Australia – was hot and is hot. So what? This is not an unusual heatwave

The media are in overdrive, making out that “the extreme heat is the new normal” in Australia. The Great Australian Heatwave of January 2013 didn’t push the mercury above 50C at any weather station in Australia, yet it’s been 50C (122F) and hotter in many inland towns across Australia over the past century. See how many are in the late 1800’s and early to mid 1900’s. You can’t blame those high records on man made global warming.  [feel free to post some old records of your own and the source reference we can check and we will update the map]

 Did CO2 cause extreme heat in the 1820’s?

In explorer Charles Sturt’s time it was so hot that thermometers exploded. Was this Australia’s hottest day all the way back in 1828? It was 122F or 53.9C! Naturally it is not a BOM-registered-record (the BOM did not exist then). Nonetheless, Charles Sturt was engaged to explore the nation and given careful instructions to take accurate readings of the climate. Yes, inadequate thermometer shading may have exaggerated the maximum by 1C, 2C, maybe even 3C, but at 50.9C it would still have been considerably hotter than anywhere in January 2013.

Even that long ago, thermometers were a tried and tested piece of equipment. They had been used for 200 years, and the Fahrenheit scale was nearly 100 years old. There weren’t too many people taking temperatures in Australia that day. What are the odds that Sturt happened to be at the absolute hottest spot in the continent? Perhaps it was pretty damn hot everywhere that day? We’ll never know. But that was not the only reading he took  of 50C+ temperatures. Other early explorers also found extreme heat, like Mitchell in 1845.

The largest longest heatwave that has turned up in historical records so far appears to be the one in January 1896 when temperatures raged above 40C across the country from West to East, getting so bad around Bourke that the government put on extra trains to allow people to escape. Panic stricken people fled for the coast and mountains as hundreds died.

The Australian BOM say this current pattern of extreme heat is “consistent with climate change”

This pattern of extreme heat is also consistent with Australia’s historical records set when human green house gas emissions were a fraction of what they are today.

With any record set in the modern era, you need to know two things. One is that The BOM’s raw data adjustments have increased the warming trends in the raw data by around 40%. The second is that when asked, Dr David Jones, Head of Climate Monitoring and Prediction, National Climate Centre, Bureau of Meteorology, stated untruthfully that the adjustments madea near zero impact on the all Australian temperature trends”. 

BOM Excuse for deleting some long held temperature records

The BOM state that to measure the temperature of the air accurately, it is important that the thermometer is shielded from direct sunlight but is still exposed to a good airflow. The standard screen used internationally to shelter instruments is a double-louvred wooden box, with the instruments 1.2 to 2.0 metres above ground level. This screen, known as ‘a Stevenson screen’, was designed by Thomas Stevenson (1818-1887), a British civil engineer and father of Robert Louis Stevenson. The use of a standard screen allows temperatures to be compared accurately with those measured in earlier years and at different places.

The Stevenson screen was first introduced to Australia in the 1880’s and was installed everywhere, with a few exceptions, by 1910. Prior to this date, thermometers were located in various types of shelter, and locations particularly by trained explorers and early landowners, post masters telegraph station attendants and the like who saw it as an important part of their duty. The Stevenson Screens were in fact designed to try to replicate the conditions in which they had been measuring temperature already in most cases. So unless it was clearly documented that the method prior to the installation of the Stevenson Screen was deficient, there would be no reason to disregard the earlier records from the BOM records.

However that is what BOM appears to have done, particularly when the high temperature records were long dated. It is strange that even the the Stevenson Screens were installed by 1910, it took the BOM until the early 2000’s to decide to axe some of Australia’s oldest temperature records.

But they cant be expunged from historical records which is where our team dug some up.

Also strangely, the BOM seems to have no problems with the many temperature stations which are sited in areas where there has been substantial urban and industrial growth which will impact more recent warming due to the Urban Heat Island Effect.

Four reasons the temperature records are meaningless:

  1. the BOM ignores countless historical records of extreme heat
  2. many older temperatures are adjusted lower, making the modern temperatures appear to be new “records”
  3. many stations are new with a very short history
  4. the BoM isn’t honest about the effect of the adjustments

Who knows what the real records are any more?

The latest claim is Australia’s hottest day in history on 7 January, a BoM declaration that seems to be based on a whole new metric of daily temperature records that estimates national averages in past decades.

Who’s heard of the Australian daily average maximum based on the estimated temperatures from all of the BoM’s weather stations? If you can find past official records of this metric that is grid weighted using 700 to 800 stations, do tell us. The record is made by averaging and grid weighting maxima across the entire continent each day.

Can we expect this every day in the future? Does it make the ACORN dataset obsolete? Will the BoM trumpet this daily temperature when cold fronts roll through? Will the source data be inviolate once the daily statistic is published because subsequent correction or homogenisation of earlier daily data will render the statistic no longer reproducible?

These questions must be asked because only the BoM can perform the calculation on a daily basis – the public must wait up to a year in some cases for the data to appear, and the BoM provides no simple access to all that data.

The BoM is populated with many very competent people but the publication of this 7 January record statistic cannot be checked in any way by the general public, even though one of the objectives of ACORN was to improve the transparency of the BoM’s activities.

Nobody is quite sure how these new calculations work, especially since some of the stations that appear to be included were relocated or simply didn’t exist early or at all in the 20th century. Our independent research team is working to try to figure it out right now. Expect an update in the next day or two. Watch this space.

Related posts:

Thanks especially to Chris GillhamLance and Ian Hill as well as the whole research team for help with this graphic, advice and research. Hat tips to Andy and Chris for some old temperature records.

9.1 out of 10 based on 176 ratings

334 comments to Australia – was hot and is hot. So what? This is not an unusual heatwave

  • #

    Not sure why the wags are so strict about not placing thermometres in direct sunlight.
    I mean, direct sunlight only heats to MINUS 18DegC (on average) doesn’t it? /sarc off

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    Ace

    Globally, thick as brick is the new norm for media commentators.

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  • #

    BOM is a classic case of a liar being found out. Rather than admit their dishonesty, they’re forced to tell bigger and bigger lies. Pretty soon, everyone knows exactly what they are. Nice seeing them forced into that position by the skeptics.

    Pointman

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    • #
      The Black Adder

      The BOM are not disimilar to the Lance Armstrong case!!

      Lets call ’em the BOMSTRONG!!

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        Bulldust

        Sitting here in Andorra and two feet of global warming have dropped in the last two days. Looking forward to some good skiing once the weather fines up a bit.

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        Barry

        It would be interesting to analyse the correlation between warmists and those who believed and vehemently defended Lance Armstrong against allegations of drug use.

        In my experience, they are the same people. They seem to love to be deceived and love to defend their own gullibility, even in the face of incontrovertible evidence.

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  • #

    “we cab check” s/b “we can check”. Zap this!

    Pointy (bloodless finder of other people’s typos, never his own)

    [Thanks for pointing it out – now fixed] Fly (for Jo)

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  • #
    Bernard

    Hello All,
    If any of you are Interested there is a large (15+MB) FREE PDF. by
    James
 A.
Marusek Titled “A 
Chronological 
Listing 
of 
Early

    Weather
 Events
”.
    Do a search for ‘Australia’.
    Link,
    http://www.breadandbutterscience.com/Weather.pdf

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      Greg Cavanagh

      An interesting piece of history, thanks for that.

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      cohenite

      Even more interesting, the pollies are looking at it.

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        Cookster

        Thanks for this cohenite. Yes nice to see a Conservative politician speaking up. Just goes to show there is a difference between the two main parties in Australia – at least ideologically if not based upon official policy. Where is Memoryvault by the way?

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        • #
          Andrew McRae

          As far as I can tell, he has not commented here since receiving a stern admonishment for this last one.
          Which is quite unfortunate for the rest of us.
          Perhaps MV was too good for a bunch of letter-writing wet paper tigers such as ourselves.

          10

  • #
    Peter Miller

    Sydney’s record temperature was 45.3 degrees C on the 14th January 1939. The record for this year occurred on January 8th, a mere 42.3 degrees C. The day before it was 27.5 and the day after it was 25.0.

    Message to alarmists: Get over it, this is weather, not climate!

    http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=weatherzone%20record%20temperature%20sydney%20january%201939&source=web&cd=4&cad=rja&sqi=2&ved=0CEAQFjAD&url=http%3A%2F%2Fm.weatherzone.com.au%2Fnsw%2Fsydney%2Fsydney%2Falmanac&ei=JVD0UJ__Fu2S0QWeqoD4Dg&usg=AFQjCNHXBZYHtgblc-Hn1dTx5eqdVC2tqA

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      janama

      unfortunately the 45.3C looks a bit sus to me – the day before was only 31C, the day after was not recorded and the day after that was only 19C. I suspect someone wrote 45 instead of 35 by mistake.

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        janama

        But there was a 43.5 recorded in December 21, 1994 at Riverview Observatory – 7km away but it also looks sus as the previous day was 31 and the day after 23 mind you there’s a 44 recorded 1st Jan 2006. 🙂

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        • #
          Cookster

          janama, AndyG55 is right. AS John Smith101 explains, the very hot days in Sydney are caused by strong north west winds blowing in off the arid deserts of central Australia. These northwesterlies are driven by an approaching low pressure system (or trough). As soon as the front passes, the following day can be 20C cooler with winds blowing from a southerly direction. Also, when the wind blows from the north east, it’s coming off the Ocean – that explains 31C on the previous day (north easterly) and 23C the day after (southerly). Nothing unusual about these swings, anyone who lives in Sydney knows this.

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        AndyG55

        You need to look at Sydney weather.. These large swings happen all the time. The NNW coming from the centre of Australia is suddenly replaced by what is called a “Southerly Buster” and the temp drops like a rock usually overnight.

        Saying that records are suspect just because of large temperature changes, is speaking from ignorance.

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        • #
          Mark

          AndyG55.

          At around 12:30 am (yes, that’s am!) on 9th. Jan. it was still 34 deg. where I live.

          Then the ‘southerly buster’ hit; within an hour the temp. had dropped 10 deg. Yes it was unusual but not unprecedented in this neck of the woods.

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      • #

        Back in 1910 when the weather was more extreme in Sydney Henry Lawson wrote a poem about the “Buster”.
        http://paulineconolly.com/2012/southerly-buster/
        In 1910 the Encyclopedia Britanica explained the “Brickfielder”.
        http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1911_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica/Brickfielder
        The early history of this very Australian extreme weather word here.
        http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/14060375?zoomLevel=6

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      • #

        Janama commented that the 45 degree reading in Sydney could have been accidentally transcribed incorrectly as 35 degrees – what we might call today, a ‘fat finger’ mistake.

        Initially it is a plausable proposition until you take into account that the readings back then were in Farenheit. So 45.3 degrees C converts to 113.54 degrees F. Once you start taking into account the completely different set of numbers between Celcius and Farenheit, explaining the high reading away by a transcription error becomes far less plausible.

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        AndyG55

        Oh, and 1939 temps records in somewhere like Sydney would have been absolutely meticulous.

        Checked checked and triple checked.

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      • #
        Newchum

        At the National Libary of Australia a report of 113.6 degrees.
        http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article17547972

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      • #
        John Smith101

        Janama, not suss, just the way weather systems operate. Sydney (Observatory Hill) is close enough to the coast to be influenced by sea breezes on relatively calm days hence the “day before” temperature of 31 – it was very likely much hotter further inland where today’s western suburbs now stand. Next day, a howling northwester (like which occurred last Tuesday) and sea breeze system unable to operate hence high temperatures recorded near the coast. Howling northwesters are driven (in part) by incoming frontal changes from the south west (sometimes south) resulting in a rapid drop in temperatures, perhaps accompanied by thunderstorms, drizzle or rain, hence relatively low “following day” temperatures.

        Good old-fashioned heatwaves (five or more continuous days with maximums over 35) usually involve a blocking high-pressure system over the Tasman Sea (especially in the case of Sydney) in which a constant northwesterly air stream blows across to the coast (though it may be moderated by a local sea breeze) bringing in hot air from the inland. These blocking highs could remain stationary for up to two weeks. These patterns have been observed in Sydney since the time of Governor Phillip.

        This knowledge used to be taught in Year 9 or 10 geography classes – I hope it still is.

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      • #
        Ian George

        In January 1939 there was an intense heatwave in eastern and southern Australia which killed over 400 people and caused the 1939 bushfires. I crosschecked some of the temps for Bourke against the ACORN temps and found all the higher temps had been reduced but not the lower ones. The 48.3C had been adjusted down to 47.9C so now they can claim a record. In 1932 Bourke had a 48.3C but this was also adjusted down. Bourke would have definitely had a SS by then so why the adjustment?
        Did they use the raw data to compare this record daily average temp for Australia or the ACORN figures?

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        • #
          rukidding

          And the weekend before

          Imagine what Sara Clark and David Karoly could do with this.

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          • #
            The Black Adder

            Currently ABC Newsradio are doing a news poll on the UN global Warming scare!

            Can we influence the ABC to change its mind??

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          • #

            I’ve been really curious these last couple of weeks why there has been this ‘beat up’ on what is basically just Summer weather, especially here in Queensland, The ABC weather report at the end of the News has detailed Max temperatures around the State, (of Queensland) in fact, in 43 locations. All of a sudden this Summer, those maxima which are virtually the same as they have ever been have been hyped as something out of the ordinary.

            I was really curious, and wondered if there was something afoot, you know, condition the punters type of thing to believe that this heat is extraordinary. While some have been hotter, those temperatures are basically the same as they have been every other year.

            Then, lo and behold, what is happening right now in Hobart?

            The UN’s IPCC is holding its very first conference held in Australia, and hey, what do you think is the focus?

            The normal Australian Summer humungously monumentally huge temperatures currently cooking all Australia.

            While it is painfully obvious to me, the average punter is now starkly aware of the pretty normal Summer excess heat, brought front and centre by a now compliant media.

            I know the following is only anecdotal, but it is something that has stayed with me.

            We moved here to Queensland (from Mexico) with Mum and Dad in 1960, and every night after dinner, Mum especially would make sure the five of us children watched the news on the ABC TV, mainly because she wanted us to be informed, even as children. The five of us, well, mainly the eldest two of us, me and my Sister would try and guess which place would have the maximum temperature in our new State, mainly because the place names always sounded so evocatively different. There was usually only a choice between four of five places in those days, Urandangie, Boulia, Normanton, and two sometimes three others, and those 5 or 6 places always topped the State each Summer day, and here I’m talking November through to early March. It was always one of those 5 or 6 and they were always up around 105 to 110. (All 40C+ in this day and age) This was every year. In Winter we did the same, and that was usually no contest, as it was pretty much always Stanthorpe.

            Now, all of a sudden, those 40C+ (Normal Summer) Temperatures are suddenly out of the ordinary.

            Right up until the start of this Summer, it was just ho hum, a small addendum at the bottom of the map of Queensland) and reported matter of factly, the temperatures laid out on the screen for those now 43 centres in 4 regions the ABC now reports the temperatures for, as Jenny mentioned a couple of those towns from each of those 4 regions.

            Having now watched that ABC weather report at the end of every News bulletin for more than 50 years, it just seems more pronounced this year.

            Well, at least those UN junketeers get to spend some time in a hot place rather than the freezing floperoonies their UNFCCC counterparts get to hold their last few conferences. I guess this time they really can point to some hot weather.

            Tony.

            (For all non Australian readers, here in Queensland, when we refer to Mexico, that’s what we euphemistically call Victoria)

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          • #
            AndyG55

            Yep, the UN IPISS meeting in Tassie does explain all the pseudo hat wave media hype for a what has basically been a non-event.

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          • #
            KinkyKeith

            Perhaps Hide It?

            KK 🙂

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          • #
            cohenite

            The ABC poll is here.

