In the last week or so one “Chris” (I can’t give his surname without his permission) has begun asking some well-informed questions and putting some well-aimed objections to our campaign against the national temperature series protected, I mean produced, by NIWA.
He’s putting increasing efforts into his writing, such that his last comment amounts to some 400 words. He demonstrates an impressive commitment.
When I realised my response had reached 1300 words I knew it had to become a separate post, both to honour Chris’s honest efforts and to more prominently feature the arguments he was making. Many of the things he says are widely said so our rebuttals should be given more prominence.
This thread covers a range of topics — but try to stick to those.
REMEMBER: All the points below relate to what was said in Chris’s last comment — quoted in green, then answered.
Reported error range on NIWA website
Over the 100-year period from 1909 to 2009, the least squares linear trend for the composite ‘Wellington’ annual temperature record is +0.79 ºC, with an associated 95% confidence interval of +0.49 ºC to +1.10 ºC.
Similarly for Auckland and Hokitika.
What is the reference? And you omitted a reference for your claim that NIWA’s website makes the statement of “2 sigma uncertainties of station data.” Your comment about a 95% confidence level is very misleading. It has nothing whatever to do with the correctness of the trend line or any of the station data or calculations that lie behind it. It simply refers to the probability that the slope of that [unreliable] trend line has been correctly measured.
But the adjustments look all right
Chris justifies his comment that the data looks reasonable.
“how do you conclude that any adjustment is ‘reasonable'”
As I have said before, most of the adjustments NIWA does are normalisations of data between neighboring sites, therefore adjustments are largely trivial. I have said, I downloaded their data for each site and looked at the adjustments they have done – have you tried this?. The vast majority of adjustments appear to be normalisations between stations.
Yes, we have done it. Barry Brill’s article Maze of Mystery Maths points out that none of the four stations used to “normalise” Hokitika were neighbouring sites. How did you download pre-1912 data for Nelson and Christchurch when those data don’t exist? Or for Lincoln and Dunedin, when their data were also adjusted eight times? Our paper, Are we feeling warmer yet?, contains detailed graphs from each station showing the adjustments — and they were far from trivial. They created a warming trend where none previously existed. It’s pretty impressive and couldn’t show the large step movements any clearer.
But, again, how do you judge any of the changes if you don’t know why it is made? You say they “appear” to be normalisations. How do you know this?
The crux of the story
Chris explains his main objection to our graphs. He doesn’t notice that NIWA not only does the same thing, but also adds silly errors…
This brings me to my next point which is the crux of this entire story. Here it is:
The graph you have shown at the top of this page contains two data series. One series is raw, unadjusted, data — correct. The other is the data modified by NIWA — correct. Now I have a huge problem with you displaying the raw data -as you have done- as a single data set, because it’s not. The raw data set you have shown comes from many different sites in different temperate locations and appending them together as a single time series without correcting the data first is just a total nonsense.
If you criticise us, Chris, you must also criticise NIWA. Have you examined their 11-Station Series (11SS)? It’s made up of raw data which come from different sites in different temperature locations all concatenated as a single time series — but they go further than we do: they even use a different mix of stations each year! You’ll see that NIWA compares a predominantly North Island dataset in 1931 with a dataset dominated by offshore islands in 1941, with a predominantly South Island dataset in 1951. Now that’s what I call a total nonsense!
Jim (the world is ending) Hansen says taking the world’s temp impossible
How would you recommend combining average temperatures from different places, and what does any such combination actually mean?
Consider Jim Hansen on the subject. At his web site is a page entitled The Elusive Absolute Surface Air Temperature (SAT) wherein he says there is no agreed method of measuring surface air temperatures and, in fact, there are numerous practical and theoretical obstacles to ever achieving such a measurement.
Last March the Climate Conversation Group sent him a message: “There is a very obvious question raised by that discussion. We are interested to know why, if it cannot be done, do you do it?” He has not replied.
In “correcting” or “adjusting” the raw data, what adjustments were made by NIWA and why? That is a simple question which you avoid. You keep giving apologies for NIWA, who should answer it. Have you asked NIWA why they don’t simply answer the simple question?
The real crux
No, the crux of the story actually began as a simple inquiry to NIWA about the changes made to the temperature series. The same inquiry was made by Warwick Hughes, Dr Vincent Gray and others years ago but were always ignored by Dr Jim Salinger who gave no reasons for refusing. The Coalition became interested and things escalated when we hinted publicly that perhaps something lay behind the unreasonable refusal.
