Fisking Ken Perrott over NIWA defence

Former agricultural scientist turned artist Ken Perrott has been making a big song and dance defending the integrity of NIWA's temperature analysis, albeit in a negative rather than positive fashion.

By that I mean that Perrott has offered no information that positively reinforces NIWA's methods or conclusions, but rather relies on trying to debunk NIWA's critics over alleged errors in their own report on NIWA's failings. What follows is a 6500 word analysis of this flawed attempt to divert attention.

In a nutshell, the Climate Science Coalition published an article questioning NIWA's claims of NZ warming, after comparing the published "adjusted" figures with the raw unadjusted data – the latter showing no significant warming trend.

Perrott has now posted his email correspondence with the CSC:

I am preparing an article on the current dispute your coalition has with NIWA scientists. It will be discussing the science of the "adjustment" issue. I need clarification on some comments on your report "Are we warmer yet?" To ensure I treat the issue fairly I need some clarification of some issues.

 

Your report says: "First, the station histories are unremarkable. There are no reasons for any large correction." This is a key point, I hope you agree, so I wish to find out what evidence your coalition used

to make this conclusion.

 

Specifically:

1: Was any statistical analysis (e.g. ANOVA) done on the raw data to test for the effect of station site?

2: If so could you please send me a copy of the output?

3: What scientific input did you have (names and scientific experience of authors) for the report?

4: Was there any review process for the report – and if so can you describe it and say who your reviewers were and there qualifications?

To put Perrott's challenge in context requires a little bit more text than he provided.

Yes, the CSC report stated: "What did we find? First, the station histories are unremarkable. There are no reasons for any large corrections." But the qualifier to this poorly anchored statement is in fact in the CSC report a couple of paragraphs further down, where Richard Treadgold writes:

"There is nothing in the station histories to warrant these adjustments [my italics] and to date Dr Salinger and NIWA have not revealed why they did this."

It becomes obvious that Treadgold is relying on NIWA's website for an explanation of the adjustments, and wasn't able to find one.

Indeed, as Ken Perrott's "emails" document shows, Treadgold makes this very point in his initial response to Perrott's questions:

"We examined NIWA's material from their web site. There is no evidence in that material supporting the need for large adjustments, or any adjustments. They do not discuss the types of adjustments required, give a list of such adjustments or even mention adjustments. They do not say that adjustments should be made or that any were made. They give no reason at all to suspect that the graph published there does not come from the raw data they make available. We noticed for ourselves that their raw data does not produce the graph they publish."

So as a point of fact number one, the key point is actually that NIWA had published a graph showing a very strong warming trend over New Zealand without disclosing anywhere near that graph that the claim was based on adjusted data. In other words, NIWA was disingenuously misleading school students, academics, the public or anyone else who casually read that page on their site. [Disclosure, I have not chased back to the cached pages involved, I am taking CSC at their word when they insist it wasn't there. If Ken can show it was, I will concede the point]

Treadgold then tells Perrott why he is concerned about this lack of open disclosure as to the source of the warming data:

"This gives reason for suspicion, in some people, that adjustments might have been made for political rather than for scientific reasons. We have however raised some reasonable questions for NIWA in one of our media releases. To summarise, we are asking NIWA to tell us what precise adjustments were made, when, and what exactly were they for. Also, what gives them confidence that these seven stations alone properly represent the whole country? So far they have not answered these reasonable and simple questions.

"If NIWA wish to allay suspicions over their graph, they have only to immediately publish the adjustments, their reasons and why they chose these seven stations.

In answer to your questions:

1. No.

3. and 4. We cannot avoid noticing that these questions are not directed to the statements in our study. Instead they ask about the authors. But our qualifications are not relevant to our study or the questions arising from it, because scientific expertise was neither claimed nor required. Anybody could have done this study, we were just the first to do so. We are asking as citizens for details of public records and we need no other qualification than that of citizen to do that. The membership of the NZCSC includes several well-known climate scientists, some of whom have read our study, but that is of only slight interest in an informal study such as ours. Of course, when the adjustments are released, qualified scientists will examine them immediately.

If you have any further questions about the contents of our study, please don't hesitate to get in touch again. We hope this response helps with your balanced article, which we look forward to reading.

Regards,

Richard Treadgold, Convenor, Climate Conversation Group."

Now, again a second fundamental point arises. Was Treadgold required to do a full scientific analysis of NIWA's climate data (without access to all the relevant information held by NIWA), in publishing a report challenging NIWA to come clean about the temp records?

I argue no. NIWA was the agency making the positive claim of strong warming on its website. As in all matters for logical debate, the burden of proof falls on the party making the positive claim, not on those challenging it. NIWA had failed to disclose all relevant information behind its claim. Treadgold and others, as citizens, were entitled to ask why given the apparent contradiction between NIWA's graph and the raw data available on its site.

Perrott, however, takes the aggressive view that it is up to the CSC to provide the full peer-reviewed scientific analysis, not NIWA. He suggests, for example, that the CSC should have done statistical ANOVA (analysis of variance) tests on the NIWA data.

The problem in Perrott's logic as I see it however (and I stand to be corrected), is that without access to the full adjustment records, reasons and dates an ANOVA test is academic; the CSC would be no closer to knowing exactly why the samples were trending differently, if at all. ANOVA would confirm differences and the degree of difference, but not the reasons.

