Everyday uses for the NZTR

1. Computer models that forecast the weather

Gareth Renowden at Hot Topic has finally lost whatever finger-nail grip he ever had on climate science.

He now claims (incredibly) that national temperature records “play no part in planning” since forecasts come from computer models, not carefully-kept historical records. It’s sad, really, that NIWA totally disagrees with him. And we shall prove it.

Continue Reading →

Views: 117

Critical debating points answered – Part 3

Environmental Modeling & Assessment

Wherein we rebut Points 7, 8 & 9

In What Mullan actually says on 7 November I answered the Hot Topic post Danger Dedekind heartbreak blah blah of 5 November, in which Mr Gareth Renowden, presumably advised by Dr Brett Mullan, principal climate scientist at NIWA, had levelled criticisms at the recently published reanalysis of the NZ temperature record. I set out to identify clear, falsifiable statements that Gareth Renowden (or Brett Mullan) was making. There were nine debating points, which you can find in What Mullan actually says. We promised every one would be rebutted. Continue Reading →

Views: 185

Critical debating points answered – Part 2

Environmental Modeling & Assessment

Wherein we rebut Points 4, 5 & 6

In What Mullan actually says on 7 November I answered the Hot Topic post Danger Dedekind heartbreak blah blah of 5 November, in which Mr Gareth Renowden, presumably advised by Dr Brett Mullan, principal climate scientist at NIWA, had levelled criticisms at the recently published reanalysis of the NZ temperature record. I set out to identify clear, falsifiable statements that Gareth Renowden (or Brett Mullan) was making. There were nine debating points, which you can find in What Mullan actually says. We promised every one would be rebutted. Continue Reading →

Views: 81

Critical debating points answered – Part 1

Environmental Modeling & Assessment

Wherein we rebut Points 1, 2 & 3

In What Mullan actually says on 7 November I answered the Hot Topic post Danger Dedekind heartbreak blah blah of 5 November, in which Mr Gareth Renowden, presumably advised by Dr Brett Mullan, principal climate scientist at NIWA, had levelled criticisms at the recently published reanalysis of the NZ temperature record. I set out to identify clear, falsifiable statements that Gareth Renowden (or Brett Mullan) was making. There were nine debating points, which you can find in What Mullan actually says. We promised every one would be rebutted. Continue Reading →

Views: 100

What Mullan actually says

In Renowden’s latest apologia at Hot Topic it is quite difficult to discern Brett Mullan’s arguments through the thicket of abuse and misdirection created by Renowden. But I think these are the debating points he’s trying to make, lined up with the passages in which he makes them.

Point 1

When he says:

Let me pose a question. What does Dedekind think Rhoades and Salinger were doing in their 1993 paper? Indulging in a purely theoretical exercise? In fact, they developed their techniques by working on what became the Seven Station Series (7SS), and from 1992 onwards the 7SS was compiled using RS93 methods properly applied.

We’ll call that Debating point 1. From 1992 onwards the 7SS was recalculated using the Rhoades & Salinger (1993) measurement techniques.

Continue Reading →

Views: 286

Hot Topic of hatred

First foray against Renowden’s latest polemic. There’ll be more.

Hot Topic keeps its hands grubby with another poisonous piece of writing. In Danger Dedekind! Heartbreak Ahead (still wrong, still digging, NZ still warming fast) Gareth Renowden first attacks Chris de Freitas:

Given de Freitas’ track record, it is unsurprising that I queried the peer review process at Environmental Modelling and Assessment.

No, it IS surprising, since it’s a completely different journal and Chris is not the editor. Continue Reading →

Views: 62

Analysis of Renowden’s analysis of our reanalysis

• Guest post •

— by Bob Dedekind

Introduction

I chuckled at Gareth Renowden’s attempt to rebut our paper, for two reasons: he makes many mistakes and whoever is feeding him bits of information seems to let him down.

I printed out and highlighted his mistakes so I could deal with them individually. However, when I had finished the whole article was one big highlighted blob, so I’ll focus just on the most glaring mistakes. Continue Reading →

Views: 260

Bite the second

toast-with-bite-660

Now for another bite…

Let me take a second bite at Gareth Renowden’s toxic commentary on the new national temperature reanalysis.

Remember that Renowden says in his vitriolic post:

dFDB 2014 repeats the old canard that NIWA’s Seven Station Series (7SS) before the 2010 review was based on the adjustments made in Jim Salinger’s 1981 thesis. This was … so transparently at odds with written reports and papers from 1992 onwards that it was easy for NIWA to refute.

There are two rebuttals I can make: Continue Reading →

Views: 106

Renowden on the reanalysis

Gareth Renowden posted comment on the new paper in what seems to be his customary style: unpleasant, vexing, offensive, loathsome and short on fact. Still, along the way he did venture some factoids which I shall rebut while ignoring the vexatious.

First, his article was headlined: NZ cranks finally publish an NZ temperature series – but their paper’s stuffed with errors. To the first phrase, I note that publishing a temperature series is clearly beyond him and, to the second, I say we’ll see about that. Continue Reading →

Views: 146

Paper adds interesting perspective on NZ temperature trend

Today a paper on the New Zealand temperature record (NZTR) was accepted by the journal 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. Continue Reading →

Views: 377