Momentum is growing. In Federal Parliament this week George Christensen (Nationals party, Qld) gave an excellent summary of questions Jennifer Marohasy and I have been raising about the Bureau of Meteorology, and announced he would be calling for an inquiry.
It’s long past time. Why does the BOM have so little curiosity about the burning Australian heat before 1910? Why do older thermometers seem to need correction 90 years later for reading “too warm”? Why do so many hot or dry empirical measurements remain invisible in our national conversation about the climate? And with so many questions, why do the Bureau insist they are 95% certain they know what they are talking about?
The Transcript from Quadrant — Wanted: Straight Answers from the BoM.
“I rise to paint a picture of climate
change — a picture where Camden, just to the south-west of Sydney, is
sweltering in 50-degree heat. Over in the west it is 51 degrees in the
shade at Geraldton. Perth is 44, Geelong is 43, Wilcannia 48, Carnarvon
49½ and Southern Cross is 50 degrees. The death rate is 12 in 100,000
from heat-associated deaths—435 dead over the summer!
This is not a Greens scare campaign but the Federation Drought, 118 years ago. It has never been as hot since.
See our post about the extreme heat of 1896
for the original links to the news archives that underlie what
Christensen is talking about. Much of this work is fueled by the number
crunching and research of Ken Stewart, Chris Gilham, Lance Pidgeon and
others on the independent BOM audit team. See also the heat map of Australian 50+ temperatures, and all my posts on Australian Temperatures. It’s great to see this material being spoken in Parliament yet again."
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