Quote:
Originally Posted by Renato1
Actually you raise an interesting issue - Peer-Review of the technique versus Quality Assurance of the resulting adjusted data. I spent most of my working life involved with Quality Assurance of Munitions.
So here we have peer-reviewed work by BOM, using best practices in the world. Sounds good so far. Only problem is their data is being subjected to free quality assurance by individuals who have access to the data, and problems keep being found all the time. Australia is a big place, and it is a big job looking at all of the data, by what at the end of the day are amateurs doing it on an ad-hoc basis - yet what those amateurs find is indisputable, because the raw and corrected information is there for verification by anybody.
Apart from the Amberly example, lots of other problems have been documented, such as after homogenisation daily minimum temperature suddenly being higher than that day's daily maximum temperature - something that plainly wasn't the case with the raw data, and where homogenisation produced flawed results by definition. Peer Review may put it's stamp of approval on that all it likes, but the result is wrong.
Another example, is the hottest temperature ever recorded in Australia. After homogenisation the hottest temperature didn't occur where the raw data typically shows it in central parts of Australia, but by the beach in Albany WA back in the 1930s (after lots of degrees were added to the raw data on that day).
And homogenisation is meant to take account of supposed poor practices back then, like assuming the people were dills and kept thermometers in direct sunlight. Only problem is, homogenised results have been found where the raw data maximum temperature figure was significantly reduced - even though the maximum occurred at around midnight, when plainly there was no sunlight on the thermometer.
And it matters not whether the analysis leading to the identification of flawed data results is done by members of the IPA or by members of Greenpeace, flawed results are flawed results - and anyone can go and verify them when they are documented.
Regards,
Renato
|
Yes, quality assurance is very important. Without it, you'll have people putting out statements that the amount of ice in the Arctic is increasing despite un-homogenised data that states exactly the opposite...
