Sceptics close NIWA lawsuit

The Herald reports:

A group of global warming sceptics has lost a bid to have temperatures collected by the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (Niwa), declared invalid.

A High Court ruling released today by Justice Geoffrey Venning said the New Zealand Climate Science Education Trust had not succeeded in any of its challenges against Niwa.

Justice Venning also ruled the trust had to pay Niwa costs and if they could not agree on the amount, he would make a ruling later.

In July the trust, a branch of the NZ Climate Science Coalition, challenged national temperature records in the High Court in Auckland, saying the method used was unscientific.

Records from Niwa showed a national warming trend of almost 1 degree Celsius in the last century.

The figure, which was almost 50 per cent above the global average for the period, was unreliable, the trust says.

The judgement clearly states that NIWA applied “credible scientific methodology”. The court did not decide which methodology was superior, merely that the methodology used by NIWA was reasonable and tenable.

My view is that the mean temperature is increasing, and that human activity is primarily the cause. However The rate of future warming is unknown.