Temperature and site change
record keeping for Australia's
Sydney Observatory
is a climate scandal.
No one in their government
seems to care.
That’s a second scandal.
Major site changes were not
even recorded by the Australian
Bureau of Meteorology (BoM).
The Sydney Observatory
weather station has operated
since 1859.
It is Australia’s longest
continuously operating
weather station, and one of the
oldest in the Southern Hemisphere.
The Observatory location
was known as a cool, breezy
part of Sydney in the 1800s.
In 1896, the site was called
the coolest, loveliest site,
10 degrees F. cooler
than the rest of Sydney.
" ... the Observatory with its
loveliest little summer house,
almost buried in foliage,
is situated on the highest hill
in Sydney where breezes
off the water blow on
nearly all sides of it."
Trove, Saturday January 18, 1896,
The Armidale Chronicle
Ten degrees Fahrenheit
is 5.5 degrees Centigrade.
Past temperature records
from there should be raised,
by up to 10 degrees F.,
for fair comparisons
with temperatures
being measured there today.
They are not adjusted at all.
In addition,
the temperature sampling
rate in the good old days
was no more than
every three hours.
Modern electronic equipment
picks up meaningless
one second temperatures,
which the BoM converts
into scary headlines.
Other countries average
electronic readings
over one to five minutes
so they are more comparable
to the older records
from glass thermometers.
But not Australia!
From 1859 until 1990,
mercury and alcohol
thermometers
could not produce
“one second records”.
With modern technology
it’s a temperature every minute,
or even every second.
This change alone
dramatically increases
the chance of catching
a new "record high" or
"record low" for any day.
The BoM ignores most of the
site and instrument changes
to the Sydney Observatory site
since 1896.
-- A brick wall was built behind
the Stevenson screen louvered box
in 1972 or 1973.
The BoM does not record that change,
much less adjust the temperature for it.
The official history of the site
only mentions three changes
— the last one made in 1917.
Figure 1
(A) The two Stevenson screens at Sydney Observatory
are beside an open wire fence in 1966
(B) The school gymnasium opened in 1952
(C) To the west is the 1922 Sydney Weather Bureau office
(D) To the north is the Fort Street School
The original (pre-1917) site was
in the Observatory grounds.
Also seen are the Cahill Expressway
up-ramp.
The school grounds are concrete.
The buildings, and heritage-listed fig tree
in front, shade the site in the late afternoon,
especially in the winter.
A 1974 aerial photograph shows
the open wire fence (A) replaced by
an 8-foot high (2.4 meter) solid brick wall.
In summary, the site is surrounded
by economic growth -- walls,
traffic masses, and buildings
that were not there before the 1950s.
Note the nearby car traffic that was
not there for many, many decades!
The site is near the main route
to the Sydney Harbour Bridge
which carries 160,000 cars a day.
SITE CHANGE DETAILS:
-- They moved the thermometers
to the front yard of the cottage in 1917,
just before construction began
on the Harbour Bridge (1920-1932).
-- The Weather Bureau office
behind the cottage was built in 1922.
-- The nearby Fort Street school
was demolished and rebuilt from 1938 to 1941.
-- They moved the thermometers
away from the school (and a fig tree)
to the southeastern corner of the yard,
probably in 1948 or 1949.
-- The school gymnasium opened in 1952.
-- The nearby Cahill Expressway
opened in 1958.
-- The two Stevenson screens
at the Sydney Observatory
were beside an open wire fence
for a long time.
-- Then the fence was replaced
by an 8-foot high brick wall
in 1972 or 1973.
-- An electronic automatic
weather station (AWS)
was installed in 1990,
and old thermometers
were removed May 31, 1995.
-- A small weather screen
(louvered box) around the
measurement instruments
replaced the large box in 1997
(and the AWS was probably replaced too).
-- The nearby Bradfield Highway
was widened three or four times over the years.
-- Step-changes in Sydney Observatory
temperature data align with site changes.
-- Why haven’t the effects of
ALL the site changes been documented
by the many climate scientists who use
the data as a climate change reference?
-- "Adjustments" were made arbitrarily
for a few site changes -- the ones
that made no difference.
-- But site changes likely to
make a difference in the
measured temperature
had no adjustments at all.
-- It’s possible that
much of the warming
claimed for Sydney since 1859
is due to man-made site changes.
-- If the temperature had been
measured accurately
for all of the past 158 years,
at a site with no changes,
it's possible Sydney’s actual
temperature had not warmed at all
over the years.
(A) Most Australian weather stations
have had site changes.
(B) New stations have been
placed at inappropriate locations.
(C) The old large Stevenson
louvered screen boxes
were replaced with much smaller
boxes in the late 1990s.
The older, large boxes were 230 liters.
The new smaller ones were 60 liters
-- 1/4 the size!
Small boxes heat faster.
Small boxes respond to
the temperature changes quicker.
The small Stevenson screen seems neglected;
there are cobwebs between the louvers
and in the roof cavity and it is covered
in a thin coating of black soot,
which would make it warmer.
The serial number (right; 97/C0526)
indicates it was made in 1997,
data stepped-up in 1998,
but Bureau documentation says
the screen was replaced in 2000.
(Its possible that nobody knows!)
-- At Newcastle’s Nobby's Head,
the AWS and small screen box
were moved to the edge of the cliff
above the beach in 2001.
-- At Brewarrina Hospital,
new construction nearby
warmed the area.
-- At Wanaaring,
they put a
small screen box
beside a dusty track.
-- At Moomba,
they put a
small screen box
between the airport runway
and a materials dump.
-- At Sydney airport,
the small screen box
is only 35 meters from traffic
emerging from the General Holmes
Drive tunnel.
-- There were also site changes
at Alice Springs, Hobart,
Charleville, Adelaide, Mandora,
Launceston, Ceduna,
Cape Leeuwin and many others.
-- Site changes are very common,
along with economic growth
in the vicinity of existing
weather station boxes.
"It’s clear that the Bureau
of Meteorology either
doesn’t know what’s going-on
or they “know” the answer
they are looking for before they start."
"Either way, they are crafting
an enormous myth
about Australia’s climate."
Bill Johnson
PRIMARY SOURCE:
Johnston, Bill (2018)
Sydney Observatory’s temperature trends,
extremes and trends in extremes.
PDF (580Kb) at the link below: