New Zealand deniers cause tax payers more than $100,000: An insiders guide to white-anting climate science

Cross-posted from The Conversation.

by Jim Salinger, The Conversation, January 23, 2014

A recent headline – Failed doubters trust leaves taxpayers six-figure loss – marked the end of a four-year epic saga of secretly-funded climate denial, harassment of scientists and tying-up of valuable government resources in New Zealand.

It’s likely to be a familiar story to my scientist colleagues in Australia, the UK, USA and elsewhere around the world.

But if you’re not a scientist, and are genuinely trying to work out who to believe when it comes to climate change, then it’s a story you need to hear too. Because while the New Zealand fight over climate data appears finally to be over, it’s part of a much larger, ongoing war against evidence-based science.

From number crunching to controversy

In 1981 as part of my PhD work, I produced a seven-station New Zealand temperature series, known as 7SS, to monitor historic temperature trends and variations from Auckland to as far south as Dunedin in southern New Zealand.

A decade later, in 1991-92 while at the NZ Meteorological Service, I revised the 7SS using a new homogenisation approach to make New Zealand’s temperature records more accurate, such as adjusting for when temperature gauges were moved to new sites.

For example, in 1928 Wellington’s temperature gauge was relocated from an inner suburb near sea level up into the hills at Kelburn, where – due to its higher, cooler location – it recorded much cooler temperatures for the city than before.

With statistical analysis, we could work out how much Wellington’s temperature has really gone up or down since the city’s temperature records began back in 1862, and how much of that change was simply due to the gauge being moved uphill. (You can read more about re-examining NZ temperatures here.)

So far, so uncontroversial.

But then in 2008, while working for a NZ government-owned research organisation, theNational Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA), we updated the 7SS. And we found that at those seven stations across the country, from Auckland down to Dunedin, between 1909 and 2008 there was a warming trend of 0.91 °C.

Soon after that, things started to get heated.

The New Zealand Climate Science Coalition, linked to a global climate change denial group, the International Climate Science Coalition, began to question the adjustments I had made to the 7SS.

And rather than ever contacting me to ask for an explanation of the science, as I’ve tried to briefly cover above, the Coalition appeared determined to find a conspiracy.

“Shonky” claims

The attack on the science was led by then MP for the free market ACT New Zealand party, Rodney Hide, who claimed in the NZ Parliament in February 2010 that:

NIWA’s raw data for their official temperature graph shows no warming. But NIWA shifted the bulk of the temperature record pre-1950 downwards and the bulk of the data post-1950 upwards to produce a sharply rising trend… NIWA’s entire argument for warming was a result of adjustments to data which can’t be justified or checked. It’s shonky.

Mr Hide’s attack continued for 18 months, with more than 80 parliamentary questions being put to NIWA between February 2010 and July 2011, all of which required NIWA input for the answers.

The science minister asked NIWA to re-examine the temperature records, which required several months of science time. In December 2010, the results were in. After the methodology was reviewed and endorsed by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, it was found that at the seven stations from Auckland to Dunedin, between 1909 and 2008 there was a warming trend of 0.91 °C.

That is, the same result as before.

But in the meantime, before NIWA even had had time to produce that report, a new line of attack had been launched.

Off to court

In July 2010, a statement of claim against NIWA was filed in the High Court of New Zealand, under the guise of a new charitable trust: the New Zealand Climate Science Education Trust (NZCSET). Its trustees were all members of the NZ Climate Science Coalition.

The NZCSET challenged the decision of NIWA to publish the adjusted 7SS, claiming that the “unscientific” methods used created an unrealistic indication of climate warming.

The Trust ignored the evidence in the Meteorological Service report I first authored, which stated a particular adjustment methodology had been used. The Trust incorrectly claimed this methodology should have been used but wasn’t.

In July 2011 the Trust produced a document that attempted to reproduce the Meteorological Service adjustments, but failed to, instead making lots of errors.

