Climate change causes three meters of snow in two days, avalanches in Europe

It’s not well known, but in the same way that climate change causes every hot weekend it also causes snow dumps, avalanches, and freak weather. The scientific link is just as strong and calculated the same way. Take a tendentious cross-correlation on free-range seasonal assumptions, and then pour Vodka in the Cray.

If only the Germans had built more windmills they could have stopped this.

Chaos in ski resorts, people trapped, road closed, flights canceled

Three metres of snow fell in the space of 48 hours in some parts of the country and more than a metre is forecast to fall today and tomorrow. — The Times (paywalled)

Heavy snow paralysed much of Europe for yet another day, cutting off mountain villages, sparking avalanches like one that crashed into a Swiss hotel, and killing at least four people.

At least 21 weather-related deaths have been reported in Europe in the last 10 days.

—ABC

With three million dollars to spend today (like every day) the ABC found cute photos of white stuff on cuddly sheep and scooters to fit the deadly theme. Nice.

There is avalanche danger, blocked roads and floods in Southern Germany.

The Beast From The East comes back to Britain

The UK is headed for the coldest weekend of the year — The Express

A swathe of bitter air will pour in from the Arctic pushing temperatures to freezing or below across the entire country through the next 48 hours.

Scotland, northern England and even parts further south are on alert for wintry downpours towards the end of the week and into the weekend.

It could be the first widespread snowfall since the Beast from the East brought Britain to a near standstill last winter.

Campaigners have reiterated calls for elderly and vulnerable people to take extra care during cold weather.

The weekend blast may be linked to the Sudden Stratospheric Warming (SSW) which appeared in December. Temperatures suddenly rose over the Arctic up high above the jet streams. Often cold temperatures on the surface seem to kick in two weeks or so later.

A possibly lengthy winter blast will be driven by warming of the air over the North Pole encouraging a colder airflow into the UK.

The so-called Sudden Stratospheric Warming (SSW), which was the driver for last year’s crippling snowfall, set in at the end of December

Best wishes to our Northern Hemisphere friends.
h/t to GWPF

 

9.5 out of 10 based on 71 ratings

261 comments to Climate change causes three meters of snow in two days, avalanches in Europe

  • #
    Yonniestone

    If people take the false reporting at face value and end up in trouble or worse who is legally accountable?

    251

    • #
      PeterS

      The scientists who keep promoting the CAGW scam. However, we the people are responsible for voting in political parties who keep on promoting the fake emissions issue.

      301

      • #
        Allen Ford

        George Orwell put it succinctly, “A people that elect corrupt politicians, imposters, thieves and traitors are not victims, but accomplices.”

        I think he would probably add “cold is hot” to his famous quote, “War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, and Ignorance is Strength

        240

  • #
    Rah

    Here in the US Washington DC got blasted by what went over us in Indiana. I can’t think of a better place for heavy snows and hope they get plenty more. Good chance of that with two more storms already in the works. First to hit this weekend.

    I ran into a pocket of -6 deg. F air this morning driving on I 88 along the Catskills in NY. A lot more of that kind of thing coming for much of the US. Arctic air is going to camp out over us for weeks.

    290

    • #
      R2Dtoo

      Morning Rah: we Western Canadians are sending a present south today. Current temp is -8C, but we’re heading to -30C by evening, and then a week+ of highs near -20C and lows near -30C. Tonight will bring 40-60km winds and wind chills below -40C. Too bad the “deplorables” in fly-over country have to put up with this, but it does serve a purpose with the demorats on the east coast. Drive safe- stay warm.

      60

  • #
    Nick Werner

    Jo, typo in the caption – avalaches?

    70

    • #
      Terry

      “Climate Change” melted the “n”!

      This might be the “ew ormal”. “Childre just are’t goig to kow what sow is”

      Is there anything this catastrophe cannot do?

      Fear not peoples! I have the solution! (which I am very happy to sell to you for a modest fee)

      Look! The “n’s” are back – what more proof could you need?

      220

    • #
      Greg in NZ

      Typo #2: “The US is having it’s own winter storm.” No apostrophe needed, otherwise it means “it is own”. American English seems to do this a lot whereas we southern hemi folk write “its”. And Oh My Gaia! – it’s snowing in January in the Euro Alps and the Himalaya and the Rockies and Algeria in North Africa and Lebanon and Syria in the east and little ol’ NZ even had a dusting yesterday on the southern tops. Why can’t you all understand believe it’s the warming causing all this freezing!

