Cooling Temperature Trend Establishing Across Northeastern Australia

Reblogged (with permission) fromJennifer Marohasy.com

The Hon Greg Hunt MP,
Minister for the Environment.

Dear Minister Hunt,

I wrote to you on 4th March 2014 with concerns that the claims made by the Bureau of Meteorology that 2013 was Australia’s hottest year on record, are somewhat deceptive. In that letter I explained that the official temperature record has been truncated to begin in 1910 (thereby excluding the hot years of the Federation drought) and that the method used to calculate the annual average temperature for Australia is not transparent.

I’ve since come to understand that the annual average temperature for 2013, which the Bureau claimed was a record, is in fact a wholly contrived valued based on modeling of temperatures, rather than the averaging of actual recorded values. That is, careful scrutiny of the Bureau’s methodology shows that recorded temperatures at locations across Australia are submitted to a two-step homogenization process that can have the effect of changing the entire temperature trend at specific locations. A weighted mean of these ‘homogenized’ values is then used in the calculation of the Australian annual mean temperature. In turn, the ‘homogenized’ values are used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which gives advice back to the Australian government on global and Australian temperature trends.

A problem with this approach is that it can deliver an impression of climate change which accords wholly with expectations. But, it is reality that Australians should be planning for, so it would be better if the Bureau used real data, rather than modeled output when reporting temperature trends. Indeed to quote Aldous Huxley, ‘Facts don’t cease to exist because they are ignored.’

At the invitation of the Sydney Institute, I will be giving a talk on 25th June 2014, that shows the detail of how this methodology is applied, using the locations of Bourke in western NSW and Amberley in Queensland as case studies. I encourage attendance from the Bureau to scrutinize my presentation for accuracy. Indeed, all Australians should have a clear understanding of the nature of the data used in the calculation of important and highly publicized temperature statistics. All Australians should also have access to a realistic assessment of current temperature trends.

Very recently it was brought to my attention that Graham Williamson wrote to Rob Vertessy, Director of Meteorology at the Bureau, also querying the claimed increase in temperatures. Mr Williamson, in his letter of 27th May 2014, specifically asked why the Bureau of Meteorology did not acknowledge the 15-year hiatus in global warming as detailed in the recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, Chapter 10, AR5). In reply to Mr Williamson, Neil Plummer from the Bureau has suggested that the IPCC is simply referring to a slow down in the rate of global warming, rather than a pause as such. Given the IPCC reports are based on temperature trends derived from ‘homogenized’ data, rather than real observational records, I am concerned that they may also not be giving a true picture of recent climate change. To reiterate, even the IPCC is using modeled output rather than real data.

As part of ongoing research into natural rainfall patterns in Queensland, Professor John Abbot and I have been studying the temperature record for northeastern Australia, as temperature is a key input variable in our neural network models (e.g. Abbot and Marohasy 2014). Considering the data from the late 1800s until 1960, a cooling trend is evident, followed by warming between 1960 and 2001. In contrast, the last 12 years show quite dramatic cooling, Table 1. All three periods have occurred while greenhouse gases, particularly carbon dioxide, have been increasing in concentration in the atmosphere.

Our analysis of the maximum temperature trend for the years 2002 to 2013 is based, not on the modeled temperature values used to generate official temperature statistics, but on the unadjusted observed temperatures also available from the Bureau of Meteorology website. The thirty-one sites across Queensland were chosen on the basis that there is a continual temperature record for the period 2002 to 2013 at each of the locations. We choose 2002 as the start date, as the data suggests a change in trend at about this year from warming to cooling. This is consistent with published studies by astrophysicists and physicists (e.g. Nicola Scafetta 2010, Abdussamatov 2012, and Lu 2013) and closely follows the timing of the last solar maximum (eg. NASA update 02/05/2014,http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/predict.shtml). While Table 1 is limited to Queensland, preliminary assessment of data from NSW, Victoria and the Northern Territory also suggests the onset of a cooling trend.

This information is in stark contrast to the information in the State of the Climate Report 2014 recently published by the Bureau and also CSIRO. The report states that “warming over Australia has been consistent” and temperatures are “projected to continue to increase, with more hot days and fewer extremely cool days.”

In order to reconcile the information in Table 1, with the claims in the State of the Climate Report 2014, it is important to realize that, like the calculation of the annual mean temperature for Australia, data present in the report is based wholly on modeled output. That is observed temperature values have been first passed through a two-step homogenization process involving the application of complex mathematical algorithms.

It is important to make a distinction between output from a computer model and real data. In his bookScience and Public Policy: The virtuous corruption of virtual environmental science Aynsley Kellow, Professor and Head of the School of Government at the University of Tasmania, shows through many examples, including from climate science, how a reliance on computer models over the last 30 years as well as the infusion of values, has produced a preference for virtual over observational data. But the Australian public and Australian industry deserve much better from the Bureau.

As an Australian scientist with a keen interest in public policy and temperature records, I ask you as the Minister ultimately responsible for the activities of the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, to consider how you might reconcile increasing atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide with a falling temperature trend, and what needs to be done if we are to adequately prepare as a nation for the possible onset of a period of sustained cooling.

Yours sincerely

Dr Jennifer Marohasy
Adjunct Research Fellow
Central Queensland University

Links/References

Letter from Jennifer Marohasy to Minister Greg Hunt, 4th March 2014
http://jennifermarohasy.com/questions-for-the-australian-bureau-of-meteorology/

John Abbot and Jennifer Marohasy, 2014. Input Selection and optimization for monthly rainfall forecasting in Queensland, Australia, using artificial neural networks, Atmospheric Research, Volume 138, Pages 166-178.