On September 7, 2012, High Court Justice Geoffrey Venning delivered a 49-page ruling, finding that the NZCSET had not succeeded in any of its challenges against NIWA.

The judge was particularly critical about retired journalist and NZCSET Trustee Terry Dunleavy’s lack of scientific expertise.

Justice Venning described some of the Trust’s evidence as tediously lengthy and said “it is particularly unsuited to a satisfactory resolution of a difference of opinion on scientific matters.”

Taxpayers left to foot the bill

After an appeal that was withdrawn at the last minute, late last year the NZCSET was ordered to pay NIWA NZ$89,000 in costs from the original case, plus further costs from the appeal.

But just this month, we have learned that the people behind the NZCSET have sent it into liquidation as they cannot afford the fees, leaving the New Zealand taxpayer at a substantial, six-figure loss.

Commenting on the lost time and money involved with the case, NIWA’s chief executive John Morgan has said that:

On the surface it looks like the trust was purely for the purpose of taking action, which is not what one would consider the normal use of a charitable trust.

This has been an insidious saga. The Trust aggressively attacked the scientists, instead of engaging with them to understand the technical issues; they ignored evidence that didn’t suit their case; and they regularly misrepresented NIWA statements by taking them out of context.

Yet their attack has now been repeatedly rejected in Parliament, by scientists, and by the courts.

The end result of the antics by a few individuals and this Trust is probably going to be a six-figure bill for New Zealanders to pay.

My former colleagues have had valuable weeks tied up with wasted time in defending these 

manufactured allegations. That’s time that could have profitably been used investigating further what is happening with our climate.

But there is a bigger picture here too.

Merchants of doubt

Doubt-mongering is an old strategy. It is a strategy that has been pursued before to combat the ideas that cigarette smoking is harmful to your health, and it has been assiduously followed by climate deniers for the past 20 years.

One of the best known international proponents of such strategies is US think tank, the Heartland Institute.

Just to be clear: there is no evidence that the Heartland Institute helped fund the NZ court challenge. In 2012, one of the Trustees who brought the action against NIWA said Heartland had not donated anything to the case.

However, Heartland is known to have been active in NZ in the past, providing funding to the NZ Climate Science Coalition and a related International Coalition, as well as financially backing prominent climate “sceptic” campaigns in Australia.

The Heartland Institute also has a long record of working with tobacco companies, as the letter on the right illustrates. (You can read that letter and other industry documents in full here. Meanwhile, Heartland’s reply to critics of its tobacco and fossil fuel campaigns is here.)

Earlier this month, the news broke that major tobacco companies will finally admit they “deliberately deceived the American public,” in “corrective statements” that would run on prime-time TV, in newspapers and even on cigarette packs.

It’s taken a 15-year court battle with the US government to reach this point, and it shows that evidence can trump doubt-mongering in the long run.

A similar day may come for those who actively work to cast doubt on climate science.

http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2014/01/an-insiders-guide-to-white-anting-climate-science/

Gareth Renowden: Exclusive -- Flat Earth Society Appeal to New Zealand Climate Sceptics -- Join us!

EXCLUSIVE: FLAT EARTH SOCIETY APPEAL TO NZ CLIMATE SCEPTICS – JOIN US!

by GARETH renowden, hot topic, JULY 16, 2012

As New Zealand’s climate “science” coalition, in the guise of the NZ Climate Science Education Trust gets its day in court in its long running attempt to get the NZ temperature record declared invalid, a mole inside the Flat Earth Society has sent me the text of a letter being handed out to the CSET and its representatives outside the High Court in Auckland this morning. It is self-explanatory…

Updated 10:40 a.m.: By the miracle of modern technology, we have an image of the Flat Earthers in action, or perhaps inaction…

An Open Letter and Appeal to Lords Terence Dunleavy and Bryan Leyland of the Climate Science Education Trust.

On this day 16 July in the year 2012 in the Northern Township of Auckland, Middle Earth.

On the Occasion of the Lords’ Good Endeavours to Strike Down the temperature muddlings of the Dark Lords of the National Institution of Water and Atmosphere in the High Court of our Land.

