It’s six years since NIWA published their Report on the Review of NIWA’s ‘Seven-Station’ Temperature Series (pdf, 8.5 MB), the latest version of the national temperature record. It’s six years, too, since NIWA promised the people of New Zealand (in Parliament) they would publish the methodology in that report in a peer-reviewed journal. But they haven’t done so—maybe they aren’t too pleased with it.
Last year, three scientists associated with the NZ Climate Science Coalition published a peer-reviewed paper concluding the New Zealand temperature rise over the last hundred years was only 0.28°C, much lower than the last NIWA effort, which claimed it was 0.91°C. Though I notice just now when checking the NIWA website they’re claiming 0.92°C.
Kenneth Richard has just posted an article on the de Freitas et al. paper at NoTricksZone – h/t Maggy Wassilieff. He describes the paper thus:
According to scientists de Freitas, Dedekind, and Brill (2015), removing “contaminated data” from New Zealand’s nation-wide temperature record — and using updated measurement techniques rather than error-ridden outdated ones — reduces the long-term (1909 to 2009) New Zealand warming trend from today’s +0.91°C to +0.28°C, a 325% change.
NIWA still have made no reply to the de Freitas et al. paper. I’m sure they would have if they had disagreed with it; they obviously recognise its value.
If NIWA haven’t published their own methodology they can scarcely claim their method superior, as they did during the application for judicial review in 2012. It also means they cannot reasonably argue with the amount of long-term warming in New Zealand — 0.28°C. Regardless of the global warming hypothesis, science shows there’s been no significant warming in New Zealand.
Mr Richard concludes by putting the de Freitas et al. paper in a stunning global context:
A few days ago, a compilation of over 50 temperature graphs from peer-reviewed scientific papers revealed that large regions of the Earth have not been warming in recent decades, and that modern temperatures are still some of the coldest of the last 10,000 years. Apparently the nation of New Zealand can now be added to this list as a region where no significant changes in temperature have taken place within the last 150 years.
Views: 611
Maggy
>”A couple of days back (8 Oct, 1:14pm; 1:47pm ) when presenting info from the NIWA 7SS you mentioned an abrupt +0.25C rise from 1997… Any thoughts whether this was a mathematical artifact (a fudge) or a climate shift?”
Re “mathematical artifact (a fudge)”. No. Since about 1970 the 7SS adjustments are non-contentious. More recently there has been a conversion to automated weather systems (AWS). Without checking I think I’m safe to say most if not all of the 7SS Reference sites are AWS. Reference sites being the current open site for a location. Again without checking, site changes going back in time from Reference will probably occur around 1997 but not all at once in the same year. And the site changes around that time were not an adjustment issue anyway.
Re “climate shift”. Certainly a climate shift around 1977 (see NIWA below). 1998 is ill-defined but NiWA says this:
Their post 1977 “long-term-warming trend” is completely bogus as can be seen from their graph.
There are 2 trends. 1970 – 1997 and 1997 to present (BEST NZ data confirms this). Both are either dead flat or cooling a little. The shift occurred at the El Nino between the 2 on the 1998 side. Obviously if you slap a linear trend on 1970 – present you will get a linear increase but a linear trend does not represent the data over that period. A curve shows a pronounced peaking in the 21st Century. A moving average shows little change 1970 – 1997, an abrupt shift, then a long slow return to pre 1998 levels (not there yet).
I don’t know of any papers that document a shift at 1998 in respect to NZ except for the above. 1977 was the big one in the Pacific but the effect on the 7SS was minimal. 1998 and thereafter had a far greater effect.
Maybe I’m missing something somewhere but seems to me NIWA are staying very quiet about NZ temperature since 1990. Remember that their IPCC-based predictions are in respect to 1990. But even with an El Nino shift at 1998 the current observations are cooler than their prediction from 1990 to 2040 here:
Climate change scenarios for New Zealand
https://www.niwa.co.nz/our-science/climate/information-and-resources/clivar/scenarios
“All-scenario average 0.9°C by 2040”. 0.18°C/decade. Observations are tracking lower than this trajectory.
Nowhere does NIWA (or MfE) plot this prediction against observations. Same with the SLR predictions.
>”The abstract says exactly what I tried to explain to you.”
Abstract – “CO2 absorbs terrestrial surface radiation and causes emission from the atmosphere to space.”
Yes. CO2 is a TRANSFER medium. More CO2, more efficient TRANSFER. But you still have not identified the most important near-surface factor in respect to TRANSFER Dennis, what is it?
>”The loss to space here is greater than the gain from the surface.”
Now look at the PAPER’S reason for this as I’ve quoted above. And look at their methodology. Quote that.
Richard C (NZ)
It has been shown beyond any doubt that CO2 is a greenhouse gas and the greenhouse effect is to return most energy from the surface back to the surface while losing some to space. So it is a primary forcing.
There is also an amplifying feedback because warming oceans release CO2.
Somewhere along the path to reality you have taken the wrong turn and lost your way, condemned to go round in circles for the rest of your life. Along with the others who follow you.
Richard C (NZ)
You still have a problem understanding it?
Consider a tank with two taps and a vacuum pump attached to one. With the pump going and the other tap closed you will lower the pressure in the tank. With the other tap open you won’t because there is a supply of air to the tank.
CO2 and GHGS act the same way as the vacuum pump in this thought experiment.
Please don’t tell me LR is not air. Please don’t ask me to cite a paper or do the experiment. Please don’t tell me you don’t do “thought experiments”. Just think!
“There is also an amplifying feedback because warming oceans release CO2.”
if there is this amplifying effect, then why didn’t the planet burn up millions of years ago?
Of course, this is a a typical “denier question” (only “deniers” ask questions. A general sign of a “denier” is someone that asks questions)
I expect this “denier question” has been debunked, prebunked and furiously tweeted about by “experts”
But it is still an interesting question, if you are a “denier”, anyway
>”Nowhere does NIWA (or MfE) plot this prediction against observations. Same with the SLR predictions.”
‘Climate Change Projections for New Zealand Atmospheric projections based on simulations undertaken for the IPCC 5th Assessment’
Published in June 2016 by the Ministry for the Environment
https://www.mfe.govt.nz/sites/default/files/media/Climate%20Change/nz-climate-change-projections-final.pdf
“Part of the New Zealand warming trend is probably due to natural variability (Salinger &
Mullan, 1999; Mullan et al, 2010), but a significant contribution to the warming can be attributed to greenhouse gas increases (Dean & Stott, 2009).”
“In this report, projections are given for all four RCPs, and for three future time periods which
are usually abbreviated as 2040, 2090 and 2110. The three time periods represent changes for
the 20-year periods 2031–50, 2081–2100 and 2101–20, respectively, relative to the baseline
1986–2005. This is the same baseline as used in the IPCC AR5 Report (IPCC, 2013), and is the
last 20 years of what CMIP5 refer to as the “historical period”.”
[Click on index to go direct to….]
Table 3: Periods of the regional climate model (RCM) simulations, for each the six
CMIP5 models and pathways. Four models go beyond 2100, and so are
available for 2110 projections. The ranks are taken from Table 4 27
Figure 3: Surface air temperature variations from 1900 to 2005, relative to 1986–2005, for 41
historical model simulations as averaged over the “New Zealand box” (land and ocean,
33–48°S by 160–190°E, used for the statistical downscaling), and for the New Zealand
seven-station series (land only, NZT7)
Table 5: Projected changes in seasonal and annual mean temperature (in °C) between 1986–2005
and 2031–2050, by region, as derived from statistical downscaling. The changes are given for four RCPs (8.5, 6.0, 4.5 and 2.6), where the ensemble-average is taken over (41, 18, 37, 23) models respectively
# # #
1) Note this is a complete change of story from the IPCC’s AR4 baseline which is the baseline for NIWA’s ‘Climate change scenarios for New Zealand’ linked previously. That baseline is the average of 1980 – 1999 centred on 1990, NOT “1986–2005”:
2) There is no provision made to track the validity or otherwise of these projections.
3) Historical 20th Century simulations are nothing like the 7SS (red, NZT7) in Figure 3.
4) MfE are complicit with NIWA in their “projection” game of guessing the future and neither impose any rigour or accountability on their guesses i.e. no on-going tracking of projections vs observations. Their 7SS (NZT7) stops at 2005.
5) This is pseudo-science.
>“Part of the New Zealand warming trend is probably due to natural variability (Salinger &
Mullan, 1999; Mullan et al, 2010), but a significant contribution to the warming can be attributed to greenhouse gas increases (Dean & Stott, 2009).”
