Bishop Hill New Zealand's temperature record
Oct 31, 2014 Climate: Surface Richard Treadgold emails with details of an interesting new paper, with quite an eye-opening end to the abstract.
Yesterday a paper on the New Zealand temperature record (NZTR) was accepted by Environmental Modeling & Assessment. Submitted in 2013, we can only imagine the colossal peer-review hurdles that had to be overcome in gaining acceptance for a paper that refutes the national temperature record in a developed country. The mere fact of acceptance attests to a fundamental shift in scientific attitudes to climate change, but expect strident opposition to this paper.
The authors present first a concise observational history of the NZTR, remarking that the established national record was a product of early methodology, then reconstruct an homogenised dataset using the peer-reviewed adjustment standards of Rhoades & Salinger, 1993 (RS93).
A Reanalysis of Long-Term Surface Air Temperature Trends in New Zealand was produced by principal author C.R. de Freitas with M.O. Dedekind and B.E. Brill.
Abstract
Detecting trends in climate is important in assessments of global change based on regional long-term data. Equally important is the reliability of the results that are widely used as a major input for a large number of societal design and planning purposes. New Zealand provides a rare long temperature time series in the Southern Hemisphere, and it is one of the longest continuous climate series available in the Southern Hemisphere Pacific. It is therefore important that this temperature dataset meets the highest quality control standards. New Zealand’s national record for the period 1909 to 2009 is analysed and the data homogenized. Current New Zealand century-long climatology based on 1981 methods produces a trend of 0.91 °C per century. Our analysis, which uses updated measurement techniques and corrects for shelter-contaminated data, produces a trend of 0.28 °C per century.
Reader Comments (52)
>"BEST runs Albert Park and Auckland Aero in parallel:
AUCKLAND, ALBERT PARK http://berkeleyearth.lbl.gov/stations/157062
AUCKLAND AERO AWS http://berkeleyearth.lbl.gov/stations/157061
NIWA/NZCSC drops Albert Park when Aero starts because Albert Park is contaminated by UHI'sheltering, homogenizing Albert Park to Aero instead."
BEST don't homogenize these sites so these stations overlap (run in parallel):
BEST - no contiguous series
AUCKLAND, ALBERT PARK Jun 1853 to Oct 2013
AUCKLAND AERO AWS Aug 1994 to Oct 2013
NIWA/NZCSC do homogenize these stations. Aero AWS is the reference site and in addition there's Mangere in the Aero vicinity but away from Albert Park in central Auckland, that BEST makes no use of at all. Mangere is also contaminated by UHI but de Freitas et al deal with that.
NIWA/NZCSC - Auckland location series
Albert Park Sep 1909 to Mar 1976
Mangere Apr 1976 to Jul 1998
Auckland Aero (reference) Aug 1998 to Present
De Freitas et al make 2 adjustments for 2 site changes Auckland 1909 to present (as do NIWA):
Albert Park Sep 1909 Mar 1976 −0.12
Mangere Apr 1976 Jul 1998 +0.02
BEST make 2 adjustments for 2 "Station Moves" to Albert Park within the time frame of de Freitas et al/NIWA Albert Park that neither de freitas et al nor NIWA make:
ALBERT PARK 1930ish
ALBERT PARK 1965ish
http://berkeleyearth.lbl.gov/auto/Stations/TAVG/Figures/157062-TAVG-Alignment.pdf
In addition, BEST make 4 "Empirical Break" ("Statistical" in BOM terms) adjustments that neither de Freitas et al nor NIWA make:
ALBERT PARK 1912ish
ALBERT PARK 1916ish
ALBERT PARK 1920ish
ALBERT PARK 1950
So that's 6 adjustments to Albert Park that BEST make that neither of de Freitas et al/NZCSC or NIWA make.