Nonetheless, this lack of testing, and indeed lack of "peer review" as Perrott considers it, on Treadgold's article, is swiftly built into the key issue as Perrott sees it. For him, the burden of proof is not on NIWA but its critics. NIWA data is to be accepted at face value, unchallenged, apparently simply on the basis that Perrott trusts NIWA.

He even says so elsewhere on his blog;

"The great thing about the scientific process, the fact that ideas and conclusions are checked against reality, the fact that conclusions get reviewed by colleagues and competitors, means that we can place a lot of reliance on scientific findings. There is an ethos of honesty that is just not present in other areas. That's why the public is prepared to place so much reliance on science. One would not place the same reliance on a policeman, a pastor, a priest, etc"

So in his next reponse to Treadgold, Perrott writes:

"Re questions 3 and 4. They were aimed at assessing the degree of normal scientific checking put into the report. I will take from your answer that you didn't use a procedure of requesting scientists, either in your organisation or external independent researchers, to read and comment on the report before finalising it. Similar to the institutional refereeing that is normally used in scientific and commercial reports."

In an exchange with me on his own website, Perrott elaborates on why he thinks an ANOVA stats test was important:

"The only sloppy work I see at the moment is the denier report you have been promoting. They either didn't do the stat analysis to test for station site effects (which would be very sloppy science), or they did and didn't report it because it would have shown an effect and therefore a requirement for site adjustments. If the last is the case they are dishonest because they claim no site effects"

Well, no, not exactly. As we've established they were correctly pointing out that NIWA had made no disclosure as to reasons for significant temperature adjustments, and the published station histories on the site were unremarkable. (For the purposes of this post by the way I am not going back through NIWA's site independently to dig through what was there or wasn't there. If Perrott can point to information accessible on the NIWA site back in November that discloses full station histories and full details of all adjustments and reasons for those then I'll concede this particular point. I am unaware of one).

So Perrott in launching his ongoing attacks has twisted the words of Treadgold and taken him out of context, in my view.

In response to Perrott's assertion that Treadgold had done no scientific analysis, Treadgold writes:

"Your initial comments here trouble me. You take from the answer what you wish to take, but that is not our answer. Please note our comment "Anybody could have done this study, we were just the first to do so. We are asking as citizens for details of public records and we need no other qualification than that of citizen to do that." We would observe that our study did not need any "normal scientific checking" -- just as the report you are writing needs no "scientific" checking. Certainly, the lack of "scientific" checking does not invalidate any of the statements we make."

If one were to require that anyone who challenged a scientist to produce their data and methodology had to themselves be a scientist, then you are essentially advocating government by technocrats under the worldview of Scientism. Anyone has the right to challenge a scientist making claims, and ask them to produce their proof. Especially when those scientists are taxpayer funded and their work has massive financial impact on taxpayers.

When Perrott says on his own website "I do have to rely on the expertise of others. I am not so arrogant as to think that I know better than the experts when it comes to the details", he is assuming that they deserve the title "experts" and is really asking all the rest of us simply to trust the men in white coats.

Yet as Climategate has shown, you can't.

"Some scientists have started to ask that question," reported the Wall Street Journal this week. "The U.K.-based Institute of Physics recently told the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee that "unless the disclosed e-mails are proved to be forgeries or adaptations, worrying implications arise for the integrity of scientific research in this field and for the credibility of the scientific method as practised in this context." It added that its concerns go "well beyond the CRU itself—most of the e-mails were exchanged with researchers in a number of other international institutions who are also involved in the formulation of the IPCC's conclusions on climate change."

Indeed. Institutions like NIWA were part of the Climategate email exchanges.

And what confidence can any of us have in the peer review of Climate Science, when Professor Phil Jones has admitted he was never once asked to provide his data or methodology when his work was "peer reviewed" by top journals like Science and Nature, which may be one of the reasons that some of his studies are now confirmed as dodgy and facing corrections. Jones has himself reviewed more than 250 other papers by "leading climate scientists" and presumably never double checked their data or methodology either.

Ironic that Perrott demands NIWA's critics jump through hoops, while defending NIWA from such scrutiny.

Having set up his diversionary horse – that the CSC were not entitled to ask NIWA to prove their claims without first getting their own article peer reviewed – Perrott proceeds to ride it for all it's worth, next sending off an email to CSC scientist Dr Vincent Gray:

"Richard told me "The membership of the NZCSC includes several well-known climate scientists, some of whom have read our study." However, I am surprised that any scientifically competent people would have let this report through as it is. I am wondering if Richard was just being evasive (and that no one reviewed the report) or if it did get to any scientist. Did you get a chance to review the report? Or do you know of any scientist who did? Can you comment on the scientific credibility of this "research paper?"

Remember, the correct burden of proof fell on NIWA to substantiate its claimed NZ warming trend in the face of a conflict with its own raw data, but Perrott is now putting the CSC on the back-foot by suggesting it is their problem, not NIWA's.

Gray responds generally:

"I am a member of the New Zealand Climate Science coalition and the paper "Are we Feeling Warmer Yet" was circulated for approval to myself, and to several other well-qualified scientists. The material in it is genuine, and it confirms some of my own long expressed suspicions about the quality of the claims for "warming" made by the New Zealand National Institute for Water and Air Research. The data presented are publicly available to anybody who cares to check them.