Nicola Scafetta, 2010. Empirical evidence for a celestial origin of the climate oscillations and its implications, Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics, Volume 72, Pages 951-970.

Habibullo I. Abdussamatov, 2012. Bicentennial decrease of the total solar irradiance leads to unbalanced thermal budget of the Earth and the Little Ice Age, Applied Physics Research, Volume 4. DOI: 10.5539/apr.v4n1p178

Qing-Bu Lu, 2013. Cosmic-ray driven reaction and greenhouse effect of halogenated molecules: culprits for atmospheric ozone depletion and global climate change, International Journal of Modern Physics B, Volume 27, DOI: 10.1142/S0217979213500732

Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO 2014, State of the Climate 2014 http://www.bom.gov.au/state-of-the-climate/documents/state-of-the-climate-2014_low-res.pdf?ref=button

Carbon credits turn to debt

Cate Stuart at Mount Morris

From the Australian

THE boxes are packed, the last of the cattle have been rounded up and the ute is loaded with chairs, saddles and tools.

Cate and Mark Stuart will be evicted from their historic Charleville cattle station, Mount Morris, on Thursday after rural lender Rabobank last year called in the receivers Ferrier Hodgson to ­recoup an outstanding debt of $2.6 million.

The Stuarts are heartbroken. But the tough outback family, which has run the 20,000ha far-west Queensland spread for the past six years, isn’t going without a fight. A very modern fight.

They say the bank has failed to recognise their wild and sprawling home is more than just a cattle farm: it is a carbon bank.

For the past four years, the ­Stuarts have worked with the specialist carbon farming company Australian Carbon Traders to capture and store carbon on 5000ha of their mulga tree ­reserves.

They planned to earn up to $400,000 every three years in valuable carbon credit payments.

But the bank is blocking the carbon-storage scheme’s go-ahead on Mount Morris, even though the Stuarts say the project is eligible for verified credits under the federal government’s Carbon Farming Initiative.

Rabobank says the problem with carbon farming is that it ties up farmland for too long.

In emails sent to the Stuarts, the bank states that it views the stored carbon mulga reserves, set aside for 100 years under federal government rules, as effectively a liability if the property was to be sold in the future. The bank does not see the carbon as an asset.

It’s an issue that goes to the heart of the Abbott government’s commitment to direct action as the best way to tackle climate change. The Carbon Farming Initiative is designed to benefit farmers and sequester carbon in soils and trees to cut carbon in the atmosphere.

For Cate Stuart, it is a situation that would be ludicrous — if it were not so tragic. “Here we are trying to do the right thing and store carbon in our mulga trees under the CFI, which is just what the Liberal Party, the Nationals, Labor and the Greens all say we should be doing, and the banks aren’t letting us do it,” she says.

“All we were trying to do is diversify our own income stream using mulga reserves on the property to store carbon, while at the same time looking after the land; instead we get thrown off our farm and our whole family is broken up.”

She sees Rabobank is doubly liable for their current financial woes. Not only did the bank refuse to give its approval to allow the mulga reserve scheme to go ahead on Mount Morris, but it also then blocked recognition of any potential income from carbon credits in its assessment of the farm’s financial viability.

Australian Carbon Traders chief executive Ben Keogh says the problem is being experienced by farmers across Australia. “This is a perfectly legitimate way of farming and an alternate land use that is a perfect fit for farmers in many of Australia’s drier zones,” says Mr Keogh.

“But the banks don’t see carbon farming as a serious way of earning income; they don’t think carbon credits will ever happen and so they don’t allow the systems to be proven and legitimised on properties where they hold a mortgage.”

Rabobank’s country banking chief, Peter Knoblanche, denies that his bank has any policy categorically opposed to all carbon farming projects on rural properties. While he did not know the specifics of the Mount Morris case, such carbon storage schemes were difficult for banks to handle. “It’s an interesting and complex topic and each proposal is different; but because land is often locked up under these schemes for such long periods of time, like the current 100-year rule, it does have the potential to restrict the other uses the land might be put to by future buyers if the farm is sold.”

The Australian Bankers Association recently held talks with the federal government to voice its concerns about the impact of carbon farming on farm valuations and long-term viability.

A spokesman for federal Environment Minister Greg Hunt said the government was establishing a 25-year option in addition to the current 100-year carbon farming rule. “This should significantly deal with some of the restrictions created by Labor’s insistence on an unrealistic 100-year requirement (for verified carbon storage projects),” the spokesman said.

Mr Keogh says the scale of the mulga tree carbon storage possible on Mount Morris is immense. In the past three years, the 5000ha of the Stuart’s mulga scrub regenerated to produce an extra four tonnes per hectare of timber or stored carbon.

At current rates of $20 a tonne, the price is current until February next year. Under previous government rules, the Stuarts were in line for a windfall of $400,000 in their first payment — if their bank had agreed to the project being formalised. Instead, project approvals are so limited that just 4.7 million credits worth $9.4m have been generated under the government’s vaunted Carbon Farming Initiative so far, to be sold back into the Emissions Reduction Fund.

Cate Stuart says all the excitement about carbon farming is now little solace for her family. With growing healthy mulga trees on her farm, but no carbon payment cheques flowing in, the receivers drove up her front drive last month, asking for the farm keys.

“We have tried to do the right thing and be good stewards of the land; instead we have lost everything we owned.”