            I would suggest voting; currently the results are showing 52% supporting the UN and 49% opposing; fancy that, 101%.

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          • #
            The Black Adder

            Thx for the laugh Cohenite…

            101% for the ABC..

            Perhaps Wayne Swan is doing the stats tonite lol…

            50

          • #
            Cookster

            I just voted No. But the vote count didn’t change. By the way its 50/50 now.

            40

          • #
            Kevin Moore

            “Those who cast the votes decide nothing.
            Those who count the votes decide everything.”

            —Communist Tyrant and mass murderer Josef Stalin
            (attributed)

            http://www.votefraud.org/josef_stalin_vote_fraud_page.htm

            00

      • #
        old44

        Yes Jamana to a warmist it MUST be a mistake, just because massive fires in Victoria the day before, killed 71 people and burnt 200,000 hectares and the temperature was 113F is pure coincidence.

        10

      • #
        llew Jones

        In parts of Melbourne yesterday it got to over 40C. The BOM predicted around 28C max today. Around 1.30pm today there were quite a few locations between 21C and 22.5C, after the cool change came at about 9.30am so that short spiking in higher temperatures is not without precedent and is probably quite common in Australia.

        00

    • #

      The lunar declinational position was Maximum South on the 9th of January, this year the atmospheric tidal effect was that it pulled the more equatorial air toward the poles on the 7th and the 8th then it went calm and heated up. By the 9th the declinational tide was turning and the “southerly bluster effect” dropped the temperatures again.

      Australia has a couple of unique tidal wind effects that bear local names, due to no ridge of mountains running North/South like North and South America has (the Andes and Rockies). The “Morning Glory” waves that form around southern spring equinox, strongest when the declination of the sun and the moon are close to the same angle, so their tidal effects combine to generate this astounding phenomenon prized by glider pilots. The “Southerly buster” is much akin to the “blue northers” that occur in winter in the western Texas areas, “Alberta clippers” coming out of Canada, “Chinook winds” on the Eastern side of the Northern Rockies…

      In the northern hemisphere due to the aerological effects of the Rockies it creates spin that generates the tornado outbreaks. These are all just effects in the atmosphere responding to the 27.32 day long period of the lunar declinational tides in the atmosphere. It is very common in the meteorological records to find the biggest spread between daily highs and lows at the day of declinational culmination in a lot of places around the globe. Most of the time there ensues an active frontal passage starting then and lasting 3 to 5 days that breaks the steep day/night gradient (that was due to a clear still air mass) into a stormy gusty wind pattern as the tidal wave breaks and heads back to ward the equator.

      This “one day heat wave” is a normal lunar declinational atmospheric tidal effect, just like when it creates the cyclonic patterns that are called:) tornadoes, cyclones, hurricanes, squall lines, Mobile Polar Highs,and also the monsoonal flows as the moon crosses the equator into the other hemisphere, driving the meridional flow pulses in the global weather systems.

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    • #
      Mattb

      As noted on the other thread… we can now update the post:
      “Sydney’s record temperature was 45.3 degrees C on the 14th January 1939”

      to

      Sydney’s PREVIOUS record temperature was 45.3 degrees C on the 14th January 1939

      45.8 today wowee

      10

      • #
        Kevin Moore

        I presume there is a lot more tar,glass and cement in the vicinity of the thermometer now and less shade from trees.

        00

      • #
        llew Jones

        Latest Weather Observations for the Sydney Area

        http://www.bom.gov.au/nsw/observations/sydney.shtml?ref=hdr

        If you have a look at this table of the variation of temperature around Sydney today and of course the variation would exist on any day, it begs the question “what is the significance of 0.5C?” and what locations were used to give an average in 1939 as compared with 2013 or is it based on a specific location? Has the present greater heat island effect, due to greater building and traffic density, been accounted for? Be interesting to know the answers to those questions.

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        • #
          Mattb

          yada yada yada

          02

        • #
          llew Jones

          6:40PM Friday Jan 18, 2013

          The Age

          “Earlier, the mercury hit 45.8 degrees in the city at 2.55pm. The previous high of 45.3 degrees was recorded in January 1939 at Observatory Hill.”

          Just noticed the above in the Age and haven’t got a clue about the geography of Sydney but if “Observatory Hill” is any distance from where this Max of 45.8C was recorded the comparison is pointless as there is quite a bit of variation in temperatures over a relatively short distance when measured at the same moment.

          In fact it would be interesting to know if 45.3C was the highest temperature on that day and time in 1939 in the same locations that that data is listed for today.

          Same with all these “Maxs”. The whole thing may be a crock at tenths of a degree. Just check the wide variation in temperatures in a small area on the BOM tables.

          00

          • #
            Mattb

            nope it is the same place, give or take a few (maybe few dozen) metres. Plenty of other places in Sydney appear to have been even hotter yesterday

            00

    • #
      Nice One

      Message to “skeptics”. Sydney 45.8, it’s weather but the underlying trend is climate change and that’s making the weather hotter on average. That’s why we have more hot records being broken than cold records, by a ratio of 2:1.

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  • #
    MadJak

    Seriously, I would be greatly concerned if during an interglacial period that the earths temperature wasn’t climbing to some extent.

    That being said it has been perfectly clear to me that the Catastrafarians have been waiting and hoping for a heat wave to occur – they have so missed getting all righteous on our asses, haven’t they? It must have had them all in knots not being able to get all condescending over the latest temperature blips!

    From perspective, they can get as righteous and condescending as they like – it just drives more people to look into alternative points of view – and this is a good thing.

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      Allen Ford

      It certainly didn’t take David Karoly long to jump on the bandwagon – an unprecendented 1 μsec, or thereabouts.

      Is this a record?

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        Andrew McRae

        Not sure if that counts as jumping on the bandwagon if he was already on the bandwagon. Dr Karoly has a history of doing this. Even the Black Saturday bush fires were not enough to dissuade him from The Cause.

        DAVID KAROLY: Well, I’d hate to say that it requires a disaster to draw the attention – or focus the attention of ministers, but it’s certainly clear that the economic disaster focused the attention of the world. And perhaps it requires disasters like Hurricane Katrina in the United States or fire disasters like we’ve experienced to focus the attention on issues like climate change.

        That interview was only two days after Black Saturday. Pretty sure some of the fires were still burning.
        And charred bodies were still waiting to be collected and identified by dental records.
        Clearly it was the perfect time to blame Hansen’s “death trains” for some actual deaths.

        Less of a bandwagon boarder and more of an ambulance chaser! 😀

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  • #
    Rod Stuart

    “Through money, democracy becomes its own destroyer, after money has destroyed intellect.”
    “A power can be overthrown only by another power, not by a principle, and only one power that can confront money is left. Money is overthrown and abolished by blood.”………Oswald Spengler in “The Decline of the West”
    (ISBN-13: 978-1400097005)
    Next comes the rule of naked force – the power of blood and the ways of war. In the end, this is what Spengler saw overthrowing the power of money.
    It is money, stolen through taxation and inflation, that allows the current Fascist administration to control the BOM, the CSIRO and the ALP Broadcasting Corporation.

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    Ross

    As I understand it last year the East of Aussie had a very wet ,relatively cool summer. This year it is warmer and drier. If AGW is responsible for this year’s summer weather what happened last year ? Was it asleep?

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    • #
      Rohan

      Ross, that is correct for the past two summers in Melbourne. This summer is also relatively mild but not so wet. So far we’ve cycled with a week of cool to warm temperatures then get a day or two of hot weather and the cycle continues. Last time I used the aircon was Friday when it was 37C. Probably turn it on again Thursday when the temp is supposed to nudge 39C.

      It’s currently 12.3C at Moorabbin Airport at 7.30am.

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      AndyG55

      Last few summers in Newcastle have been fairly ordinary.. Even this year we have only really had 2 days you could call hot.

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    • #
      AndyG55

      Yep, there are a lot of records still standing from the change of the 1800-1900 and a from the late 1930’s

      Amazing when you think about it.. After all this supposed warming, many places still haven’t reached temps of 70-110 years ago !!!

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  • #
    MaxL

    Hmmm Heat wave!

    That’s why I’m wearing a jumper. I guess if it wasn’t a heat wave I’d have a coat on as well.
    16°C may be called a heat wave in Antarctica but not here in Australia.

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  • #
    john robertson

    Its easy, CO2 the magic gas, has travelled back in time, soon we will see news reports blaming Eric The Reds settlement of Greenland on SUV’s of the future.
    The press seems to be engaging in a last ditch attempt in full blown propaganda. I guess they know they are done for, as the big lie collapses .
    Once you announce that you will lie to promote your ideology, why be surprised when no one trusts you?
    trouble with lying, is remembering which lie you told to whom.
    Control the internet, eraze the record of your lies??

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  • #
    mikemUK

    By coincidence, Chris Monckton has a current post at WUWT regarding UK Met Office, on the same theme.

    Could we say (without fear of libel) that the official figures on temperature are “institutionally corrupted”?

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    • #
      Dennis

      I thought corruption as soon as the UK chief scientist’s report was ignored and a (Lord Stern?) economic statement was commissioned and then tabled instead.

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  • #
    Rereke Whakaaro

    Well,

    At seven this morning, we had 45 degrees.
    At ten we had 78 degrees.
    at twelve we had 33.3 degrees.

    They sound like records to me … 😉

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  • #

    BTW on the ABC they have just posted the second part of a week long set of articles about climate change and its effects on Australia see
    here.

    I note that maybe due to my awkward questions on the first feature they have turned off commenting..

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    • #
      Boadicea

      And why not…they are really not that interested in the truth.

      This is an election year after all and as ex employees/advisers/media managers, of previous Labor politicians we must do our bit.

      Pardon me for my cynicism but I limit my viewing of ABC current affairs material… so damaging to ones health and well being.

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      • #

        BTW just caught Sarah Clark out, said the 1.1C to 6.4C rise was from now – no it was from 2007 when the 4th IPCC Report came out. Error by obmission both on her report and her response to me. She should at least qualify that in her report.

        50

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      Dennis

      And the proim minster has been blaming climate change for the hot weather and fires.

      50

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      rukidding

      They say in that speil that crop yields will drop.Well since 1960 the wheet crop yield has all most trebled.They keep telling us that GW started after 1960 so why havn’t crop yields been falling if GW causes reductions in yields.

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      handjive

      At 1.20 minutes the ALPBC claims cyclones & storms will cause more damage.

      Yet, April 04, 2011, Climate change to mean fewer cyclones and smaller waves, says CSIRO research.

      Peas, thimbles, smoke, mirrors, contradiction, lies from Australia’s “peak” science body.

      They make it up as they go.

      Since when did “future predicting” become science?

      It’s not science, it’s astrology. Climastrology.

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      • #
        Albert

        You said what most people miss, future predicting isn’t science and when predictions are linked to the size of government grants that also isn’t science.

        00

  • #
    • #
      AndyG55

      “This avoids the inconvenient 1930s which may contain all-time highs for some stations. Just throw them out or correct them for something.”

      A true warmist attitude !!!

      The US records (un-Hansenised) also have that inconvenient peak in the 1930’s (hope the link works.)

      You can see that Giss has adopted Maue’s “correct them for something” procedure

      http://stevengoddard.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/1998changesannotated.gif?w=500&h=355&h=355

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      • #
        Ian George

        AndyG55
        This is how the BOM do it here. The first column shows the raw temps for Bourke in Jan, 1939. The second column shows the adjusted temps (ACORN) for the same period.
        Jan raw ACORN
        1st 38.9 38.4
        2nd 40 39.1
        3rd 42.2 41.9
        4th 38.1 37.9
        5th 38.9 38.4
        6th 41.7 41.5
        7th 41.7 41.5
        8th 43.4 43
        9th 46.1 45.7
        10th 48.3 47.9
        11th 47.2 46.8
        12th 46.2 45.8
        13th 45.7 45.3
        14th 46.1 45.7
        15th 47.2 46.8
        16th 46.7 46.3
        17th 40 39.1
        18th 40.1 39.1
        19th 40 39.1
        20th 41.9 41.7
        21st 42.5 42.1
        22nd 44.2 43.8
        23rd 36.7 36.5
        24th 40.3 39.2
        25th 36.6 36.5
        26th 29.4 29.5
        27th 29.3 29.4
        28th 28.8 28.9
        29th 30.6 30.5
        30th 35.6 35.4
        31st 38.6 38.3
        Highest daily 48.3 47.9
        Lowest daily 28.8 28.9
        Monthly mean 40.4 40.0354838

        Note that every temp has been adjusted down, anywhere from 0.1C to 0.9C bringing the monthly average down by 0.4C. There is no rhyme nor reason for this as Bourke had had a Stevenson Shield since at least 1910.

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    Bruce J

    All those old temperatures cannot be considered valid as there is no evidence they were recorded by thermometers properly installed in Stevenson screens. There needs to be photographic evidence of such installations and there are none of those old ones, especially of Charles Sturt’s and many in the outback. Oh, sorry, didn’t camera’s exist in those times? Well, they should have done paintings! There is just no excuse for the lack of proof of compliance with recording standards that did not exist when the readings were taken. /sarc off.

    90

    • #
      tiger

      Yeh Bruce and like here in Mildura where in the 60s and 70s at least {and according to many other residence of the area from the 40s on}the “properly installed Stevenson screen” had a sprinkler going flat out within 10 ft of it on the hottest days to alter the temp. so the fruit pickers and tourists wouldnt be scared off..I have seen it myself..It has been a long standing joke around this area…we would ask others around the area to get a more accurate reading on hot days…

      60

  • #

    have you seen wattsupwiththat story on sydney hot january days

    90

  • #
    Dale

    The “heatwave” is not really that surprising TBH. Consider:

    1. Six months of rising ENSO to near El Nino conditions warm and dry the east.
    2. A warm Indian Ocean (from those previous La Ninas) warm and dry the west.
    3. Falling Antarctic Oscillation in Nov-Dec pulls the circle of lows further south so they miss the south of the continent (thus not providing relief from the built up heat).
    4. Delayed monsoon due to lack of tropical cyclones pulling the monsoon over the north (thus not providing relief from the built up heat).

    When you consider these natural weather conditions it’s not hard to see how the inland heat will build up.

    Though can you see BOM admitting this?

    140

    • #
      Crakar24

      Gold star for you Dale, actually was watching TV the other night and a BOM guy stated the hot interior was from the lateness of the monsoon so inwardly they might admit it but not the PR machine or the warmbots that troll here.

      51

    • #
      Andrew McRae

      Now that’s what we need some more of – some straight talkin’ !

      On a similar note it’s worth remembering that high temperatures don’t cause droughts, droughts cause high temperatures.
      Assuming the same insolation, a lack of rain prevents the soil’s natural evaporative air-conditioning effect (via “latent heat of vaporisation”), and so all insolation is directed into heating the soil which then heats up the air by direct conduction.

      That dovetails nicely with the delayed monsoon explanation for the sub-tropical climates, but that does not explain the heatwaves of the southern states.
      Had not heard of the Antarctic Oscillation before. Sick `em, SAM!
      I have to say, an invisible naughty wind dog chasing oceanic newspapers seems at least as scientific as SUVs causing global warming.

      20

      • #
        Dale

        I notice this morning that SkS has an article up promoting the claim that CO2 heated oceans ‘came back to haunt Australia’.

        I wish people would get their facts right. How do they think that Indian Ocean heat anomaly got there in the first place? I bet $100 that Bob Tisdale could talk for hours on how La Nina’s push hot tropical Pacific waters into the Indian.

        Yes, that hot water came back to haunt us, but the cause of the hot water is what they get wrong.

        40

  • #
    Snafu

    Hat tip to WUWT

    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/01/14/global-warming-it-was-warmer-in-sydney-in-1790/

    It was warmer in Sydney in 1790.

