Jennifer Marohasy

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Jones at Rutherglen – More Cooling Generates Global Warming

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COOLING the past relative to the present has the general effect of making the present appear hotter – it is a way of generating more global warming for the same weather.

The Bureau of Meteorology has rewritten Australia’s temperature in this way for the second time in just six years – increasing the rate of warming by 23 percent between Version 1 and the new Version 2 of the official ACORN-SAT temperature record.

Temperatures from the Rutherglen research station in rural Victoria are one of the 112 weather stations that make-up ACORN-SAT. Temperature have been changed here by Blair Trewin, under the supervision of David Jones at the Bureau.

Dr Jones’s enthusiasm for the concept of human-caused global warming is documented in the notorious Climategate emails, during which he wrote in an email to Phil Jones at the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit on 7 September 2007 that:

“Truth be known, climate change here is now running so rampant that we don’t need meteorological data to see it.”

We should not jump to any conclusion that support for human-caused global warming theory is the unstated reason for the Bureau’s most recent remodelling of Rutherglen. Dr Jones is an expert meteorologist and an honourable man. We must simply keep asking,

“What are the scientifically valid reasons for the changes that the Bureau has made to the temperature records?”

In 2014, Graham Lloyd, Environmental Reporter at The Australian, quoting me, explained how a cooling trend in the minimum temperature record at Rutherglen had been changed into a warming trend by progressively reducing temperatures from 1973 back to 1913. For the year 1913, there was a large difference of 1.7 degrees Celsius between the mean annual minimum temperature, as measured at Rutherglen using standard equipment at this official weather station, and the remodelled ACORN-SAT Version 1 temperature. The Bureau responded to Lloyd, claiming that the changes were necessary because the weather recording equipment had been moved between paddocks. This is not a logical explanation in the flat local terrain, and furthermore the official ACORN-SAT catalogue clearly states that there has never been a site move.

Australians might nevertheless want to give the Bureau the benefit of the doubt and let them make a single set of apparently necessary changes. But now, just six years later, the Bureau has again changed the temperature record for Rutherglen.

In Version 2 of ACORN-SAT for Rutherglen, the minimum temperatures as recorded in the early 1900s, have been further reduced, making the present appear even warmer relative to the past. The warming trend is now 1.9 degrees Celsius per century.

The Bureau has also variously claimed that they need to cool that past at Rutherglen to make the temperature trend more consistent with trends at neighbouring locations. But this claim is not supported by the evidence. For example, the raw data at the nearby towns of Deniliquin, Echuca and Benalla also show cooling. The consistent cooling in the minimum temperatures is associated with land-use change in this region: specifically, the staged introduction of irrigation.

Australians trust the Bureau of Meteorology as our official source of weather information, wisdom and advice. So, we are entitled to ask the Bureau to explain: If the statements provided to date do not justify changing historic temperature records, what are the scientifically valid reasons for doing so?

The changes made to ACORN-SAT Version 2 begin with changes to the daily temperatures. For example, on the first day of temperature recordings at Rutherglen, 8 November 1912, the measured minimum temperature is 10.6 degrees Celsius. This measurement is changed to 7.6 degrees Celsius in ACORN-SAT Version 1. In Version 2, the already remodeled value is changed again, to 7.4 degrees Celsius – applying a further cooling of 0.2 degrees Celsius.

Considering historically significant events, for example temperatures at Rutherglen during the January 1939 bushfires that devastated large areas of Victoria, the changes made to the historical record are even more significant. The minimum temperature on the hottest day was measured as 28.3 degrees Celsius at the Rutherglen Research Station. This value was changed to 27.8 degrees Celsius in ACORN Version 1, a reduction of 0.5 degrees Celsius. In Version 2, the temperature is reduced by a further 2.6 degrees Celsius, producing a temperature of 25.7 degrees Celsius.