Hear Ye Honourable and Esteemed Lords of Middle Earth.

We of the Flat Earth Society would like to extend to you a hand of friendship and solidarity.

For too long charlatans have used the black magic of peer-reviewed science to hide truthes from the public. They have falsified moon landings, spread the lie of global warming, and most dastardly of all, they say the earth is round! We at the Flat Earth Society have had centuries of experience in dealing with such fabrications.

At last, we have found another, like-minded group of lonely souls such as the Climate Science Education Trust who are bravely fighting the wave of charlatan science.

We, too, have diagrams that explain our cause.

The Flat Earth Society and the Lords of the Climate Science Education Trust share common cause and concern in the threatening face of scientific research.

Like you, we have been downtrodden by an extraordinarily complex conspiracy of governments who have bludgeoned us with their scientific evidence.

We, too, have suffered the Dark Arts of Peer Review — and publication in the Devil’s Papers such as Nature and Science. Like NASA and other institutions before them, petulant rubes like NIWA have falsified records of temperatures around Middle Earth to show that our world is warming.

We are horrified at the recent, similar episodes in the United States of America where there is much talk of temperature records being broken across the States – and it seems the entire Earth has been taken in by this nonsense.

We must also note that there is another large force in the background called Google Earth, that ignores the existence of the Ice Wall and the Great Turtles that support our Earth. We would seek help to combat this Great Travesty of Modernity. Perhaps the pieces of gold that you have found to help your case could be shared with us?

We wish you luck in your endeavours this week.

The letter is signed by Nathaniel Pipe-Blower, Tzar and 33rd degree Grand Wizard Master of the first inverted pancake lodge of the totally awesome Flat Earth Society Ltd.

http://hot-topic.co.nz/exclusive-flat-earth-society-appeal-to-nz-climate-sceptics-join-us/

"Gas escape features off New Zealand: Evidence of massive release of methane from hydrates" by B. Davy, I. Pecher, R. Wood, L. Carter & K. Gohl, GRL 37 (2010) doi:10.1029/2010GL045184

Geophysical Research Letters, 37 (2010) L21309; doi:10.1029/2010GL045184

Gas escape features off New Zealand: Evidence of massive release of methane from hydrates

Bryan Davy, Ingo Pecher, Ray Wood (Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences, Lower Hutt, New Zealand), Lionel Carter (Antarctic Research Centre, Victoria University Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand) and Karsten Gohl (Department of Geosciences, Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar Sciences, Bremerhaven, Germany)

Abstract

Multibeam swath bathymetry data from the southwest margin of the Chatham Rise, New Zealand, show gas release features over a region of at least 20,000 km². Gas escape features, interpreted to be caused by gas hydrate dissociation, include an estimated a) 10 features, 8–11 km in diameter and b) 1,000 features, 1–5 km in diameter, both at 800–1,100 m water depth. An estimated 10,000 features, ∼150 m in diameter, are observed at 500–700 m water depth. In the latter depth range sub-bottom profiles show similar gas escape features (pockmarks) at disconformities interpreted to mark past sea-level low stands. The amount of methane potentially released from hydrates at each of the largest features is ∼7*10¹² g. If the methane from a single event at one 8–11 km scale pockmark reached the atmosphere, it would be equivalent to ∼3% of the current annual global methane released from natural sources into the atmosphere.

Received 19 August 2010; accepted 27 September 2010; published 10 November 2010.