    For while the mercury peaked at 42.3 C last Tuesday at Observatory Hill in Sydney – more than 222 years ago at 1.00pm on the 27th Dec 1790 (measured at a location just stones-throw from Observatory Hill) the mercury hit 108.5 F (42.5 C) before peaking at 109 F (42.8 C) at 2.20pm.

    The extreme heat of Sydney’s summer of 1790/91 is detailed by Watkins Tench (1758 –1833) in his book ‘A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson’ published in 1793. (Available to download from the internet for free, here).

    http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3534/3534-h/3534-h.htm

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  • #
    Crakar24

    Listening to the ABC whilst driving to work this morning (EPL scores) and they had an interview with Panchuri discussing tyhe leaked documents. He said it was not good as it was only a draft on the other hand they needed to be more open about their work but this is not the way the openess should come about.

    Then came the usual booga booga, Panchuri thought the temps could rise from 1.1 to 6C by 2100 so in other words he has no idea and this is just a guess but the reporter was too stupid to pick up on it, T

    Then the reporter asked this question “As a climate scientist do you feel bad that the world has so far failed to act on climate change?”.

    How do you think Panchuri responded

    1, No no my dear you are mistaken i am but a mere railway engineer.

    2, Carried on as if nothing was wrong thereby lying by omission and missrepresenting himself to the Australian public and the world at large.

    242

  • #
    Louis Hissink

    ABC News now tells us that globally months will have 12 times more hotter days than before, all due to us warming the earth! According to a European study released this week.

    103

    • #
      Grant (NZ)

      One way they could achieve that is by having 30 months in a year. Then you have 18 new months for which no previous record exists, thereby creating new records every time one of these new months rolls round. 🙂

      51

  • #
    Louis Hissink

    It might also be worth pointing out that the political left, the Marxists etc, while on the one hand tending to fabricate their realities, at the same time also deny any responsibility for those abstractions fabricated. In the case of quarantining large tracts of Australia in national parks, reserves etc. and allowing such tracts to revert to, what they imagine, “nature”, causing the present day horrific fires, it is in their tradition to then blame some one else for the catastrophe.

    Hence the fires we are dealing with now, the result of incompetent land management practices etc, are not caused from greeny/lefty incompetence, but from us causing global warming, or climate change is one is brain dead.

    173

  • #

    from CAWCR Technical Report No. 050

    confirmation from the experts that the temperatures in the early years have been adjusted downwards

    The two methods of estimating the nationally and annually averaged magnitude of the
    homogenisation adjustments (red and blue lines in Fig. 23 for the first method, and grey lines
    for the second method) give very similar results. Further, the results are consistent with the
    difference between the AWAP and ACORN analyses (thin black lines in Fig. 23) and the
    difference between the WNDC and ACORN analyses (not shown). Those results include the
    previously mentioned fact that the homogenised maximum temperatures are around 0.2 °C
    lower at the start of the study period.
    Can these results be explained by the distribution of the adjustments? We now calculate and
    present those distributions. For our analysis here, we have accumulated those adjustments into
    annual-adjustment time series for each location. Because the homogenisation at each location is
    performed relative to the “open on-going” site (the currently reporting station) at each location,
    these accumulated adjustments tend towards zero at the end of the time series (2010). We
    stratify those annualised adjustments by decade and compute the cumulative distribution
    function for them. Figure 24 shows the results for maximum temperature, while Fig. 25 shows
    the results for minimum temperature. Accumulated annualised adjustments for maximum
    temperature (Fig. 24) are moderately symmetric around zero, although there is some tendency
    towards negative adjustments being more common. For minimum temperature, the results are
    more skewed towards negative adjustments, particularly in the early years.

    highlights mine

    120

  • #
    JohnM

    Check out the BoM special statement on this heatwave at http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/current/statements/scs43c.pdf. Notice especially the maps of anomalies.

    It appears that in many of the locations, especially those in central Australia, the anomalies for maximum temperatures are around +8 degrees but vary plus or minus on a day by day basis. Let’s put that into context. It’s like having an average from 1961 to 1990 of 27C and now having a series of days of 25. Few places still have the same 1961-90 average with most typically 0.5 to 1 degree higher, which means the difference during this heatwave amounts to around 7 degrees.

    In other words, sure it’s hot, but it’s not a whole lot hotter than on typical recent January days.

    61

  • #
    Otter

    So, who is the coward that gave everyone a thumbs down? Don’t they have anything to claim to us?

    115

  • #
    Ripper

    Cue

    “on two occasions reaching 118 degrees”

    06/01/1896

    Nannine

    “The weather during the last few weeks has been most oppressive. The shade temperature has frequently been over 120”

    http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/3076151?searchTerm=temperature%20Cue&searchLimits=sortby=dateAsc|||l-title=30

    60

  • #
    A C of Adelaide

    ‘ The Australian BOM say this current pattern of extreme heat is “consistent with climate change” ‘

    I once was listening to some Religion Report on the radio a few years ago and I heard the reporter ask the Bishop of Somewhere if he believed in miracles. His answer was (and I paraphrase) “any outcome that was not inconsistant with the teachings of the Bible could be considered a miracle.”
    So any lucky occurrence that fits – is in!

    One can see the that BOM’s attitude is not inconsistent with the Man of the Cloth, that it is equally unscientific, and suggests that the general thinking of BOM and the church are converging. Behold – the miracle of the Rising Sea level – and bow low.

    100

    • #
      RoHa

      ‘this current pattern of extreme heat is “consistent with climate change”’

      of course. Everything is. And that includes the particularly chilly weather they are having in the Northern hemisphere.

      50

    • #

      “consistent with” – that’s another weasle expression, isn’t it? Strictly speaking, they’re not saying it is, they’re saying it’s “consistent with”, as in “would fit”. It’s another chance to later say “We never said it was!”

      These people are slippery as wet eels!

      30

  • #
    spangled drongo

    Good report by Piers Akerman in today’s DT on the BoM’s sleight of hand.

    If, as Gov Arthur Philip said in the first fleet journals, there were 20,000 dead birds per mile from heat stress in Feb 1791 [222 years ago], what must have the temperature been then?

    In my personal experience I have seen only ONE bird die in 50c heat.

    http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/piersakerman/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/heatwave_it_was_hotter_in_1790/

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  • #
    John Brookes

    But it has been pretty hot…

    528

    • #
      Crakar24

      Actually John apart from two days above 40 the summer here in Adeliade has been quite nice. I thought you said this theory of yours was called global warming?

      192

    • #
      Bruce of Newcastle

      John, you have heard of this thing we call summer?

      I will admit you over in the west have had it warmer than here in the east.

      On the other hand even in New Zealand they know that CO2 has nothing to do with our hot weather. And that guy is a real climate scientist, not a railway engineer.

      161

    • #
      KinkyKeith

      John,

      I’ve given you a green tick.

      You deserve it for giving me hope when I have been a little depressed lately.

      I have been thinking that I mustn’t be very smart to have been so easily conned by Governments and their spin over my lifetime. I took it hook line and sinker.

      Work hard, save, be law abiding, don’t drive while drunk, look after your children and so on.

      All this while believing that Mr Government would be doing his part in running the country in the very best way for the benefit of all;

      with maybe just a little corruption, say 10% of GNP.

      Little did I realize that the Government exists solely for itself and friends and hangers on and that the figures were reversed with 90% corruption and 10% good works.

      Well John I felt down; but seeing your plight every day really does cheer me up.

      As my Uncle used to say, “there’s always somebody worse off than yourself”.

      Thanks

      KK 🙂

      170

      • #
        Rohan

        KK, in about 30 months, so will I. You see I’ve had an argument/discussion with an old college friend who’s a rabid greeny on Facebook that originated out of this heatwave. Now this guy has gravitated to that scene so most of his mates are of similar persuasion and the discussion was civil but passionate. One of the friends stated that in a few years there will be no more ice at the north pole! Zero! None! Seriously! I laid down a bet to put up or shut up with one weeks gross salary as the wager. Now my old college mate said that wasn’t a fair bet, so I gave this guy a chance to back down or change the terms. I suggested new terms that if he looses he joins either the LNP or if I do, I’ll join The Greens. That would be genuinely funny and have a much smaller financial toll on the looser (ie him). Low and behold he didn’t back down.

        So we firmed up the terms. One weeks gross salary on there being or not being ice at the North Pole at any time in September 2015 – 33 months time. Reason why he didn’t back down and why I’ll give a H/T to John? He read a post on levels of Artic ice in Skeptical Science.

        170

      • #
        AndyG55

        KK, I worry that there are many in society with John’s plight………… utter gullibility.

        30

        • #
          KinkyKeith

          No.

          I don’t think it’s the science; so it’s not a matter of gullibility.

          He says absolutely ridiculous things just for the attention, not the science; I think he just enjoys the company of people who Think for a change.

          Just imagine the lack of mental stimulation that a Life Subscription to SkS would give you and you can see why he posts here , even if he has to be on the contrary side to get noticed.

          KK 🙂

          40

    • #
      AndyG55

      as USUAL during an Australia summer..

      Hot periods, cold speriods, ups and downs, this is totally normal.

      NOTHING MUCH has changed in, like, 200 years.!

      70

      • #
        KinkyKeith

        Andy

        Christmases have gotten colder.

        It has changed.

        We used to have a week to ten days of 100 F plus temperatures when I was kid.

        103 102 105 can’t remember 107 though.

        KK 🙂

        70

    • #

      No it hasn’t – it was a lot warmer on average last year. This Summer on the whole (around Sydney) is a lot more comfortable. I remember weeks of heat that lasted over night. Currently have temps in mid 20’s!

      50

    • #
      Redress

      “But it has been pretty hot”

      The BOM defines a heatwave as two or more consecutive days with maximum temperature exceeding 37.7C.

      Lets check and see how many heatwaves we have had this summer in…

      Adelaide: December 2012: NO no heatwave, 2 days only made it above 37.7C.
      January 2013: Yes had a heatwave on the 3rd and 4th, and one day above 37.7 on the 7th

      Melbourne: December 2012: NO no heatwave, 2 days only made it above 37.7C.
      January 2013: NO no heatwave, 2 days only made it above 37.7C.

      Sydney: December 2013: NO no heatwave, NO days made it above 37.7C.
      January 2013: NO no heatwave, 1 day only made it above 37.7C.

      Hobart: December 2013: NO no heatwave, NO days made it above 37.7C.
      January 2013: NO no heatwave, 1 day only made it above 37.7C.

      Perth:December 2012: YES a heatwave from December 25 to December 31, 1 other day only made it above 37.7C.
      January 2013: YES a heatwave on the 7th and 8th, 1 other only made it above 37.7C.

      No it hasn’t been “pretty hot”. Just BOM and media hyperbole…Exaggerated statement not meant to be taken literally…which the the facts disprove, emphatically.

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      • #
        Dennis

        I was not able to recall the temperature but from Ballarat to Adelaide to Broken Hill to Dubbo late December and to mid January 2012 it was hot, you show 37.7C for Adelaide in December 2011 but I think it topped 40C in SA during that period at least twice, country inland north.

        41

        • #
          Redress

          It hit 41C in Adelaide on December 23 2012, but the day before was only 35C and the day after 28C, so sorry no heat wave.
          And this has been the pattern, there will be one day over the 37.7C trigger for a heatwave but the consecutive heatwave days don’t eventuate.
          But this is normal and #6 post temperatures are not unusual.

          Ballarat: December 2012; NO heatwave, 1 day 23rd over 37.7C
          January 2013: NO heatwave, only 2 days above 37.7C, 4th and the 11th January.

          Broken Hill:December 2012: No heatwave, 3 days over 37.7C.
          January 2013: YES heatwave from the 3rd to the 8th January, 6 days below 37.7C.

          Dubbo: December 2012: No heatwave, 2 days over 37.7C
          January 2013: YES heatwave conditions from January 1st until 14th. Only 3 days below 37.7C

          20

      • #
        Len

        I understood that they are now using 35 degrees as the start for heat waves.

        10

    • #
      Angry

      Duh john brookes………

      IT’S SUMMER, YOU BOOFHEAD !!!!

      00

  • #
    LizP

    Charles Sturt might have found the temperature of 53C was warm enough back in 1828, but it wasn’t the hottest he experienced on his expeditions. In 1844 he set out from Adelaide with the view to see if he could find an inland sea. On the 21st January 1845, Charles Sturt records this in his “narrative”;

    “At a quarter past 3, p.m. on the 21st of January, the thermometer had risen to 131 degrees in the shade, and to 154 degrees in the direct rays of the sun.”
    131F is 55C ….. 154F is 67.7C
    This information can be found in Chapter 5 of his journal http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/s/sturt/charles/s93n/contents.html

    140

  • #
    pat

    here’s a beauty!

    15 Jan: Sky News Australia: Hot weather records increase fivefold
    Global warming has caused monthly records for heat to increase fivefold in frequency, according to a study by scientists in Germany and Spain.
    In parts of Europe, Africa and southern Asia, the frequency of months with record-breaking heat has surged tenfold, said the study published on Monday.
    The evidence comes from an analysis of 131 years of monthly temperature data, monitored at 12,000 points around the world, which are stored in a NASA database.
    If man-made warming is stripped out of the equation, 80 per cent of the records for hottest-ever months would not have occurred, it said.
    ‘The last decade brought unprecedented heatwaves, for instance in the US in 2012, in Russia in 2010, in Australia in 2009 and in Europe in 2003,’ said Dim Coumou of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research near Berlin…
    On current trends for global warming, the number of new monthly heat records will be 12 times higher in 30 years than today, the researchers said.
    ‘This doesn’t mean there will be 12 times more hot summers in Europe than today – it actually is worse,’ Coumou said in a news release issued by PIK…
    The study, which was co-authored by scientists at the Complutense University of Madrid, appears in the journal Climatic Change.
    http://www.skynews.com.au/eco/article.aspx?id=835793

    check how many were educated at Complutense University:

    Climatestrategy.es:
    http://www.climatestrategy.es/index.php?id=12

    Climate Strategy Spain:
    Climate Strategies publishes a series of short policy briefs.
    Recently published:
    Innovation Systems in Developing Countries
    Raising Climate Finance from International Transport Sectors
    Searching for a Global Architecture – ‘Coping with Complexity in the Evolving International Climate Policy Institutional Architecture…etc
    http://www.climatestrategies.org/

    50

  • #
    Mattb

    so out of the many a few have old records. I doubt it is even statistically unusual for some records to still be standing.

    30degrees at 6am – pretty blinking warm this morning Jo:)

    219

  • #
    Binny

    Sigh… You don’t get it the ‘forecasts’ were record breaking – That’s what matters.

    120

  • #
    Dennis

    This is interesting, trends since 2,500BC, check out the graph: http://www.longrangeweather.com/global_temperatures.htm

    40

    • #
      Truthseeker

      Dennis, it interesting, but while some of their reasoning seems sound (land use and increased urbanisation) some of it is a little sensationalist. Especially the one about the “mega storm” which was not particularly “mega” and was only a storm. The only remarkable thing about it was the location of the landfall and the promiximty to the politians. One generated a lot of damage and the other generated a lot of hype.

      I am not sure they show enough data to prove their assertion that decreased solar activity and increased volcanic activity means a sudden drop in global temperatures, but that in itself does mean that they are incorrect. It is a plausible theory, just unproven.

      60

  • #
    RoHa

    Jo, are you trying to tell us that summers can be hot in Australia?

    I’ve never heard that before.

    61

  • #
    Crakar24

    The latest from our leading climate scientist…..whats that your not a climate scientist……(clears throat) the latest from our leading environmentalist and climate change activist.

    http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/rising-temperatures-make-mockery-of-rising-scepticism-20130114-2cpnz.html#ixzz2HxQXLwmK

    52

    • #
      Dennis

      Flannery has day dreams while fishing in his aluminium boat on the Hawkesbury River out in front of his two waterfront properties, I think he also uses bones to read the future.