This type of remodelling will potentially have implications for understanding the relationship between past temperatures and bushfire behavior. Of course, changing the data in this way will also affect analysis of climate variability and change into the future. By reducing past temperature, there is potential for new record hottest days for the same weather.

Annual average minimum temperatures at Rutherglen (1913 to 2017). Raw temperatures (green) show a mild cooling trend of 0.28 degrees Celsius per 100 years. This cooling trend has been changed to warming of 1.7 degrees Celsius per 100 years in ACORN-SAT Version 1 (orange). These temperatures have been further remodeled in ACORN-SAT Version 1 (red) to give even more dramatic warming, which is now 1.9 degrees Celsius.

Changes to Darwin’s Climate History are Not Logical

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THE hubris of the Australian Bureau of Meteorology is on full display with its most recent remodelling of the historic temperature record for Darwin. The Bureau has further dramatically increased the rate of global warming at Darwin by further artificially lowering historic temperatures.

This begins by shortening the historical temperature record so that it begins just after the very hot years of the Federation drought. Then by changing the daily values: that is changing the observed measured temperatures to something else.

For example, on 1st January 1910 the maximum temperature recorded at the Darwin post office was 34.2 degrees Celsius.

A few years ago, the Bureau changed this to 33.8 degrees Celsius, cooling the recorded temperature by 0.4 degrees. In its most recent re-revision of Darwin’s climate history the temperature on this day has been further reduced, and is now just 32.8.

The daily maximum temperatures for early 1910 as shown in the three different datasets for Darwin

Environmental reporter for the Australian newspaper, Graham Lloyd, asked the Bureau why it had made such changes earlier in the week. A spokesperson is quoted in The Weekend Australian as follows:

“For the case of Darwin, a downward adjustment to older records is applied to account for differences between the older sites and the current site, and difference¬s between older thermometers and the current automated sensor.

“In other words, the adjustments estimate what historical temperatures would look like if they were recorded with today’s equipment at the current site.”

Yet this is a version of exactly the same reason given by the Bureau just six years ago for reducing the temperature on 1 January 1910 by ‘only’ 0.4 degrees.

Neither the equipment, nor the site has changed since ACORN-SAT Version 1 was published in 2012.

Yet another 1 degree has been shaven from the historical temperature record!

To be clear, the weather station has been at the airport since February 1941, and an automatic weather station was installed on 1 October 1990. A Stevenson screen was first installed at the post office site in 1894, and has always been used at the airport site.

So, why was the temperature dropped down by a further one degree for 1 January 1910 in the most recent revision – undertaken just a few months ago? There is no logical or reasonable explanation.

Apparently, at the Bureau, the future is certain and the past can be continually changed – history can be continually revised.

When the daily values are added-up, and compared between versions as annual mean maximum temperatures we see the magnitude of the change – and its effect on temperature trends.

The warming trend of 1.3 degrees C per 100 years in ACORN V1 has been changed to 1.8 degrees C per 100 years in Version 2. The annual average maximum temperature for 1942, as one example, has been reduced by 0.5 degrees.

The extent of global warming increases from 1.3 degrees Celsius per 100 years to 1.8 degrees Celsius in the latest revisions by the Bureau to Australia’s temperature history.

In the maximum temperature record as actually measured at Darwin from 1895 to the present — and taking into consideration the move from the airport to the post office –- there is no warming trend in the Darwin temperature record. This is consistent with other locations in northern Australia with long high-quality records, for example Richmond in north western Queensland.

Annual mean maximum temperatures as measured at Richmond, Qld, charted with a minimally homogenized series for Darwin that combines the post office and airport series into one continuous temperature series making adjustments only for the move to the airport.
Mean maximum annual temperatures as measured at the Darwin Post Office and airport shown with the new remodeled ACORN-SAT Version 2, which is the new official record for Australia.

What the Bureau has done to the historical temperature record for Darwin is indefensible. The Bureau has artificially shortened and cooled Darwin’s climate history to make it consistent with the theory of human-caused global warming.