      P.S. Earth in perfect balance today (again) with both North and South poles on -28˚C (-18˚F). Imagine the horror of another 2 degrees on top of that!!! Oymyakon in Siberia, however, takes first prize with a sweltering, scorching, killer -49˚C . . . something like 50-below Fahrenheit, ouch! I blame the vodka, always, yaah…

      60

    • #

      Nick sorry. I ran out of n’s yesterday. Thanks. Fixed! crikey.

      60

  • #
    TdeF

    It’s whatever they say. Now Global Warming has been steadily heating the oceans. Two reports say so. It is a major discovery. So infra red bounced back by CO2 is now somehow exclusively warming the oceans, except that was not the story at all. Then any change is universally bad and makes things much worse, so much worse things are all caused by CO2. Correlation is causation. Any scientist knows this.

    So our ‘angry summer’ causes avalanches in Germany. Of course. It all fits.

    A perfect day in Melbourne yesterday. Light cool breeze and very low 30s on a day of brilliant sunshine sitting under the trees. Now a horrible overnight 20C and more days of terrible weather. Terribly good weather.

    To read the daily BOM report in the Australian, we are all going to expire. Actually it is quite a cool summer, like last year. A relief from those summers where we reached 47, but that was before Global Warming, a mythical time where we did not need rowboats to get to the shops and the beach was under ten metres of ocean. Who makes this stuff up?

    Meanwhile our government is preparing to spend as much of our money as they can to pretend our electricity supply is both adequate and stable. We are told ‘renewables’ are much cheaper, despite the fact that electricity prices have never been higher, the highest in the world. It seems the obvious is quite beyond environment and energy reporters.

    So the world suffers freezing conditions from man made Global Warming. Exactly as predicted.

    461

    • #
      theRealUniverse

      TdeF, THEY said ” So infra red bounced back by CO2 is now somehow exclusively warming the oceans,..” Of course that is a thermodynamic physical impossibility. BUT THEY dont want to to criticize THEM for saying it.
      Who makes this stuff up? THEY do.

      200

  • #
    John F. Hultquist

    The NH weather patterns are controlled, in part, by the locations of the Highs & Lows.
    Parts of Europe are going to be cold, and of course, there is all that snow.
    On the west coast of North America, there is High Pressure area west of B.C, and Washington State. Thus, there is not much happening, except for fog and overcast. This will hang on for a few more days. The Low Pressure down California way is combining with the High to send Pacific Ocean air into the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

    The NWS says: “Two Pacific storm systems will shift into California today and Tuesday, before a much larger, more powerful storm plows into the West Coast on Wednesday and Thursday.
    Those with short-legged dogs will need a Helium filled balloon tied to the collar so they can be kept track of.
    Just saying!

    100

    • #
      AndyG55

      “Those with short-legged dogs will need a Helium filled balloon tied to the collar so they can be kept track of.”

      What happens if you use a dozen or so of those balloons?

      Would that help, do you think. 🙂

      167

  • #
    Krishna Gans

    If only the Germans had built more windmills they could have stopped this.

    +100 😀

    330

    • #

      I don’t get how milling grain is connected with snowfall

      95

      • #
        robert rosicka

        Oh dear leaf have you put your foot in it again ?
        Haven’t you been saying that we need to curb Co2 emissions to avoid dangerous warming and dangerous snow storms ?
        If we use windmills to grind grain that would reduce Co2 and thereby reduce the deadly snow storms wouldn’t it , or have you been lying to us ?

        72

        • #

          Ah good thinking! I bet there are some milstones we can reclaim from the crumbling power stations.

          44

        • #
          Environment Skeptic

          “If we use windmills to grind grain….”……no, no, no….using them to grind grain is just a front to make them seem innocuous and harmless, other than to bats and Orange bellied Parrots, and large insects. Behind that convincing front, it was soon realised by our ancestors that these windmills could be used to power printing presses, from the power of the wind…. and that is how the power of being able to ‘print money out of thin air’ came to be. Today, windmills are still used to print money. Only a small amount of their torque/horsepower output is used to power grids or traditional millstones.. Not many people know a lot about this.

          00

      • #
        sophocles

        Snowfall? But it’s white Global Warming.

        90

    • #
      ivan

      While I can appreciate the sarcasm in that remark by Jo I can’t help wondering how many people realise that clearing the land to allow the wind to run free also increases the possibility of snow blocking roads, covering villages and removes any moderation of avalanches.

      Global warming at its best.

