"For some time, weather enthusiasts have been noticing rapid temperature fluctuations at the ‘latest observations’ page at the Bureau’s website. For example, Peter Cornish, a retired hydrologist, wrote to the Bureau on 17 December 2012 asking whether the 1.5 degrees Celsius drop in temperature in the space of one minute at Sydney’s Observatory Hill, just the day before, could be a quirk of the new electronic temperature sensors. Ken Stewart, a retired school principal, requested temperature data for Hervey Bay after noticing a 2.1 degrees Celsius temperature change in the space of one minute on 22 February 2017.

In both cases, the Bureau assured these ‘amateurs’ that they didn’t understand what they were noticing. In the case of Dr Cornish, he was referred to a Bureau report that makes reference to international studies, which explains how measurements from the fast responding electronic sensors are made comparable with measurements from the more inert mercury thermometers by averaging over at least one minute – except the Bureau does not actually average any of the measurements recorded from its custom-built sensors.

Electronic sensors, progressively installed into Bureau weather stations replacing mercury thermometers, beginning some twenty years ago, can capture rapid changes in temperature. On a hot day, the air is warmed by turbulent streams of ground-heated air that can fluctuate by more than two degrees on a scale of seconds. So, if the Bureau simply changed from mercury thermometers to electronic sensors, it could increase the daily range of temperatures, and potentially even generate record hot days approach 50 degrees Celsius, because of the faster response time of the sensors.

Except to ensure consistency with measurements from mercury thermometers there is an international literature, and international standards, that specify how spot-readings need to be averaged – a literature and methodology being ignored by the Bureau. For example, the UK Met office takes 60 x 1-second samples each minute from its sensors and then averages these. In the US, they have decided this is too short a period, and the standard there is to average over a fixed five-minute period.

The Weather Observers Handbook 2012, for example, states that if averaging is not over a five-minute period it affects temperature extremes. An example is even provided. Dodge City, Kansas, has a long temperature record dating back to 1875. The hottest day on record stood at 43.3 degree Celsius. Then there was a heatwave in 2011, the highest reading from an electronic sensor was 43.9 degree Celsius. But when it was found this record was from readings that had only been averaged over only one minute, the new record was scratched – because when the same readings were averaged over the ASOS standard of five minutes, the maximum temperature was 43.3 degree Celsius – a tie.

In Australia, our Bureau takes not five-minute averages, nor even one-minute averages. As Ken Stewart discovered when he persisted with understanding the nature of the data he had been provided by the Bureau from Hervey Bay: the Bureau just take one-second spot-readings."

"The letter explains that all the sensors the Bureau uses have been ‘purpose-designed’. I had been requesting manufacture’s specifications, but instead, I received this advice that it’s to Bureau specifications and, by inference, there is no documentation. To be clear, there are also no reports detailing the laboratory and field tests that explain how the custom-built devices have been designed to ‘closely mirrors’ the behaviour of mercury thermometers including the time constants – to quote from Dr Johnson’s letter of last Friday."

https://www.spectator.com.au/2017/10/more-hot-days-or-temperature-sensors-at-play/

Sh1tz me to tears thinking off the $millions of tax payers money that this swamp called the bom has sunk, and they still can't produce a forecast past 4 days worth a pinch of sh1te.

Rider wrote on Oct 28^th, 2017 at 7:28pm:

Sh1tz me to tears thinking off the $millions of tax payers money that this swamp called the bom has sunk, and they still can't produce a forecast past 4 days worth a pinch of sh1te.

Do you even know which side your bread is buttered on?

;)

TheFunPolice wrote on Oct 30^th, 2017 at 4:41pm:

Rider wrote on Oct 28th, 2017 at 7:28pm: Sh1tz me to tears thinking off the $millions of tax payers money that this swamp called the bom has sunk, and they still can't produce a forecast past 4 days worth a pinch of sh1te. Do you even know which side your bread is buttered on? ;)

You wouldnt even have bread or butter if it wasn't for men like me. Now go p1ss your pants some place else.

Over the years.
Hasn't BOM been the most consistently most clicked on site by Australians?