‘The Effect of Local Circulation Variability on the Detection and Attribution of New Zealand Temperature Trends ‘
S. M. Dean National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, Wellington, New Zealand
P. A. Stott Met Office Hadley Centre, Exeter, United Kingdom
(2009)
Abstract
A representative temperature record for New Zealand based on station data from 1853 onward is used in conjunction with four coupled climate models to investigate the causes of recent warming over this small midlatitude country. The observed variability over interannual and decadal time scales is simulated well by the models. The variability of simulated 50-yr trends is consistent with the very short observational record. For a simple detection analysis it is not possible to separate the observed 30- and 50-yr temperature trends from the distribution created by internal variability in the model control simulations. A pressure index that is representative of meridional flow (M1) is used to show that the models fail to simulate an observed trend to more southerly flows in the region. The strong relationship between interannual temperature variability and the M1 index in both the observations and the models is used to remove the influence of this circulation variability from the temperature records. Recent 50-yr trends in the residual temperature record cannot be explained by natural climate variations, but they are consistent with the combined climate response to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, ozone depletion, and sulfate aerosols, demonstrating a significant human influence on New Zealand warming. This result highlights the effect of circulation variability on regional detection and attribution analyses. Such variability can either mask or accelerate human-induced warming in observed trends, underscoring the importance of determining the underlying forced trend, and the need to adequately capture regional circulation effects in climate models.
Full Text
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/full/10.1175/2009JCLI2715.1
@Dennis
I read the original comments by Steve Mosher on Judith Curry’s site…
I gather he has a degree in English…..
so good of you to correct his spelling of “competent.” (He spells it as COMPETANT)
Such a pity you didn’t pick up on his site/cite
Anyway the references I was suggesting as being interesting were those mentioned in Belolipetsky’s comments; i.e.:
1. Belolipetsky et al. 2015. Hidden staircase signal in recent climate dynamic. Asia-Pacific Journal of Atmospheric Sciences, 51, 323-330.
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Pavel_Belolipetsky/publication/284879739_Hidden_staircase_signal_in_recent_climate_dynamic/links/565bc41208ae1ef92980fba7.pdf
2. Jones and Ricketts 2016. Reconciling the signal and noise of atmospheric warming on decadal timescales. Earth Syst. Dynam. Discuss., 2016, 1-52.
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Roger_Jones6/publication/305989759_Reconciling_the_signal_and_noise_of_atmospheric_warming_on_decadal_timescales/links/57a91bf908aed1b226244e87.pdf
3. Reid et al. 2016. Global impacts of the 1980s regime shift. Global Change Biology, 22, 682-703.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/284484997_Global_impacts_of_the_1980s_regime_shift
Dean & Stott’s 7SS is from 1853 onward:
“A representative temperature record for New Zealand based on station data from 1853 onward is used….”
Fig. 1. Annual global mean surface temperature from the HadCRUT3v dataset (thick gray line) and annual mean temperature from the seven-station New Zealand temperature series (thin black line). The New Zealand temperature series is also shown after having a 20-point low-pass filter applied (thick black line). All data are normalized to the period of 1971–2000. Major tropical volcanic eruptions during the twentieth century are also marked.
http://journals.ametsoc.org/na101/home/literatum/publisher/ams/journals/content/clim/2009/15200442-22.23/2009jcli2715.1/production/images/large/i1520-0442-22-23-6217-f01.jpeg
There was obviously a warm period in the mid 1800s. There is a pronounced cooling from 1853 – 1945.
Dean & Stott (2009) turns NIWA’s 7SS assertion on its ear. There is obviously no “unequivocal” “0.92 C/Century” warming in NZ temperature. There is LESS than 0.4C difference between 1853 and 2005. In between there was a very cool period.
Dean & Stott:
“The observed variability over interannual and decadal time scales is simulated well by the models.”
What a load of BS.
‘Climate Change Projections for New Zealand Atmospheric projections based on simulations undertaken for the IPCC 5th Assessment’ – June 2016 Ministry for the Environment
https://www.mfe.govt.nz/sites/default/files/media/Climate%20Change/nz-climate-change-projections-final.pdf
Figure 3: Surface air temperature variations from 1900 to 2005, relative to 1986–2005, for 41
historical model simulations as averaged over the “New Zealand box” (land and ocean,
33–48°S by 160–190°E, used for the statistical downscaling), and for the New Zealand
seven-station series (land only, NZT7)
# # #
“Simulated well by the models” means getting on the same graph on the same page apparently.
Dean & Stott:
New Zealand seven station instrument temperature data defined (7SS, NZT7). And nothing at all like the BEST NZ series even after all the 7SS “adjustments”:
BEST: Regional Climate Change: New Zealand
http://berkeleyearth.lbl.gov/regions/new-zealand
http://berkeleyearth.lbl.gov/auto/Regional/TAVG/Figures/new-zealand-TAVG-Trend.png
Small wonder NIWA does not have the Dean & Stott 7SS up in lights.