      31

  • #
    Graham Richards

    I have noticed that MSM are basically ignoring the ” COLD SNAP” across much of the northern hemisphere even though people are dying as a result of avalanches, freezing temperatures etc.
    In the MSM’s eyes the loss of a young Australian life & others is OK. ( teach them to avoid paying their taxe).
    Mention of much of Europe blanketed by several meters of snow appears to be treated as an event of passing interest instead of what has become a rapidly intensifying annual shift toward a soon to be frozen northern hemisphere.
    They do however monotonously tell us about the heat waves engulfing Eastern Australia. I feel I must report that SouthEastern Queensland’s summer this year is certainly cooler than last year!!
    The MSM however insist that we’re being fried? (Also because we won’t grovel at their alter of Glpbal Warming)???

    302

    • #
      PeterS

      It would require major glaciers threatening to bury cities like New York, London and Moscow before the MSM start reporting it, perhaps.

      220

      • #
        Geoff

        Must be glaciers of frozen CO2. Yes CO2 causes ice sheets. 97% of all scientists agree. Just send them money and they will agree to anything.

        190

      • #
        Bobl

        I think if the great lakes had permanent ice , one year that might be enough. If the freeze were enough to do that then glaciation isn’t far away. Surely that couldn’t be ignored.

        50

    • #
      Sambar

      Meanwhile the local radio station keeps telling me that “hot weather” kills more elderly people that any other cause. Bold statement that.
      I just wish that broadcasts could a/ contain SOME good news, and b/ Stop treating me like an idiot. I don’t need the radio to tell me to drink water, stay in doors, stay cool, don’t swim in the river ( apparently people drown in them as opposed to water in general ), watch for the signs of heat exhaustion etc.etc.etc. Being well into my seventh decade I have figured a lot of this stuff out already.

      130

  • #
    NB

    Hot air creates climate change.

    220

  • #

    Those reports must be fake news. Like in Australia, it’s hotter than ever, so it must be a very hot winter over in Europe where the heat is causing the avalanches due to snow melt. Just like Greenland glaciers are melting away.

    160

    • #
      PeterS

      Don’t give them ideas. They might start relocating all their thermometers to here and claim the global mean temperature is still rising out of control. Perhaps that’s what they are effectively doing with their so called homogenisation crap.

      180

  • #
    Latus Dextro

    The UNFCCC thus makes a distinction between “climate change” attributable to human activities altering the atmospheric composition, and “climate variability” attributable to natural causes.

    The porn of climatism, climafiction, zestfully anthropomorphises the weather, aka. The Beast From The East, a demon that goose-steps to the anthropogenic nature of UNFCCC defined “climate change.”

    The glaring uncertainty of weather is evident in the daily and weekly forecast, which is reliably imprecise or frankly wrong. Good weather is never celebrated, bad weather fits the demonising meme perfectly, until it becomes insufferable, persistent, murderous and damned cold. The most strident water-melons have yet to openly celebrate fuel impoverishment and excess winter deaths. This is not yet required by political correctness. Yet they claim to know with assuredness the sinful tenths of a degree per century inflicted on Gaia.

    The Grand Solar Minimum, harbinger of bad, cold weather and declining crop yields should keep the climatists enthusiastically at their trough, that ‘long, narrow, open receptacle, usually boxlike in shape, used chiefly to hold water or food for animals‘. Their enthusiasm will obscure the obvious;
    the trough became their coffin.

    80

  • #
    Ruairi

    One command from a warmist high priest,
    To use windmills to slow down the Beast,
    Would save young and old,
    From the snow and the cold,
    Then drive it back home to the East.

    230

  • #
    Annie

    The campaigners calling for elderly and vulnerable people to ‘take care’ might, instead, call for other people to stop being dangerous nincompoops with their wrecking of the electricity grid in the name of Gaia (otherwise known as the UN, etc.).

    473

    • #
      Annie

      Hello little red thumb. Tell me what you would say to the elderly and vulnerable people who can’t afford adequate food and heating because too many nincompoops have wrecked the efficient grids we used to have before Gaia worship kicked in so inanely strongly?

      484

      • #

        That red thumb is quite happy for the elderly and vulnerable to depart early, as it’s part of their ideals to rid the earth of excess inhabitants. It’s a shame that such people don’t set an example for others by showing the way.

        304

      • #
        RickWill

        If there is no justifying comment then you can assume it was due to a wobbly mouse – it happens.

        111

        • #
          AndyG55

          There aren’t enough wobbly thumbs on the internet to give me my red thumb count 😉

          166

          • #
            John F. Hultquist

            I wonder if Jo could do a ‘sum’ at the end of each week or month, and give a “Red Thumb Award” to the person with the mostest.

            100

            • #
              OriginalSteve

              Well, at least we have the right of being able to give a red or green thumb in this country in Democracy.

              Whereas…… I suspect many red thumbers might wish they were in their spiritual home of red flags, little red books and no dissent …..maybe its a form of little-red-book-virtue-signalling?