"I am myself involved currently in a further investigation of this affair.

"We are currently awaiting an answer from NIWA to a request under the Official Information Act for details of the "corrections" they have made to their measured temperature records which appear to show a warming trend which is not evident in the original records Cheers, Vincent Gray"

Perrott, thinking his trap has snapped shut, fires back:

"Thanks for the quick reply Vincent. And for confirming that the paper in question was approved by you and several others. As I said Richard seemed to be vague about this."

No, he wasn't vague. Richard Treadgold had clearly stated to Perrott:

"We are asking as citizens for details of public records and we need no other qualification than that of citizen to do that. The membership of the NZCSC includes several well-known climate scientists, some of whom have read our study, but that is of only slight interest in an informal study such as ours. Of course, when the adjustments are released, qualified scientists will examine them immediately."

Fair point really. It was NIWA that had trumpeted a big warming trend, yet a combination of its raw station data showed nothing significant. If and when NIWA explained its data and methodology, then there could be some intelligent testing and analysis. Remember, the burden of proof was always NIWA's.

Perrott's email to Gray continues:

"My concern is about the scientific input and mistakes in this paper so I am interested in your take as a reviewer/approver of it. Both my and David Winter's blogs assessing this paper point to the lack of statistical, or indeed, any checking on the possibility of site effects in the raw data. Our point is that this should have been checked before combining the data from different stations and certainly before making the statement:

"the station histories are unremarkable. There are no reasons for any large corrections." (my emphasis). Even the limited look I and David had at the data shows that statement to be unwarranted. So I would like to know what your reason was for not advising this and similar statements be removed from the paper – and indeed not advising that the figure derived from combining the data be removed."

Gray, perhaps relying on the email exchange and trusting Perrott to properly provide the context, answered thus:

"I must admit I should have questioned the statement There are no reasons for any large corrections, but I understand that NIWA have assured the authors of this paper that no such adjustments have been made. We are awaiting a reply to our request for information on the subject. I suggest that you take up any other matters that worry you with the authors.

"The combination of the raw data seems to have been done satisfactorily and you could confirm this yourself if you wish."

But let's return to the leading question that apparently "forced" Gray to admit he should have asked more questions. The claim, as carried in Perrott's email, implies that the CSC believes there are categorically "no reasons for any large corrections", yet as I pointed out earlier the qualifier to that statement was the sentence a moment later:

"There is nothing in the station histories [published on NIWA's site] to warrant these adjustments [my italics] and to date Dr Salinger and NIWA have not revealed why they did this."

You'll recall Treadgold elaborated on this is his first email response to Perrott, which conveniently was not quoted back to Vincent Gray as part of the context.

"We examined NIWA's material from their web site. There is no evidence in that material supporting the need for large adjustments, or any adjustments. They do not discuss the types of adjustments required, give a list of such adjustments or even mention adjustments. They do not say that adjustments should be made or that any were made. They give no reason at all to suspect that the graph published there does not come from the raw data they make available. We noticed for ourselves that their raw data does not produce the graph they publish."

It is fair comment that Treadgold did not make it totally obvious in his original report that his comments were based on NIWA's site. Yet despite that failure to properly clarify what he meant beyond ALL doubt, it was still implicit to any reasonable reader that it was based on NIWA's lack of information.

For instance, the second paragraph of their report says it is based on "a simple check of publicly-available information", and then spells out that they went to the NIWA website for this purpose.

They add further in the report that they had tried for years to get details of adjustments but were given the run-around:

"We compared raw data for each station (from NIWA's web site) with the adjusted official data, which we obtained from one of Dr Salinger's colleagues. Requests for this information from Dr Salinger himself over the years, by different scientists, have long gone unanswered"

So again, although not explicitly laid out to a courtroom standard, it is clear enough that details of the adjustments were not fully disclosed on the NIWA site at the time the CSC prepared its report. Ordinary citizens trying to replicate the warming trend appearing in NIWA's graph would not have been able to do so. To ask the question "why?" remains entirely legitimate.

Vincent Gray, however, appears to have been sufficiently spooked by Perrott's twisting of the facts to write a further email to Perrott:

"Please understand that all of us are thrashing around in the dark, picking up clues about what might be going on and making mistakes in the process. Those running the show have superb facilities in terms of money, staff, institutions and public approbation and they sit on most of most of their knowledge and only release what they choose.

"I have had a long career in science and have published well over 100 papers in respectable scientific journals, I have been working on the greenhouse thing for 20 years for no fee, dependent only on what they are prepared to release to the public. The internet has been a godsend, but I have only recently realised that much of the data and of its interpretation has been slanted or even cooked"

To which Perrott responds:

"I hear what you are saying about how easy it is to make mistakes. However, in this case the mistake has caused a lot of confusion, misunderstanding – and dishonest propaganda for some. I have been shocked art the way NZ has been portrayed by conspiracy theorists like Wishart – and the resulting headlines in overseas publications."

Pause for a moment, not because of Perrott's predictable rant against yours truly but because of his statement:

"In this case the mistake has caused a lot of confusion, misunderstanding – and dishonest propaganda for some"

I'm sorry, I must have missed Perrott's coup de grace somewhere. What "mistake"? What has Perrott actually shown in his email correspondence so far to be a "mistake"?