Citation: Davy, B., I. Pecher, R. Wood, L. Carter, and K. Gohl (2010), Gas escape features off New Zealand: Evidence of massive release of methane from hydrates, Geophys. Res. Lett., 37, L21309, doi:10.1029/2010GL045184.

http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2010/2010GL045184.shtml 

THE CLIMATE SHOW #14: VOLCANOES, BLACK CARBON AND CROCKS FROM CHRISTY

by GARETH renowden, hot topic, JUNE 16, 2011

Abusy news week sees Glenn and Gareth discussing volcanoes in Chile and Africa, busy pumping ash into the atmosphere and disrupting flights in South America, Australia, New Zealand and the Middle East, an extreme spring in the USA, drought in Europe and a warm autumn in NZ, a new UN report on black carbon and how a reduction could cut future warming, Aussie scientists fighting back against climate denial, and forecasts for the summer ice minimum in the Arctic. John Cook from Skeptical Science deals with their new series on John Christy’s climate crocks, and introduces a great new graphic front end for the SkS climate literature database, plus we cover price reductions on solar panels, LEDs on streetlights in San Francisco and MIT’s Cambridge crude.

Watch The Climate Show on our Youtube channel, subscribe to the podcast viaiTunes, or listen direct/download here:

The Climate Show

Follow The Climate Show at The Climate Show web site, and on Facebook and Twitter.

News & commentary: [0:05:50]

Chile volcano: Southern Hemisphere’s turn to experience what happened last year in Europe – doesn’t threaten climate cooling (at least, not yet).

Earth Observatory

Wikipedia

NZ ash forecasts from the Met Service.

But there’s one nearer the equator: Nabro in Eritrea.

Follow the action at Dr Erik Klemmeti’s Eruptions blog.

Jeff Masters on extreme weather in the US:

Nature’s fury reached new extremes in the U.S. during the spring of 2011, as a punishing series of billion-dollar disasters brought the greatest flood in recorded history to the Lower Mississippi River, an astonishingly deadly tornado season, the worst drought in Texas history, and the worst fire season in recorded history. There’s never been a spring this extreme for combined wet and dry extremes in the U.S. since record keeping began over a century ago, statistics released last week by the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) reveal.

And one consequence (among many): NOAA predicts that the annual “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico will be the biggest since records begin…

And a dry spring in Europe and SE Britain could mean France has to shut down some nuclear power stations because of a lack of cooling water.

p.s. May was the warmest ever recorded in New Zealand… 2.2 ºC warmer than 1971-2000 average (Mt. Hutt webcams here).

New UN report on “black carbon” just released.

Guardian: UN – curbing black carbon would bring dramatic, quick benefits to all

UNEP press release

Report PDF

CLEARING UP THE CLIMATE DEBATE

Aussie scientists hit back at sceptics with series of strongly worded articles at The Conversation

Open Letter.

The greenhouse effect is real.

Speaking science to climate policy.

And finally: First batch of forecasts for the Arctic summer sea ice minimum released.

NASA Arctic Mosaic, and the Arctic Sea Ice blog.

Debunking the sceptic, with John Cook of Skeptical Science [0:42:20]

Christy Crocks

“I think there’s been too much jumping to conclusions about seeing something happening in the climate and saying ‘well the only way that can happen is human effects”

“I think most of all, [current temperatures] are part of the normal ups and downs of climate.”

“We are finding that the climate is not very sensitive to CO2 and those kind of gases”

http://sks.to/christy

An Interactive History of Climate Science

http://sks.to/history

Solutions [1:05:00]

Solar PV changing the game? Joe Romm reports:
Solar is Ready Now: ‘Ferocious Cost Reductions’ Make Solar PV Competitive

China Plans to Double Solar Capacity Target for 2015

Google funding rooftop solar PVs

Battery breakthrough (again): MIT Team build liquid fuelled batteries for cars – Cambridge crude!

Another kind of energy storage: an “energy bag”

And energy efficiency: San Francisco replacing sodium streelt lights with LEDs – saves 50% energy…

Thanks to our media partners: Celsias.co.nz, Scoop and KiwiFM.

Theme music: A Drop In The Ocean by The Bads.

http://hot-topic.co.nz/the-climate-show-14-volcanoes-black-carbon-and-crocks-from-christy/

Eyewitness account of New Zealand earthquake. Climate researcher Kevin Trenberth describes experience

Eyewitness account of New Zealand earthquake

by Steve Tracton, Capital Weather Gang, Washington Post, February 24, 2011

Climate researcher Kevin Trenberth describes experience

A long-time friend of mine, prominent climate scientist Kevin Trenberth, sent me his eyewitness account of Tuesday's deadly earthquake in New Zealand along with damage photos. Kevin is a native of New Zealand who coincidentally was visiting family and friends when the earthquake struck.

