Experts called in over BoM’s tweaking of climate records Graham Lloyd Environment Editor AUSTRALIAN JANUARY 17, 2015 AN independent panel of experts has been appointed to review the Bureau of Meteorology’s official national temperature records to improve transparency and boost public confidence in the wake of concerns about the bureau’s treatment of historic data. The oversight panel is in line with the recommendations of a peer-review of BoM’s national temperature dataset that homogenises readings from a selection of locations to give a national trend. The peer-review praised BoM’s methodology in establishing the Australian Climate Observations Reference Network — Surface Air Temperature (ACORN-SAT) dataset as world’s best practice, but recommended greater openness. In the absence of an external review, BoM has been publicly criticised for not providing full details of its methodology, including detailed reasoning for all changes made to physical records and the algorithms used for homogenisation. Critics have said BoM’s treatment of the data had changed cooling trends at some locations into warming trends without proper explanation. The bureau has said there were solid reasons to adjust some station records and that the overall national trend had not been altered. Research scientist Jennifer Marohasy said: “It is not contested that homogenisation changes the temperature trend at individual sites. What is contested is whether the adjustments are justified, and the cumulative effect of these adjustments on the overall national trend.” Dr Marohasy said the newly established panel should also investigate how individual series of data had been combined to generate the national average. “In particular, by adding warmer stations later in the series, a warming trend can be generated in the national average,” Dr Marohasy said. Following public criticism, which was dismissed by BoM supporters as the work of “amateurs”, the former minister responsible for BoM, senator Simon Birmingham, ordered that the appointment of an oversight body be fast-tracked. Bob Baldwin, who was appointed parliamentary secretary to federal Environment Minister Greg Hunt last month, will announce the make up of the panel today. The forum of leading scientists and statisticians will hold its first meeting in March and be headed by Ron Sandland, who was appointed the deputy chief executive for CSIRO in 1999. In a statement issued by Senator Baldwin, BoM said, as a trusted and respected organisation, it welcomed robust assessment of its work in order to maintain the highest levels of public confidence.
Posted on: Sat, 17 Jan 2015 06:37:11 +0000
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