              Up the workers!!

              51

            • #
              sophocles

              You do realise, don’t you John, that the blogs trolls would sweep such a pool effortlessly and often?

              00

            • #
              Greebo

              Why give PF anything?

              00

        • #

          It would appear that the wobbly mouse is getting around.

          51

      • #
        theRealUniverse

        Hello little red thumb. = wobbly mouse syndrome LOL

        91

        • #
          Bodge it an scarpa

          Fat fingers + I phone 5 can = red thumb. Surprisingly for a half blind old codger I haven’t accidentally given an unintended red thumb as yet, but make quite a few spelling blunders.
          An Edit function would be useful !

          51

          • #
            sophocles

            No, no, no! Then all my blunders will stand out more than they do! I’m really quite happy with the company, Bodge it. 🙂

            50

      • #
        Hanrahan

        Annie, only a gentlelady such as yourself would call then “nincompoops”.

        50

    • #
      Bobl

      Perhaps making their electricity cheap enough for them to use their air conditioners and fans might help

      40

  • #
    yarpos

    As the alarmist camp and the enabling MSM control the story and the vocabulary its easy to smoothly shift from warming to change to extreme as the weather and opportunities permit.

    In general the MSM follows summer around the globe and tries to ignore events and trends that dont fot the narrative. Its a lot like Trump Derangement Syndrome where they have a negative focus and dont ever talk about the economy, peace breaking out with North Korea, standing up to China economically, lowest “emissions” after leaving Paris etc

    So all the effort shovelling the warming off the roads will either be ignored and played down, or get spun as AGW generated extreme weather. Depends how they feel on the day, or if there is an IPCC conference coming up, which usually leads to a ramp up of alarm stories to support the inevitable chicken little report at the end of the conference.

    Even after having lived through the coming Ice Age scare in the 70s , I never dreamed things would get this stupid. But then came the Internet and the oxymoronically named progressive movement. Its funny how the labels they like to put on things are almost entirely the reverse of reality.

    Progressives constantly drag things backward, and want us all in mud huts, eating mung beans and crickets
    Renewables arent really, in a finite world
    AntiFa , the anti Fascists behave exactly like Fascists
    Feminism (of the rabid kind) has done immense damage to women
    and of course their favourite tool, social media, is anything but social

    330

    • #
      Kinky Keith

      🙂

      And in all of this mess, Where is Truth?

      KK

      130

    • #
      John

      Yarpos, II can say this with absolute certainty, I am far from a Trump fan but I have not heard one positive report on him from the ABC in the last 2 years.

      210

      • #
        PeterS

        That’s because the MSM including the ABC are retarded and expendable foot soldiers for the globalists, and Trump is a nationalist who is spoiling their game plan.

        330

      • #
        Bobl

        Actually, I think this should be actionable, or national broadcaster dissing the leader of the free world and Australia’s greatest ally should result in multiple heads rolling. The ABC is supposed to act in Australia’s interest.

        70

  • #
    xsnake

    Couldn’t be snowing there…or anywhere else!
    The world’s most brilliant climatologist said years ago, that by now, it would be too warm to snow….AND that the Arctic icecap would’ve melted also.
    Who?
    Al Gore….that’s who!

    170

  • #

    The northern hemisphere has been blanketed in an alarming pale substance which scientists fear will be a cause of severe flooding as temperatures rise through spring.

    In other news, Bullamakanka is again expecting to top 30C in its hottest summer conditions since 2015. Tony Abbott has refused to comment.

    Further update on European weather conditions: Megan and Kate are refusing to ski together.

    280

  • #
    Peter Fitzroy

    In a warmer climate, the air can hold more moisture, which then would fall as more snow in the wintery bits of the globe, or as more rain. for example, the fraction of Australia receiving a high proportion (greater than the 90th percentile) of annual rainfall from extreme rain days (greater than the 90th percentile for 24 hour rainfall) has been increasing since the 1970s. However it is regionally, and seasonally variable, with more falling in severe storms in summer (from the Aus Gov website)

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    • #
      AndyG55

      “In a warmer climate,”

      A Grand Solar Maximum will do that.

      Be very glad we are not still back in the Little Ice Age

      UAH Australia, where is the CO2 warming signal, putz.

      Absolutely ZERO empirical evidence that ENHANCED atmospheric CO2 causes warming.

      205

    • #

      In a considerably warmer world you can graze livestock in the Sahara, but that was over 5000 years ago. In a somewhat warmer world you can use Northern Africa as your breadbasket, which is what the Romans did.