When NIWA continued, incredibly, to refuse our reasonable scientific request, but compounded their discourtesy by referring us to non-existent sources for the methodology which they mistakenly claimed we were asking for, and to Salinger’s thesis which does not contain the methodology, it was inevitable that we would dig our toes in and insist on proper answers. Slowly we’re finding out there aren’t any.
Have you asked NIWA why they don’t just answer the question?
One sarcastic suggestion
Chris suggested:
If you really want to show a cooling trend plot Mangere for the first 50 years of the century and then pick a station on the central plateau and append it to the Mangere data for the last half of the century. This would probably give you similar rubbish to the uncorrected data you display on the graph at the top. The illustration at the top of this page is just a misleading farce.
Yes, very funny. But the respective graphs of raw data and adjusted data are exactly as labelled. They show that the adjustments are substantial. How can you possibly believe that the “adjustments are largely trivial”? You must see how they dramatically alter the trend! They therefore demand the most careful scrutiny. No reasonable scientist would shirk that requirement.
Up, down, up, down — the balance of adjustments
Chris thought he’d found an argument against us.
I would also like to invalidate another point that you like to use. You and others complain that of all the adjustments made most of them are positive and that if NIWA were unbiased then you would expect a 50-50 positive and negative adjustment ratio. Why do you assume it should be 50-50?
Because one could expect some cooling and some warming influences. Why should they not balance out over time? I note that Dr David Jones, Head of Climate Monitoring and Prediction in the Australian Bureau of Meteorology said on 25 April 2010:
“On the issue of adjustments you find that these have a near zero impact on the all Australian temperature because these tend to be equally positive and negative across the network (as would be expected given they are adjustments for random station changes).”
So, why is New Zealand different?
Then Chris expands on the theme:
The real question you should ask is – what are the reasons for relocating a weather station. The reasons are mostly to do with getting away from built up areas to make the station less prone to very localised heating. This typically means moving the site to a more exposed and often higher location – hence a positive adjustment.
We have several responses to this:
1. If the new site measures lower temperatures, the history should be lowered to match it, not raised. Why do you say a positive adjustment?
2. If the old site is known to be subject to an urban heat island effect, only recent history would need decreasing, and that by degrees, not in one step. The effect would be to maintain the raw trend, which was insignificant warming. It would not increase the warming trend.
3. NIWA doesn’t actually adjust the readings anywhere for UHI; most site changes, especially in relation to the 7SS and 11SS, were due to land ownership changes or redevelopment of the site that required the station to move.
For example, the Ruakura Station in Hamilton moved when the original site was handed over to Tainui as part of the treaty settlement. The Chateau Station was moved because the site was required for the greenkeeper’s facility for the Chateau golf course. All of the documented Wellington moves involved building development.
Further, there were changes in the purpose of the station. Increasingly sites were based at airports following World War II because of aviation requirements. Some stations were installed for specific research projects, mostly related to agriculture and horticulture. Until recently, none of the stations was installed specifically to monitor climate change (in fact we’re not sure that any are).
4. Your statement that “this typically means moving the site to a more exposed and often higher location — hence a positive adjustment” is incorrect, for if you look at the figures, the adjustments are actually largely negative, not positive. Consider that the trend resulting from all the adjustments together was one of vastly increased warming: this means that reducing early readings would be trend-favourable and increasing later readings would also be trend-favourable. When we examine each adjustment, what do we find? By number, 80% were trend-favourable; by temperature, 80% were trend-favourable; and by year, 90% were trend-favourable. They had the effect of pushing down the earlier temps, thus creating a rising trend. NIWA gives no indication why early temperatures are considered too high.
Why is it that pre-war temperatures need to be lowered while post-war temperatures need to be raised?
No good argument has yet been presented against the Coalition’s statements on NZ’s temperature history.
Visits: 493
Rather like swiss cheese really.
I’ll leave you with
“No good argument has yet been presented against the Coalition’s statements on NZ’s temperature history -”
If you insist!
With respect, Chris, that is a weak exit.
NEXT!
Cheers.
Sorry Richard I should say one more thing to clear up some confusion.
“Your statement that “this typically means moving the site to a more exposed and often higher location — hence a positive adjustment” is incorrect”
You are right I meant to say negative adjustment of historical data. I got a bit confused here, but it doesn’t change the argument.
Cheers
Chris
Fair enough, I understand.
Still, your argument is refuted by the information that most changes were not for UHI effects but land use change. So the balance of probabilities moves back to 50:50.