He continues, and I wait in vain for the denouement. It never comes.

"To me it is basic that a scientist should be honest when these mistakes are made. In this case I think your organisation, or the individuals responsible for that paper (Richard claims that his "scientific team" requires anonymity) should "bite the bullet" and admit their mistake. (While I can accept an admission of a mistake in a private email to be genuine it really has to be as public as the original paper was).

"Not to do so conveys the impression that it was not a mistake but a deliberate attempt to convey incorrect information – and to slander honest scientists. It is the later issue which concerns me. I have no investment in the climate change issue – one way or the other. I will accept the science as I understand it."

Those who know Ken Perrott's writings will be rolling all over the floor at his "I have no investment in the climate change issue" howler. Unfortunately, having badgered poor old Vincent Gray into wondering if there was a "mistake" somewhere, Perrott now pounces trumpeting Gray's "admission" of a mistake left right and centre, like here:

"I have email correspondence with their scientist Vincent Gray who admits that was a mistake. He was charged with vetting their report and admits he should have pulled them up on that."

It's almost like a climate alarmist version of "Pooh and Piglet go in search of Woozles". Perrott would make an extremely poor investigator in my view. Master of the leading question, and not interested in the context of the answer or whether in effect he had put words in someone's mouth.

Of course, Perrott is guilty of the same written imprecision that he accuses Treadgold of. The "mistake" of which he speaks is laid out in his comment to me:

"Ian - this whole beat-up is fallacious. The Climate Science Coalition was caught out doing shonky work in their report. They combined data from different sites without checking for possible site effects. In fact they claimed adjustment for site effects was not required - a simple look at the data would have shown that was wrong! This report is discredited"

Great, except the truth is the CSC combined data from NIWA's raw site feed on the NIWA website. The CSC stated it could find no reasons on the NIWA website that spelt out precisely what adjustments had been made, when and why. The whole gist of their article was that NIWA had adopted the bureaucratic approach to data requests perfected by the local borough council in Douglas Adams' Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy, when officials preparing to bulldoze Arthur Dent's house explained the destruction had been well publicised. Dent checked, and eventually found the council notice in a basement filing cabinet in a room with no lights behind a door with a sign reading "beware of the leopard".

Of course NIWA must have reasons for making the adjustments, and those reasons must be somewhere. NIWA has for the most part refused to make it easy for researchers to access those reasons.

As NIWA's David Wratt angrily told me:

"Well, we're not going to run around in circles just because somebody has put out a press release. We will continue to put out what is reasonable to provide."

"Wouldn't it be important –"

"No!"

"…for people to see the comparison studies between both sites?"

"Look, we're talking about scientific studies here. I've told you we'll put out information about Wellington. Basically it's not up to us to justify ourselves to a whole lot of people that come out with truly unfounded allegations. We work through the scientific process, we publish stuff through the literature, that's the way that we deal with this stuff and I can't have my staff running around in circles over something which is not a justified allegation. The fact that the Climate Science Coalition are making allegations about my staff who have the utmost integrity really really pisses me off.

"That's all I've got to say to you now – [click]"

Except, it was NIWA who'd been caught making claims of extraordinary warming in New Zealand, above the global average. When challenged to put up the proof, Wratt and his mates ran for cover.

The scientific studies quoted by NIWA and subsequently by Ken Perrott don't, by all accounts, comprehensively cover specific adjustments made to all sites. Again, the claim is a whitewash.

Perrott and others, have attempted to divert attention away from NIWA's misleading data by trying to claim the CSC report made a major error in failing to do their own statistical analysis of the sites.

Again, this shifts the burden of proof, but more to the point, what would such an analysis have achieved? How, precisely, is it germane to the very obvious fact that NIWA was using an adjusted data graph (without disclosing the significance of the adjustments on that page) whilst their own raw data was telling a different story. Both data lines were being offered to the general public.

Treadgold is correct. As a taxpaying citizen he had a right to show the contrasting figures, and ask NIWA for an explanation.

A stats analysis might have shown temperature trends, but it sure as heck would not have uncovered the reasons. And it is the reasons that we all want answers to.

Significantly, and neither Perrott nor Renowden have dealt with this, meteorologist Jim Hessell published a peer reviewed study in 1980 on the state of New Zealand's temperature stations, and whether they were showing a warming trend since 1930. His conclusion was that the temp stations were a dog's breakfast for the most part – badly sited, badly maintained, affected by a whole host of man-caused warming agents.

It is ironic that some of the stations criticised as worthless by the Met Service have somehow become stars of the warming trend series trumpeted by NIWA in 2010.

Yet ignoring this totally, Perrott persisted in claiming the burden of proof was on the CSC to explain their own methodology. In an email in February he wrote to Treadgold asking for:

"What data you used to establish a 1970-2000 average?

• How do you handle the fact that there is no data for all that period from some of the stations?

• Did you just use the 1970-200 averages calculated by NIWA?

• Did you calculate the 1970-2000 Data after combining all the sites?

• How did you combine data for all the sites? Did you just take a simple average of available data or did you reconstruct data for times they were not available?

• If you used the reconstruction method, could you describe how this was done?