      131

  • #
    George McFly

    Yes, the poor little warmists are frothing and gesticulating after a few hot days. I think they need a cold shower

    71

  • #
    Ace

    I dont understand any of this.

    The hottest I experienced in Australia was 116 in 1974.

    What the feck is a “c”?

    51

    • #
    • #
      AndyG55

      We were meant to change to the metric system in.. 1966 (iirc)..

      Its taking a while, isn’t it. 🙂

      How many people would still ask for say an “8 b 4 sheet of ply.”

      and, “from the top of the hill, you could see for “miles”

      Being hit by a piece of “4 b 2” isn’t anything to worry about if the units are mm’s

      60

      • #

        It began in 1970 with complete handover in 1988. State schools kicked out imperial pretty much by 1974.

        1966 was coinage.

        40

        • #
          KinkyKeith

          It’s possible that Andy is not remembering too well because he was hit over the head with a bit of 4><2.

          KK 🙂

          40

          • #

            well 4×2 in base S.I units would leave him dead.

            I just checked a reputable source (wiki); schools converted in 1972. I now remember that this concurs with my own memory.

            50

          • #
            AndyG55

            Well, a couple of times.. happens occasionally when you renovate things.

            Bashing ya cranium on those old hardwood floor joists hurts way more than a piece of lightweight pine !

            No major damage that I know of, though 😉

            40

          • #
            KinkyKeith

            “well 4×2 in base S.I units would leave him dead.”

            I was thinking of radiata not hard wood

            KK

            20

        • #
          AndyG55

          I knew something changed in 1966, but I wasn’t very old then..

          and its now a long time ago. 🙂

          30

          • #
            Mark D.

            1966.

            Isn’t that also about the time the damn environmentalists got started?

            Coincidence? I don’t think so.

            50

          • #
            AndyG55

            So Mark, are you saying that the change to decimal currency caused the formation of the environmental movement ??

            I think I’d like some stronger evidence 😉

            (and here I was, thinking it was the advent of a certain “weed”),

            50

          • #
            John Brookes

            I think 1966 was the last time I was wrong. We arrived in Australia at the start of 1965 (in the middle of a Perth heat wave). When I heard we were getting decimal currency I confidently told the kids at school that the 1 cent piece would have a covered wagon on it. Because that is what I remembered from South Africa, where the 1 cent commemorated the Voortrekkers.

            Boy was I embarrassed when it was some Australian animal instead.

            02

      • #
        Ace

        How many would ask for 4 be 8.
        Well I would.
        But Im feckin relieved we metricated money.

        10

      • #
        Rereke Whakaaro

        We were meant to change to the metric system in.. 1966?
        Its taking a while, isn’t it.

        Yep. They still sell eggs in dozens, and half-dozens (that is 12 and 6 for the younger readers).

        A dozen eggs at 2/- meant they were 2d each. (Why “d” for pence? – well that’s yer basic latin innit?)

        31

        • #

          this is way off topic but 6 and 12 are very practical numbers for handling and dividing up goods. Much better than 5 or 10. They’d likely be used no matter how many fingers and toes our species evolved to possess.

          10

          • #
            Rereke Whakaaro

            Well, I am glad we have found something we can agree on. 🙂

            Almost any number base would be preferable to five. Damn Romans have a lot to answer for, or was it the Phoenicians? I forget … it was a long time ago.

            20

          • #
            Bruce of Newcastle

            no matter how many fingers and toes

            Which puzzles me as to why so many cultures only had words for one, two, three and many.

            If three is the highest number we can fit into our skulls easily, perhaps we’re actually evolved from sloths. I’d should look into this hypothesis except I can’t be bothered.

            Also with twenty digits readily available to even our numerically challenged ancestors it shows why CAGW is so hard to knock off – humans are just not built to be an empirical species.

            10

          • #

            Rereke no idea but I bet the use of 5 and 10 was kicking around in multiple cultures that influenced the cicilizations that then became influencial.

            Bruce, evidence is that societies that used the word many had forms of accounting that allowed trade in goods greater than three (or whatever their cut-off was).

            20

          • #
            Bruce of Newcastle

            I’d like to shake the hand of the guy who invented “IX” as a way to save on papyrus, instead of “IIII” .

            10

          • #
            Bruce of Newcastle

            Oops “IV” not “IX”. I’d shake the hand of the guy who invented the concept of zero too.

            20

          • #

            Bruce,

            there is an oddity with respect to Roman Numerals for the number 4. It is IV.

            Now look at a clock with Roman Numerals. Note that the number representing 4 is shown as IIII and not IV. It’s the only case in Roman numerology where it differs.

            Two other things about Roman Numerology as well.

            1. I think 1888 is easier to visualise than MDCCCLXXXVIII, which is the longest Roman Numeral you can ever get, well at least for another 75 years that is.

            2. I also love the way they use the full value of ten, hundred and a thousand and then take away the numbers from that. So while 1999 could feasibly be written as MIM (One thousand plus one thousand minus one) it is written as MCMXCIX. (One thousand plus one thousand minus one hundred plus one hundred minus ten plus ten minus one)

            Thank heavens we moved to numbers and not stayed with Roman numerology.

            Tony.

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            Rereke Whakaaro

            Bruce,

            Zero was invented by the Arabs.

            They then patented it, hoping to find somebody who would give them something for nothing.

            50

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      AndyG55

      A ‘C’ is 1.8 ‘F’s .

      20

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    handjive

    Over at one of Lewanjokesy’s hangouts, The Conversation, they are all over the place like a mad women’s washing.
    .

    20 July 2011

    There’s always the sun: solar forcing and climate change
    by Karl Braganza, Manager of Climate Monitoring at the Bureau of Meteorology

    The role of the sun in climate variability

    The source of virtually all energy in the climate system comes from the sun.

    Geothermal and direct human heat emissions are tiny by comparison.

    A change in the amount or distribution of solar radiation reaching the Earth is one of the most pivotal sources of natural climate variability.
    There is a range of ways that changing solar radiation affects the climate system.
    .

    15 January 2013

    Solar forcing effect on climate change ‘extremely small’: IPCC scientist

    “co-chair of the IPCC’s Working Group 1, Professor Thomas Stocker said that solar forcing actually did not play a major role.

    “As the scientific publications indicate, the assessment is not yet completed. We are looking at an extremely small effect here, that’s what one can say from the publications but I should stress the experts are still performing their assessment,” he said a press conference in Hobart today.
    .
    And that is called “settled science”.

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    Peter Styles

    Heat on rise for 28years Herald Sun 10th January 2013.Prof Jeremy Williams of Griffith University in Brisbane claims there have been 333 consecutive months of rising average temperatures Globally since 1985,and if the trend continues societies will not be able to function effectively. The NASA VAH satellite recording global lower atmosphere temperatures of 13.4 C FOR 1985. 14.6c for 1998. 14.4C 2012.This makes 1998 the warmest yet.For Jeremy to be correct, with a minimum rise each and every year since 1985 at 13.4C the 2012 average temperature would have been 16.73.Griffith University gets funding from the Australian Climate commission to peddle this crap.

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    Michael

    weather, climate… c’mon guys, thinking caps on!

    10

  • #
    Tim

    It seems there’s a worldwide movement to play the ‘Pea and Thimble trick’ with weather data. Think globally – the BOM is just a local example.

    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/03/06/weather-stations-disappearing-worldwide/

    And a very comprehensive examination back in 2009:

    http://johnosullivan.livejournal.com/4521.html

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    rukidding

    Does Australia’s temperature record only go back to 1961 now.
    How do they know what the record daily temperature was if more than half the weather stations that ever existed closed before 1961.
    If you closed a lot of stations that were in the south of Australia and opened more stations in the north would that make a difference.
    Nah they would have thought of that.

    51

  • #
    rukidding

    Here are some records for Sydney.

    Hotest day 1939 45.3
    longest 4 day period 1960 40.57
    Hotest summer 1990/91(26.31)

    Hotest october2004 day 38.2
    hotest november1982 day 41.8
    hotest december1957 day 42.2
    hotest january 1939 day 45.3
    hotest febuary1926 day 42.1
    hotest march1983 day 39.8

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    John Smith101

    From my copy of Commonwealth of Australia Official Year Book 1946-47, page 32, it says, “In the interior of Australia, and during exceptionally dry summers, the temperature occasionally reaches or exceeds 120 [degrees Fahrenheit] in the shade”– that is 48.9 degrees Celsius.

    The same reference provides other interesting information including a map showing the area affected and period of duration of the longest heat waves (up to 1946 obviously) when the maximum temperature for consecutive 24 hours reached or exceeded 100 degrees Fahrenheit (page 36). This ranges from the world record 160+ days at Marble Bar with a band exceeding 80 days running east encompassing Tennant Creek, Daly Waters and extending into western Queensland, down to ten days or more across virtually the whole continent within 300 or less kilometres of the mainland coast. These include record heatwaves (up to 1946) using the above criteria such as: Daly Waters (1888) – 83 days; Boulia (1914-15) – 76 days; Nullagine (1900) – 57 days; Bourke (1938-39) – 37 days.

    What is apparent is that the current heatwave is by no means unusual, and that the higher maximums recently observed would appear to be a combination of an extended dry period resulting in reduced soil moisture (a significant component of near surface land temperatures), a delayed monsoonal cloud cover (perhaps related to the current Indian Ocean Dipole situation), and a band of high pressure across the southern half of the continent restricting the ingress of cooler south-westerly air streams thus moderating temperatures. Now if only the ABC/Fairfax/BOM/CSIRO/Climate Institute/Karoly/Flannery et alia would be so honest (to be fair the BOM has mentioned some of these influences) as to report accurately without obfuscation (lying through omission) then we just might take on their utterances with some degree of trust, perhaps thereby leading us to collectively deal with our real and factual environmental issues.

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    James

    Hi Joanne, another great article. I was a pilot in Alice Springs for seven years from 1996 and I can assure you 50+ temps were not uncommon then. I remember being at Warburton ranges when it was 51 and taking off at a community called Kiwikurra at 52. A week or two over 40 was the norm for January. And Curtin springs (ref Weekend Australian) was always hot.
    Ok I know this is all circumstantial ie it’s weather not climate.

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    Alice Thermopolis

    ALICE IN BOMERLAND

    Great work, guys.

    Does anyone recall this exchange in the Climategate I emails?

    “What a day of revelations,” said someone. “Our databases are in a hopeless state. They’re worse than a dog’s breakfast. Thousands of dummy stations are in there. Why does the OpTotKrap sum-of-squares parameter keep going negative?”

    “What’s supposed to happen here? How do I tell cooked numbers from uncooked numbers? Oh, there’s no ‘supposed’. I can make it all up, so I did!”

    “Wait a second,” said another voice. “Explain it to me as if I’m twelve. They didn’t even bother to fudge their dodgy data to get the story lines? They just hard-coded hockey stick trends into their programs?”

    “Yes, that’s exactly what they did. Something’s rotten in Warmerland. You can smell it in the air.”

    Alice

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      FijiDave

      No I don’t recall it, Alice, and I can’t find it either. In the interests of lending verisimilitude to your story, how about citing the message number(s)?

      We are, after all, supposed to be mainly sceptics here, right,

      Ta.

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    Paul-82

    Jo,
    May I suggest that this item be sent to all media outlets in Australia which you can find – newspapers, TV, radio and internet – especially as there is some kind of IPCC meeting in progress in Tasmania, from which various questionable reports and prophecies are coming.

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    sillyfilly

    I’m sure we could get David Evans to comment on whether these thermometers were “sited incorrectly”???

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      llew Jones

      We need to keep bringing you alarmists back to the alarmist climate scientists supposed trigger for dangerous human caused global climate change namely increasing GLOBAL temperatures. By that measure 2012 was not even in the top 25% of the highest annual global temperatures for the previous 33 years.

      We are only 2 weeks into 2013 but at this stage extreme cold seems to be winning hands down over extreme heat on a global scale. We shall know in about 12 months but at this stage there is every chance that 2013 will even be behind 2012 in terms of the “hottest” year ratings. And that despite the recent supposed “unprecedented” temperatures in Australia.

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      Angry

      To “sillyfilly” I see you are STILL attempting to scare everybody with this global warming FRAUD.

      How are you CHILDREN feeling?

      God help them!

      Your unfounded FEARS are going to make your children SUICIDAL & MANIC DEPRESSIVE.
      That will be on your conscience.
      You are guilty of CHILD ABUSE and a DANGER to your children!

      It won’t be too long before we read about your family in the newspaper, just like this one…..

      Baby shot over global warming fears:-

      http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,20797,26793969-952,00.html?from=public_rss

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    Albert

    Old newspapers record and confirm what Dorothea Mackellar wrote, when it’s hot, it’s bloody hot. I was in the Outback at Birdsville when the temp was 50c in the pub and all Western Qld was over 40c. If greenies think it’s CC, there’s flights leaving Aus every hour.

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    Jaymez

    More good coverage here:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/9797315/A-forecast-the-Met-Office-hoped-you-wouldnt-see.html

    “Inevitably last week it didn’t take long for the bush fires set off by Australia’s “hottest summer ever” to be blamed on runaway global warming. Rather less attention was given to the heavy snow in Jerusalem (worst for 20 years) or the abnormal cold bringing death and destruction to China (worst for 30 years), northern India (coldest for 77 years) and Alaska, with average temperatures down in the past decade by more than a degree. But another story, which did attract coverage across the world, was the latest in a seemingly endless series of embarrassments for the UK Met Office.

    In 2011, the Met Office’s computer model prediction had shown temperatures over the next five years soaring to a level 0.8 degrees higher than their average between 1971 and 2000, far higher than the previous record year, 1998. Whereas the new graph shows the lack of any significant warming for the past 15 years as likely to continue.

    A major reason why the Met Office’s forecasts have come such croppers in recent years is that its computer models since 1990 have assumed that by far the most important influence on global temperatures is the rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide. Yet as early as 2008, when temperatures temporarily plummeted by 0.7 degrees, equivalent to their entire net rise in the 20th century, it was already clear that something was fundamentally wrong with this assumption. The models were not taking proper account of all the natural factors governing the climate, such as solar radiation and shifts in the major ocean currents. “

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    March

    Interesting news article from Jan 13 1939…
    122 degrees in Hawkesbury region of Sydney

    http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/85811924

    Can’t find a corresponding BOM record for this!

    50

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    MaxL

    Jo writes: “Did CO2 cause extreme heat in the 1820′s?”

    As a joke, I could suggest that maybe the CO2 in the 1820’s was a more virulent strain. 🙂

    As silly as that sounds, there are some alarmists who apparently cannot see the difference between living viruses and inorganic molecules.

    Prof. Andrew Pitman.
    Climatologist, UNSW (University of New South Wales)
    “This idea that the amount of something is proportional to how important it is, is clearly silly.
    For instance, if I injected you with a little
    Ebola virus, that’s a tiny, tiny amount of something, but it would have an immense impact on you and you would die. So the amount of something is not in any way proportional to how big an impact it might have and carbon dioxide is the same.”

    ABC’s Global Warming Swindle Debate Pt 1 @ 2:25

    I wonder if Prof. Pitman has since learnt about False Analogies and that viruses can replicate themselves?
    Unfortunately, alarmists and warmists are becoming beyond a joke, they are now just plain stupid.

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      llew Jones

      Pitman is delusional. We know, or there is no such thing as GHG science, that the following relationship, given the GHG theory is valid, is a measure of the relationship between temperature and CO2:

      T(b) – T(a) is proportional to ln (CO2(b)/CO2(a))

      Where T(x) is the temperature corresponding to an atmospheric concentration of CO2(x) and ln is the natural logarithm.

      This really is the only real science we have that measures the direct effect of CO2 on global warming.