Cheers.
How gracious!
You go to the trouble of responding carefully to each of Chris’ points – and then he scuttles out of the arena. Not interested in understanding the Coalition’s viewpoint, Chris?
Yes, disappointing. Still, others are watching.
They’ll get the message…
Sorry, I am interested in understanding the viewpoint. I genuinely don’t have the time to go further right now.
“If the new site measures lower temperatures, the history should be lowered to match it, not raised. Why do you say a positive adjustment?”
Actually, I was right, this is a positive adjustment with respect to time.
Why do you refer to the downward adjustment as positive?
Because future data is adjusted positively wrt historical data
No, it’s a negative adjustment. The latest station is always fixed as the reference station, and the earlier station(s) adjusted to suit. In the case mentioned, Richard is quite correct, it’s a negative adjustment. One doesn’t just run along “with respect to time”, making adjustments. Anyone who has been looking at this subject over the past few years knows this.
I’d like to add that everything Chris has written so far leads me to suspect he is not interested in the truth of the situation. He assumed an initial position that NIWA was correct, the coalition was wrong and he refuses to consider other possibilities. He has mostly presented arguments of the arm-waving and somewhat arrogant sort: basically saying that NIWA was right, even though he (Chris) has no real understanding of the discussion to date.
I suspect he hasn’t even read all the papers written by the Coalition so far, since he started his comments by claiming all the Coalition had to do to find the adjustments was to download NIWA’s data. Yet that is precisely what precipitated the issue, the Coalition is almost a year ahead of him. And when the Coalition did it, the NIWA adjusted station data wasn’t even published. They had to get it from other sources, because NIWA wouldn’t give it up.
As soon as that basic fact was pointed out to him, instead of acknowledging his ignorance, he’s off on a bunch of new tangents. I suspect Chris and Ken would make good soul-mates.
I’ve dealt with professional scientists and engineers all my life. Usually, the good ones are interested in getting to the bottom of a problem; they will first examine the evidence and data, then they will go away and think about it, work out a possible solution and return for an in-depth discussion. If proven wrong they admit it and redo their solution. They know that getting it right is the main goal, not just being seen to be right.
They very seldom just stand there blasting out objection after objection in a random manner, without trying to understand the issue itself, trying to score points as though it was simply a debate. Arm-waving is the sure sign of an advocate, not a scientist.
Chris, if you really want to understand this and contribute, you’re welcome to present cogent arguments backed up by data.
But if you’re just an advocate, there are better things for all of us to do – you’re not actually helping your side. Ken’s been trying those tricks for ages, and nobody takes him seriously any more.
Posting things on this site is a losing battle of course, but that would be expected on a skeptics blogging site. It doesn’t matter which argument is correct, the battle is lost by quantity not quality. Fortunately you are in the minority with your view. Although I’m sure you’ll try and dispute that too.
Hi Chris,
I have some sympathy with you. For years, skeptics were fighting an uphill battle on warmist blogs. Every time we posted we were blasted with vicious ad hominem attacks, and insulted in every way. If we made any salient points, no matter how polite or respectfully phrased, we were immediately censored and/or banned. We’ve all experienced it many times over.
Climategate changed all that, when the neutral observers out there were suddenly presented with evidence that the skeptics were right all along, about being excluded from journals, scientists behaving like advocates, doubts being hidden, etc.
However, on this blog I believe you are free to post and free to make any point you wish. However, speaking just for myself, I would prefer it if when you make points, as you’ve done, and Richard has spent some time addressing them, you would at least respond in kind.
If, on the other hand, you have nothing to add, may we assume you’ve conceded the rebuttals Richard has presented above?
Regards,
Bob
Here is data taken directly off the NIWA website for the 11 station series:
I have chosen time spans and calculated trends for individual sites. The time spans are chosen such that there were no site changes whatsoever.
Tauranga 1932 -1988 (1.3 degrees / century)
Hamilton 1931 – 1996 (1.51 degrees / century)
Gisbourne 1938 – 1989 (0.94 degrees / century)
Ruapehu 1933-1997 (1.78 degrees / century)
Palmerston N 1931 – 2001 (1.37 degrees / century)
Wesport 1938 -1999 (1.63 degrees / century)
Molesworth 1945 – 1992 (0.00 degrees / century)
Queenstown 1930 – 2009 (1.64 degrees / century)
invercargill 1948 – 1997 (0.82 degrees / century)
Rauol Island 1941 – 1997 (0.62 degrees / century)
Campbell Island 1941 – 1994 (0.84 degrees / century)
How can you argue against that!!!! It is getting warmer at about 1 deg per century over the last 80 years or so.
Chris,
If you point me to an argument you advanced here where you were subject to personal attack instead of a counter-argument, I will deal with the person involved. If you simply failed to change someone’s mind, then all I can say is “bad luck” — it happens to us all. Otherwise, do yourself what you ask of us, and argue with reason and observation. It happens to be what the Climate Conversation Group stands for.
You’re wrong about that. Here, we value reason and facts. It’s notable that you failed to respond to the points I made above and to some others and went on to complain that we’re not listening. Yet the arguments I put are based on observation and reason; if you cannot refute them, you have lost, and you have lost on quality, because they were stated only once.
Which view are you referring to — we all have many views? How do you know we are in the minority? What makes you sure we’ll dispute your comment? Is there any reason we shouldn’t dispute what you say?
Cheers.
Bob you’re the one coming across as an arrogant jerk now. I think that’s obvious by the way you have started personally attacking and mocking me as part of you pathetic attempt to bring be down to your your level!
Yes it is a negative adjustment my little brain is just getting confused. This doesn’t change my original argument Bob. It’s simply a nonsenses to assume that adjustments should be 50-50 positive an negative.
Bob, you must be a glass half empty kind of person.
You quote
“He assumed an initial position that NIWA was correct”.
Isn’t this a fairly reasonable position to assume.
I have no reason to assume NIWA is not correct other than Allegations made by the Science Coalition. I have looked at all things published by NIWA and it all seems perfectly okay to me. I have not looked at much published by the Coalition, that is true.
Chris, thanks for your response. I apologise if I’m coming across as an arrogant jerk. Possibly it’s because I am one.
The state of play is that NIWA have acknowledged that they can’t provide the calculations for the 7SS right now. That much is fact, and all the statements they’ve made about the generalized need for adjustments are irrelevant right now, as is the 11-station series.
Digression:
By the way, regarding the 11-station series (ESS), have you read this?
http://nzclimatescience.net/images/PDFs/nz_climate_crisis_gets_worse.pdf
The ESS is made up of stations that have experienced numerous site changes and the only time it actually has eleven stations is during the 40-yr period 1955-1994, during which the increase was merely 0.28ºC/century, as expected. Since 1995 the NZ temps have remained fairly flat. The main cause of the steep increase was the period 1931-1955, when the station numbers were reduced and the site changes made a bit of a mess of the series.
Even if the ESS was valid, it is generally acknowledged that pre-1950 temperatures could not have been influenced by man-made CO2 and therefore the ESS actually refutes AGW theory, as it shows temperature rates have flattened since 1950 instead of increasing.
Originally, NIWA claimed the ESS was made up of long-term, unadjusted stations where there had been no site moves. Later they had to remove this claim, since it isn’t true.
/End Digression
The ESS is a red herring, thrown out there in a hurry to try to deflect attention away from the 7SS. It isn’t the main point of our challenge to NIWA. The 7SS is the main issue here.
Now, regarding the 50:50 claim. Have you read Richard’s quote above? The one where Dr David Jones, Head of Climate Monitoring and Prediction in the Australian Bureau of Meteorology said:
If you have reason to believe that Dr Jones’ statement is “simply nonsense”, can you provide that reason?
You say:
You state immediately after that:
Surely, if you wished to determine the accuracy of what the Coalition says about NIWA, you would read what the Coalition actually says, rather than what NIWA says it says?
I am not mocking you when I ask this, I’m merely curious.
Regards,
Bob
Hi Bob – thanks for the apology
I think the eleven station series is relevant because it shows the validity of the seven station series. The validity of the NIWA data seems to be one of the primary concerns of the Coalition.
The series above is data extracted from the eleven station series. There were no site changes or corrections applied in any of the data I listed above. It is deliberately not the full eleven station series because I knew you would not be happy with data that had been taken from different sites, even though in the eleven station series the site changes were very minor.
Chris, you say:
This is curious. You say that WE would not be happy? But you have emphatically declared that you are unhappy with the process of showing data from several sites.
I’m quite confused, Chris. Perhaps you can explain this inconsistency to me?
Niwa categorically state that the site changes are very minor in the eleven station series. I do not know the details of the site changes but I would expect that this means they are in locations that have minor and negligible temperature differences.
Setting that aside, the data I have plotted above would suggest warming of the magnitude shown in the seven station series. Do you acknowledge that?