      In a world that’s only just warm enough, you do what we do now. Better than that droughty LIA, right?

      240

    • #
      AndyG55

      Australian rainfall since 1900.

      Please point out the anthropogenic signal.

      Actually, if you zoom out and squint, you can see a bit more “blue” as time progresses.

      This is obviously a BAD thing ! 😉

      174

      • #
        Peter Fitzroy

        So, as the warming continues, models predict more precipitation and more regional variation in that precipitation (based on science), Now if the hypothesis is that Anthropogenic sources have no impact (From AndyG55, 2019), then you must find an explanation for the observed warming. The Sun for instance with the GSM is out of the picture, as the last one in 2013 was the weakest observed, and the next one is in 2024 (predicted). Another candidate is variations in the earth’s orbit, moving it slightly closer to the sun, however, Earth’s orbit will become less eccentric for about the next 100,000 years, and that rules it out as an explanation as well.

        528

        • #

          It is not scientific to prove a hypothesis by the absence or insufficiency of other explanations. May as well blame any recent observed warming on black jellybeans or anything else you don’t like. For a mob who don’t know nearly enough about the deep hydrosphere, asthenosphere and hot guts of our own planet we are sure quick with the explanations.

          It is scientific to observe and reflect on a fantastically complex effect whether or not you know the fantastically complex reasons for the said effect. Hence this…
          https://www.dur.ac.uk/geography/nequa/what_is_the_quaternary/

          220

          • #
            Peter Fitzroy

            So we have one explanation that the warming is anthropogenic in the main (the warmist view). If you hypothesise a different agent, after rejecting the warmist view, then what is it. It is equally unscientific to promote a model which does not include anthropogenic factors which explains the observed changes in the climate, but does not offer an alternative.

            325

            • #
              Kneel

              “… but does not offer an alternative.”

              This is a false dichotomy – one does NOT need to propose an alternative in order to disprove an existing theory, it is sufficient to show it to be incorrect. For instance, if I can show that one of the assumptions you make is demonstrably false from your own data, then I do NOT need to show what is “correct” or anything else, merely that you made a mistake. Why? Because science doesn’t advance by proving things true, instead being satisfied with removing things that are false – as per the famous detective, “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains – however improbable – must be the truth”.

              280

              • #
                Peter Fitzroy

                Sorry, did you not read the post? There is a hypothesis, proposed by the warmists, which accounts for the observations. If you remove part of that explanation (Anthropogenic effects), then you still have to explain the observations. That is science. If a better candidate model exists, then let’ see it.

                224

              • #
                AndyG55

                “There is a hypothesis”

                Well not really, it has never had ANY validating evidence, therefor it is more like just a though bubble , a conjecture due to ignorance.

                What Anthropogenic effect ?

                You have yet to provide any evidence they exist, just wilful DENIAL of the effect of the sun, and the clouds and all the other NATURAL climate variability.

                145

              • #
                AndyG55

                “That is science. “

                It is pretty obvious that you haven’t got the vaguest clue what “science” is.

                154

              • #
                el gordo

                Peter the anthropogenic effect is theoretical and the science not settled.

                This moderate rise in world temperature is well within normal parameters and doesn’t require an explanation, the big issue is whether climate has changed.

                I agree its up to us to find an alternative hypothesis, there are no brownie points in saying nothing unusual is happening.

                So I say climate changed in July 2017 with the development of blocking high pressure in the Southern Hemisphere. Do you know why?

                92

              • #
                AndyG55

                “I agree its up to us to find an alternative hypothesis”

                A hypothesis for what ???

                Normal natural climate variability ???

                Temperature wise, the world is still very much near the lower bound of the last 10,000 years.

                Why ISN’T it warmer? that should be the real question.

                Why is there STILL SO MUCH Arctic sea ice, (top 5-10% of the last 10,000 years.)

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              • #
                AndyG55

                Why has the natural warming STOPPED since 2001?

                (apart from the El Nino transient which has basically now disappeared.)

                84

              • #
                el gordo

                Yes sir, but Judith Curry reckons CO2 is warming the oceans and she is sought of an authority. Peter would like this, its long winded.

                https://judithcurry.com/2019/01/14/ocean-heat-content-surprises/#more-24627

                40

              • #
                Rah

                Peter Fitzroy
                The hypothesis of CAGW/Climate change was falsified long ago. The physics upon which the models predicting are based demands that there be a persistent hot spot or hot spots in the upper troposphere somewhere in the tropical band. None have been found.