      If we plot this curve the tangent to it asymptotes to zero.

      The tangent to that curve is the rate of change of temperature wrt to change in atmospheric concentrations of CO2. In other words as the CO2 concentration increases the rate of change of temperature decreases. Thus there is a “law of diminishing returns” in play which tells us that the so called tipping point followed by runaway global warming is impossible if considering CO2 alone.

      Of course Pitman’s idea that we don’t know what a little bit of CO2 can do indicates that he is ignorant of this fundamental relationship, often quoted by alarmists as a 100 year old science, which tells us what every extra “little bit” of atmospheric CO2 does to global temperature.

      For those not in the know smarter alarmists than Pitman knew they were on a hiding to nothing relying on CO2 alone to produce any real climate change problems so they postulate the positive feedback effect. That sort of effect is not part of any real scientific observation. The reverse is probably true and part of the reason that despite higher atmospheric CO2 levels there has been no significant increase in global temperature for about a decade and a half.

      Pitman with his mystical understanding of CO2 and its part in the greater scheme of things gives every indication he is a thorough going Pagan rather than a rational scientist.

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    March

    States blanket of heat…NSW jan 13, 1939…good map, worthy of an update.

    http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/17557773

    [great map!——Mod]

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    • #
      Albert

      Thanks for the link. I’ve seen similar newspaper stories about our weather and fires in the past. We have yet to visit past extremes.

      50

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    The UK taxpayer has paid 30 million UK pounds for the computer and goodness knows how much CO2 to keep it running for forecasts as useful as these. Note the north of England is almost always colder than the rest of England probably because it is in the north and when the cold blasts from Europe come they hit the east of the country first.

    http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/public/weather/forecast/?tab=regionalForecast
    UK Outlook for Monday 28 Jan 2013 to Monday 11 Feb 2013:
    There is greater than average uncertainty through this period, with no strong signal for any one weather type to dominate. However, on balance colder conditions are more favoured rather than the milder weather experienced so far this winter.
    Issued at: 0400 on Mon 14 Jan 2013″

    http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/uk/wm/wm_forecast_weather_noscript.html
    UK Outlook for Tuesday 29 Jan 2013 to Tuesday 12 Feb 2013:
    Colder than average conditions are favoured across many parts of the UK, especially in the north and east. Whilst there is no strong signal for rainfall patterns through this period, drier than average conditions are more likely in the north, whereas the south may have near or even slightly above average rainfall. The frequency of snow events through this period may be more than experienced so far this winter.
    Updated: 1139 on Mon 14 Jan 2013

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  • #
    March

    Regarding #53. Reason there is no BOM record of 122*F from Windsor is that it was recorded at the privately run Tebbutt’s Observatory. Would be great to have a look at the records of this institution. The observatory recorded temps using a Stevenson Screen from about 1901 onwards. Prior to this using the Greenwich setup. There was significant calibration between the two allowing for a continuous record from the 1860s through to at least the 1940s.
    Does anyone know if the records are available on line?

    John Tebbitt a real pioneer of science n Australia and featured on the grey $100 bill.

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    • #
      Redress

      For the years 1863 to 1866 they were published under the title “Meteorological Observations made at the Private Observatory of John Tebbutt, Jnr”.
      and continued the publication of these records at intervals for more than 30 years. Powerhouse Museum may be able to help…www.powerhousemuseum.com/
      He also published a long series of papers which were published in the
      “Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society of London”…..try contacting them direct, http://www.ras.org.uk/
      “Astronomical Register, London”….the full text is available online
      “Journal and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales”…..try contacting them direct, http://nsw.royalsoc.org.au/

      40

  • #
    Ian Hill

    Referring to TonyfromOz in 6.1.9.1.2:

    Maybe the IPCC delegates in Hobart can take time out to visit the memorial of the 1967 bushfires in southern Tasmania. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1967_Tasmanian_fires

    There were 62 human deaths in 1967. The death toll from any bushfire in Australia so far this year is … zero I believe. Someone please correct me if I’m wrong.

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  • #

    […] Australia – was hot and is hot. So what? This is not an unusual heat-wave […]

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  • #
    anticlimactic

    Many of the claims for man-made climate change, etc. are shown to be propaganda when examined critically. The best propaganda is that which isn’t recognised as such, and the star is the phrase ‘…since records began’!

    Officially ‘records began’ just over a hundred years ago. If you accept this as a starting point then you ignore the previous 4 billion years of Earth’s climate history.

    Proxy reconstructions of the Earth’s climate history show the warming period of the late bronze age was much warmer than the Roman Warm Period, which was much warmer than the Mediaeval Warm Period, which was much warmer than today.

    Looking at the reconstruction for the past 4 billion years the Earth was usually several degrees warmer than today. In fact we are nearly at one of the coldest periods in Earth’s history.

    The Earth has been gradually warming since the Dalton minimum of around 1800 – the reason Charles Dickens had so many white Christmases in his childhood. If you only look at the record since 1900 then you can claim that the 21st century has had most of the warmest years ‘since records began’. Looked at on a wider timescale and we are actually in a chilly period.

    Only by ignoring everything before 1900 can you create the idea that the warming since then is unusual and man-made. This is why I think of those who believe in man-made global warming / catastrophic climate change / global weirding / etc. as ‘gullible idiots’. You have to be wilfully ignorant to believe it.

    I think this is why it is so often thought of as akin to being a religion, you have to ignore reality and just ‘believe’. The revelations of the [self-] righteous climate scientists should be accepted without question. Blasphemers [skeptics] should be locked up or put to death [depending on your psychopathic tendencies!].

    The same method applies to Global Weirding. A few months ago a warm wind caused some melting of ice in Greenland for a few hours. The NASA press release said it was totally unprecedented, but then went on to say it happens ‘every 120 years’ and was ‘expected’!?

    It is the typical with all these ‘unprecedented’ events. You get the sane view : this is a one in a hundred year event – caused by normal meteorological conditions – unusual but not unknown. BUT often previous occurrences happened ‘before records began’ so it is ‘unprecedented’!? Cue for gullible idiots to start squawking as loudly as possible!

    The BOM has chosen man-made global warming / catastrophic climate change / global weirding as being The Only Truth. Globally this dogma has received tens of billions of dollars in funding yet loses credibility on an almost daily basis. Almost every ‘revelation’ is soon shown to be propaganda.

    The alternative view to global warming is a complex interaction between the solar cycle and ocean temperatures leading to roughly 30 years of warming and 30 years of cooling overlaid onto larger cycles such as the Mediaeval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age.

    Temperatures rose from 1910 to 1940, fell to 1970, and rose to 2000. This is overlaid on the warming from the Dalton minimum [c.1800]. So it is no surprise there has been no warming since 1998, it was expected.

    Despite the acute lack of funding for this theory there has been some good research on the various interactions between the sun and the Earth. A lot of the gaps are being filled in and I feel a cohesive theory is just around the corner. Considering the funding versus global warming it is quite impressive. But then, given a thousand idiots and one person who knows what he’s doing I know which would be most effective!

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    Stephen Cox

    http://www.energytribune.com/70283/green-hypocrisy-as-al-gore-sells-out-for-petro-dollars

    When it comes to any of this Socialist Communistic agenda of which so called climate change is but a part do not waste your time chasing various Scientific nutjobs fudging the figures who sold out already.
    THe real figures of interest are like above in the Link and at places like the American Securities and Exchange Commission.
    In other words Follow the Money to expose the Fraud.

    21

  • #
    Shevva

    It’s worse than we thought (s)he has ‘super-tropo’.

    21

  • #
    David

    How very DARE you, Jo, suggest that there are years called 1896, 1924, etc…
    Everyone KNOWS that ‘climate’ started in 1989…..

    61

  • #
    Speedy

    Jo

    Once again, it seems that truth is secondary to “the cause” of the alarmists. Alarmists seem to continue the ongoing tradition of denying physical reality when it becomes inconvenient – eg Flannery, Gleist, Mann, BOM, etc. In each case, the evidence is seconday, the dogma is primary.

    Scientific credibility is impossible without moral backbone – something clearly lacking in the Alarmists. What sort of world would we wish on our children, then? No theirs, obviously.

    Cheers,

    Speedy

    30

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    Sonny

    The media is so [snip] complicit with this UN climate change scam it’s not funny.

    A hot day or a heat wave used to be just a hot day or a heat wave. Now our media (propaganda arm of government) a hot day or a heat wave = climate change.

    They never talk about cold days or cold waves. Only hot days and heat waves.

    Guess what ….
    YOU DON’T FOOL ME YOU [snip snip snip]!

    [—–language please!—-Mod]

    42

  • #

    Visit http://www.waclimate.net/climate-history.html if you’re interested in an amusing compilation of Australian newspaper stories re heatwaves and climate change fears back to the 1800s.

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  • #
    Roy Hogue

    Jo asks,

    Did CO2 cause extreme heat in the 1820′s?

    I would ask,

    Does CO2 cause extreme heat now?

    or

    Does CO2 cause anything except increased plant growth?

    The question raised by The Skeptics Handbook, Volume 1, is still unanswered. Where is the evidence that CO2 is doing anything?

    I hate to keep pushing this point but unfortunately it’s still the only real point in the skeptic’s argument.

    80

    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      You make a good point, Roy.

      It all comes back to the three big lies.

      The first lie, that states (with out any empirical evidence) that CO2 will act just like the glass in a green house.

      (I am not sure who first coined the term, “Greenhouse Effect”, in relationship to the open atmosphere. But whomever it was; they were a superb propagandist.)

      Following from that, the second big lie is that mankind, through its actions, is the sole cause of all fluctuation in the amount of detectable CO2 in the atmosphere, again without any demonstrable proof.

      And the third lie is that by paying a tithe to the UN, so that it can give money to the developing nations will, in some way, assuage any guilt the developed world might feel in regard to the first two lies.

      I pays to restate this from time to time, because it is too easy to get drawn into the minutiae of discussions over measurement accuracy, the adjustments of records, penance tax, and such. But a lie is a lie, and it remains a lie, in the absence of real tangible evidence.

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      • #
        Rod Stuart

        And, just as in the infomercials, but wait, there’s more. “Little Green Lies” ISBN: 9781921421648 by Jeff Bennett of ANU. It’s an expose of twelve environmental myths. IF you are an environmental zealot whose mind is not swayed by reason, evidence, and logic (JB, Matt, and Catamon come to mind) this book is not for you. For the rest, it puts some reason behind twelve of the myths that the sheeple accept because the lies have been told over and over.

        30

      • #
        Roy Hogue

        And the third lie is that by paying a tithe to the UN, so that it can give money to the developing nations will, in some way, assuage any guilt the developed world might feel in regard to the first two lies.

        Rereke,

        That’s the main wedge they use against people. If you can get someone to feel guilty about what they’re doing you’ve very strong emotional leverage get what you want.

        The funny (peculiar) thing about it is that many just turn hypocritical. I once read a lengthy letter to the editor, written by a woman who had flown to a friend’s wedding. She went on at length about how important it was to buy the necessary carbon offsets for the flight — an Al Gore disciple all the way.

        The editor of a professional journal I used to read did a similar, way off topic exposition about carbon credits. I wrote a rather sarcastic letter, which of course they did not publish. They’re out of business now.

        I’m left wondering if these people ever engage in the slightest bit of introspection. Holding yourself up to a mirror now and then is good for your soul, not to mention your character.

        Come to think about it, this kind of behavior is funny in the humorous sense too.

        10

  • #
    Roy Hogue

    I wonder what the reaction would be if Jo’s map were to show up on your evening weather report, presented as factual historical comparison with the current claims of impending disaster and backed up by the “authority” of the weather reporter.

    Should I hold my breath while waiting for it to happen?

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    Carbon500

    I’ve posted this before – a link to the UK’s Central England Temperature Record (CET), dating back to 1659:
    http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/cetml1659on.dat
    Here’s a quote from meteorologist William James Burroughs, from his book ‘Climate Change’ (first edition):
    ‘The CET series confirms the exceptionally low temperatures of the 1690s and in particular the cold springs of this decade. Equally striking is the sudden warming from the 1690s to the 1730s. In less than forty years the conditions went from the depths of the little ice age to something comparable to the warmest decades of the twentieth century. This balmy period came to a sudden halt with the extreme cold of 1740 and a return to colder conditions, especially in the winter half of the year.’
    Also, he states:
    ‘A more striking feature is the general evidence of interdecadal variability. So, the poor summers of the 1810s are in contrast to the hot ones of the late 1770s and early 1780s, and around 1800.’
    Real data, no models!

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    LizP

    I notice there are no old records for Tasmania on Jo’s map at the top of the page, so I thought I’d add some info on temperatures for around Hobart. this is from Robert Knopwood’s Diary and the entry covers December 24 – 26 1806 inclusive.

    Christmas Eve in 1806 in Hobart was very warm according to Robert Knopwood, He records at half past 3PM the thermomiter (sic) was 102. Christmas Day it was even hotter, at 3PM the thermomiter (sic) stood at 105 in the shade. “The heat was so great that it bent the glass of the thermomiter (sic) and broke it.”
    Boxing Day was just as bad as the 2 previous days, although no temperature recorded because his thermometer was broken, he wrote; “The morning very hot. At 12 waited upon the Lt Govnr. The country all on fire. At 2 calld upon Capt. Johnson.” …….. sounds familiar?

    Skip forward 22 years to 15th December 1828, Robert Knopwood had replaced his broken thermometer …. this is what he wrote.

    “The morning very hot. At 12 the thermomiter (sic) stood at 108; in the eve 96 in the shade, 120 & more in the sun, the hotest (sic) day we experienced, except on Xmas Day 1806 when the thermomiter (sic) was 105 in the shade and the heat so great it bent the glass of the thermomiter (sic). At home in the eve.”

    Another period of extremely hot weather in Hobart, although by this stage Robert Knopwood would have been living across the Derwent out near Clarence.

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  • #
    • #
      wayne, s. Job

      I had a go at it, not the only contrarian there but so many faithful hailing the writer and preaching the mantra. Dear me

      30

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    Ripper

    Interesting snippet form 1914 that requires further investigation.

    “thermometers placed on the ground and left exposed overnight recorded minima as follow….”
    http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/28568457?searchTerm=temperature%20Cue&searchLimits=sortby=dateAsc|||l-title=30

    If these figures were used for a time they would bias the trend in the minima’s at those stations.

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  • #

     

    Of course carbon dioxide didn’t “cause extreme heat in the 1820’s” It never has, never will and never can. It is not a blanket.

    The “blanket” is produced by non-radiative diffusion processes primarily involving nitrogen and oxygen at the surface-atmosphere boundary. If the only consideration were the effect of water vapour and carbon dioxide you’d be sleeping under a handkerchief.

    Discover The 21st Century New Paradigm Shift in Climate Change Science (on the Principia Scientific International website) and discover what real physics has now proved, completely negating any significant relevance of the old 20th Century radiative greenhouse concept.

    No back radiation caused the Earth’s surface to be 288K (or the Venus surface to be over 730K) all on its own, somehow multiplying the Sun’s energy. What did cause it was the temperature distribution brought about by diffusion of kinetic energy in a gravitational field, and this process continues to maintain surface temperatures as atmospheres absorb direct incident Solar radiation, the only possible radiation that can keep them at the observed temperatures. For more detail read “Planetary Surface Temperatures. A Discussion of Alternative Mechanisms” published by PSI in November 2012, as well as this week’s article mentioned above.

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  • #
    Mindert Eiting

    Suppose, I were a criminal investigator. I think that John did it. John is 50 years old. Now it may be the case that Mary was the real perpetrator. She is 50 years old. So, I had a wrong theory making a correct prediction. This shows that you should not look for confirming but falsifying evidence. I predicted a male offender. That was wong, isn’t it?

