Members of the Technical Advisory Forum on climate records announced

20/01/2015

As recommended by an independent peer review, a Technical Advisory Forum comprised of leading scientists and statisticians will review and provide advice on Australia’s official temperature data set. The Technical Advisory Forum is scheduled to meet in March.

The Bureau of Meteorology is responsible for the climate record, and as a trusted and respected organisation, welcomes robust assessment of its work in order to maintain the highest levels of public confidence.

The establishment of this Forum will provide an independent framework for quality assurance tests and analysis of the Bureau’s data sets for greater transparency.

The Bureau’s climate information services were subject to a rigorous independent peer-review in 2011. The Review was conducted by a panel of international experts and found the Bureau's data and analysis methods met world’s best practice.

The Bureau’s methods and processes are published on its website, in addition to the findings of the 2011 Review.

An important recommendation of this review was that a Technical Advisory Group should be established "in order to review progress on the development and operation of the ACORN-SAT data-set."

The establishment of this forum is in line with this recommendation in the Report of the Independent Peer Review of ACORN-SAT data-sets.

The Australian Climate Observations Reference Network - Surface Air Temperature (ACORN-SAT) dataset is an important part of Australia’s official climate record. It has been developed for monitoring climate variability and change in Australia and is held by the Bureau of Meteorology.

The members of the Technical Advisory Forum are: