While there can be no observer error, as we shall see there can be instrumental error.

Richmond RAAF is an ACORN station. The Bureau says in its Station Catalogue: “The region is a major growth corridor for Sydney and there is evidence of anomalous warming of minimum temperatures in recent years.”

If we plot all daily maxima from 2010 to 2019 for Richmond against Penrith, we see that temperatures match quite closely:

Fig. 6:  Tmax at Richmond as a function of Tmax at Penrith

Richmond is on average cooler than Penrith. A time series of the 31 day centred mean of the daily difference between them shows more detail:

Fig. 7:  31 day mean daily difference Penrith minus Richmond Tmax

Values above zero mean Penrith is warmer than Richmond; below zero, Penrith is cooler.  Most summers Penrith is warmer, and winters slightly cooler, though the record appears to have breakpoints in early 2012 and early 2016, and some unusually high values.

This is a plot of mean differences by month:

Fig. 8: 31 day mean daily difference Penrith minus Richmond Tmax by month

Penrith is warmer in every month, especially in summer, though there are some cooler values in every month.

Minimum temperatures at Richmond are much cooler than Penrith:

Fig. 9:  Tmin at Richmond as a function of Tmin at Penrith

Fig. 10:  31 day mean daily difference Penrith minus Eichmond Tmin

Penrith is 2C to 2.5C warmer in cooler months and up to 0.5C warmer in summer.

Fig. 11: 31 day mean daily difference Penrith minus Richmond Tmin by month

A note on accuracy:

The centred 31 day running correlation is useful for detecting inconsistencies.

Fig. 12:  Centred  31 day running correlation between Penrith and Richmond maxima

Fig. 13:  Centred  31 day running correlation between Penrith and Richmond minima

The much poorer correlation in the summer of 2013-2014 shows in Figures 7 and 10. Here are the actual minimum temperatures recorded:

Fig. 14:  Daily minima at Penrith and Richmond Summer 2013 – 2014

It appears that the Richmond probe began malfunctioning in mid-December and failed completely in mid-January. It failed again a few months later.

In recent years, Penrith Lakes AWS 67113 has recorded generally warmer maxima than Richmond RAAF 67105 in summer and comparable or slightly cooler maxima in winters. Minima are always much warmer at Penrith. This may be due to the proximity to the large artificial lake.

In this example, siting non-compliance has a large effect on temperature.

***

This will be the last comparison, as it is very difficult to identify non-compliant stations with nearby compliant sites with similar environment. We can conclude however that non-compliance with siting specifications affects temperatures recorded, which varies between locations. Sometimes maxima are much warmer, sometimes minima. Temperatures at 329 non-compliant stations cannot be regarded as reliable for weather or climate analysis.

Australia’s Wacky Weather Station Comparison 3: Echuca (Vic)

UPDATE 20/02/2020: As reader Phil has reminded me and as I said after Figure 5 below, Kyabram appears to be irrigated and so should be added to the non-compliant list (making 329 or 49.25% of checkable stations). Therefore these sites are not suitable for comparison as factors other than siting (e.g. cooling due to evapo-transpiration following irrigation) will affect temperature difference. It is very difficult to find compliant sites that are near enough to non-compiant stations- but these are still interesting sites.

After surveying 666 weather stations across Australia and finding nearly half (49.25%) are not compliant with Bureau of Meteorology siting specifications, in this series of posts I compare daily temperature data from pairs of compliant and non-compliant stations. Here’s the first in this series.

Echuca and Kyabram

These stations are about 170km north of Melbourne, about 33km apart.

Fig. 1:  Echuca map location per Google Maps

Fig.2:  Echuca and Kyabram

Echuca Airport 80015 is right beside a large gravel parking area and less than 40 metres from the tarmac aircraft parking area.

Fig. 3:  Echuca Airport (Google satellite image 2019)

Kyabram 80091 is at a former research station in an open paddock as the 2008 plan shows:

Fig. 4:  Kyabram site plan 2008

Fig. 5:  Kyabram (Google satellite image 2020)

Kyabram is 9 metres higher than Echuca.  Again, an important difference is that Echuca is a manual station with liquid-in-glass thermometers, while Kyabram is an Automatic Weather Station (installed 1998) with an electronic temperature probe transmitting data every minute. The satellite image shows the enclosure is not well maintained with what appears to be long grass. The area around the enclosure is probably irrigated so this station should probably be classified as non-compliant as well.

If we plot all daily maxima from 2010 to 2019 for Kyabram against Echuca, we see that temperatures match quite closely:

Fig. 6:  Tmax at Kyabram as a function of Tmax at Echuca

The trend equation shows Kyabram is on average cooler than Echuca. A time series of the 31 day centred mean of the daily difference between them shows more detail:

Fig. 7:  31 day mean daily difference Echuca minus Kyabram Tmax

Values above zero mean Echuca is warmer than Kyabram; below zero, Echuca is cooler.  Note that apart from a few brief episodes, Echuca is always warmer than Kyabram.

This is a plot of mean differences by month:

Fig. 8: 31 day mean daily difference Echuca minus Kyabram Tmax by month

Echuca is warmer in every month- apart from those brief periods shown in Figure 7.

Minimum temperatures don’t match as closely…

Fig. 9:  Tmin at Kyabram as a function of Tmin at Echuca

Fig. 10:  31 day mean daily difference Echuca minus Kyabram Tmin

Echuca is generally warmer. There are several examples of odd deviations.

Fig. 11: 31 day mean daily difference Echuca minus Kyabram Tmin by month

A note on accuracy:

The centred 31 day running correlation is useful for detecting inconsistencies.

Fig. 12:  Centred  31 day running correlation between Echuca and Kyabram maxima

Fig. 13:  Centred  31 day running correlation between Echuca and Kyabram minima

The weaker correlation in 2011 is coincident with the unusual difference as seen in Figure 10 and is worth a closer look.

Fig. 14:  Daily minima at Echuca and Kyabram Winter 2011

Here we see probable examples of temperatures being recorded on the wrong date.

In recent years, Echuca 80015, a manual station that does not comply with site specifications, has warmer maxima than its neighbour Kyabram 80091 except for brief episodes, and mostly warmer minima.

In this example, siting non-compliance has a large effect on temperature, but may affect both sites.