    21

  • #
    Crakar24

    I voted in this poll

    http://www.abc.net.au/newsradio/polls/

    The question was

    Do you agree with the UN’s chief climate scientist who says a global warming trend is leading to extreme weather, like last week’s ‘super heatwave’?

    Result 53% NO 47% YES

    However i could not find a reference (google) to the UN chief climate scientist stating anything of the sort, the closest i got was Panchuri masquerading as a climate scientist and no mention of super heat waves so i wonder what the 47% were thinking when they voted, maybe thats it they dont think?

    41

    • #
      Mattb

      NO reference, but I think he said something along those lines as the IPCC is meeting in Hobart this week.

      05

    • #
      Mattb

      Surely in that situation someone who answers “yes” is no more unthinking than someone who voted “no”.

      15

      • #
        Crakar24

        What????????????????????????

        MattB i deduced from previous exchanges that you are a bit simple so i will try and make this as basic as i possibly can.

        Refer to the link below

        http://www.crikey.com.au/2013/01/15/ipcc-chief-calls-for-sane-voices-in-local-climate-debate/

        This link takes you to a story where Panchuri is the dominant participant, this infers that Panchuri is the IPCC chief.

        The opening line of this story states

        The world’s most influential climate scientist Rajendra Pachauri speaks to Crikey on the need for sanity and fair reporting in media coverage of climate change — and explains why Australia should care.

        PANCHURI IS NOT A CLIMATE SCIENTIST

        so why does he portray himself as one, you of all people should understand this as you cried like a baby when Monkton called himself a Lord!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

        Now back to the question

        Do you agree with the UN’s chief climate scientist who says a global warming trend is leading to extreme weather, like last week’s ‘super heatwave’?

        Who is the UN’s chief climate scientist? well after numerous google searches it appears it is Panchuri

        Did the UN’s chief climate scientist claim AGW is leading to extreme events like last weeks “super heatwave”……it appears he did not.

        So we have the ABC lying again, we have the ABC misquoting a railway engineer about super heatwaves and 47% of the populace have been duped again this includes you MattB thats how simple you are.

        53% of the populace know the ABC is lying, 53% know that they have as much credentials in the field of climate science as Panchuri.

        No MattB 53% of the people that voted in that poll would run rings around you the other 47% are dumb shits that you associate with.

        What a moron you are.

        61

        • #
          Mattb

          Oh dear. You commented that there was no record that any climate scientist had said anything of the sort so you wondered what the 47% were thinking when they voted. I simply pointed out that one would also wonder what the 53% were thinking as the vote was based on the same comment.

          I honesly cannot fathom where the rant you just posted came from? You are seriosuly a complete and utter nut case.

          14

          • #
            Crakar24

            The question was,

            Do you agree with the UN’s chief climate scientist who says a global warming trend is leading to extreme weather, like last week’s ‘super heatwave’?

            The question was not, do you believe the ABC when they tell porky pies?

            The question was not, Can you guess who the chief climate scientist is?

            The question was not, if a railway engineer told you we just had a super heat wave would you believe him?

            The question was based on a lie, 47% of the populace where too stupid to see that it was a lie but yet still voted yes.

            Every sceptic i know knows that Panchuri is not a climate scientist and every sceptic i know knows there was no heat wave and even if there was it is just weather not climate (remember that one Matt?) and only a fool would try to dupe the people in saying it is. Unfortunately 47% of the people are too stupid to know when they are duped by their sitting prime minister and a scraggley looking railway engineer.

            Your incompetence to understand this is staggering even after it has been pointed out to you, you knopw the ABC has been caught out again in a lie but yet you still believe what a utter F…wit you are.

            43

          • #
            Mattb

            What’s the lie Crakar? You yourself said that your research said that the cheif scientist is Pachauri. So what’s the lie.

            Pretty hard to say there was “no heatwave”. There was one.

            23

          • #
            Crakar24

            Where MattB, i want dates, temps and locations, then i want evidence to support the notion that it was a super heatwave, then i want evidence that shows a direct link to rising CO2 emissions (usual evidence not models disclaimer), then i want evidence that the UN chief climate scientist said AGW caused the super heat wave, then i want evidence that explains how AGW can cause said super heatwave in selected locations in Australia whilst at the same time cause the list below.

            http://iceagenow.info/2013/01/bitter-cold-grips-nevada-shatters-previous-record/

            http://iceagenow.info/2013/01/record-breaking-cold-los-angeles/

            http://iceagenow.info/2013/01/bitter-cold-grips-western-u-s-price-lettuce-skyrockets/

            http://iceagenow.info/2013/01/prolonged-frigid-blast-surges-mexico/

            http://iceagenow.info/2013/01/california-freeze-threatens-2-billion-citrus-harvest/

            http://iceagenow.info/2013/01/pakistan-severe-cold-breaks-previous-records-video/

            Until you can provide adequate evidence to support your theory as requested above i suggest you refrain from making any more comment.

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          • #
            Mattb

            Incidentally the ABC headline associated with this is:
            “The United Nations’s (UN) chief climate science body says there is no doubt last week’s extreme heat in Australia is part of a global warming trend.”

            Not sure if that is a change in wording from chief climate scientist to cheif climate science body, but it probably addresses some of your concerns of a misleading ABC Crakar.

            13

          • #
            AndyG55

            Since we only really had one or two days, separated, that could even be called “extreme heat”, and this is a quite regular occurence in Australia..

            …ie .. totally normal, nothing “different” is happening,

            then I concur with the statement.

            It is part of a global warming trend……………….. that stopped many years ago..

            20

          • #
            John Brookes

            Its probably menopause Matt.

            01

        • #
          Roy Hogue

          Its probably menopause Matt.

          I can hardly wait for yours, John. It ought to raise the caliber of debate no end. Just think — you would be able to do a long rant now and then instead of constant one-liners. 🙂

          10

  • #
    elva

    Not to do with temperature but on ABC TV a certain visiting climate expert (didn’t catch his name) attending Hobart conference was interviewed. He spoke about sea level rises and how hundreds of thousands of Australians would find their coast line dwellings devalued over time.

    Part of his spiel included the example of the 2011 QLD floods. But these floods had nothing whatsoever to do with sea levels. They were caused by intense inland rain. Again, the reporter didn’t attempt to correct him. Why spoil a good story?

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  • #
    pat

    ABC’s headline leaves out the “pretty” in front of “unmistakeable” & the headline suggests some authoritative finding, yet it’s just the railway engineer Pachauri saying what he “thinks”. disgusting, Aunty:

    15 Jan: ABC AM: Australian heatwave part of ‘unmistakeable’ global warming trend: IPCC chair
    More than 250 lead authors of the report who are in Hobart for a meeting have vowed to deliver “scientifically defensible” findings when their report is released in just over eight months.
    The IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri says there’s no doubt last week’s extreme heat in Australia is part of a global warming trend. He’s speaking to environment reporter Sarah Clarke.
    RAJENDRA PACHAURI: If you look at the trend then I think that’s pretty unmistakeable and any proper analysis would tell you that we are heading in that direction…
    http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2013/s3669601.htm

    40

  • #
    mandas

    Get your head out of your arse and look at the evidence.

    Oh right – my mistake.

    27

    • #
      Crakar24

      Hey mandas its been a long time (assuming its you of course) i should introduce you to all the locals, we have MattB, John Brooks, Catamon, Maxine (your going to love her/him), Gee Aye (claims to be a fence sitter but i have my doubts) they are the main players.

      Welcome aboard

      PS: If this is a different Mandas to the one i knew from Coby’s blog please disregard.

      31

    • #
      AndyG55

      I’m assuming you are talking to MattB, John Brooks, Catamon, Maxine and any other CAGW sympathiser that visits.

      41

      • #
        Mattb

        I note your use of the term “sympathiser” which I note is as unrelated to “Nazi Sympathiser” as “denier” is to “Holocaust denier”.

        01

  • #
    Ross James

    Breaking news – we can LINK the recent Heat Waves that were grid locked over all of Australia to Global Warming.

    Evidence of this LINK can be found here:

    http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/ml/ocean/sst/anom_anim.html

    The Link to Global Warming is the evidence of heated oceans of Western Australia’s coastline OVER Turning much like EL Ninos to North Eastern Australia:

    A blocking pattern of extreme warm sea buffeting Western Australian and the far Northern West Australian and the Great Southern Australian Bight coast lines resulted in blocking of Monsoonal rains. Temperatures then rose for WA, SA, Tasmania into Vic and NSW sweeping into South Eastern QLD as Western Trade Winds conspired to dispense Extreme Warm Ocean buffeting to the South Eastern wind direction.

    the role of the ocean in this heat wave is demonstrated in the animation below – where a pulse of oceanic heat rapidly accumulates in the surface Indian Ocean around Western Australia and propagates eastward.

    Global sea surface temperature anomalies (departures from the average) for the period 17th December 2012 to 10th January 2013. The maps are from the US-based National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The temperature bar is in °C and the anomalies are relative to the long-term average at each location for that time of year.

    The marine heat wave which contributed to this record-breaking Australian heat wave, may (hopefully) have been of short enough duration to prevent a mass mortality of marine life in the oceans around Australia, unlike a long-ish marine heat wave off Western Australia in early 2011, but that remains to be seen.

    Ross J.

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    • #
      Jaymez

      Ross are you having a go at your own version of a Moylan scam?

      Where is the breaking news? The NOAA chart you link to shows similar and warmer anomalies off coasts other than Western Australia and those locations haven’t suffered heat-waves.

      Heat waves are a common co-occurrence in Australia, and even if they were on the increase, that alone provides absolutely no proof that it is caused by human GHG emissions. This is particularly so when the actual computer modelled signals of CAGW such as increasing rate of rise in atmospheric global average temperature is not happening, in fact there is no rise and there hasn’t been since 1998!

      80

      • #
        Ross James

        Jaymez,

        The heat spike in the time lapse is very distinct and telling there is Global warming taking in the oceans.

        The Monsoonal North/Western blocking is well known to cause and conspire to Continental record influenced all at once heat waves.

        It is well known up turn in Warm Oceans heat continents and atmosphere.

        It is well known that BOM stated the above in there press statements about Australia’s recent continental heat-wave.

        http://esminfo.prenhall.com/science/geoanimations/animations/26_NinoNina.html Well known to all Climate Scientists.

        Check the heat of the WA Coast of 2011 – http://www.fish.wa.gov.au/Documents/research_reports/frr222.pdf

        If we are not having a “Global Warming” – then where on earth is all that cooling we have been promised and promised and promised.

        Are we there yet?

        Ross J.

        04

        • #
          Mark D.

          Ross, you should hear yourself sometime. More than happy to call weather events proof of a long term global trend. There IS cooling all over the Northern Hemisphere if you look for it. What you have going on around AU is an example of an event that is by NO means global or apparently even “unprecedented”.

          You sound just like chicken little and for the life of me I can’t understand why you’d permit yourself to be so unreasonable unscientific.

          40

        • #
          Bruce of Newcastle

          If we are not having a “Global Warming” – then where on earth is all that cooling we have been promised and promised and promised.

          Here.

          20

        • #
          Jaymez

          Ross, firstly I will state the obvious: It seems that you, the ABC and most other climate alarmists consider that if there is proof of Global Warming then that proves human green house gas emissions are the greatest contributor to that global warming. That is rubbish of course and what myself and many others here have waited for years for scientists to provide is any PROOF of this theory, even though you and others seem totally convinced, and tell us the science is settled.

          Secondly, the believers in the CAGW theory banged on for years when global average temperatures were rising before the El Nino enhanced peak in 1998, (after the cooling cycle which ended about 1970), that the rising temperatures were evidence that rising GHG emissions were causing the rising temps. Climate models were built based on the theory and the assumption that the climate was very sensitive to human GHG emissions. An exponential rise in temperature was predicted to continue under all three scenarios in the IPCC reports. If CO2 emissions were immediately capped, if CO2 emissions were slowly reduced, or scariest of all, if CO2 emissions continued on a ‘business as usual’ basis.

          What actually happened since those IPCC endorsed computer models were produced and accepted around the world as gospel, and used as the basis of economically damaging regulations, is that human CO2 emissions have increased well beyond the ‘Business as Usual’ model, yet global average temperature has not increased exponentially as universally predicted by the ‘Climate Industry’, but as admitted by the UK Met office recently, they did not rise at all! There has been no statistically significant rise in global average temperature since 1998 and they are not expecting any now until at least 2017.

          Why the change? Because the UK Met have accepted what skeptics have maintained all along. There are natural climate variables which are stronger than any little impact that humans will make by adding some CO2 to the atmosphere.

          Of course that doesn’t mean there isn’t a long term global warming trend which skeptics have always accepted has been the position ever since the end of the Little Ice Age.

          But in the face of global average temperature stability for the last 16 years, and record low temperatures and record ice and snow being experienced in other parts of the world, you still want to claim that a heat wave event and a period of warm ocean temperatures in one part of the world, off the coast of WA, is proof of global warming (human caused or not!)? Without being insulting, I really don’t know what to say!

          However, perhaps since we are talking about GLOBAL WARMING then a graph showing satellite measured global average sea surface temperatures will still your beating heart from the concern of global warming? Dr Roy Spencer produced an excellent graph from the available satellite data since launched in 2002 here: http://www.drroyspencer.com/2011/07/global-sst-update-still-no-sign-of-resumed-warming/ (the graph is too big for me to inbed)

          Unfortunately the Japanese satellite taking these measurements became faulty on 4 October 2011 so there is no more recent data from that. You can read about that here.

          Not to worry, Bob Tisdale provides an excellent information about the NINO3.4 Sea Surface temperature anomaly data here including this self explanatory graph:

          Sea Surface Temp

          But if you don’t want to accept the land based temperature measurements as admitted by the UK Met Office, or the Satellite sea surface temperature records, we still have the 3000 Argo buoys which are measuring the ocean temperatures around the globe between the surface and a depth of 700m. Just in case you think the ocean might be hiding some heat which isn’t apparent on the surface or in the atmosphere. This excellent graph prepared by Jo Nova’s husband the well credentialed David Evans takes the Argo data and compares the flawed climate model predictions with the reality of stable global ocean temperatures.

          Argo Buoy vs Climate Models
          http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/guest/evans-david/argo-v-climate-models.gif

          You can clearly see that while there was massive increases in ocean heat content predicted the actual change since the ARGO records started in 2003 is ZERO!

          So please Ross, stop trying to make a ridiculous connection between what is a normal heat wave event experienced as part of our normal weather cycles, and any tenuous claims of human caused global warming.

          20

          • #
            John Brookes

            How do you get graphics in your post?

            00

          • #
            Albert

            The climate models red line is really the Government grants line forever spearing upwards.

            00

          • #
            Mattb

            I’m always highly skeptical of graphs with known climate rabble rousers names at the bottom as though they are a credible source. For starters the use of a red line starting at “zero” coinciding with the 1st Argo data point is clearly designed to mislead, as there is nothing to suggest that is a zero point.

            I could draw the same graph with a “zero” at late 2005, and ending late 2012 and pretend that the data is right on track.

            It is, simply, an extremely fraudulent graph, and obviously one that would have seen the author fail all those fancy degrees he has from US universities.

            00

    • #
      AndyG55

      Oh, you mean the “Clayton’s” heat wave …….. the one that only happened in the newspapers.

      Read the rest of the thread FFS.. you stupid git.!!

      71

      • #
        Ross James

        Andy – settle down mate. Your hearing only a small portion of the heatwave story. Suggest you do a crash in some half decent Meteorological Study before calling names. I reckon my QLD born and breed BS meter is better then yours.

        Don’t believe everything you find falling in your lap.

        Now that’s being a true skeptic. The rest want to hear preconception or are having a “love in” here.

        Ta Matey, it hit 38 degrees on my own thermometer where I live when it was supposed to be only 34 degrees that day.