                71

              • #
                OriginalSteve

                Actually…2 NULLS ( hypothese ) don’t make a NULL… except in database programming …. even then its bad practice….should use a known value…

                Sorry..I digress…. 🙂

                20

            • #

              I don’t hypothesise a different agent nor do I promote any model. Just because you tap-dance doesn’t mean I have to tap-dance or do some other dance. I’m not dancing.

              I don’t reject the possibility of recent global warming and of human agency. I only reject unsubstantiated claims as to the cause of recent warming and the scale of human agency. That temps go up should not surprise when they only have two ways to go.

              As for humans, there seem to be a number of ways they can affect weather, it’s just a matter of how and how much. When the warmies got desperate a few years back they made a wiki explaining that LIA was caused by those populating, cathedral-hungry medievals, and that when they copped a dose of Black Death the populating and cathedrals stopped, the forests regrew, the climate cooled…It really is hard to imbue such mechanists and literalists with any sense of context. They’ll die with their joysticks in their hands.

              I know I don’t know. Do you know you don’t know?

              The two most important points based on extensive observational science are that this interglacial is not as warm as the previous one and this warmer part of our present interglacial is not as warm as other episodes in the last ten thousand years. Sea level rise as clearly seen in geologically stable regions is a mere dribble starting (this time) in the 1700s. In other words, things look as normal as they can be.

              The most likely climatic threat to civilisation in the medium term is volcanism of the type and on the scale of Mt Laki, which is pretty likely. Less likely is volcanism on the scale of Lake Toba, but I’ll take the odds on that.

              What’s more certain is that minor cooling such as around 1700 and even a tiny cooling blip as in the 1970s will come and won’t be welcome, particularly because Africa, where cooling means drought in more places, has only recently acquired a large human population.

              Then there’s that long cooling curve which can start today or in a thousand years which occupies about 80% of our epoch. Let’s hope we don’t waste all the diesel and borrowed dough keeping South Australia coal-free. (And better remember where we left the coal.)

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              • #
                Serp

                The “scale of human agency” nails it mosomoso.

                Against the scale of natural agency which does earthquakes and volcanos and the solar wind and asteroid strikes human might is less than infinitesimal.

                100

            • #
              Robert Swan

              Here’s a Feynman quote:

              If someone were to propose that the planets go around the sun because all planet matter has a kind of tendency for movement, a kind of motility, let us call it an ‘oomph,’ this theory could explain a number of other phenomena as well. So this is a good theory, is it not? No. It is nowhere near as good as the proposition that the planets move around the sun under the influence of a central force which varies exactly inversely as the square of the distance from the center. The second theory is better because it is so specific; it is so obviously unlikely to be the result of chance. It is so definite that the barest error in the movement can show that it is wrong; but the planets could wobble all over the place, and, according to the first theory, you could say, ‘Well, that is the funny behavior of the ‘oomph.”

              This business of CO2 does everything is exactly like Feynman’s “oomph”. And bear in mind, the “oomph” theory of gravity has not been disproved. Tough to disprove because it doesn’t make any concrete predictions. Again, just like the “CO2 climate control knob” theory.

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              • #
                Peter Fitzroy

                When that second theory comes along, and makes better predictions than the current one, I’ll jump on board. Until then ‘oomphy’ C02 for me

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              • #
                robert rosicka

                Fitz your saying second theory so does that equate to you know that the Co2 science is just that a theory ?

                80

              • #
                AndyG55

                So would you would jump on board a boat with no bottom in it (AGW),

                or would you wait for another boat to come along, that was built on sound engineering principles. (Solar variability)

                104

              • #
                Robert Swan

                The point of the Feynman quote was that “oomph” isn’t a proper theory; it has far too much wiggle room. Likewise the supposed theory of CO2 climate control is consistent with anything: hotter than usual, colder than usual, much the same as usual are all consistent with this theory.

                You say you’re waiting for a second theory. You don’t even have a first.

                120

              • #
                robert rosicka

                Personally by saying that a theory is sound scientific proof of anything destroys fitzs credibility, not that he had much to start with .
                I’d like to see the worm wriggle out of this one .

                40

            • #

              Casuistry. If it’s not the God of Thunder has to be the God of …
              Substituting one false certainty for another is not science but a process
              of myth making. If yr truly looking for a solution to a problem, like James
              Hutton, Charles Darwin, withhold leaping because yr mind wants a comfortable
              explanation even if its unsubstantiated.

              100

            • #
              AndyG55

              Before you make a random conjecture about something causing something to happen, you need to show there is something happening

              NATURAL warming from the coldest period in 10,000 years.

              Stable hurricane and tornado data, all other facets of the climate well within longer term historical limit. Droughts, have been longer and more intense in the past. Snow increasing in Winter and Autumn, decreasing in spring, so what. !