Ends.

Bureau Rewrites History – Again, at Albany

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THE Australian Bureau of Meteorology keeps remodelling the temperature record for Australia – and not just by a little bit. Temperatures are changed through a process known as homogenisation, and then changed again, sometimes by as much as 6.4 degrees Celsius for the one day.

The temperatures as actually measured at Albany, and other places, has been changed by the Bureau in the development of the official temperature record for Australia.

For example, on 8th February 1933 the maximum temperature as measured at Albany in Western Australia was 44.8 degrees Celsius. Then, six years ago it was changed to 51.2 degrees Celsius! Recently it was changed again, this time to 49.5.

Changing the temperature record like this is not unusual for institutions such as the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, though the extent of the change for Albany on this day in 1933, and also the direction of the change, is unusual.

Usually past temperatures are cooled relative to the present as part of remodelling, which is called ‘homogenisation’. Cooling the past relative to the present has the effect of exaggerating global warming.

Given the magnitude and direction of this change to the Albany temperatures, which was first made six years ago, several of us asked the Bureau: ‘Why’?

Why was the temperature at Albany on this day (February 8, 1933) adjusted-up by so much (6.4 degrees) in the official version 1 of the ACORN-SAT dataset that was published six years ago?

I never got an answer.

I have simply been told, mostly via the mainstream media, that homogenisation is world’s best practice, and that ACORN-SAT is scientific.

Of course, it is not scientific to make such changes to temperature measurements, though this type of change – this remodelling – is standard practice not only for our Bureau but also for the custodians of the global temperature datasets relied upon by the IPCC (United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change).

While ACORN-SAT Version 1 contains remodelled temperature values that can vary from the actual recorded measurement by more than 6 degrees, the values in this same database are often referred to as ‘observations’ as though they represent real measurements. For example, when leading climate scientist Sophie Lewis and David Karoly published a paper in the American Meteorological Society journal about ‘extreme events’ they erroneous refer to ACORN-SAT Version 1 values as ‘observations’.

Indeed, ACORN-SAT Version 1 has underpinned almost all the climate change work at our universities and at CSIRO over the last 6 years.

Most climate scientists seem to want to believe that the temperature values that they are working with represent real measurements. But they don’t!

Just recently this ACORN-SAT database – used by Lewis, Karoly and thousands of other scientists here in Australia and also overseas – was updated. Dr Blair Trewin at the Bureau has re-adjusted temperature values yet again, creating ACORN-SAT Version 2.

In the case of Albany, the maximum temperature on 8th February 1933 is now shown as 49.5 degrees Celsius. In reality it the maximum temperature in Albany on that day back in 1933 was 44.8 degrees Celsius.

The integrity of the historical temperature record is of extraordinary importance. This record also underpins belief in catastrophic human-caused global warming.

Perhaps today’s front-page story in The Australian newspaper by Graham Lloyd will generate some interest in how and why our climate history can be so change, apparently at the whim of the Bureau and other such institutions around the world.

I wait, and I hope.

Season’s Greetings, Tuvalu and Thank You Mr Kelly

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HALFWAY between Hawaii and Australia lies the tiny nation of Tuvalu, which according to popular mythology is slowly disappearing into the Pacific Ocean because of rising sea levels. Except a recent article at the ABC news website correctly explained that in the four decades to 2014, Tuvalu has actually grown by 73 hectares.

How can this be? The mainstream news media reporting something factual – even though it contradicts their catastrophic anthropogenic global warming (CAGW) meme!

It all began with my favourite federal politician, Craig Kelly MP … a relentless warrior for all that is logical and reasonable.

Craig Kelly and Jennifer Marohasy in Townsville a couple of years ago.

Mr Kelly always takes a keen interest in the detail of issues that concern his electorate in Sutherland just south of Sydney, and his objective of late has been fair electricity prices. This objective resulted in something of an obsession by Mr Kelly with the draft National Energy Guarantee legislation – the NEG. In fact, this objective, that became a concern, that developed into an obsession, brought down a Prime Minister. It also caused the ABC Fact Check team to take an interest in his speeches and recently declare him correct, at least on the issue of Tuvalu.

Let me begin this story on 13th August when then Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull insisted that a meeting of the Coalition’s Energy and Environment Committee, which is chaired by Craig Kelly, be in the prime minister’s cabinet room in his presence at 9pm that Monday night … rather than as usual at 8am in a standard committee room, immediately before the usual party room meeting which is at 9am on the Tuesdays that federal parliament is sitting.

The NEG legislation had been in development for over one year, but Mr Kelly had only ever been given one-page summaries. From these, early in 2018, Mr Kelly had understood that the Paris Target would be for 2030 and could be backloaded, so much of the emissions reduction could be, for example, in a decade’s time after the ever-promised improvement in the reliability and price of renewable sources of energy. Further, there would be no interim target, and the cost of the intermittency of the generators would be borne by the intermittent generators themselves. This meant that those ostensibly providing electricity to the grid were obliged to provide it when called upon, or else they would pay a penalty. These points were all important provisions in the draft legislation that Mr Kelly had lobbied for.

Then, there was rumbling that there would be an interim target, and that there could even be an annual emissions reduction target … that the Prime Minister was requesting as much.

This was in perhaps June, and Mr Kelly protested. “We don’t need to make Paris more onerous than it already is,” he complained to his parliamentary colleagues.

Mr Kelly became further concerned when it became apparent in July that the cost of the intermittency of generation could be borne by the large industrial users. That is, when the wind didn’t blow the bigger manufacturers would need their own backup … their own diesel generators.

These were all concerns that Mr Kelly made known to Mr Turnbull. But most importantly, he wanted to see the actual legislation – the text, the detail.

The meeting of the Energy and Environment Committee that Monday night – held in the room normally reserved for the Cabinet, and most unusually attended by the Prime Minister – lasted about two hours. By the end of it, seven members said they would support the Prime Minister and the legislation. Former Prime Minister Tony Abbot, now a backbencher and a new member of that committee, said he was opposed to it. Queensland Liberal-National MP Ken O’Dowd said he was undecided. That was also the position of Mr Kelly: he insisted that before he could endorse the NEG he needed to see the fine print – he needed more than a one-page summary.

Mr Kelly repeated this concern the next day in the party room, while eyeballing the Prime Minister.

That week parliament finished-up on Thursday. The next day, on Friday 17th August, soon after 6pm – soon after the journalists would have filed their stories for the weekend papers – Prime Minister Turnbull made a major announcement regarding the NEG. The emissions reduction target that was being proposed at 26 percent by 2030 would be set by regulation – not parliament.

Craig Kelly was now angry, because this meant that there could be future increases in the renewable energy target at the discretion of whoever was the Minister at the time. Labour wanted the target set at 45 percent and could achieve as much if they won the next election without so much as consulting the people or the parliament. What Mr Kelly saw as a major lever of the economy – the price and reliability of electricity – could be changed at the stroke of a Minister’s pen, if Prime Minister Turnbull had his way.

Mr Kelly went into overdrive – against the NEG and the Prime Minister, and for democracy.

It was reported that Mr Kelly appeared to be on a “kamikaze mission”. Further, the mainstream media reported he was going to lose preselection because he was so out of touch and being so unreasonable.

In fact, within the week it would be Prime Minister Turnbull, not Craig Kelly, who was out of his job.

Mr Kelly spent the weekend phoning colleagues. Monday it was announced that the legislation would be withdrawn. Tuesday morning at the party room meeting Mr Turnbull stood aside, declaring a spill.

Mr Kelly didn’t have a plan for Peter Dutton or Scott Morrison to become Prime Minister, but he had had enough of Turnbull’s NEG and his concerns were resonating.

To be clear, if Craig Kelly thought that by Australians paying more for their electricity, we could save the planet, he would have supported the NEG and a high renewable energy target. But in Mr Kelly’s view arguing about a NEG of 26 or 45 percent is like arguing about how many fairies fit on a pin head – it is about chimerical wish-fantasies. Even a NEG of 100 percent would have no effect on global temperatures, but it would have a real and deleterious effect on Australian industries reliant on affordable and reliable energy and it would also negatively impact his constituents already struggling to pay their electricity bill.

And Mr Kelly’s concerns go further than this, he is of the opinion that the planet does even need saving – at least not from CAGW. Typical of many so-called sceptics, Mr Kelly is not sceptical of climate change. Rather by reading in some detail about the Earth’s history he realises that the climate has always changed.

Further, as John Abbot and I explain in our recent article in GeoResJ*, there is nothing unusual about the speed or magnitude of climate change over the last 100 or so years. For the last 1,000 to 2,000 years, temperatures have fluctuated within a channel of plus or minus 1 degree Celsius. It is only studies using remodelled data, suspect algorithms and cherrypicked datasets – that generate hockey-sticks. Considering the majority of published studies, in the best journals, global temperatures, including in Sweden, are about as hot now as they were 1,000 years ago.

I mention Sweden, because children in Australia that want the federal government to stop climate change have apparently been following the lead of a Swedish school girl: fifteen-year old Greta Thunberg who has been demonstrating outside the Swedish parliament to stop climate change. That was until she set off with her father in an electric car for the United Nations climate talks in Poland. There she explained that the climate crisis is “the biggest crisis that humanity has ever faced”.

This fake news has been reported uncritically by the world’s media. In fact, they have reported her as wise and brave … causing two fourteen-year old girls, Harriet and Milou, from Castlemaine in rural Victoria to organize the national day of school student protest in Australia.

I was in a taxi on my way to the Melbourne airport when I heard the oh-so passionate chanting on Friday 30th November. I asked the cabbie to go around the block again … I was in disbelief at the naivety of it all. Governments can, of course, be a hindrance to various things – for example, innovation. But it is hubris and nonsense to suggest they could ever stop climate change. This is what Craig Kelly has been trying to explain all year and was a key reason he was so concerned about the NEG and its negative impact on the economy, for no environmental gain.

While denied access to the text of the draft NEG legislation, Mr Kelly has been reading key technical papers on climate change. Earlier this year he read an article in the journal Nature by Paul Kench and colleagues from the University of Auckland. He repeated the conclusions from that research at a Liberal party fundraiser, attended by Get-up activists incognito. So outraged by Kelly’s claims about Tuvalu, the activists sent transcripts of his blasphemy to The Guardian and Australian Broadcasting Corporation. To the ABC’s credit they did a fact check, they even got back to Craig Kelly and asked him if he could substantiate his claims.

Mr Kelly sent them the article, which explains that despite sea level rise, there have been “positive sediment generation balances for these islands” from wave deposition. In fact, to quote more from the article “environmental” rather than “anthropogenic processes” are causing an “expansion of the majority of the islands … masking any incremental effects of rising sea levels, making attribution of sea level effects elusive, as these [environmental] processes can promote high frequency and larger magnitude changes in islands that can persist on the geomorphic record”.

Yet at least since Al Gore’s documentary ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ the world media has been claiming Tuvalu was lost to CAGW.

Every attempt by so-called sceptics to correct the record – until this latest by Craig Kelly – appeared to just generate more ridicule … specifically remembering Graham Young’s attempt to correct the record at Crikey.com back in 2006.

What neither the article in Nature that Mr Kelly quotes from, nor the recent few paragraphs of concession from our ABC, explain the complexity of the situation at Pacific Islands on an Earth where climate change and also volcanism will persist … yes volcanism.