        I remember when birds fell from the sky stone dead too – problem here mate – it was around 2003 and it was QLD. I think at that time our therm hit 39 degrees. Sweet memories – pity it aren’t going to get any cooler as man’s pumped up greenhouse gas from coal burning bites us all more in the backside. And BTW while your at it – have a good yak to some half decent farmers about the heat wave a apart from the “believers” here.

        Ross J.

        02

        • #
          Jaymez

          John Brookes re Graphics: – I used the ‘Image’ tool on the tool bar but it is temperamental and doesn’t accept a lot of sources and images. Every now and then I try and it works.

          00

    • #
      Bruce of Newcastle

      A blocking pattern

      Ross, you know don’t you that the Moscow heat wave of 2010 was due to a blocking pattern?

      You know also that Prof Mike Lockwood, who is a CAGW person, pointed out that jet stream blocking events occur more often when the Sun’s activity is low?

      And you have noticed that solar activity is the lowest since the Maunder Minimum over 200 years ago?

      I suggest you read up on Rossby waves. CO2 does not perturb the jet streams as far as we know, but the Sun certainly does.

      80

      • #
        Byron

        C`mon Bruce , get with the program , everyone knows CO2 causes hotter/colder, wetter/dryer and windier/calmer weather , economic downturns , acne , halitosis and prevents balding overweight climastrologists from getting dates

        sarc/ (just so the warmists don`t get confused)

        20

      • #
        Andrew McRae

         
        In time Landscheidt‘s vindication
        will be a warmist‘s condemnation.

        10

    • #
      AndyG55

      You know what Ross..

      I am more and more convinced that you are actually a died-in-the-wool SKEPTIC..

      You just post this junk to make the CAGW sympathisers look REALLY STUPID !!

      21

    • #
      Roy Hogue

      Another paper? I’ll put it next to the little roll of the more useful kind so if I run short I’ll have a backup plan in place. 🙂

      The smile is because I now have an adequate backup plan. Thank you Ross!

      20

  • #
    ianl8888

    The next La Nina is already forming:

    http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2013/01/15/unprecedented-third-consecutive-la-nina/

    Flat-lining temperatures in the pipeline 🙂

    31

  • #
    jazzbox111

    I didn’t read through all or most of the comments as I usually do on this blog. However, if it has not already been mentioned, according to NASA the Badlands in Queensland recorded nearly 70c not too long ago, yes, that’s right 70c, no mistake: http://earthsky.org/earth/where-are-the-hottest-places-on-earth

    If this is true, as indeed it appears to be then I’ll take that 50c any day.

    It really irked me when it was decided that a ‘new colour’ was needed on the temperature charts. Further ridiculous propaganda.

    30

    • #
      Roy Hogue

      jazzbox111,

      Those were surface temperatures, not ambient air temperature. I’m not surprised since as a child growing up I quickly learned not to walk barefooted on any dark surface that was exposed to the summer sun for a few hours. Asphalt — most playgrounds — was the hottest. Concrete could get really uncomfortable too. You could get mild burns. That 50 C is about 158 F and air that hot would be extremely uncomfortable. However, with shoes on you could easily walk on something even hotter.

      The actual air temperature at a little distance above the ground would be considerably lower.

      There was a saying that it was hot enough to fry eggs on the pavement. I never tried it but I doubt you could actually cook an egg that way.

      10

      • #
        Mark D.

        Roy Hogue said:

        That 50 C is about 158 F and air that hot would be extremely uncomfortable

        I agree that 158F would be extremely uncomfortable, probably deadly in just a few hours.

        I think 50C is more like 122F though.

        10

  • #
    anticlimactic

    For all the tens of billions spent on climate research I have never heard of any lab experiment to demonstrate the effect of CO2 [and other GHGs] and put it on a firm scientific footing. I think temperatures can be measured to a millionth of a degree so any effect could be detected. It doesn’t seem too complicated – it is just air and sunlight! I suspect it has not been done because the answer would be ‘wrong’.

    I wonder if a crowdsourcing site could be used to raise the funds to get an INDEPENDENT scientist to perform it. I think there are experts who specialise in similar kinds of experiment. I would certainly donate!

    21

    • #
      ianl8888

      I asked Andy Lacis (NASA, Hansen colleague) that question on Judith Curry’s website. Bull by the horns etc …

      I don’t have the paper(s) he referred to any more in his answer, but in essence:

      1) addition of 2xCO2 to a closed flask of constituted air, then the flask heated in a 12 hour cycle to simulate repeated equatorial day/night, raised the temperature of the air mix by between 0.8-1.2C in the closed flask

      I’m satisfied with this. I now use 1.0C for doubling atmospheric CO2 from pre-industrial levels

      2) additional doublings do NOT raise the temperature by 1.0C each time, because the effect is a step-wise equivalent to an inverse log curve, ie. it flattens quite quickly

      So, 1.0C (already insignificant) for initial CO2 doubling, then minute, almost unmeasurable laboratory increases in the closed flask with increasing CO2 levels. This is incorporated in all climate modelling, justifiably so in my view

      Which brings us to feedbacks in an open system … this is where the arm-waving about climate sensitivity resides. That 1.0C is said to increase water vapour through increased evaporation, and water vapour is 5x more potent at trapping heat than CO2. Except that a recently released, peer-reviewed paper on humidity for the last 100 years could not find statistically robust evidence of any increase in global humidity. The water cycle has a very short life, repeated over and over of course

      So I regard feedbacks as moot and CAGW as undemonstrated

      70

      • #

        Great summation, but does this address the Human component of CO2 increase since the industrial revolution began. Can that be measured? Also, why were levels so high in the past and was that such a bad thing?. These I believe are the sorts of questions that should be posed to mainstream society by the MSM if they for a moment considered their professional integrity.

        30

      • #
        Louis Hissink

        I wonder what the CO2 levels were during the MWP. Should be some proxy data existing somewhere.

        10

  • #
    Dave

    .
    The CAGW GAIA lovers have nothing left, they have changed the Data, used the fear factor, and held numerous polls to determine the science is settled. None of it worked.

    Now they are using new FEAR FACTOR words: this is their latest,

    “In a broad sense, the odds are stacking in favour of an above average summer in Australia and that is the way we are tracking. We know these heatwaves are increasing, with more hyper days, and one of the features is we are going to get more record high temperature days,” Dr Jones said.

    HYPER DAYS – WOW?

    Dr. Davey Jones is on a role in this article.

    And this:

    “If you look at Australia as a whole, the climate system is operating at a degree hotter than the past, so when we have a cold front or a warm front, it is about a degree hotter in each case.”

    All fronts are up 1 degree C.

    Go Davey Jones – you’re on a role (a desperate role) to get your hands on the last of the CAGW money. This bloke will go down in history as the the last minute fool.

    So HYPER DAY is the big new Dr DAVEY JONES word for GAIA & CAGW lovers.

    So HYPERMATTYB, HYPERJB, HYPERCATAMON, HYPERMAXINE, HYPERROSSJAMES et al – how’s your HYPERDAY going.

    10

    • #
      Bruce of Newcastle

      the odds are stacking in favour of an above average summer in Australia and that is the way we are tracking

      Yes we are. Above average in rainfall.

      Looks awfully like a La Nina is about to come knocking. Again. Third in a row.

      Cold, wet and mouldy again.

      But that is just actual data and mk I eyeballs (without a million dollar ARC grant). How could I ever compete with Dr Jones sexy superduper hypermodel?

      20

      • #
        Dave

        .
        But Bruce,

        HYPER Dr. Davey Jones says:

        And with widespread predictions the world will soon spiral headlong into El Nino conditions, the UK government’s weather bureau maintains 2013 will the globe’s hottest year.

        The HyperBOM leader says we are spiraling into HYPER El Nino – then I may as well listen to a Railway Engineer or a HYPER Mayoral candidate from Perth.

        HYPER everything from now on – but searched Google and all leads go back to the amazing HYPER Dr. Davey Jones. He’s just HYPER.

        20

      • #
        AndyG55

        These fools expect “average” every year !!! DOH !!!

        31

        • #
          AndyG55

          That was badly stated!

          What I meant was..

          Say you have a class of 30 students. They do a test and the average is 37 out of 50.

          How many students got 37… maybe 1, maybe 2 !!

          (trying to explain really simply for the CAGW sympathisers here.)

          30

    • #
      Sonny

      The guy sounds like a complete brain dead twit.
      I’ve always thought alarmists were below average in written communication skills but this is just embarrassing!

      20

    • #
      Crakar24

      Any link to Hyper-bowl-e

      10

  • #
    Dennis

    Climate change is real, global warming and cooling is real, weather happens, life goes on, we hope safely, but who knows what the long term future holds, and how could humans change it?

    11

    • #
      AndyG55

      We are long for the rolla-coaster ride.

      If you don’t like rolla coasters.. get the F*** off, but don’t try to stop the rolla-coaster.. it ain’t gunna work !!!

      What happens, happens, and ANY FOOL that thinks we caused it or can do anything about it…..

      More fool you.

      FOOL.. as in JB, RC, fur-brain, max-headless, footmatt.. etc

      20

  • #
    Byron

    Somewhat off topic but a rather disturbing example of a a lack of critical thinking in a teacher who made his students hang on to dry ice because he thought it would be “A good learning experience”

    I mean WHAT is wrong with this freak ? There are just Sooooo many shades of just plain wrong with this I don`t know where to start

    30

    • #
      AndyG55

      Gees, next time , maybe try some conc nitric or sulphuric acid.. DOH !!!!

      I know I’ve mentioned seeing how close you can get your finger above a burning candle, as a demonstartion of the power of convection.

      But that was to CAGW sympathisers, …..
      .

      .
      .

      oh wait….. primary school mentalities…. .they might actually do it. …. I better not suggest it again!!

      11

      • #
        Roy Hogue

        Dry ice has a temperature of -109.3 F, -78.5 C. Skin will freeze to the point of becoming brittle, stick to the dry ice and break right off your hand.

        Lovely little experiment, that.

        11

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    dwh

    The recent “heat wave”, and, likely, one or two lesser “heat waves” to follow can indeed be traced to COLD sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies off the NE coast of Australia. The Coral Sea has displayed SST anomalies 1 to 2 Deg C cooler than the long term mean (see for example http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst_anom.gif ) for the last several months. These (meridionally-aligned)cold anomalies are generating a persistent meridionally-aligned high pressure cell on and just E of Australia’s east coast, with these displayinh an unusal northward extent at this time of the year (see for example http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/climate/cmb.cgi?page=map&variable=mslp&vstatus=anomaly&period=month&area=global ). The northward oriented, persistent high pressure cell over eastern QLD and in western sector of the Coral Sea has resulted in production or fetching of a NW continental air stream from areas of Australia much further N than is usual with the normal (latitudinally-oriented) high pressure cells which occur at this time of the year. As a consequence,areas within central, southern and south-eastern Australia are subjected to a hotter-than-usual continental air mass. Clearly there are other factors at work here, such as the 200Mb (or Hpa) jet which has been much further N than usual for the last several months. The other impacts of these abnormal meridionally-oriented highs over E Australia and the westeern sector of the Coral Sea are maintenance of a CLOUD FREE Coral Sea, for much of the southerm Spring and now, our southern Summer. The cloud free state will, I repeat, WILL also result in significant coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef. So, here we have a COLD Coral Sea being one of the causes of the “heat waves” in central, southern and south-eastern Australia ( and coral bleaching as well!). However, I suggest that readers examine the data presented in the websites listed above to see for themselves. Incidentally, another good source of information on the position and strength of the 200Mb jet over Australia is found in http://wxmaps.org/pix/aus.00hr.html It is difficult not to conclude, therefore, that the assertions that the current burst of heat waves over Australia being heightened by “global warming” or some such chimera are basically hot air, sourced from indivduals who are scientific mediocrities in their chosen fields!

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    Sonny

    When I first came to this blog about 2 years ago I remember that there was much more debate about the actual science of global warming. I.e there was much more defensive posts by people arguing FOR CAGW.

    Why is there almost no debate from the alarmists any more? Now hey just come to make rhetorical or sarcastic remarks and to generally stir up some mischief.

    My conclusion is that the scientific position for CAGW has become so ludicrous, so ridiculous, that Its no longer tenable for the alarmists to engage in thoughtful debate on detailed points of science. They just come to troll.

    It’s not surprising. Post after post Jo Nova and commenters rip to shreds the very foundations of CAGW science and EXPOSE the massive vested interests that drive what is, as Jo coined, the “second largest scam in history”.

    I notice a pronounced difference in the quantity and quality of comments from skeptics as compared to alarmist. Skeptics on the whole seem to me more intelligent, honest and ethical.

    Keep up the good work Jo and friends.

    To the alarmists who come here to spout their nonsense. Suck me.

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      Carbon500

      I think that the amount of real data that’s coming out is a big help as well.
      I wonder why computer calculations based on concepts of how things work are called ‘models’ these days?

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    Say, I’m surprised that no one has picked up on this, but hey, it just shows how easily we are snowed by what the media reports, or maybe what they don’t even investigate in the first place. or even have a clue about in the first place.

    It’s so nice to see Boral doing their bit to ease the monstrously humungous heat waves and bushfire situations that we are told is a dead set certainty for the future.

    One plus one equals ….. hey look over there, isn’t that Britney Spears. Don’t mention the CO2 tax. I did once but I think I got away with it.

    Between 5 and 10% of all CO2 emissions come from the manufacture of concrete and cement products, and say, isn’t that Boral’s core business.

    Lo and behold, what has Boral announced today. 700 jobs gone due to the Company rationalising its operations.

    Boral is inside the Top 50 on the Government’s CO2 Tax hit list, with an implication close on $70 Million per annum. (at the current fixed price)

    The wages for 700 jobs is a fair whack of savings for Boral when it comes to having to give the Government all that money to give away later this year in election promises.

    Well, the warmists can now point to Boral as just one small start for success in their campaign to lower emissions, (the stated aim of this Tax) because, as Boral says, they are rationalising their business, hence an obvious lowering of their CO2 emissions as they cut back on their core business operations.

    Now note specifically what comes hand in hand with lowering those emissions.

    The loss of jobs.

    Say, where is that Labor guy who said ….. “Not one job!”

    No, they’re all out there misdirecting a clueless media to follow what they tell them, a media which will not put two and two together.

    Spin is all you’ll get from Labor on this as they get in early to make sure no one mentions that CO2 Tax, because, hey, this has nothing at all to do with this they tell us.

    Bullsierrahotelindiatango.

    Tony.

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      Byron

      You`d have to assume that driving business offshore IS their objective because what other result could there be from penalizing Your manufacturing sector for …….manufacturing .

      BTW Tony You`ve probably already read this but I`ll provide the link anyway , just in case , an interesting article by Willis at WUWT called Moronomics

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      Sonny

      Tony,

      I rejected a job offer as a grad mechanical engineer from Boral two years back.

      Win!

      So despondent have I become with the lack of future for engineering in Australia I recently changed careers.

      What am I doing now? Online retail.

      Much more profitable to be selling Chinese engineered products than Australian ones eh???

      Well done Government.

      You are killing not only our manufacturing industry but also our engineering industry.

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    theduke

    \\The Australian BOM say this current pattern of extreme heat is “consistent with climate change”//

    Was there ever a more meaningless statement than this?

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      Kevin Moore

      If BOM says it is “consistent”, then they have knowledge of uniform patterns of the past that caused “climate change”.

      How often in BOM’s relatively short experience has “climate change” occurred?

      Is this “climate change” global warming or just regional warming due to ocean temperatures causing desert type winds to move from warm land to the cool Southern ocean?

      How does “carbon pollution” enter into the equation?

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      michael hart

      Actually, I do see some nuanced meaning in it. While I doubt they have recently changed their thinking on this matter, they have changed their language. Slightly.