              Its all just straight forward normal climate variability.

              Nobody needs to INVENT an anti-science hypothesis for that…

              … or attempt to use that hypothesis for the destruction of western civilisation.

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                Peter Fitzroy

                Multiple lines of evidence support attribution of recent climate change to human activities:
                A basic physical understanding of the climate system: greenhouse gas concentrations have increased and their warming properties are well-established.
                Historical estimates of past climate changes suggest that the recent changes in global surface temperature are unusual.
                Computer-based climate models are unable to replicate the observed warming unless human greenhouse gas emissions are included.
                Natural forces alone (such as solar and volcanic activity) cannot explain the observed warming.

                318

              • #
                AndyG55

                “Natural forces alone (such as solar and volcanic activity) cannot explain the observed warming.”

                Yes they can.. EASILY

                The warming in the last 40 years has come only from Oceans and cycles

                It cannot be CO2 because CO2 cannot cause oceans to heat.

                Only SOLAR energy can penetrate the oceans to cause warming

                Why are you DENIAL basic science, pfutz?

                Solar activity is an undeniable match to climate over the long term

                CO2 is most certainly NOT.

                145

              • #
                AndyG55

                “Computer-based climate models… blah, blah… “

                ROFLMAO..

                That have been proven erroneous and completely wrong by REALITY itself

                The models are WRONG, mainly because they are written by CLUELESS people with an agenda to push the AGW scam.

                105

              • #
                AndyG55

                If you either intentionally or through IGNORANCE leave out most solar warming effects from the model, of course they need to invent some other fantasy.

                Computer models don’t match the past either, which makes them pretty stupid, considering all the fudge factors they have built in.

                They are WORSE THAN USELESS, because they are basically A LIE.

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              • #
                AndyG55

                “Multiple lines of evidence support attribution of recent climate change to human activities:”

                A propaganda statement, nothing more.

                And its wrong, based on scientifically unsupportable assumptions.

                You cannot present any actual evidence to back it up

                You can’t even show that enhanced atmospheric CO2 causes warming.. because even you know by now, that IT DOESN’T.

                “Historical estimates of past climate changes suggest that the recent changes in global surface temperature are unusual.”

                Another scientifically unsupportable propaganda statement, The planet is still very much at the cool end of the current interglacial. Even after their manic adjustments 1920-1940 still has the same warming trend in their temperature data fabrication.

                “estimates” … “suggest” roflmao… real climate science in non-action.

                94

              • #
                Slithers

                Can any of you clever folks find out exactly what the German Solar Farms and roof top PV are creating with all this snow around?

                50

              • #
                AndyG55

                Would be interesting to know how their wind turbines were coping with the snow and ice on their blades.

                Heated turbines will be sucking in more than the produce, and I’m guessing that non heated ones are basically producing ZERO.

                53

        • #
          Terry

          “Now if the hypothesis is that Anthropogenic sources have no impact…”

          There is no hypothesis for this nor is it needed.

          There is no requirement to postulate a counter-hypothesis in order to completely debunk the warmist fantasy.

          When the hypotehsis is wrong (which it is), it must be modified until it is no longer wrong (which has never happened), or it ceases to exist as a credible hypothesis (which is long overdue).

          As a scientific cause (if there is a single or even a major one), CO2 is a very poor suspect.

          But as a political tool, employed to erode freedoms and relieve the populace of its wealth in pursuit of a globalised, Socialist Utopia, there is no greater villain.

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        • #
          AndyG55

          “as the warming continues”

          It isn’t, just an El Nino transient since 2001

          “models predict more precipitation and more regional variation”

          Some do. some don’t .. it a complete hodge-podge wide enough to drive a tank through.

          Models are NEVER evidence of anything, especially unvalidated, provable wrong models.

          “The Sun for instance with the GSM is out of the picture”

          WRONG, the sun is very much in the picture. It is ONLY external energy source.

          Its the ONLY thing there is any actual warming data for.. Not just TSI.

          Your DENIAL of the Grand solar maximum and its warming effects, really does put you in a new league of CLIMATE CHANGE DENIERS.

          145

        • #
          AndyG55

          “as the last one in 2013 was the weakest observed”

          And its starting to cool.

          Only an nil-science ignoramus would expect the world oceans to respond immediately to the natural heating and cooling of the SUN. !

          124

          • #
            Peter Fitzroy

            I didn’t say that, I said that the sun is not a factor in the observed heating. If it is not Anthropogenic C02 then what is the cause?

            516

            • #
              AndyG55

              ” I said that the sun is not a factor in the observed heating”

              But it is. You are WRONG and IGNORANT.. as always.

