Last year was the hottest by far but no, from The Australian:
Weather bureaus have changed. They are no longer invisible organisations where avuncular bureaucrats use basic computers to deliver dodgy forecasts. Today’s weather bureaucrats are visible, sophisticated and ideological. But, despite a huge investment in supercomputers, their record for accurate forecasts remains dismal.
Their mission has expanded to include climate change advocacy, where agnostics are left in no doubt that significant weather abnormalities are evidence of global warming. They tinker with raw data but give inadequate explanation as to why. Their terrestrial records diverge increasingly with satellite and radiosonde datasets. Confidence in their integrity has been called into question.
Today’s bureaus have become climate change citadels. Their records are the repository of the Holy Grail. Regardless of doubts about their accuracy, they are protected. Hundreds of billions of dollars annually, including huge international transfer payments and tens of thousands of highly paid jobs, may depend on keeping records away from prying eyes.
The piece goes on to cite a range of other loon ponders around the world forcing investigations into other bureaus. In short, it’s a circular argument.
If Maurice took the time to visit the Bureau of Meteorology (I have a number of times) he would swiftly find that his notion of coordinated evil hovers out there in the ether with other such conspiracy theories as Elvis seen in shopping malls and the anal fixation of alien abductions.
The BOM is staffed by the most singularly unexciting blob of scientific bores that you can imagine. They sit there in their 1970s gear, look at the data, then tell us what they see. Sometimes right and sometimes wrong. They are totally bewildered by, and fearful of, the storm that it creates.
Public money should not be spent investigating episodes of the X-Files.