      The term “…is consistent with…” is one that most proper scientists are very familiar with. It indicates to me that those using the phrase are implicitly accepting that there really are proper scientists who may be listening and reading. Proper scientists who need persuading. Proper scientists who are sceptical.

      Is it time to start being grateful for small-mercies yet? 🙂

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    Aard Knox

    Jo,
    Great map.
    I tried to access the BoM records for Bourke and discovered that they only want us to see the airport site records which commenced at the very end of 1998. Long story but I eventually found the records for the Bourke Post Office.
    Meanwhile I had found a report in the Sydney Morning Herald (29 January 1932) which gave the 125F (51.7C) temp as being recorded on 3 January 1909.
    When I checked this date in the P O records the date was a blank. There were also many other blanks scattered across that page as though they had a forgetful postmaster at the time.
    But that record must have existed at some time because the SMH report quotes the weather bureau’s Mr Mares as saying that an earlier record (1877) of 127F was disqualified because it had not been taken in a Stephenson screen.
    There is no explanation for the blanks but the day after the record is shown in red which means “Not quality controlled or uncertain, or precise date unknown.”
    If this class of record exists, why would they remove the January 3 temperature? Why not simply put it in red?
    The whole of January 1877 by the way is a blank so perhaps the SS was installed in time for the February readings.
    The P O records now say that the hottest January temp was only 49.7C set on January 4 1903.
    Very odd.

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      Paul-82

      To Aard Knox [January 17, 2013 at 5:03 am ]

      Re the records for Bourke Post Office, January 1909 the blanks in the temperature maximums and minimums in the records are all Sundays. So it would appear they not taken – nothing sinister, but perhaps disappointing.

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        Aard Knox

        So it is, plus an odd Friday and Saturday.
        But the reading must have been taken because the chief meteorologist told the SMH both the temperature and the date in 1932.
        Sorry I couldn’t get a link because the Trove servers were down but the date was 29 January 1932, page 11 under the heading “Intense Heat”.

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      llew Jones

      Wake up Shane. Even the alarmist climate scientist’s measure of AGW is not local or regional temperatures or weather,however concocted, but one measure and one measure alone namely GLOBAL temperature. The the global temperature anomaly for last year, 2012, is +.161 which puts in in ninth place for the last 34 years. In that list it is not even in the top 25%.

      We have just started 2013 so it is pure scare mongering by the non-expert Paul Willis to confuse a few hot Australian days with GLOBAL warming.

      Here is Paul Willis’s area of expertise followed by his very dodgy source of climate science instruction, the largely discredited alarmist blog Skeptical Science:

      Dr Paul Willis is the Director of RiAus.

      He is known as a science journalist and broadcaster, formerly a presenter for ABC-TV’s Catalyst. Dr Willis is a respected leader in the science community, and takes up his appointment at RiAus as the next step in an impressive career in science.

      In his role as Director of RiAus, he is instrumental in determining the direction of the national science hub as it continues its mission of bringing science to people and people to science. “I’ve always had a passion for science communication,” Dr Willis said. ”I look forward to working with RiAus to share the latest in science with new audiences.”

      Dr Willis’ early interest in dinosaurs and fossils lead him to Sydney University to study zoology and geology, then on to further studies at the University of New South Wales where he completed a doctorate studying fossil crocodiles.

      Over the past ten years, he has held many fascinating jobs including a stint as Curator of Vertebrates at the Macleay Museum in the University of Sydney, and a nine month assignment in Bonn, Germany, measuring dead crocodiles. His passion for science communication also saw him spend a number of years touring Australia with a life-sized inflatable Tyrannosaurus rex as part of a primary school education program….

      more here:http://sciencerewired.org/participants/

      And his source of enlightenment wrt to climate science:

      The hidden heat of climate science – By Paul Willis
      [ This article was published on February 22 2012. ]

      “I had something of a revelation last week, an explanation for a set of facts that didn’t come together quite the way I’d hoped. In hindsight, I can see that this was a few pieces of a puzzle that didn’t really fit the picture as I saw it but I’d just ignored and not paid the sort of attention that they deserved….

      “….My revelation came reading this blog from Sceptical Science which argues that the world’s oceans have been soaking up much more of the energy in the system than we previously realised. What’s more, its trapped deep in the oceans so we have had problems realising it’s there until very recently..”

      Shane if Willis had read more widely he may have still been wondering why there had been no significant measurable global warming since 1998. Anyone who gets their climate science gospel from that polemical and ill informed source remains ignorant of the inability of alarmist climate science to reconcile increasing atmospheric CO2 levels with recent stagnant GLOBAL temperature.

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    […] JO NOVA BLOG Australia – was hot and is hot. So what? This is not an unusual heat-wave January 15th, 2013 http://joannenova.com.au/2013/01/australia-was-hot-and-is-hot-so-what-this-is-not-an-unusual-heat-wa… […]

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    Paul Burtwistle

    Everyone needs to remember that in November, BOM in Queensland predicted that this year would have a wetter than average summer and proposed that water should be released from Wivenhoe Dam in preparation for likely flooding.
    Now, around three months later, when their prediction falls falt on it face they do a complete 180 and start trumpeting about the record levels of hot weather and how we should all be worried. From reading this article (and others)it appears that BOM is very wrong on both accounts.
    When will people realise that any prediction of the weather more than 3 days in advance is still a very “hit or miss” affair at best despite all of the modern technology currently in use. Anyone, or any organisation that claims they can do this accurately and consistently is misleading you – it’s as simple as that.
    I have to point out that since BOM has missed its summer forecast for Queensland, I assume that it has to somehow make up for this by producing something that is newsworthy. An easy way to do this is to “fudge” the temperature data a little to show that its the hottest summer on record and shout about the dangers that this presents to us all. NASA, NOAA, the UK MET office and others have all done this in the past – it seems to me that this is the new norm, not high temperatures…….

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    Angry

    It’s just SUMMER !

    “My Country” by Dorothea Mackellar………….

    The love of field and coppice,
    Of green and shaded lanes.
    Of ordered woods and gardens
    Is running in your veins,
    Strong love of grey-blue distance
    Brown streams and soft dim skies
    I know but cannot share it,
    My love is otherwise.

    I love a sunburnt country,
    A land of sweeping plains,
    Of ragged mountain ranges,
    Of droughts and flooding rains.
    I love her far horizons,
    I love her jewel-sea,
    Her beauty and her terror –
    The wide brown land for me!

    A stark white ring-barked forest
    All tragic to the moon,
    The sapphire-misted mountains,
    The hot gold hush of noon.
    Green tangle of the brushes,
    Where lithe lianas coil,
    And orchids deck the tree-tops
    And ferns the warm dark soil.

    Core of my heart, my country!
    Her pitiless blue sky,
    When sick at heart, around us,
    We see the cattle die –
    But then the grey clouds gather,
    And we can bless again
    The drumming of an army,
    The steady, soaking rain.

    Core of my heart, my country!
    Land of the Rainbow Gold,
    For flood and fire and famine,
    She pays us back threefold –
    Over the thirsty paddocks,
    Watch, after many days,
    The filmy veil of greenness
    That thickens as we gaze.

    An opal-hearted country,
    A wilful, lavish land –
    All you who have not loved her,
    You will not understand –
    Though earth holds many splendours,
    Wherever I may die,
    I know to what brown country
    My homing thoughts will fly.

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    AusCan

    Jo,

    First time, so please be gentle. (Also I refer to attachments. I can send them separately if required.)

    As you are aware, the Bureau of Meteorology produced a media release on 9 January part of which stated:
    Assistant Director of Climate Information Services, Neil Plummer, said that the heatwave had broken national records.
    This is consistent with the trend of an increase in extreme heat events associated with climate change.

    This release was based on report Special Climate Statement 43 – Interim which is attached. Note that it was written by three (no less) Ph.D climatologists.

    I, as did many others, found this release repugnant as it implied that it was the mother of all heat waves (my words) and that it was 100% anthropogenic. Certainly, ABC, SBS, Fairfax media, not to mention the Climate Commission and the IPCC AR5 group, went into raptures over it.

    Note that the Ph.Ds did not state that climate change caused this event. (They left that up to the PR man.)

    However, they did not bother to compare this heat wave with previous heat waves such as 1939, 1921, 1927, 1959, 1973 where, in some cases, hundreds of people died. (Not to mention 1896 and 1908.)

    So I decided to do a little investigation to this special climate statement to see if there were any anomalies. I believe I have found a disturbing number. I hope you agree

    Again, you are aware that the BOM has established a world class weather station network. From their web site:
    The Australian Climate Observations Reference Network – Surface Air Temperature (ACORN-SAT) dataset has been developed for monitoring climate variability and change in Australia.
    The dataset employs the latest analysis techniques and takes advantage of newly digitised observational data to provide a daily temperature record over the last 100 years.
    This data will enable climate researchers to better understand long-term changes in monthly and seasonal climate, as well as changes in day-to-day weather.

    A list of the sites by state is attached. (The only list on their web page is alphabetical.)

    Below are two guidelines that I assume the BOM is following, as a result of these “reference” sites being established:
    1. Any site data before 1910 is considered inaccurate and therefore useless.
    2. Any site data after 1910 must only come from ACORN-SAT locations. All other sites should be considered inaccurate and therefore useless.

    I have not seen any statements on the BOM web site confirming these guidelines, but I would expect it to be the case.

    Attached are Tables 1, 2, 4 and 5 from the Special Climate Statement 43 – Interim. I have modified them slightly to indicate whether a particular site is part of the ACORN-SAT network.

    Table 1 shows the new daily maximum temperature records.
    There are 52 records. Only 5 are from ACORN-SAT sites.

    Table 2 shows the new daily minimum temperature records.
    There are 19 records. Only 6 are from ACORN-SAT sites.

    Table 4 shows state high maximum temperatures recorded each day of the event.
    WA: 19 records, only 1 is from an ACORN-SAT site.
    SA: 15 records, only 8 are from ACORN-SAT sites.
    VIC: 15 records, only 7 are from ACORN-SAT sites.
    NSW: 14 records, only 3 are from ACORN-SAT sites.
    TAS: 11 records, only 1 is from an ACORN-SAT site.
    QLD: 12 records, 9 are from ACORN-SAT sites.
    NT: 13 records, 0 are from ACORN-SAT sites.

    Table 4 shows state high minimum temperatures recorded each day of the event.
    WA: 17 records, only 1 is from an ACORN-SAT site.
    SA: 12 records, only 1 is from an ACORN-SAT site.
    VIC: 11 records, only 6 are from ACORN-SAT sites.
    NSW: 12 records, only 2 are from ACORN-SAT sites.
    TAS: 11 records, only 2 are from ACORN-SAT sites.
    QLD: 12 records, only 6 are from ACORN-SAT sites.
    NT: 15 records, 1 is from an ACORN-SAT site.

    So, now I must modify my guidelines, as follows:
    1. Any site data before 1910 is considered inaccurate and therefore useless.
    2. Any site data after 1910 can come any location you damn well please as long as it indicates that climate change (100% anthropogenic of course) is causing new records to be set.

    PS: The other reason I did this little investigation is that the Manly Daily, Tony Abbott’s favourite newspaper (not), did not print a letter I emailed them in response to another letter titled “Heatwave turns sceptics silent” (9 Jan 2013).

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      Paul Burtwistle

      Yet another piece of analysis that essentially shows that all is not as it should be in the world of BOM……

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      Nice One

      It doesn’t occur to the “skeptic” that earlier records from non-ACORN sites could be over estimates?

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        AusCan

        It doesn’t occur to the “fanatic” that later records from non-ACORN sites could be over estimates?

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          Nice One

          I expect there would be mistakes made, in both directions. “skeptics” think it only occurs in one direction.

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    2 Bobs Worth

    On the topic of maximum temperatures to prove a point. The BOM and the government mouthpiece, the ABC (Another Biased Commentary)have been sprouting all of the maximum temperatures being set this month. Sydney, eg has this week set new maximum temperatures. These “facts” sit nicely with the dominant thought paradigm and do well to convince Australians that Queen Boudicca in Canberra really did have the concerns of the nation at heart when she introduced the unwanted CO2 tax. The wise one foresaw this heatwave and, if you listen to her apologists, the heatwave would have been far worse if it hadn’t been for the pollution-reducing tax.Your articles on the accuracy of the BOM data and their use in reporting these new “maximums” is interesting given the facts which Miranda Devine (lovely woman)published in the Telegraph on Tuesday. Here is an extract.

    But we haven’t come close to the highest state temperature on record, (BoM records have been kept since 1910) which was 49.7 degrees in Menindee on January 10, 1939.

    Or even to the 48.9 recorded at Brewarrina on December 9, 1912.

    And in the 19th Century, long before BoM took notice, there were hot days recorded in Sydney, and elsewhere, by Sir John Henniker Heaton in his 1879 Australian Dictionary of Dates. Here is a sample which should throw cold water on climate alarm enthusiasts trying to seize the latest temperatures for propaganda purposes.

    1826, November 29, in Sydney: 40C in the shade

    1832, March 18 in Sydney: 54C in the sun

    1833, February, in Bathurst: 41C (sun)

    1835, January 31, in Sydney: 43C (shade)

    1837, February 23 in Sydney: 56C (sun)

    1839, January 29, in Yass: 49C (sun)

    1845, January 21, Central Australia: 55C (shade)

    1845, November 1, Central Australia: 53C (shade)

    1848, January 1 on the Paterson (Hunter Valley): 53C (sun)

    1848, January 3 on the Paterson: 43C (shade) (At 10.30 p m. it was still 33C)

    1863, January 5, in Sydney: 42 (shade)

    1866, January 8, in Lochinvar (Hunter Valley): 42 (shade)

    1867, January 2, in Lochinvar: 42 (shade)

    1867, November 16 ,in Lochinvar: 40 (shade)

    1867, December 25 in Lochinvar: 41 (shade)

    1870, January 3, at Sydney: 41 (shade)

    1871, December 22 at Sydney: 40 (shade)

    1878, November 21 at Sydney: 55C (sun): “Glass burst, and the temperature must have been over 55C to do this.”

    I’ve sent copies of this throughout the network and even complained to the Anything But Conservative (ABC)- no doubt they’ll respond with the “incorrect measuring” propaganda, if at all.
    I’ll keep you posted and, keep up the good work Jo, especially since this year. election year, we’ll be bombarded with the “extreme weather” rhetoric- anything to detract form Gillard’s broken promise to the people of Australia.

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    Derek Cook

    I was waiting for Jo to comment on this one. 🙂

    As a Brit who worked for three months in Woomera in 2010, I had a personal interest in this story, as the purple blob on the new map was over the Woomera area.

    A friend who works in the area confirmed to me that this was anything but unprecedented, which is how it was being reported in the UK media. Darned hot, yes. Unprecedented, no. And also that the temp had not been measured over 50C, yet the media hype was that new colours had had to be added to the temperature map due to the unprecedented temperatures.

    A bit of quick digging on the internet turned up that the official records that showed that no temp over 50 had been recorded this year (at least last time I looked), and that the official record was set in the 1960s. And I quickly found the “unofficial” records mentioned in Jo’s post.

    When working in Woomera, I purchased Len Beadell’s excellent book “Outback Highways”, and temperatures of 50C are mentioned during the time he was surveying the outback after WWII.

    So another classic example of media scaremongering in support of the man made climate change mantra.

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    Bill Dobell

    We keep forgetting that the official temperatures are recorded at airports for most cities and towns around the world and as we all know airports are covered in bitumen and concrete which all absorb heat from the sun through the day and slowly release it at night. The first airports were grass fields and slowly have been covered in bitumen and concrete at about the same rate that politicians claim the temps have risen. I see a link.

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    […] more commentary on the earlier unbroken temperature records map above right see this, and here is another reference which includes UAH satellite data for Australia also showing the […]

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