Jasin wrote on Nov 11^th, 2017 at 6:59pm:

Over the years. Hasn't BOM been the most consistently most clicked on site by Australians?

Does that make it good. Or the only climate agency that is close to Australia?

I think it was The Barnacle who said in 2011 BoM was praised as using "world's best practice". In 2015 "however, the Forum
concluded that it is likely to remain the case that several choices within the adjustment process remain a matter of expert judgment and appropriate disciplinary knowledge. "

http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/change/acorn-sat/documents/2015_TAF_report.pdf

If you are "using expert judgment", it can't be replicated. If it can't be replicated it isn't science.

So what are BoM using? Is "World's Best practice" "expert judgment". Or have BoM regressed?

I agree with Lee
f ark the BOM, when I want to know what's happening in the world of climate I'll ask Lord Monkton  ;D ;D ;D ;D

John Smith wrote on Nov 11^th, 2017 at 8:40pm:

I agree with Lee f ark the BOM, when I want to know what's happening in the world of climate I'll ask Lord Monkton  ;D ;D ;D ;D

Monk doesn't understand about closed loop control systems.
He's completely ignorant of the latest climate research.

Bobby. wrote on Nov 11^th, 2017 at 9:04pm:

John Smith wrote on Nov 11th, 2017 at 8:40pm: I agree with Lee f ark the BOM, when I want to know what's happening in the world of climate I'll ask Lord Monkton  ;D ;D ;D ;D Monk doesn't understand about closed loop control systems. He's completely ignorant of the latest climate research.

What the bugger has monk to do with anything? you're an idiot bobby

Well I will still click on BOM.
It sure beats Monk's method of sticking his finger up his bum and pull it out to see how JS interprets his 'tea leaves' on it.

Bobby. wrote on Nov 11^th, 2017 at 9:04pm:

John Smith wrote on Nov 11th, 2017 at 8:40pm: I agree with Lee f ark the BOM, when I want to know what's happening in the world of climate I'll ask Lord Monkton  ;D ;D ;D ;D Monk doesn't understand about closed loop control systems. He's completely ignorant of the latest climate research.

Why don't you tell us about them?

lee wrote on Nov 11^th, 2017 at 7:34pm:

Jasin wrote on Nov 11th, 2017 at 6:59pm: Over the years. Hasn't BOM been the most consistently most clicked on site by Australians? Does that make it good. Or the only climate agency that is close to Australia? I think it was The Barnacle who said in 2011 BoM was praised as using "world's best practice". In 2015 "however, the Forum concluded that it is likely to remain the case that several choices within the adjustment process remain a matter of expert judgment and appropriate disciplinary knowledge. " http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/change/acorn-sat/documents/2015_TAF_report.pdf If you are "using expert judgment", it can't be replicated. If it can't be replicated it isn't science. So what are BoM using? Is "World's Best practice" "expert judgment". Or have BoM regressed?

You are full of it!

Jasin wrote on Nov 11^th, 2017 at 6:59pm:

Over the years. Hasn't BOM been the most consistently most clicked on site by Australians?

I wonder why?  Which scenario fits best do you reckon for the 99% of normal Aussies?

Scenario 1.
I wonder what the weather will be like for camping this weekend?

Scenario 2.
I wonder how my great, great grandkids will be able to handle an increase/decrease in a virtually unmeasureable statistically meaningless 0.05 celcius temperature change in 150 years time?

TheFunPolice wrote on Nov 11^th, 2017 at 10:50pm:

Bobby. wrote on Nov 11th, 2017 at 9:04pm: John Smith wrote on Nov 11th, 2017 at 8:40pm: I agree with Lee f ark the BOM, when I want to know what's happening in the world of climate I'll ask Lord Monkton  ;D ;D ;D ;D Monk doesn't understand about closed loop control systems. He's completely ignorant of the latest climate research. Why don't you tell us about them?

