Under pressure, Australian BOM puts up facade of “transparency” — too little, too late

JoNova (Australia)

Bottom line: The BOM has added a page listing “Adjustments”. It’s two years late, inadequate and incomplete. Skeptics shouldn’t have had to ask for it in the first place, and we still don’t have the algorithms and codes, or rational answers to most questions.  No one can replicate the mystery black box homogenisation methods of the BOM — and without replication, it isn’t science. There is still no explanation of why an excellent station like Rutherglen should change from cooling to warming, except for vague “statistics”, or why any station should be adjusted without documentary evidence, based on thermometers that might be 300 km away.

Lo and behold, the pressure from The Australian and independent analysts means the BOM has made a weak belated attempt to do what it has implied it always has done. When Michael Brown provided cover for the BOM he said the notion that scientists were hiding data was “pseudoscience”. The BOM, meanwhile, added a page called “Adjustments”, two years after launching “ACORN”, quietly admitting that the skeptics were right. They did not correct Brown’s baseless namecalling. Other apologists for their inexplicable anomalies, major adjustments or errors – like David Karoly — demand the skeptics publish in the peer reviewed literature before they will even consider their point of view, but neither Karoly nor the BOM can name the peer reviewed document, or any publication or link, with the full homogenization code. How can skeptics discuss a method in the peer review literature which is not publicly available? The BOM homogenization technique remains a black box method that cannot be replicated — only the secret guild of anointed BOM staff are privy to the details.
Let’s open that BOM black box: let’s have a replication of the homogenization process, open to public inspection, so it can be audited. So everyone can see where every homogenized number came from, back to the raw data and the adjustments. No public company could shield its finances from observation like this: they have to produce audited accounts every six months that show all money in the company bank account, all money owed, and all money owing. All of it.
And once we have replication, then we can have an informed discussion of the ramifications of the current homogenization process, and how it might be improved or made more realistic."