Real Climate Science

The Bathurst, NSW gaol kept temperature records from 1858 to 1983. Temperatures declined steadily during that period, as did the frequency of 100 degree days – which used to be quite common.

 COI | Centre for Ocean and Ice | Danmarks Meteorologiske Institut

January of 1896 was the hottest month in Australia’s history, with many consecutive days over 120 degrees at Gundabooka – near Bourke.  Mark Twain joked that it was very close to hell.

 

TimesMachine: August 18, 1896 – NYTimes.com

Summer temperatures in Bourke have plummeted since the 1870’s.

During the year 1900, nearly one day out of four in Bourke reached 100 degrees. The frequency of 100 degree days has decreased by two thirds.

Zeke insists that temperature anomalies will produce different patterns for the US than absolute temperatures. So I tried it out.

The anomaly graph is almost identical. This is calculated by averaging the daily anomalies of the min/max thermometer readings from each station relative to the monthly mean for that station.

I expected this result, because the US has an excellent, consistent temperature record – with a large enough sample size so that errors cancel out.

Days in Australia over 100 degrees used to be much more common.

Australia’s hottest year was 1878.

Deadly cell phones in the hands of teenagers kill thousands of people every year, and injure hundreds of thousands. If CNN devoted an hour to every cell phone massacre, that would be all they covered 24X7.

The number of people killed in distraction-affected crashes decreased slightly from 3,360 in 2011 to 3,328 in 2012. An estimated 421,000 people were injured in motor vehicle crashes involving a distracted driver, this was a nine percent increase from the estimated 387,000 people injured in 2011.

http://www.distraction.gov/content/get-the-facts/facts-and-statistics.html

It is clear that high capacity phones must be banned. Only six texts per day can be permitted.

Something is similar, and something is different about these two pictures.

2014

2007

Extra credit picture

The absolute temperature graphs I posted earlier show that there are some serious discontinuities in the Australian temperature record. There was a huge increase in the number of temperature readings, immediately after 1956.

Because the Australian record is so fragmented, I tried generating anomaly graphs (daily anomaly from the monthly mean at that station.) Here are a couple of interesting graphs, for maximum and minimum anomalies.

The maximum anomalies peaked in 1878, declined until the 1950s, and have been rising ever since.

Minimum anomalies have been rising steadily for the entire temperature record. Possible UHI effects.

What does it mean?

My previous analysis of Australia was incorrect. I wasn’t properly differentiating between stations with only precipitation data, and those with temperature data. That caused me to include stations with no temperature data in 1895.

The graph below shows the average station temperature at all 1650 Australia GHCN stations with temperature data. It creates the impression that Australia has cooled dramatically

But if I look at only the eight stations which have temperature records from both 1895 and 2014, it looks completely different. A large discontinuity around 1960.

I see a different discontinuity (at 1940) if I filter by stations active since 1960.

The only thing I can infer from this is that Australia cooled after the 1890s  and has warmed recently. I doubt that there is a valid way to make sense out of this data set. You could probably come to any conclusion you want by picking the right set of stations.

[UPDATE : This post is incorrect. I incorrectly included stations which had precipitation data back to 1895, but not necessarily temperature data. Ignore everything below, while I do further analysis]

There are 202 GHCN stations in Australia which were active in 1895, and were still active in 2013. They show Australia used to be much hotter, 1900 was the hottest year, and that BOM’s claim that 2013 was the “hottest year ever” was complete BS. It wasn’t even close.

Similar to the US, temperatures in Australia have been trending downwards for over a century. One interesting year is 1966, which was very cold in Australia.

List of stations below :

BIDYADANGA          
ROEBOURNE           
MARDIE              
DENHAM              
CUE                 
MURGOO              
CARNAMAH            
GERALDTON TOWN   
WALEBING            
ALBANY              
BUSSELTON SHIRE     
GOOMALLING          
KELLERBERRIN        
NORTHAM             
BEVERLEY            
KOJONUP        
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