Dennis Jensen (Tangney, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to speak on our inquiry into seasonal forecasting in Australia. I think that this was a very good inquiry. It highlighted some needs, such as increased funding for things such as supercomputing. I think it is fair to say that many of the committee members were quite surprised at the state of climate science and the uncertainty that was involved.

Given that the inquiry was into seasonal forecasting, and therefore climate effects, it is necessary that we have a look at the state of climate science, because this is something that is greatly concerning. If the science on this is perverted then obviously the outputs from the Bureau of Meteorology and anyone else who provides seasonal forecasts will be significantly degraded. We have seen some emails and some leaks from a hack of the East Anglia Climate Research Unit and I find that the response to that is quite staggering. For instance, last night on Lateline, Professor Andy Pitman, from the University of New South Wales, referred to the correspondence that occurred between these leading climate scientists—many of whom are lead authors or coordinating lead authors for the IPCC—as ‘the normal repartee of discussion between climate scientists’.

Tim Flannery was of a similar view: this is normal; nothing extraordinary about it. Professor David Karoly, in email discussion with me, said, when I referred to concerns about people like Phil Jones, Michael Mann and others from the Climate Research Unit and the IPCC:

Your statements above are inaccurate. If you think that there has been deliberate falsification of data or misconduct by these scientists, I suggest that you make a complaint through official channels. Such previous complaints have been fond to be unjustified. You appear to be basing your comments on some biased evaluations.

When I referred to the fact that he had made a statement that there were no papers in the peer-reviewed literature that significantly contradicted the IPCC’s position, he said:

I am aware of the peer-reviewed journal paper that you mention below—

because I sent him a copy of one paper—

together with a small number of other peer-reviewed journal papers that seek to challenge some of the conclusions of the IPCC. I am also aware of a number of flaws in such papers and therefore do not consider that they seriously contradict the conclusions of the IPCC.

Now, let’s have a look at some of the emails that have come out from the East Anglia Climate Research Unit. Phil Jones is the professor who is the head of that unit. He is also in charge of the Hadley Centre, which is one of the four major repositories—and probably the major repository accepted by the IPCC—gathering global climate data, and particularly global temperatures. In one of his emails Phil Jones says:

I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.

This was supposedly normal discourse between climate scientists. I have to say that as an ex-scientist I am embarrassed.

Michael Mann, who came up with the hockey stick in the third assessment report, said:

The Soon and Baliunas paper couldn’t have cleared a “legitimate” peer review process anywhere. That leaves only one possibility—that the peer-review process at Climate Research—

which is a peer-reviewed journal—

has been hijacked by a few skeptics on the editorial board.

Keith Briffa, who is the person who has been responsible for a lot of the proxy reconstructions over the last thousand years, said:

I tried hard to balance the needs of the science and the IPCC, which were not always the same.

Kevin Trenberth, the coordinating lead author with the IPCC on both the third and fourth assessment reports, said:

The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t. The CERES data published in the August BAMS 09 supplement on 2008 shows there should have been more warming—

even more warming—

but the data are surely wrong. Our observing system is inadequate.

In other words, the data are wrong; our models are right. George Monbiot, who is a journalist in the UK who is generally of the alarmist persuasion—and he has called sceptics nut cases—has said:

It’s no use pretending that this isn’t a major blow. The emails extracted by a hacker from the climatic research unit at the University of East Anglia could scarcely be more damaging. I am now convinced that they are genuine, and I’m dismayed and deeply shaken by them.

He adds:

There appears to be evidence here of attempts to prevent scientific data from being released, and even to destroy material that was subject to a freedom of information request.

He goes on to say:

I believe that the head of the unit, Phil Jones, should now resign.

I would go further. I think he should actually be tried for destruction of data from an FOI request. Tom Wigley, another scientist from the CRU wrote:

We probably need to say more about this. Land warming since 1980 has been twice the ocean warming—and skeptics might claim that this proves that urban warming is real and important.

Phil Jones, once again, head of the climate change research unit wrote:

Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re AR4?

That is, the fourth assessment report. The email continues:

Keith will do likewise. He’s not in at the moment—minor family crisis.

Can you also email Gene and get him to do the same? I don’t have his new email address.

We will be getting Caspar to do likewise.

I see that CA—

that is, climate audit—

claim they discovered the 1945 problem in the Nature paper!!

Tom Wigley:

Here are some speculations on correcting—

sea surface temperatures—

to partly explain the 1940s warming blip.

If you look at the attached plot you will see that the land also shows the 1940s blip (as I’m sure you know).

So, if we could reduce the ocean blip by, say, 0.15 degC, then this could be a significant for the global mean—but we’d still have to explain the land blip.

…            …            …

It would be good to remove at least part of the 1940s blip, but we are still left with “why the blip”.

Phil Jones again:

The other paper by MM—

McIntyre and McKitrick—

is just garbage—as you knew. De Freitas again. Pielke is also losing all credibility as well by replying to the mad Finn as well—frequently as I see it.

I can’t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report.

Now get this:

Kevin—

Kevin Trenberth—

and I will keep them out somehow—even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!