• If you used the averaging method how did you compensate for missing sites at earlier times?

Actually, a copy of your spreadsheet would probably clarify your procedures for me."

What a pity Perrott applied none of this rigour to nailing NIWA for proof of its own methodology. The irony of this is apparently lost on Perrott.

Initially, Treadgold agreed to provide a spreadsheet of the information they'd downloaded from NIWA's site and how they'd combined it, but after a fiery series of exchanges on their blog sites Treadgold withdrew his cooperation on the grounds of not liking Perrott's "two personas" – polite in the emails but abusive on the blogs.

"Thanks for the confirmation that you will not send me the spreadsheet you promised," wrote Perrott on February 22^nd.

"I assume it also applies to my general request for information on methodology used. I'll do my best to second guess the methodology in my analysis. At least no-one can say I made no attempt to get the information."

Again, rich considering the same complaint was at the heart of the CSC challenge to NIWA:

"We compared raw data for each station (from NIWA's web site) with the adjusted official data, which we obtained from one of Dr Salinger's colleagues. Requests for this information from Dr Salinger himself over the years, by different scientists, have long gone unanswered".

Not to be left out, NIWA hit back at the CSC report. NIWA claimed it had told Vincent Gray back in 2006 of the need to make adjustments for some of the featured sites. Nevertheless, that information was not easily accessible:

"The methodology for adjusting for site changes in the NZ temperature record was published in the peer-reviewed International Journal of Climatology in 1993. NIWA referred Dr Vincent Gray of the NZ Climate Science Coalition to this paper on 19 July 2006.

Reference:

Rhoades, D.A. and Salinger, M.J., 1993: Adjustment of temperature and rainfall measurements for site changes. International Journal of Climatology 13, 899 – 913."

General methodology yes. Precise details regarding each site, no.

"NIWA provided Dr Salinger's adjusted temperature series (anomalies compared with 1961–1990 averages) for each of the seven stations, to NZ Climate Science Coalition member Warwick Hughes on 19 July 2006. Information about changes to the seven station sites is documented in a publicly-available report published by the NZ Meteorological Service in 1992, and much of this information is also available from the metadata in the climate database."

In response, the CSC claims NIWA is exaggerating the significance of the data it passed on to them:

"The most senior scientists in the CSC, including Dr Vincent Gray and Dr Warwick Hughes, had first asked for the SOA(Schedule of Adjustments) in the early 1980s. Dr Jim Salinger was the scientist they asked, since it was he who worked on the time series and adjusted the data. Vincent and Warwick wondered how he had done the work and asked to have a look. Salinger said you can't have the data. For 30 years he said no. Then, about a year ago, he was fired from NIWA. Now perhaps they would not be denied. But there was no longer anyone at NIWA who knew how the Salinger adjustments had been made and it would be embarrassing to admit they didn't even have them.

"In their press releases, NIWA said: For more than two years, New Zealand Climate Science Coalition members have known of "the need to adjust" the "seven station" data. The "methodology" for adjusting for site changes in the NZ temperature record was published in the peer-reviewed International Journal of Climatology in 1993. Dr Salinger's "adjusted temperature series" for each of the seven stations was provided to NZ Climate Science Coalition member Warwick Hughes on 19 July 2006. "Information about changes" to the seven station sites is documented in a publicly-available report. NIWA posted the "adjusted temperature series" on-line.

"On and on it went, but none of these statements told us the actual adjustments or where to find them. Of course, they wished to obscure the simple fact that they couldn't say anything about the actual adjustments, because they didn't know what they were. There was no SOA. It was Salinger's secret."

Indeed, NIWA has admitted under the Official Information Act it holds no overall Schedule of Adjustments or original documentation on adjustments to temperature sites. New Zealanders are simply required to trust NIWA when it claims to be on top of everything.

As if to further cement their fate in the public eye, NIWA claimed to have found 11 untainted weather stations whose records proved strong warming in NZ.

"Dr Jim Salinger has identified from the NIWA climate archive a set of 11 stations with long records where there have been no significant site changes. When the annual temperatures from all of these sites are averaged to form a temperature series for New Zealand, the best-fit linear trend is a warming of 1°C from 1931 to 2008. More information:"

What's interesting is that at least two of those "11 stations with long records where there have been no significant site changes" are in fact damned in the Hessell paper from 1980 as being unreliable because of site changes.

The sites chosen for the untainted 11 are Raoul Island, Tauranga Airport, Ruakura (Hamilton), Gisborne Airport, Chateau Tongariro, Palmerston North DSIR/AgResearch, Westport Airport, Molesworth, Queenstown, Invercargill Airport and Campbell Island.

However, Hessell said Palmerson North had "unsatisfactory records between 1930 and 1970", while his study found Queenstown was substantially affected by urban/man made site changes.

So much for NIWA's 11-series and Salinger's assurance of "no significant site changes".

Of course, the original "NZ is warming" graph was based on seven stations:

• Auckland
• Masterton
• Wellington
• Hokitika
• Nelson
• Lincoln
• Dunedin

"These locations were chosen," says NIWA, "because they provide broad geographical coverage and long records (with measurements started at all sites by 1908)"

Yet six of those seven are damned by Hessell as unreliable.

