Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) dismisses what it should be revealing

If you thought that the Australian Bureau of Meteorology was an independent entity and not deeply involved with the Climategate scandal, then you might want toread the following.
From the Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) is this defence of the Climategate emails:

Emails stolen from the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia

There is clear evidence that our climate is changing, largely due to anthropogenic greenhouse gases. The Fourth Assessment Report (AR4), produced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2007, states that global warming is ‘unequivocal’ and that ‘most of the observed increase in globally-averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in greenhouse gas concentrations’.

The AR4 draws on multiple lines of evidence from many independent institutions to show the Earth's climate system is warming. These include increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global average sea level. The AR4 represents the international consensus on climate change science and is based on all relevant scientific literature that has been peer-reviewed. All reports of the IPCC are also subjected to extensive expert and government review.

The emails and text files stolen from the University of East Anglia (UEA) Climate Research Unit (CRU) do not undermine the conclusions of the IPCC AR4. The UEA has announced that Sir Muir Russell, former Principal and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Glasgow, will head an independent review into allegations made against the CRU arising from the stolen emails. To date there is no evidence that the so-called ‘climategate’ emails will require any findings on which the IPCC AR4 conclusions are based to be revised. CRU's published research is, and has always been, fully peer-reviewed by the relevant journals, and is only one strand of research underpinning the strong consensus that human activity is affecting the world's climate in ways that are potentially dangerous.

The UEA (in collaboration with the Hadley Centre) is one of three lead agencies that compile global surface temperature estimates. The other two agencies are the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and the US NOAA National Climatic Data Centre. All data sets show very similar trends in temperature since 1850, with a strong warming trend evident from 1970. These instrumental records of air temperature are consistent with independent records showing rising sea levels, ocean warming and reduced snow and ice.

Where they say "To date there is no evidence that the so-called ‘climategate’ emails will require any findings on which the IPCC AR4 conclusions are based to be revised." The BoM has obviously missed that they reveal is perhaps the greatest scientific scandal of our time - a conspiracy by a select few warmist scientists to politicise the debate, fudge statistics, sack sceptical scientists, block the release of data to prevent checking, illegally destroy data, deceive reporters, censor sceptical papers, manipulate the peer review process so only they get to say which papers are accepted and which are not, and finally hide errors in their work. This is not only unscientific but in some cases illegal, yet the BoM claims there is "no evidence" that the emails will cause any revision of the IPCC's AR4.

This is not surprising, however, when you visit their section on climate change and see just how uncritical and willing they are to promote the warmist point of view of the subject. Which is further reinforced when you visit the section on Science - facts and fiction where they readily ignore the facts and happily promote much of the warmist fiction.

But the most obvious reason for their dismissal of the Climategate scandal becomes obvious when you look at the section on About the Global Temperature Trend Maps particularly the sections on Data used and Further information

So, who's data was used?

The trend analyses use the Climatic Research Unit HadCRUT2v global gridded (5x5 degree resolution) temperature data set. These data are the blended near land surface temperature and sea surface temperature anomalies from the 1961-90 reference period. The data are publically available from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) . The CRU website also includes a full description of this data. A list of relevant scientific papers relating to the HadCRUT2v dataset is also provided below.

Please note that any use of these analyses should be acknowledged to the Bureau of Meteorology. Apart from the purposes of study, research, criticism and review, no part of these data may be reproduced, or redistributed for any commercial purposes, or distributed to a third party for such purpose, without written permission from the Director of Meteorology.

In the section on Further information we see some very familiar names popping up:

Braganza K., Karoly D.J., Hirst A.C., Mann M.E., Stott P.A., Stouffer R.J., Tett, S.F.B. 2003. Simple indices of global climate variability and change: Part I, variability and correlation structure. Climate Dynamics 20 491-502. DOI: 10.1007/s00382- 002-0286-0.

Christy, J.R., Parker, D.E., Stendel. M. and Norris, W.B., 2001. Differential trends in tropical sea surface temperature and atmospheric temperatures since 1979. Geophysical Research Letters 28, 183-186.

Folland, C.K., Rayner, N.A., Brown, S.J., Smith, T.M., Shen, S.S.P., Parker, D.E., Macadam, I., Jones, P.D., Jones, R.N., Nicholls, N. and Sexton, D.M.H., 2001a. Global temperature change and its uncertainties since 1861. Geophysical Research Letters 28, 2621-2624.

Folland, C.K., Karl, T.R., Christy, J.R., Clarke, R.A., Gruza, G.V., Jouzel, J., Mann, M.E., Oerlemans, J., Salinger, M.J. and Wang, S.-W., 2001b: Observed Climate Variability and Change. pp. 99-181 In: Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (Houghton, J.T., Ding, Y., Griggs, D.J., Noguer, M., van der Linden, P.J., Dai, X., Maskell, K. and Johnson, C.A. Eds.). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 881pp.

Jones, P.D., Osborn, T.J. and Briffa, K.R., 1997. Estimating sampling errors in large-scale temperature averages. Journal of Climate 10, 2548-2568.

Jones, P.D., New, M., Parker, D.E., Martin, S. and Rigor, I.G., 1999. Surface air temperature and its variations over the last 150 years. Reviews of Geophysics 37, 173-199.

Jones, P.D., Osborn, T.J., Briffa, K.R., Folland, C.K., Horton, B., Alexander, L.V., Parker, D.E. and Rayner, N.A., 2001. Adjusting for sampling density in grid-box land and ocean surface temperature time series. Journal of Geophysical Research 106, 3371-3380.

Jones, P.D. and Moberg, A., 2003. Hemispheric and large-scale surface air temperature variations: An extensive revision and an update to 2001. Journal of Climate 16, 206-223.

Parker, D.E., Alexander, L.V. and Kennedy, J., 2004. Global and regional climate in 2003. Weather, 59, 145-152.

Rayner, N.A., Parker, D.E., Horton, E.B., Folland, C.K., Alexander, L.V, Rowell, D.P., Kent, E.C. and Kaplan, A., 2003. Globally complete analyses of sea surface temperature, sea ice and night marine air temperature, 1871-2000. Journal of Geophysical Research 108, 4407, doi 10.1029/2002JD002670

Is then any wonder they are so keen to defend their "friends" from this criticism and have the public believe that there is nothing of any importance to see here.

Let us also examine the statement from the BoM about "The AR4 draws on multiple lines of evidence from many independent institutions to show the Earth's climate system is warming. These include increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global average sea level."

May be their "blinkers on" approach to science has allowed them to miss these facts about:

Global average air temperatures. Of course if they are only going to rely on the "heavily adjusted" HadCRUT, GISS or NCDC datasets instead of the far more accurate UAH or RSS satellite information, that would better suit a warmist political agenda and secure long term funding.

Ocean Temperatures. Again if they prefer to use the NOAA datasets that deliberately do not include the inconvenient yet highly accurate Argo Buoy information, this too would suit a political aim to prove that warming is occurring instead of showing that it is not.

Widespread melting of snow and ice. That would include these growing glaciers, this growing sea ice in Antarctica and this 26% increase in sea ice in the Arctic from it's 2007 low.

Rising average global sea level. Not according to this data set or indeed this data set which show a levelling off of any sea level rise for at least the the last 4 to 5 years.

So one can only assume that the BoM is indeed being directly influenced in the handling and interpretation of these data sets by elements of the CRU or alike and that is why they are so keen to provide such appalling misinformation on the Climategate emails.