Indeed, the great majority of oceanic islands, including in the Pacific, were formed by volcanic activity. While the volcanoes are active, the islands generally rise relative to the global averaged sea-level. When volcanic activity stops, the islands will cool and eventually start to sink … though as Paul Kench et al. explain in the Nature article wave process and shifts in wave regimes can result in the growth of atolls offsetting any rise in sea levels.

But what is needed in all of this, and especially in future ABC news items, is some context. It is fact that:

1. Since the last glacial maximum about 20,000 years ago, sea levels have risen by more than 100 metres as large ice sheets melted.

2. Globally-averaged sea levels reached a maximum height about 2,000 years ago.

3. Along the east coast of Australia sea levels have actually fallen by about 1.5 metres since then … to reiterate sea levels have fallen about 1.5 metres over the last 2,000 years.

3. But over the last 100 years there has been a slight, but measurable, increase in sea levels. Considering Sydney Harbour this has added up to about a 6.5 centimetre increase over the last 100 years … based on a documented rise of 0.65 millimetres per year between 1885 and 2010: that is the official rate of sea level rise at Fort Denison (just across from the Opera House) as reported by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). That is less than 1 millimetre per year.

Of course, compounded, this could add up to something catastrophic – one day. But, neither sea levels, nor temperatures, rise in a monotonic way – rather they cycle.

Considering just sea levels at any one location on this planet there is the daily tidal cycle, the monthly lunar cycle, the annual cycle associated with the sun’s declination that causes the four seasons, cycle associated with El Nino and La Nina events, and then there are the longer cycles including the cycles associated with ice ages and interglacial warm periods.

We need to hear more about this from the mainstream media … not just Mr Kelly.

There is no denying that standing for reason can be difficult, especially when the numbers and slogans are against you. But just as Craig Kelly defied a Prime Minister, and won … it is incumbent on every one of us who seeks the truth to keep asking questions and concern ourselves with the detail and most importantly to not give-up on the truth never mind the short-term consequences.

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*There has been a campaign against our article in GeoResJ by various high profile believers in CAGW, we respond to this in some detail here: https://jennifermarohasy.com.dev.internet-thinking.com.au/temperatures/response-to-criticism-of-abbot-marohasy-2017-georesj/

No Judge Available, Anymore, to Hear Peter Ridd Versus James Cook University

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Peter Ridd’s trial was set-down to be heard over three days next week, beginning on Monday 12th November. Many of us have made plans to travel to Brisbane – booked and paid for accommodation – to simply be there, to support Peter as he takes on the institutions in his fight for truth, and some quality assurance of Great Barrier Reef science.

I’d been told that the case would be heard by Judge Jarrett, who presided over the proceedings earlier in the year. Now I’m told it’s all been cancelled, at least for the moment – and that Peter can wait until next year, that his case against unfair dismissal by James Cook University might be heard next year.

Over the last week I’ve posted four articles at my blog.

1. ‘Peter Ridd and the Clowns of Reef Science’ is an introduction to some of the issues, taking a bigger picture view.

2. ‘No Mud on my Barnacles’ is for those who like natural history and would like to understand more about me, and the mud at north Queensland beaches.

3. ‘The Prince and His Dump Truck’ is about some of the personalities behind the WWF ‘Save the Reef Campaign’ that was launched in June 2001 – including Willem-Alexander, now the King of Holland.

4. ‘Denying Comment from Experts, from the Marine Geophysical Laboratory’ is about Peter, and also Ken Woolfe who died tragically on 1 December 1999.

I’m hopeful these articles provide some background information – and also encouragement to Peter, who now must suffer through Christmas and the New Year with his life-on-hold.

