A final thought on 2016 Australian warming

Those interested can read on further in the GISTEMP history, and see that there have been 13 different sources of land and sea temperature data between 1981 and 2016, to which the author(s) of the document comment, So although the specific numbers and the uncertainty associated with them have changed over the years, what is remarkable is that the basic picture they paint of the temperature changes over time is robust as can be seen in the following figures. To which I would respond that as long as all one wants to do is to argue that the world has warmed a little over time, the data will do. But they would do that even if the outliers were kept and there were no adjustments or filling in of empty cells with zonal means.

What the data have been used for, of course, is the insistence that the world is warming quickly and that the villains are human beings. I don’t buy either assertion without a great deal of qualification.

Just for interest, I had a look around the climate blogosphere to see whether or not Ole Humlum and his website were the subject of sustained critique from anyone. I couldn’t find much. SkepticalScience is the obvious candidate, and indeed there are two attacks on Professor Humlum there, but these focus on statements in his published papers, which I do not think are especially important in this context, and won’t go into here. But so far as I can see, his use of the official data  passes the criticism test.

And what is the difference between the data used by BoM, and the GISS data? I don’t know, and for those who wonder why I didn’t use BoM data I point to the fifth paragraph above.