Richmond - More Confusion

The Queensland District 3 (Northern Goldfields and UpperFlinders) lists only four "everyday" weather observation stations. All four are airports, and the oldest has measurements only back as far as 1992. The stations are as follows:

030022 - Hughenden  -  [data] [graph]
030124 - Georgetown  -  [data] [graph]
030161 - Richmond  -  [data] [graph]
034084 - Charters Towers  -  [data] [graph]

And again, there is a disconnect between the "everyday" weather stations and the RCS "high quality" stations, which includes:

030045 - Richmond Post Office - [data] [graph]

Because all four of these stations have less than 20 years worth of data, none of them would satisfy the BoM's objective of "high quality and long climate records", and accordingly Richmond Post Office has been selected as the RCS station for this district.

A couple of observations can be made about this Richmond PO station. Firstly, as was highlighted in the "More Dodgy Post Offices" item, the siting of this station does not appear to meet CRN1 standards, with paved roads on all boundaries.

Secondly, in spite of this, where is the warming that the CSIRO+BoM have noted in their Climate brochure?

At best, this graph illustrates continuity or perhaps a slight cooling over the 100 year period.

Summary

From a quality assurance point of view, it is suprising that a station can qualify as a "high quality" RCS station, but not be part of the everyday weather observation station network. Yet this is exactly what we find for both Queensland District 2 ("Burketown PO") and now also for this "Richmond PO" in adjoining District 3.

Furthermore, the CSIRO+BoM Climate brochure makes the assertion that "All of Australia has experienced warming over the past 50 years". Clearly on the basis of the only station record for this District 3 which stretches back over 50 years, this is not the case.