The Dean & Stott 7SS from 1853 conforms to my EMD analysis of the 7SS from 1909 I did here at CCG a while back:
Dean & Stott 7SS from 1953
http://journals.ametsoc.org/na101/home/literatum/publisher/ams/journals/content/clim/2009/15200442-22.23/2009jcli2715.1/production/images/large/i1520-0442-22-23-6217-f01.jpeg
7SS from 1909: The EMD comparison with the anomalously cool years, 1912 and 1930, removed.
https://www.climateconversation.org.nz/pics/7ss-emd-trial-520.jpg
From NZ vs S. Hemisphere temperatures
https://www.climateconversation.org.nz/2011/01/nz-vs-s-hemisphere-temperatures/
Should be:
“Dean & Stott 7SS from [1853]”
>”Small wonder NIWA does not have the Dean & Stott 7SS up in lights.”
It WAS up in lights at NIWA. That version can be seen here:
Are we feeling warmer yet?
http://www.climateconversation.wordshine.co.nz/docs/awfw/are-we-feeling-warmer-yet.htm
From NIWA’s web site — Figure 7: Mean annual temperature over New Zealand, from 1853 to 2008 inclusive, based on between 2 (from 1853) and 7 (from 1908) long-term station records. The blue and red bars show annual differences from the 1971 – 2000 average, the solid black line is a smoothed time series, and the dotted [straight] line is the linear trend over 1909 to 2008 (0.92°C/100 years).
http://www.climateconversation.wordshine.co.nz/docs/awfw/Image1.gif
And it STILL IS up in lights at MfE:
‘Environment New Zealand 2007’
http://www.mfe.govt.nz/publications/environmental-reporting/environment-new-zealand-2007-chapter-8-atmosphere/introduction
Figure 8.1: New Zealand average surface temperature, 1853–2006
http://www.mfe.govt.nz/sites/default/files/pubs/7.4_0.jpg
Never went away in Dean & Stott either:
Dean and Stott (2009) Figure 1. Annual global mean surface temperature from the HadCRUT3v dataset (thick gray line) and annual mean temperature from the seven-station New Zealand temperature series (thin black line). The New Zealand temperature series is also shown after having a 20-point low-pass filter applied (thick black line).[1853 – 2006]
http://journals.ametsoc.org/na101/home/literatum/publisher/ams/journals/content/clim/2009/15200442-22.23/2009jcli2715.1/production/images/large/i1520-0442-22-23-6217-f01.jpeg
# # #
The 1853 7SS lives on.
NZCSC on unadjusted 7SS:
“The temperatures are remarkably constant way back to the 1850s. Of course, the temperature still varies from year to year, but the trend stays level—statistically insignificant at 0.06°C per century since 1850.”
MfE:
“a significant contribution to the [7SS] warming [since 1853] can be attributed to greenhouse gas increases (Dean & Stott, 2009).”
Maggy Wassilieff: Hidden staircase signal in recent climate dynamic, Belolipetsky et al. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/284879739_Hidden_staircase_signal_in_recent_climate_dynamic
“Staircase signal suggests the existence of some regulation mechanism in climate system. This mechanism should maintain global temperature adjusted for El Nino Southern Oscillation near stable in 1950-1987, 1988- 1997 and 1998-2014 periods nevertheless all the time growing forcing due to anthropogenic greenhouse gases.”
No, it doesn’t show the existence of any “hidden variables”. Earth is retaining more energy as shown by the clear upward trends in global mean surface temperatures, ocean temperatures, ice melting/being lost, rate sea level rise.
Making a staircase of the surface temperatures is nonsense. More junk science hailed by desperate deniers.
Hey, diddle, diddle,
Deniers on the fiddle
The loons are over the moon
The scientists laughed
To see such sport
And Maggy ran away with Magoon
Dear Magoon’
I know we haven’t been introduced, but if you are very, very rich, decrepit and desperate to offload your immense wealth on a runaway, then I’m a starter for a trip to exotic climes (to check out the weather, of course).
Sure thing Maggy, I’ll ditch the wife and book the trip to Tahiti right away (all in the name of science of course).
BTW: it’s Magoo, not Magoon – Dennis is an bumbling illiterate who can’t spell properly, and whose poetry resembles that of Blackadder’s Baldrick.
@Magoo
great, Wifey can tag along if she wants…. always handy to have someone carrying the bags.
My #1 hubby doesn’t travel, so no encumbrances, my end.
“it’s Magoo not Magoon – Dennis is an bumbling illiterate who can’t spell properly”
Sorry, Magoof.
LOL! Case in point ^^^^.
More recent papers discussing the melting of West Antarctica’s glaciers.
http://notrickszone.com/2016/10/13/scientists-climate-model-simulations-that-include-anthropogenic-forcing-are-not-compatible-with-observed-trends/