I thought the climate science was supposed to be settled. Phil Jones again:

The two MMs—

McIntyre and McKitrick —

have been after the CRU station data for years. If they ever hear there is a Freedom of Information Act now in the UK, I think I’ll delete the file rather than send to anyone. … We also have a data protection act, which I will hide behind.

Phil Jones again:

I did get an email from the FOI person here early yesterday to tell me I shouldn’t be deleting emails …

…            …            …

According to the FOI Commissioner’s Office, IPCC is an international organization, so is above any national FOI. Even if UEA holds anything about IPCC, we are not obliged to pass it on …

He also said, in another email:

PS I’m getting hassled by a couple of people to release the CRU station temperature data.

Don’t any of you three tell anybody that the UK has a Freedom of Information Act!

Very interesting, given that Jones was asked about data and had this to say, when he was requested recently under an FOI request:

We are not in a position to supply data for a particular country not covered by the example agreements referred to earlier, as we have never had sufficient resources to keep track of the exact source of each individual monthly value. Since the 1980s, we have merged the data we have received into existing series or begun new ones, so it is impossible to say if all stations within a particular country or if all of an individual record should be freely available. Data storage availability in the 1980s meant that we were not able to keep the multiple sources for some sites, only the station series after adjustment for homogeneity issues. We, therefore, do not hold the original raw data was only the value-added (i.e. quality controlled and homogenised) data.

He also said in a communication to Warwick Hughes, an Australian, a few years ago:

Even if WMO—

the World Meteorological Organisation—

agrees, I will still not pass on the data. We have 25 or so years invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try to find something wrong with it.

Precisely what scientists are supposed to do. Adam Markham:

In particular, they would like to see the section on variability and extreme events beefed up if possible.

This was in response to a request by the WWF to beef up some climate change data for Australia. Phil Jones again:

I hope you’re not right about the lack of warming lasting till about 2020. I’d rather hoped to see the earlier Met Office press release with Doug’s paper that said something like—half the years to 2014 would exceed our warmest year currently on record, 1998!

Tom Wigley again:

Kevin, I didn’t mean to offend you. But what you said was “we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment”. Now you say “we are nowhere close to knowing where energy is going”. In my eyes these are two different things—the second relates to our level of understanding, and I agree that this is still lacking.

Kevin Trenberth again. Remember he is the IPCC coordinating lead author:

The fact that we cannot account for what is happening in the climate system makes any consideration of geoengineering quite hopeless as we will never be able to tell if it is successful or not! It is a travesty!

Phil Jones:

I will be emailing the journal to tell them I’m having nothing more to do with it until they rid themselves of this troublesome editor.

Mike’s idea to get editorial board members to resign will probably not work—must get rid of von Storch too, otherwise holes will eventually be filled up with people like Legates, Balling, Lindzen, Michaels, Singer, etc.

Mick Kelly:

Anyway, I’ll maybe cut the last few points off the filtered curve before I give the talk again as that’s trending down as a result of the end effect and the recent cold-ish years.

Michael Mann:

… that it would be nice to try to “contain” the putative MWP—

mediaeval warm period—

even if we don’t yet have a hemispheric mean reconstruction available that far back …

Tom Wigley:

And the issue of withholding data is still a hot potato, one that affects both you and Keith (and Mann). Yes, there are reasons—but many *good* scientists appear to be unsympathetic to these. The trouble here is that withholding data looks like hiding something, and hiding means (in some eyes) that it is bogus science that is being hidden.

Mick Kelly, with regard to funding:

We need to show some left to cover the costs of the trip Roger didn’t make and also the fees/equipment/computer money we haven’t spent otherwise NOAA—

the national oceanographic organisation in the United States—

will be suspicious.

Tom Wigley:

So, if we could reduce the ocean blip by, say, 0.15 degC, then this would be significant for the global mean—but we’d still have to explain the land blip.

Michael Mann:

Just a heads up. Apparently, the contrarians now have an “in” with the GRL—

The Geophysical Review Letters, a peer review journal.

This guy Saiers has a prior connection w/ the University of Virginia Dept. of Environmental Sciences that causes me some unease.

I think we know how the various Douglass et al papers w/ Michaels and Singer, the Soon et al paper, and now this one have gotten published in GRL.

Saiers soon lost his job after this. This is an appalling perversion of science. We hear all the time that we are having to spend billions and billions of dollars globally, in fact globally trillions of dollars, to address something and we are getting this perversion with the IPCC process.