Yes, they do show warming. I surmise it was the very purpose of Renwick and Salinger in picking those stations last year.
But what has happened to your strenuous objection? It wan’t conditional on site changes or their absence.
I do have a strong objection to not applying adjustment in the case of the 7SS. The sites are at quite difference temperatures – In some cases up to a couple of degrees. Correction must therefore be applied.
In the case of the 11 station series the sites according to NIWA are very simialar. If you dispute that, then that is a different argument altogether.
It doesn’t change the fact that 10 of the eleven stations I showed from the eleven station series over periods when there were no site changes show very significant warming of the order that NIWA found for the 7SS.
Now if you think NIWA cherry picked that data then
A.) that is another argument altogther and
B.) you are incredibly paranoid – I think.
Chris
I am going to look at the national climate database NIWA has for other sites that have not moved for reasonable periods of time. I will list them as above.
But I don’t allege cherry-picking, NIWA themselves described it like that in a press release on Thursday, 3 December 2009, 10:03 am at Scoop:
From the several hundred stations available, he picks just 11 and does it without bias? I don’t believe that.
That’s cherry-picking and I’m not paranoid.
Cheers.
PS: The claim of no significant site changes was false. It is also not a continuous series of 11 stations. It really IS nonsense.
Hi Chris,
I’ve mentioned above that the ESS was thrown together in a hurry. NIWA has an obligation to ensure that all reasonable care is taken when assembling histories.
One of their duties, according to the peer-reviewed literature is as follows:
Why therefore, they chose to use an urban site for their temperature history in the ESS is unclear.
However, there exists another, non-urban site, Te Aroha, which is a much more suitable candidate. This site is specifically mentioned in the peer-reviewed literature as a site unaffected by urbanisation, screen changes or sheltering. Ref: Hessell, “Apperent trends of mean temperature in New Zealand since 1930”, NZ J. Science, Vol 23, (1980).
Te Aroha contains data from 1888 until 2000, when it was closed due to lack of adequate observers. If one must use a site from this region, then Te Aroha is the one to choose.
The long-term trend of this station is just 0.23ºC/century.
http://i37.tinypic.com/a0wd8y.jpg
(all years with even one month missing have been excluded)
Regards,
Bob
My apologies, I should have mentioned I’m referring to the first site you reference in your trends above – Tauranga.
Chris,
Considering the expectation of 50:50 adjustments up/down, you ask a good question: why are stations moved? Since most of the adjustments create a warming trend, we could also be asking why were other kinds of adjustments not made? Was a bias involved?
In this post, I write:
Whatever one’s expectations of the mix of adjustments, the fact is that these so strongly reinforce the original trivial warming that a responsible scientist is bound to investigate them and ensure that each one is firmly justified. NIWA has not done that and neither have you.
Remember, we allege neither warming nor cooling; we’d just like to know what happened. In our statement of claim at the High Court in Auckland we’re not taking a position on global warming or climate change but we are investigating NIWA’s production and maintenance of public records.
Cheers.
“…we allege neither warming nor cooling; we’d just like to know what happened”
Well said Richard. An honest and properly scientific position. Similar to Steve McIntyre at Climateaudit. This whole issue is bedevilled by those trying to torture data to fit preconceived conclusions, minimizing the error bars etc.
The following post to this one (A tale of two hemispheres) would seem to raise serious questions about the validity of the NIWA temperature record.
Hi Bob
There was an element of sarcasm intended in the statement below:
“I have not looked at much published by the Coalition”
Surely, if you wished to determine the accuracy of what the Coalition says about NIWA, you would read what the Coalition actually says, rather than what NIWA says it says?
Can you point me to the peer reviewed publications by the Coalition. I will have a look at them. I will not accept links to blogger websites and the like.
In order for the Coalition to make such a serious judgement of NIWA scientists, I expect that there should be some hard evidence in the form of peer reviewed publications written by a scientist adept in the field of climatology. These papers should show why the NZ temperature record is invalid.
I also intend to show that the data I have shown from the eleven station series is not cherry picked to show a warming trend. I am downloading data from the NIWA climate database.
Cheers
Chris
Chris,
What serious judgement is implied by asking: “What changes have you made and why?”
I venture to suggest that obfuscation, delay and an eventual announcement to recreate what we asked for invite serious judgement where none was suspected. That has been our experience; I wish you and others would actually believe that.
As for papers: that’s a bit of a laugh. Nobody wants to read a paper that asks a few questions! They want to hear answers, and so do we.
