New Zealand Celsias

Hot on the heels of the High Court legal challenge put forward by climate change sceptics the Climate Science Coalition, who is claiming the climate data gathered by the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) is inaccurate, climate experts are, as expected, fighting back by saying that journals - not court – are the place for scientific debate.

''Twentieth-century temperature records are now being challenged all around the world" says Bryan Leyland, spokesman for the Climate Science Coalition. "But I think we are the first country where the issues are to be placed squarely before an independent judicial forum."

But Dr Andy Reisinger, senior research fellow at the New Zealand Climate Change Research Institute, stands by NIWA's methodology. “NIWA has diligently checked its temperature records, answered innumerable queries about them, and has validated the derived long-term warming trend from a range of different meteorological stations,” he says. “All these carefully checked temperature records show a clear warming trend. That warming trend in New Zealand is consistent with the increase in global average temperatures, measured by thousands of meteorological stations around the world, including some very remote stations far from any direct human influence, and confirmed further by satellite observations, loss of glaciers, melting ice sheets, reduced frost days, extension of the growing season, increase in heat waves, etc.”

Speaking on behalf of the Climate Science Coalition, Bryan Leyland says many scientists believe that the earth has not in fact heating up as much the government claims. “The New Zealand Met Service record shows no warming during the last century, but NIWA has adopted a series of invariably downward adjustments in the period prior to World War 2.” 

But it is this precise point of scientific claims that has ruffled the feathers of Resiginger and other experts. Resiginger says the Climate Science Coalition has not put forward any clear and consistent scientific arguments about temperature trends, nor have they published their findings in any peer-reviewed scientific journals. There’s also the lack of disclosure in regards to the scientific methods used by the group to show there has been a global cooling instead of warming. 

“…its members have little credibility in the climate science community. But all this seems to be of little relevance: the High Court action will cost taxpayer money to defend the obvious against the obscure and ridiculous, and it will prevent New Zealand's climate scientists from working on the issues that really matter, which is how to improve our understanding of the range of likely further climate changes and allowing New Zealand to take appropriate actions in response,” says Reisinger.

Ralph Sims, professor of sustainable energy and director of the Centre for Energy Research at Massey University, echoes Resiginger’s statement.

“Mr Bryan Leyland has considerable experience in energy engineering issues. He has written numerous articles on energy and climate change topics but he is not a climate scientist and I have yet to find a recent paper he has authored or co-authored on any related topic that has appeared in the recent peer-reviewed, scientific literature. 

"In contrast many NIWA scientists have PhDs, respected international reputations, published widely in scientific journals, and have gained scientific credibility by their peers.”

Dr Dave Lowe, consultant for LOWENZ Ltd and former NIWA climate scientist, also stands by the scientific integrity of New Zealand’s climate data.

"To develop a thorough understanding of the science driving climate change takes decades of research and training. New Zealand climate change scientists employed by various Crown Research Institutes and Universities are amongst the best in the world and are internationally respected. Their research is continually scrutinised, peer reviewed and methods validated by independent research organisations worldwide and this includes the techniques used to provide New Zealand temperature records,” says Lowe.

And to avoid wasting further taxpayer money and overworking scientists, Lowe offers some advice to the Climate Science Coaltion.

“The NZ Climate Science coalition should take the raw data used to produce the NZ temperature records (it is all publicly available) and work with it to produce the answer that they require. However their methods and results should then be subject to the same harsh international peer review and method validation processes as those undergone by the NIWA and other NZ climate scientists."

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