As I have said, as a scientist I am deeply disturbed by this. I have, as people know, been sceptical of the science. My view with regard to the more alarmist position is that people have been seduced too much by computer models and that there has been a certain amount of institutionalised groupthink. I have also been of the view that the IPCC have various structural problems that have actually led to their results of human beings causing warming. Never in my wildest nightmares, despite what other people have said about it, did I think that this sort of perversion of peer reviewed science was in place. We need to be very careful on this. It is critical that the science is cleaned up. (Time expired)

Rowan Ramsey (Grey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Seasonal forecasting in Australia report of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Innovation. From the outset, let me thank the chair of the committee, the member for Calwell, and the secretariat for the work that has gone into this. I was one of those who were urging the committee to adopt the study into seasonal forecasting as I have a long-standing interest in this area. I was a farmer before I entered parliament, and have to say that, from a farming perspective, seasonal forecasting is the holy grail. Farming has become highly technical and mechanised. We have tractors that basically do not need to be steered anymore. Harvesters are the same. We are able to sow our grain each year to within about two centimetres of our target. We are able to specify what fertiliser should be used and how much fertiliser should be applied in any given part of the paddock depending on the soil type and previous productivity. We are able to spray chemicals across a paddock at variable rates depending on which chemical is needed where. But the last great variables are the rain and the season. We have absolutely no control over those and are never likely to have, but perhaps we may be able to predict what is in store. Our predictive capacity is still found wanting.

During this inquiry I was hoping that we would uncover the missing science and find the great answer to all these difficulties. In that sense, I am a little disappointed, but I think the recommendations we make, and the information we gleaned out of the inquiry, are very valuable nonetheless. I will focus on a few things. We took extensive evidence from the CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology, as of course we would given they are the leading bodies in this area in Australia. There was some concern amongst the committee, as raised in evidence, that their process is somewhat insular. We have some concerns that other bodies were not being welcomed with open arms to conduct their science through their institutions. In particular, some of the universities might have much to offer.

We have recommended to the CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology that they should have to justify the climate models they have chosen to use as the prime dynamic models behind their science. There are a number of other models around the world. In the end, you have to make some kind of decision. I do not think, though, that we heard enough evidence to suggest that all other options should be ruled out—neither were they saying that; but they have predominantly gone with one model. We would like them to at least re-examine that and to justify their position. Sometimes you do not know what your weaknesses are. It is like a SWOT analysis. If you sit down and go through a program, you may well revisit some of your decisions and identify some of the weaknesses in your argument. In particular, we believe that there are some areas that are under-researched in Australia at the moment. We took some strong evidence about the influence of particulates on our climate. It is claimed that the South-East Asian smoke plume has the ability to cool the oceans to the north-west and the north of Australia and to perhaps induce the long periods of drought that we have been experiencing in recent years. That particular haze coming out of South-East Asia is unlikely to diminish even though there are some hopes in other spheres of politics that we will be able to limit the forest burning which is causing the bulk of it.

But I do not think we can just dismiss the science. Certainly the CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology both recognised the fact that they needed to do more work in this area. It is always a question of resources, so there is a recommendation that this area should be properly resourced. It has the potential to unlock some of those great secrets. We were given the opportunity in Melbourne to inspect the bureau’s newest supercomputer. We were probably a little crestfallen to find that the supercomputer is almost superseded before it has been superstarted, as it were, and that our computing capacity in Australia, while much improved on where it was, is still lagging behind that of the Europeans and the North Americans. We are only a small nation, and the collaborations we make around the world are a very important part of the way we progress our science. But you can be sure that no-one is more interested in the weather in Australia than those of us who live in Australia and are affected by it.

As I said at the beginning, the potential for gain from accurate seasonal forecasting in Australia, in our very dry climate, is immense. It will give farmers the ability to work out whether or not they are even going to sow a crop, what kind of crop it might be and whether or not to fertilise heavily. So it has a great effect on inputs, but it also gives them the ability to adjust to the season. In fact, we could eliminate sowing crops in seasons when we should not do so. I have often said in the middle of a drought that if only I had been able to predict the season at the start it would have been far more profitable to go the beach for the year. An average farmer may well go out and risk half a million dollars on the strength of the seasonal rains.

One of the things that was also highlighted, particularly in some evidence we took in Adelaide from Sharon Starick, is that farmers have a fairly healthy scepticism about seasonal forecasts. While that may not be easily addressed until there is more accuracy to the forecasts there is a reasonable amount of respect in the farming community for the weekly and the daily weather forecasting services, which have improved in accuracy markedly, on a steady incline, over the last 20 years. When the bureau is predicting 10 millimetres of rain, for instance, people are making farming decisions—to go and place fertiliser on the paddocks and other things—based on that, but we still do not have that kind of confidence in the seasonal forecasts. If people take any notice of seasonal forecasts and make decisions based upon them, only to find that they are wrong, then I can tell you that once bitten, twice shy is the experience they take away from that, and their scepticism becomes deep and ingrained.

I think it has been a valuable inquiry. I think our recommendations are sound and good. It is a science that requires more attention from Australia. I know we can look at almost anything and say that if we invested more strongly we would have a better result. But when it comes to seasonal forecasting we have a great stake invested because, while Australia no longer rides on the sheep’s back, agriculture is still one of the biggest sectors that contributes to our export income and is very important. In a world that is presenting many challenges to our agriculturalists, it is vitally important that we adopt the most modern and up-to-date science to keep us competitive with the rest of the world and in front wherever possible. In the case of our seasonal forecasting ability, it is important that we have the best available information in the world in order to be able to compete.

Debate (on motion by Ms Vamvakinou) adjourned.