The Dunedin and Hokitika sites are ruled out for unsatisfactory records between 1930 and 1970, whilst a further four were influenced by urban heat island effect or increased sheltering by trees, or site changes.

I asked Vincent Gray for comment on those four:

"Auckland Albert Park is given detailed treatment by Hessell to show it is unsuitable, not only in Table 3 where it is given an "A" rating, meaning increased sheltering by trees, but he shows in Table 2 that the screen change in 1950 caused a change in the range of maximum and minimum of 0.76ºC

"Wellington Kelburn is also one of the chosen seven which is given an "A" rating by Hessell as affected by increased shelter

"Christchurch Gardens is also rated by Hessell as "A". Bob Dedekind's Report says that the Christchurch of the chosen seven  was shifted around, but seems to be the same one rated by Hessell

 "Queenstown  is also rated "A" by Hessell. There is only one Queenstown listed in the1960 N Z Met Office list, so it must be the same one as the chosen one"

 So, NIWA's prime graph proving NZ warming is based on a station sample whose records were found in a 1980 peer reviewed study to be worthless. Worse, NIWA's backup graph featuring 11 stations supposedly untainted is also debunked after at least two of its stations were named in the 1980 paper as unreliable.

Not looking good for NIWA, or Perrott, or Renowden.

Now, as a final aspect to this daft attempt at a diversion by Perrott, let's recap the facts and add one new line of inquiry.

Firstly, it was NIWA claiming strong warming over NZ. The burden of proof always rested with NIWA no matter how much Perrott protests, but details of how and why each site was adjusted each time were not made readily available.

Perrott claimed the CSC should face the burden of proof instead, and wanted to know why the CSC had failed to run their own statistical analysis of the raw data which would, in his view, have disclosed trends.

Indeed, it would have, but as I have repeatedly said it would offer nothing of substance unless the CSC had the complete adjustment records for each site, which they didn't and that was in fact why they were asking.

Perrott treated CSC's failure to statistically analyse the data as a "mistake...fundamental" to the argument, yet in the same breath saw no problem in NIWA's refusal to front up with full data. The CSC, or indeed a child at primary school, are equally entitled to ask NIWA, "Hey, your warming graph doesn't match the raw data on your site, we can't find an explanation, what's going on?"

Perrott and Renowden have both muddied the waters by claiming that the CSC was making a positive statement that there was no need for site adjustments, when the text correctly interpreted shows they were clumsily trying to say they couldn't find any documented reasons for significant adjustments.

Perrott has attempted to beat me around the ears over the CSC's alleged fundamental "mistake" when in my view it wasn't a mistake nor was it relevant to the line of inquiry I had followed almost since day one: that the statistical methodology NIWA has now disclosed is seriously flawed.

My reasons for that analysis are here.

Perrott has failed to answer any of my challenges in regard to this since November 2009. He has also failed to engage on the Hessell paper. http://www.investigatemagazine.com/hessell1980.pdf

As for my own feelings about site adjustments, I blogged the day the story broke back on November 26 that there may well be good reasons for site adjustments, but that they need to be fully disclosed.

MY COMMENT AS BLOGGER: Without the baseline comparisons between the weather sensors at one site and then the other, the public and researchers remain in the dark as to whether the adjustments fairly reflect the changed locations. We don't even know when the adjustments were finally applied. There is nothing wrong with making adjustments, but without transparency it is largely meaningless and unable to be peer reviewed

It took Perrott five months to realise I had said that right from the beginning.

Comments

[CrisisMaven]

As I see you are mentioning statistical research: I have put one of the most comprehensive link lists for hundreds of thousands of statistical sources and indicators on my blog: Statistics Reference List. And what I find most fascinating is how data can be visualised nowadays with the graphical computing power of modern PCs, as in many of the dozens of examples in these Data Visualisation References. If you miss anything that I might be able to find for you or if you yourself want to share a resource, please leave a comment.

[Ken]

Readers whop wish to read the orignal "deniergate" emails can download them here emails.

That will give you a flavour for how these deniers manouvered, lied and diverted to avoid exposing the shoddy work in this discredited "paper."

[Linda Reid]

Ken, NIWA needs to reveal exactly why and how adjustments to raw temperature data were made.

I am happy to reveal I have absolutely no science qualifications at all.

I am simply a New Zealand taxpayer who is being asked to pay more for power and petrol (and all the other flow-on effects) because scientists say the world is warming up, this is a bad thing for us, and we're to blame.

So I think it's reasonable that the data and adjustments that you believe shows NZ is warming up is revealed in full.

That's all.

Anything else you say is simply unimportant to me.

[Philip Rickerby]

Slightly off topic but interesting - “It is reportedly the worst Baltic freeze for 15 years.” http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8550687.stm

Philip

[Peter]

You just got your butt handed to you Ken, but you cannot help yourself. "deniergate" you sad person. Sticking your fingers in your ears and going "la,la,la,la" Does not make the fact that you were dishonest go away.

If no one else will say it Ken I will. you are a liar and a fraud. Niwa released the report. The onus is on them to provide the workings and the reasons for the adjustments. You are fraudulently trying to shift the focus from them.