Collapsed brick wall on the back side of Trenberth's sister's house.

Kevin had been in the center of Christchurch, a normally beautiful city of some 400,000, one hour before the earthquake, but was in Mt. Pleasant (about five miles southeast of Christchurch) at the house of his sister and her husband when the quake struck. While Christchurch experienced extensive damage and loss of life - and the center of media attention - the smaller community of Mt. Pleasant was the actual epicenter of the earthquake.

Kevin describes the quake as very sharp and said:

"the whole ground buckled and heaved ... and the devastation was immediate."

Kevin and family members at home at the time got under the dining room table as "everything came off the walls, the china cabinet and all the crystal" went crashing around them. "In the room we were in 6 mm (.2 in) plate glass windows were smashed, and likewise in the adjacent living room." (The windows overlooked a great view of Christchurch, which was covered withdust rising from the city moments after the quake.

Keep reading for more of Kevin's eyewitness account and photos...

In the kitchen, about two meters (6-7 feet) from their location, "the cupboards emptied, the built in wall oven crashed onto the floor followed by the built in microwave. Then the big refrigerator with bottom freezer fell on top of all that ... All the glassware and crockery were smashed, as well as the windows, broken glass everywhere ... Some of it rained very close to my head."

A big crack in the house's foundation.

Kevin continues:

"But the house held in front. Not so in the back. The back wall was bricked and had a French door: the wall collapsed and the door jerked out and away from the house so it is wide open (and thus opens to intruders). There are big cracks in the foundation."

Ironically coincidental, Kevin reports, the house had been inspected the morning before the quake to appraise its condition in light of the last earthquake in the area just five months ago (September 2010). "The house was pronounced very sound with only minor repairs needed. Not any more. It is now 'munted': a complete write off and unlivable."

"Banks of rocks and solid ground near the house collapsed and made it difficult to get out. The road outside had a big crack and the sidewalk dropped 20 cm (7.9 in) relative to the road and a gap opened 8 cm (3.1 in) wide. The water main broke just above there and water cascaded down past the front of the house, making it a wet experience getting to my rental car, which was OK ... As soon as we could we checked the areas to see if anyone needed help..."

Fortunately, Kevin was uninjured but his brother suffered some cuts from flying glass.

Close by, other relatives barely got out in time as a cliff collapsed on their house. Another family member was in the inner city of Christchurch in a nine-story building next to the town square. "She was thrown and immediately went down the stairs onto the street only to see the big cathedral in the center of the square collapse in front of her. The debris rained down on top of some people." Her car in the parking lot was totaled. She managed to hitchhike six miles home uninjured but shaken.

Sinkholes and huge piles of silt in the street made many roads impassable.

When all of Kevin's nearby family members were finally gathered in one place, they packed a car with clothes, stuff and personal items, secured the premises as best they could, and traveled across town on damaged roads to overnight with his sister's son. "It is extremely difficult to get around owing to what they call 'liquefaction' of the ground and sink holes."

Kevin spent the next day helping the rescue effort. He reports that compounding the problems are the many frightening aftershocks (over 50). "No one has water and the sewer lines are broken in many places by the tremors. So water is major problem.... and many bridges across the river Avon meandering through the city are down/closed."

Kevin concludes:

"This is a major tragedy. Many people, like my sister, are homeless, but not as badly off as some. They own a small cottage some 40 miles away, and that area is fine. We hope to go there on Friday for an overdue shower."

