Jennifer Marohasy appears to be on full song and has informed her email subscribers of more stations in distress status, in Australia. These have had their early hand written temperatures altered by the homogenisation process, a computer algorithm that kicks in each month. At Bourke, in January of 1909, the highest temperature in Australia was recorded (remembering that the Australian state is very recent), at 51.7 degrees celsius. However, historical records are being changed by the homogenisation process, and not only that, lots of the old temperature data has simply been ditched. The BOM action is driven by the fact they believe global warming is taking place and therefore the temperature could not have been that warm in 1909 – recent years must be the warmest. BOM have therefore dumped the Bourke record altogether – assuming that it must be a clerical error, or the person taking the recording didn't know how to read a thermometer properly. Computer models are telling BOM it is getting warmer – it simply cannot be warmer way back then.
Jennifer Marohasy can be heard on a podcast from a Melbourne radio station at http://media.mytalk.com.au/3aw/audio/weather.mp3
Joanna has updated her web site with this story – go to http://joannenova.com.au/2014/08/hiding-something-bom-throws-out-bourkes… … which is a fuller account.