[TimM]

Well said Linda, we all have a vested interest in ensuring the veracity of this science. In this instance Kiwis are paying twice - first by funding NIWA and secondly from the increases to our living costs as a result of their claims. It is reasonable to demand transparency and in particular for NIWA to justify their adjustments.
Ken's behavour is unprofessional. It is like trying to explain to a child that you know he's lying, yet the child's defense is to create more lies.

[TimM]

Ken, I've read through the 'deniergate' emails. They clearly show that there was no 'mistake' as you say. The obvious issue is that NIWA have not explained the reasons for adjustments. The statement " There are no reasons for any large correction" clearly means NIWA have not provided any reasons for their adjustments.
The onus is on NIWA to justify their adjustments. Without that how can their results be verified as per the scientific method?

[Ken]

No Peter - Richard Treadgold released the report. He is the only one admitting connections - he's the fall guy.

No-one else will put their hands up. He claims a huge "science team" behind him but they "wish to remain anonymous."

Ian, of course lovingly distributed it because he loves to discredit our scientists. But even he admits their basic claim was wrong.

Despite their refusal to provide information on methodology and data I have managed to scan and extract data from their figures. This indicates that some of their data was not the same as on the NIWA database. Or that they have applied adjustments which varied with time. No explanation. Refusing to answer my questions. Crooks.

I will be reporting further results of my analysis of this discredited "paper" in due course.

I have absolutely no interest, one way or the other in taking sides on climate change. I don't "believe" in warming or cooling. I just accept the science as best I can appreciate it.

My concern is not about climate, it's about honesty, the defense of science and reason.

People like Ian are attacking these important principles. If it wasn't climate change denial, it would be creationism, HIV denial, etc., etc.

If people like Richard Treadgold and Ian wish to use and comment on public funded research and data I demand the same level of integrity from them as I demand from our scientists. If they produce rubbish, like Treadgold's discredited "paper" I will criticise it.

And you people should too. You can't demand transparency from science and then allow our critics to be non-transparent.

[(not so) Silent]

Below is an example of Ken's "integrity" as he discusses Dr Vincent Grey.
Feb 4 2010
"I was aware that Vincent Gray had retired but didn’t realise his age. The local deniers promote him as their expert which shows some poverty of imagination.
He appeared to forget that he had acknowledged to me that they made a mistake on claiming no site effects. He had also forgotten that NIWA had sent him information on this several years ago while his organizations were accusing NIWA of lying.

Perhaps it’s just senility.

Sent from my iPod"
Outrageous.
I've never seen such a smearing twisting nutter as Ken in my entire life. Just amazing. And he still cant see the point that NIWA hasnt produced the methodology.

[Bob Hall]

Ken doesn't "believe" in warming or cooling but believes in "deniers"....... presumerably of the 'holocaust' variety.
I suppose that must make me one, because I would like some more 'due diligence' done on NIWA's data.
Shame on you Ken, for pretending to be a champion of the scientific method.

Bob Hall

[Ian Wishart]

I'm going to call you out on this Ken:

If people like Richard Treadgold and Ian wish to use and comment on public funded research and data I demand the same level of integrity from them as I demand from our scientists. If they produce rubbish, like Treadgold's discredited "paper" I will criticise it.

And you people should too. You can't demand transparency from science and then allow our critics to be non-transparent

Please provide for everyone here copies of your emails demanding from NIWA the full schedule of adjustments with details of when, where and why on all weather stations in NZ.

We know you've done this because you boasted of holding NIWA to account in this extract.

Please also provide the answers that NIWA gave you.

[Matthew]

Ken, this is what Vincent said:

Vincent Gray, however, appears to have been sufficiently spooked by Perrott's twisting of the facts to write a further email to Perrott:

"Please understand that all of us are thrashing around in the dark, picking up clues about what might be going on and making mistakes in the process. Those running the show have superb facilities in terms of money, staff, institutions and public approbation and they sit on most of most of their knowledge and only release what they choose.

"I have had a long career in science and have published well over 100 papers in respectable scientific journals, I have been working on the greenhouse thing for 20 years for no fee, dependent only on what they are prepared to release to the public. The internet has been a godsend, but I have only recently realised that much of the data and of its interpretation has been slanted or even cooked"

What Vincent is saying that all, repeat all, of us (i.e. scientists) make mistakes at times. There's no surpirse in that. He does not concede that a specific mistake was made, or even identify a particular mistake was made. However, you then go onto say that a specific mistake was made, which is not what Vincent said. It seems then you pick one of the mistakes that you allege happened as being the reason that the paper is discredited. You, not Vincent stated that. When you start to re-assign meaning to what one person says it has to be called simply that.

To which Perrott responds:

"I hear what you are saying about how easy it is to make mistakes.

Fine up to this point, as you simply agree that it is easy to make mistakes.

However, in this case the mistake

Wait one moment, what one specific mistake? Where is that in Vincent's e-mail? This is where the reassignment of meaning to Vincent's e-mail occurs and thereby is ineligible for any further conclusions, like what follows:

has caused a lot of confusion, misunderstanding – and dishonest propaganda for some. I have been shocked art the way NZ has been portrayed by conspiracy theorists like Wishart – and the resulting headlines in overseas publications."

[Ken]

Ian - I am satisfied with the information that NIWA has provided. I understand the complexities of handling raw data, speculative calculations, filter paper and backs of envelopes. I went through the era of transferring data from work sheets to electronic databases.