It should not require a scientist to ask what every citizen of this country is entitled to know: the facts concerning the national temperature record.
Cheers.
Come on!
You’re trying to take NIWA to court to try an invalidate 30 years of work. That seems pretty serious to me.
Chris,
Though our Statement of Claim may be construed as an attempt to “invalidate 30 years of work” it is not (for one thing, the work has lasted for 30 years but it has not taken 30 years). We’ll never know the details of how the 7SS was constructed but we must at least ensure that its replacement is properly documented, the shonky 7SS gets withdrawn until replaced and NIWA perhaps gets a tuneup.
But I wish you’d think about what has happened, because then you might realise that we cannot invalidate what has never been validated. Invalidation is logically unavailable!
It is NIWA’s responsibility to justify and secure their own work — whatever they do. They accept this responsibility, so they’re recreating the temperature series from scratch. There is no reason to criticise the Coalition for pressing NIWA to do that.
But this is no argument that you make — it is mere irritation and nit picking. If it is the best you can bring to the field then our fortress is secure. I suppose it’s no surprise when people fail to engage with a difficult subject, but I confess that I am in fact puzzled by your and other critics’ failure to confront the truths that I keep writing about. You have come closest, for which I commend you, but I still get the firm impression you’re trying not to listen to me.
When I say:
I am in earnest. I make no empty claim of obfuscation but a provable one. Not that we’re “prosecuting” NIWA for that, or ever would. But it is the reason why we, perhaps alone among New Zealanders, no longer receive NIWA’s statements in an air of credulous trust.
For it was NIWA’s strange responses to our request which begat suspicious thoughts — we carried none to the table. And it was their weird citations of useless papers and the unhelpful, voluminous, labyrinthine Salinger thesis which cemented their fundamental lack of good will among those who knew of it.
NIWA have not been the innocent victim in this affair, though publicly they have played that hand. I repeat:
Cheers.
Chris,
There may have been , but it was indiscernible, I have to say, based on your knowledge of the discussion to date.
The Coalition does not publish papers. Individuals publish papers. The papers published by the individual members in peer-reviewed journals runs in the hundreds. But paper lists do not denote correctness, and I believe the Coalition would never state that, just because its members are highly published authors, that they therefore must be believed.
I see you’ve moved from making unfounded assertions to making demands. Very well, start with the paper I’ve already mentioned:
Hessell J.D., “Apparent trends of mean temperature in New Zealand since 1930″, NZ J. Science, Vol 23, (1980).
It explains in detail why the urbanisation effects have tainted most of the city records, and when the equivalent rural stations are used to check the city records, they show significantly reduced trends. It is written by one of the most experienced of climatologists of the time, Dr Jim Hessell of the Met Service, and comes from the same period as Salinger’s thesis. He knew these stations well, and he concludes the following:
(Click for larger version, or click http://i53.tinypic.com/20i9bi9.jpg)
I should mention that Jim Hessell is not a member of the Coalition, he retired from the Met Service some years back.
You could also read Rhoades & Salinger (1993), referenced above, which explains in some detail why you should not do what NIWA has done with the ESS (or the 7SS for that matter), and also details the immense uncertainties in attempting to read long-term climate trends from such poor data.
Good morning Richard.
In your debate with Chris you remind me of my burmese cat, toying with a mouse. Your patience is remarkable.
In a letter today to a leading UK cleric (copied to me), a friend in the UK reminded the bishop and his prelatariat of the danger of following false idols, namely (when applied here) attempting to defend NIWA:
” … that of course, is the addiction to the idolatrous and secular cult of climate change. Still, in the face of overwhelming evidence of its fraudulent irrelevance, I’m guessing that that doesn’t have long to run, notwithstanding the increasingly shrill scare-mongering of its proselytisers.”
Chris, NIWA needs leadership, not surrogate-like defence.
Richard….
I hesitate to become involved again but it is a matter of public record (published on the NZCSC web site) that in January 2010 Terry Dunleavy, as Hon Secretary of the NZCSC, wrote to Tim Mahood, General Counsel for NIWA, setting out details of the Coalition’s request for data ( data NIWA was legally obligated to produce) and foreshadowing, nay almost warning, that if they failed to heed the OIA request legal action in the High Court was likely. As I have said here before, NIWA chose to ignore that warning. Barristers and the Court will determine the consequences.
Efforts by Chris and Rudman to minimise NIWA’s malfeasance do them no credit