Part 7c. Cloncurry, Queensland, Australia
Bureau of Meteorology ID 29041 (Airport), 29009 (Aero) and 29008 (PO)
Latitude -15.6614 Longitude 130.4808.
Dr Bill Johnston[1]
ACORN-SAT is the 112-station Australian Climate Observations Reference Network – Surface Air Temperature dataset used to monitor Australia’s climate. Focussing on Australia’s Top End,this series of BomWatch reports examines how data homogenisation is used by Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) scientists to manipulate temperature data to agree with the warming narrative.
Although Cloncurry is not an ACORN-SAT site, maximum temperature (Tmax) measured at the airport is used with data for up to nine other sites to adjust 11 ACORN-SAT datasets, including Tennant Creek (669km to the west), Victoria River Downs (1,109km NW) and St George (1,153km SE). The study investigated whether data for Cloncurry (1907-2023) are fit for the purpose of homogenising data for other sites.
Trend in combined post office and airport Tmax of 0.124oC/decade is related to site changes in 1916, 1942 and 1998 that caused data to warm 0.95oC (±0.124 oCSE) since records commenced in 1907.
As little is known of conditions at the post office that affected observations the change at the post office in 1916 could not be attributed. The step-change in 1942 coincided with moving to the Aeradio office where observations ceased on 23 May 1975. Observations re-commenced at another airport site in May 1978; however, due to missing observations data were unreliable from 1975 to 1981, when observations ceased. A new site was established at unknown location in 1997. Manual observations ceased and thermometers were removed when an automatic weather station was installed toward the centre of the airport on 22 March 2001.
The study highlights the fallacy of using poorly documented data that are affected by site moves and instrument changes, to detect and homogenise changes in ACORN-SAT data. The study also underscores the common problem with the Bureau’s methods, which is that as site-related changes in comparator data are ignored, they ultimately impact datasets comparators are used to adjust. This is especially the case when comparators are chosen on the basis their data are highly correlated with target-site data and therefore likely to embed parallel faults.
BomWatch protocols use local rainfall as the climate covariable and results speak for themselves. Accounting site changes and rainfall simultaneously left no residual trend or change that could be attributed to CO2, coalmining, internal-combustion engines, electricity generation or anything else.
The ACORN-SAT project is irredeemably deeply flawed. Contrary to claims made by the BoM, methods used by scientist Blair Trewin to homogenise ACORN-SAT have not been reviewed from first principles. Site histories have not been exhaustively researched and the idea that faulty data could be used directly to adjust faults in ACORN-SAT is biased, unscientific, lacks statistical merit and should be abandoned.
Click here to download the full paper with photos, graphs and data
[1] Former NSW Department of Natural Resources research scientist and weather observer.