We have got a lot of information from NIWA and are still getting it. I have been able to duplicate their figures from the available data.

On the other hand Richard Treadgold has denied all his information and claims to have a huge "science team" behind him but one that wishes to remain anonymous!

Now I have never met a scientist that shy!

Vincent Gray didn't refuse contact but clearly was unable to say much as he admitted missing that huge mistake in the "paper". He, in fact, passed me back to the "authors of the paper" You know, the people Richard is hiding! Vincent also acknowledged (check the "deniergate" emails) that as a group they were making mistake, fumbling around.

There are clearly some problems with Treadgold's analysis (as well as the major one of claiming site adjustments were unnecessary). I can't duplicate parts of his figures and I would like to know why.

He is refusing to cooperate.

I can only conclude he has something to hide.

[Ian Wishart]

No Ken, please answer the specific question.

Please disclose the demands you made to NIWA for information, and their responses, so that everyone here can judge whether you have been holding NIWA to the same standards as you attempt to impose on others.

Nothing less will do, particularly given your demand for "transparency".

Walk the talk, disclose your email traffic on this point.

[Louie D]

Ken you are being odd.
If your right whats the big deal in showing Ian the stuff you claim you have and he wants to see.
Are you to proud, or just a
another lying pachuri parrot.

[Peter]

Ken as I said you are simply a liar. No real surprise there but you go on to prove it in your very next post. You are not on any side. Man! are you not even a little embarrassed by your lies? You call skeptics "deniers" and you still do not get it that the ones having to provide the evidence is the one making the original statement, in this case NIWA.

Your problem is the fact that you now have lied on a blog that is read by a very large group of people.

You have been sprung.
Oh dear...
Just who can now believe any "scientific" analysis you make?

Oh I know.... CM

[James]

"Your problem is the fact that you now have lied on a blog that is read by a very large group of people."

It's official. You heard it here first. Hirst blog...I mean the briefing room.

[Peter]

Including James...

[Pete]

Ken, you call yourself a scientist! Your angry, one eyed, semi hysterical rants are the antithesis of of scientific thought. Your posts are extremely partisan, your methods of engagement are basically dishonest and you appear to misrepresent yourself and your position to try and entrap people.
I conclude your are angry, sad and full of crap.
Pete.

[peter]

While sideshows such as this one proceed..

the Climate Sceptics have just been delivered a stunning blow!

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10630087

Humans to blame for climate change - scientists
12:45 PM Friday Mar 5, 2010
A scientist claims water vapour is evaporating into the atmosphere because of warmer oceans, causing wet areas to get wetter and dry areas to get drier. Photo / Brett PhibbsClimate scientists have delivered a powerful riposte to their sceptical critics with a study that strengthens the case for saying global warming is largely the result of man-made emissions of greenhouse gases.

The researchers found that no other possible natural phenomenon, such as volcanic eruptions or variations in the activity of the sun, could explain the significant warming of the planet over the past half century as recorded on every continent including Antarctica.

It is only when the warming effect of emitting millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere from human activity is considered that it is possible to explain why global average temperatures have risen so significantly since the middle of the 20th century.

The study updates a 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and has discovered several new elements of the global climate which have been influenced by humans, such as an increasing amount of water vapour evaporating from the warmer oceans into the atmosphere and a corresponding increase in the saltiness of the sea.

"There is an increasingly remote possibility that climate change is dominated by natural rather than anthropogenic [man-made] factors," the scientists concluded in their study, published in the journal Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews of Climate Change.

Scientific observations based on temperature recordings on every continent, as well as thermometer readings on, in and above the oceans, leave "little room for doubt" that the earth is warming, but trying to attribute a cause for this global warming is not possible unless man-made activity in the form of carbon dioxide emissions is taken into account, the scientists said.

The review, led by Peter Stott of the Met Office Hadley Centre in Exeter, found the "fingerprints" of human activity on many different aspects of climate change, including the overall warming of the Antarctic recently documented for the first time by other researchers.

"The observations cannot be explained by natural factors," Dr Stott said. Since 1980, the Earth has warmed by about 0.5C and is now warming at a rate of about 0.16C per decade, with even higher rates at higher latitudes such as in the Arctic.

"The fingerprint of human influence has been detected in many different aspects of observed climate change. We've seen it in temperature, and increases in atmospheric humidity, we've seen it in salinity changes. We've seen it in reductions in Arctic sea ice and changing rainfall patterns," Dr Stott said.

"What we see here are observations consistent with a warming world. This wealth of evidence we have now shows there is an increasingly remote possibility of climate change being dominated by natural factors rather than human factors."

He dismissed suggestions that variations in solar activity - the intensity of the sun - could explain warming patterns over the past few decades. If the sun was responsible then both the upper and lower atmosphere would be getting warmer, instead of just the lower atmosphere as predicted by computer models of greenhouse gas warming.

He also said more water vapour is evaporating into the atmosphere as a result of warmer oceans and this is driving the water cycle harder, causing wetter areas in northern latitudes such as Britain to get wetter and drier areas in tropical regions such as East Africa to get drier.

Asked whether climate sceptics would agree with the findings, Dr Stott said: "I just hope people look at the evidence of how the climate is changing in such a systematic way. I hope they make up their minds on the scientific evidence."

- INDEPENDENT