Denying Comment from Experts, from the Marine Geophysical Laboratory

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IN the wake of the very high-profile launch of the WWF Save the Reef Campaign in June 2001, there was a flurry of newspaper articles. They uncritically reported the WWF claim that sediment was literally smothering the corals of the Great Barrier Reef – all the fault of farmers, whose activities needed to be better regulated. Many scientists were quoted in these reports, but never anyone from the Geophysical Laboratory at James Cook University. Yet this was the preeminent laboratory for research on physical oceanography, which includes the study of ocean tides, currents, waves, heat and light transfer and, of course, sediments – including their effects on coral reefs.

This laboratory had already been in operation for more than a decade, and was actively working with port authorities in Queensland, particularly to understand the effects of their operations on the natural environment. The laboratory was also involved in deep sea drilling operations to map and understand the overall nature of the crust beneath the ocean floor, with 22 international partners and a specialist drilling ship, the JOIDES Resolution.

Peter Ridd began with the laboratory in 1989, as one of the first four post-doctoral fellows employed there. During the 1990s his contemporaries, Piers Larcombe and Ken Woolfe, published several seminal papers on sediment transport in the Great Barrier Reef lagoon. These were scholarly and detailed assessments. They consistently concluded that the south-easterly trade winds, which blow for about nine months of the year, have a dominant influence on sediment transport. The wind and resulting waves produce a current that flows northward. This current traps sediments in north-facing bays and prevents it from reaching the middle and outer reefs.

Importantly, the work of Piers and Ken established that the amount of sediment in the water – its turbidity – is controlled by the size of the waves, not the volume of sediment. This fact means that any additional sediment coming down the rivers will have no effect on the muddiness of the waters of the reef lagoon. Both Ken and Piers were keen to explain to anyone prepared to listen that the main sediment issues were in rivers before they flowed to the sea.

Back in 2001, the findings of Ken and Piers, already published in international scientific journals, should have been juxtaposed against the naïve assessment promoted by Imogen Zethoven. But if the journalists actually did this, they wouldn’t have a story – presumably they wanted a story, and so they published the fake news from WWF and scientists arguably less well qualified to comment. The work of the Geophysical Laboratory has been mostly ignored over the last twenty years, not only by professional activists but also by governments in the formulation of policy responses.

The work of Peter Ridd was integral to the findings of Ken and Piers because he designed the equipment that they used to measure turbidity.

Ken died tragically on 1 December 1999.

The Geophysical Laboratory was unsuccessful at securing ongoing funding for Piers Larcombe. Peter Ridd was the only one of the four original post-doctoral fellows to survive several decades as an academic at James Cook University, being promoted to Professor in 2008 and becoming the Head of Physics in the same year.

Peter had broad interests in the area of marine geophysics and the Great Barrier Reef, and he published widely in scientific journals. He also led an effective consulting group for 25 years which earned millions of dollars for the University. Much of the consultancy work was monitoring dredging operations, while at the same time providing training for undergraduates. Anglų kalbos kursai https://igudu.lt/anglu-kalbos-kursai/ But Peter is perhaps best known for his inventions, specifically three instruments all built in that Laboratory at James Cook University: a self-cleaning Nephelometer used throughout Australia for dredging that has been copied by manufacturers worldwide; a Tilt Current Meter which has also been sold worldwide; and an optical instrument for measuring mine paste pipe wear that is being used by the mining industries in Australia and the USA.

Peter Ridd (left) and Ken Woolfe (right) began their careers as post-doctoral fellows in the Geophysics Lab at James Cook University.
My understanding of sediment transport at the Great Barrier Reef has been aided immeasurably by the work of Ken Woolfe – and friendly discussions back 20 years. Here he is, collecting sediment at Mt Ruapehu when it was erupting back in 1995. Ken died tragically on 1 December 1999, but his published technical papers represent an extraordinary legacy.

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This is the fourth post in a series on activism and the Great Barrier Reef, in advance of Peter Ridd arguing against his unfair dismissal by James Cook University in the Federal Court in Brisbane beginning on 12th November.