Final note: Anyone with some spare cash is requested to make donations to assist victims of the earthquake. A full list of agencies seeking donations is listed here.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/capitalweathergang/2011/02/eyewitness_account_of_new_zeal.html

SHAKEN AND STIRRED: CHRISTCHURCH EARTHQUAKE FEB 2011

by GARETH renowden, hot topic, FEBRUARY 23, 2011

It’s a grim day in Canterbury. Seventy-five people are confirmed dead and 300 are missing following the magnitude 6.3 earthquake which struck at 12:51 p.m., yesterday. As I write, teams of urban search and rescue specialists from NZ and Australia (soon to be joined by teams from all over the world) are crawling over collapsed buildings throughout the central city. The cathedral (above) has lost its spire, and there are bodies in the rubble around it. I am glad to report that my family and friends, and that of Climate Show co-host Glenn Williams are well, but no one is untouched by this terrible disaster. Up here in Waipara the initial shaking was bad enough to make us run outdoors, but our relief at escaping damage was immediately tempered by the realisation that someone had just taken a hammering…

For an inkling of the scale of this tragedy and its impact on people who had already survived a magnitude 7.1, but much less damaging, quake last September, I commend author David Haywood’s eloquent description in the Guardian, and Pressjournalist Vicki Anderson’s heartfelt story of her escape from the Press building (under the cranes in the picture above). US-based NZ climate scientist Kevin Trenberth was also in town, holidaying with his family. This is his account:

Where we were [hillside suburb of Mt Pleasant] was actually the epicentre of the earthquake, which occurred at 9 minutes to 1 p.m. We immediately got under the dining room table. The quake was very sharp and the whole ground bucked and heaved. It was very shallow and the devastation was immediate. Everything came off the walls, the china cabinet and all the crystal, nearby crashed around us. In the kitchen, 2 m away, the cupboards emptied, the built-in wall oven crashed onto the floor followed by the built-in microwave. Then the big refrigerator with bottom freezer fell on top of all that. Broken glass everywhere. In the room we were in, there were 6-mm plate glass windows that were smashed, and likewise in the adjacent living room. But the house held in front. Not so in the back. The back wall was bricked and had a French door: the wall collapsed and the door jerked out and away from the house so it is wide open (and thus open to looters). The adjacent walls were half brick and they too were wiped out.

Banks of rocks and solid ground near the house collapsed and made it difficult to get out. The road outside had a big crack and the sidewalk dropped 20 cm relative to the road and a gap opened 8 cm wide. The water main broke just above there and water cascaded down past the front of the house, making it a wet experience getting to my rental car, which was OK.

Trenberth spent today in Christchurch helping the rescue effort, along with many, many others. You can get some idea of the size of this event by looking at aerial pictures taken by the NZ defence forces: aside from the building damage in the central city, extensive damage has occurred in many suburbs and soil liquefaction and flooding is affecting tens of thousands of homes. Power is out in 50% of the city, and the mayor has described the water and sewer systems as “trashed.” Recovery is going to take a very long time, but recover and rebuild we will.

I would urge anyone with spare cash to make a donation to the various appeals that are running — there’s a full list here, and the NZ Red Cross is calling for donations (link was down at time of writing).

Earth science geeks will want to check out the Christchurch Quake Map here (link takes you to last seven days — use the drop down to select Feb 22) for a remarkable visualisation of the earthquake sequence we’ve been experiencing, and the Highly Allochthanous blog has an excellent description of the tectonics of the quake here. It also worth noting that the quake caused a major calving event on the Tasman Glacier lake near Mt Cook. An estimated 30 million tons of ice broke off the glacier tongue when the quake hit.

I hope that Hot Topic readers will understand if my contributions to the site are somewhat disrupted over coming weeks. My focus will be elsewhere, and at the moment it’s very difficult to take the future for granted. A lesson for us all there, perhaps?

Update: this amazing picture of the clouds of dust rising from the city moments after the quake hit looks to have been taken from one of the hill suburbs. Hat tip to @georgedarroch on Twitter, photo by EJ Mathers. Click for full size.

http://hot-topic.co.nz/shaken-and-stirred-christchurch-earthquake-feb-2011/