Here is some real science - the type that Monk doesn't understand -
he is forgiven

namaste.



http://curry.eas.gatech.edu/climate/pdf/Ch13_GalleyC.pdf
The concepts behind feedbacks

as applied to climate change are derived from concepts in control theory
that were first developed for electronics. By examining separate
feedback loops, one can gain a sense of the direction of the influence of
the feedback on a change in the state of the system, whether it is
reinforcing or damping, and the relative importance of a given feedback
when compared with other feedbacks. Climate change can therefore be
viewed as the result of adjustment among compensating feedback
processes, each of which behaves in a characteristically nonlinear
fashion. The fact that the climate of the Earth has varied in the past
between rather narrow limits despite large variations in external forcing
is evidence for the efficiency and robustness of these feedbacks.
A variety of climate feedback mechanisms have been identified,
including radiation feedbacks that involve water vapor and clouds, ocean
feedbacks that involve the hydrological cycle, and biospheric feedbacks
that involve the carbon cycle. In our consideration of thermodynamic
feedbacks in the climate system, we will concentrate on the radiative and
ocean thermohaline feedbacks. The radiat
ion feedback processes that are
of interest in the context of the climate system include the snow/ice-
albedo feedback, water vapor feedback, and cloud-radiation feedbacks.

31 pages follow this

Monk didn't understand the idea of an under-damped closed loop control system
which appears to be the way our climate works.
At least my background in engineering gives me more of an understanding.

How can I put it simply?

When you disturb an under-damped system it will oscillate before resting at it's final value.
The problem is that the climate is being constantly disturbed by:
the Sun
volcanoes
CO2
galactic cosmic rays
and maybe many other variables we know nothing about.

These oscillations hide the underlying data.

An even easier example for you is the Gulf stream -
where you try to warm part of the planet & it fights back
by stopping the gulf stream & causing an ice age in Europe.
That's an example of negative feedback.

A positive feedback would be warming the tundra in Siberia & releasing methane -
a much worse greenhouse gas than CO2.

The 31 page paper I posted the link for goes into a lot more detail and until
Monk can grasp that he's not in the starting line.

The climate has always been changing & it has led to extremes like the maunder minimum -
quite recent in global history.
Another Maunder minimum would be a climate catastrophe
with billions of people dying.

cheers
sir Bobby.

Then there are minimal influences - like the Planet 9 (X), which they have all mathematically proven that it is out there orbiting the sun and plays a major influence on our system. This is a major coup for the Astrologers who always said it was out there to begin with.
Also the likely chance in our lifetime that we will see a Hyper-Nova in our skies for decades, that will brighten the southern Hemisphere like a permanent moonshine.

Methane sucks though. The biggest mass extinction (90%) was due to an increase in Methane into the atmosphere.

John Smith wrote on Nov 11^th, 2017 at 8:40pm:

I agree with Lee f ark the BOM, when I want to know what's happening in the world of climate I'll ask Lord Monkton  ;D ;D ;D ;D

Do you think Lord Monk knows any thing about climate John?

What about the idiot with the bug eyes Lord Monckton?

Jasin wrote on Nov 13^th, 2017 at 2:16pm:

Methane sucks though. The biggest mass extinction (90%) was due to an increase in Methane into the atmosphere.

Prof. Peter Wadhams -
"He was one of the authors of a paper in the journal Nature, which suggested it was possible for a truly vast amount of frozen methane to be released over just 10 years – a blink of an eye in geological terms.

“We were concerned if there were a 50 gigatonne release, about eight per cent of the methane in the hydrates, that would give an immediate 0.6°C of global warming, which is a very large pulse indeed,” Professor Wadhams said.

“That modern threat is very real and very serious and has been disregarded a lot by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change … I feel strongly about it.”

However, Professor Wadhams criticised the title of the Palaeoworld paper, which was “Methane hydrate: Killer cause of Earth’s greatest mass extinction”.

“There’s a serious tendency these days to offer a breathless overkill on the importance of a discovery. The title of the paper is over the top,” he said.

“Methane may or may not be the cause of the extinctions described. The evidence is equivocal. It doesn’t justify all the razzamatazz.” "

reported in
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/earth-permian-mass-extinction-apocalypse-warning-climate-change-frozen-methane-a7648006.html

So much less certainty. ;)

Jasin wrote on Nov 13^th, 2017 at 2:16pm:

This is a major coup for the Astrologers who always said it was out there to begin with.

*Astronomers

Nothing is more insulting to an Astronomer than being called an Astrologer.