              And we know it is NOT CO2, because the only warming in 40 years has come from the El Ninos and ocean cycles. CO2 cannot cause oceans to warm, it is against basic thermodynamics of the oceans and atmosphere (way beyond your feeble knowledge)

              It is those that have driven the warming, so much so, that if you collate places that are not influenced by ocean temperatures, 1940 was actually WARMER than now.

              Many parts of the Arctic and NH were warmer or as warm as now in the 1940s

              Greenland also

              USA

              Armagh Observatory in Ireland

              So, what was the CO2 factor that heated to planet to similar temperatures to now, AND THEN CAUSED COOLING???

              124

              • #
                el gordo

                I’m convinced by your excellent graphs that CO2 is irrelevant in this debate

                60

              • #
                Peter Fitzroy

                Aerosols – particularly sulphates, are generally credited with the plateau between 1940 and 1970. There was the world war, atomic explosions, a massive change from coal for heating (those brown smogs in the 1950’s for example. The clean air act(s) saw a rapid drop in sulphates (as well as acid rain) from the 70’s. A clearer atmosphere let more energy get down to the surface, while the increase in greenhouse gasses prevented some of it from escaping.

                417

              • #
                Peter Fitzroy

                AndyG55 there is a number of pathways for heat to move between the air and the ocean. for example – convection is one pathway. Warm the air up a bit, and the next thing you know is that the oceans are warming too.

                414

              • #
                AndyG55

                “are generally credited”

                WOW! climate science at its best. 🙂

                Again more unproven suppositionary excuses.

                124

              • #
                AndyG55

                ROFLMAO.. is now just making it up as he goes along (SNIPPED out the name calling) MOD

                HILARIOUS. ! -)

                74

              • #
                AndyG55

                “while the increase in greenhouse gasses prevented some of it from escaping.”

                Totally unproven anti-science BS. !! All you have left

                84

              • #
                Peter Fitzroy

                I only said generally because there are some who think it was space aliens, or that it was a plot to create a world government. You can deny the effects for these particles, but it did happen, and it was reversed by the clean air acts.

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              • #
                AndyG55

                “convection is one pathway.”

                Yes, UPWARDS, COOLING the surface.

                Warm the air up a bit, and the next thing you know is that the oceans are warming too.

                OMG, would you stop pointing out your incredible IGNORANCE.

                You cannot warm the oceans with thermal energy from above.

                The basic physics of evaporation disallows this.

                But as you have shown, basic physics, or any other sort of science for that matter, is an anathema to you.

                144

              • #
                Peter Fitzroy

                The ocean absorbs vast quantities of heat as a result of increased concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, mainly from fossil fuel consumption. The Fifth Assessment Report published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2013 revealed that the ocean had absorbed more than 93% of the excess heat from greenhouse gas emissions since the 1970s. This is causing ocean temperatures to rise.

                here is a neat research effort by our Kiwi friends

                Obviously it’s not possible to manipulate the concentration of CO2 in the air in order to carry out real world experiments, but natural changes in cloud cover provide an opportunity to test the principle. Under cloudy conditions, the cloud cover radiates more heat back down toward the ocean surface than happens under clear sky conditions. So the mechanism should cause a decline in skin temperature gradients with increased cloud cover (more downward heat radiation), and there should also be a decline in the difference between cool skin layer and ocean bulk temperatures – as less heat escapes the ocean under increased atmospheric warming.

                This was observed in an experiment carried out in 2004, aboard the New Zealand research ship Tangaroa. Using instruments to simultaneously measure the ‘cool skin’, the ocean below, and the amount of heat (longwave radiation) reaching the ocean surface, researchers were able to confirm how greenhouse gases heat the ocean. It should be pointed out here, that the amount of change in downward heat radiation from changes in cloud cover in the experiment, are far greater than the gradual change in warming provided by human greenhouse gas emissions, but the relationship was nevertheless established.

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              • #
                AndyG55

                Only DENIER here is YOU, pfutz..

                You DENY basically ever REAL facet of climate change.

                You even DENY that the only warming has been from El Ninos

                You DENY that there was a Grand Solar Maximum in the latter half of last century

                You DENY that there is no evidence of warming by enhanced atmospheric CO2

                You DENY that atmospheric CO2 cannot heat oceans.

                You DENY that CO2 is highly beneficial for all plant life , hence all life on Earth

                You DENY that climate models are a total mess and totally worthless.

                You DENY that the NH, the 1940s was about the same temperature as now.

                You DENY that the Sun has a major effect on the planet’s climate.

                You DENY that for most of the last 10,000 years, the Earth has been much warmer than now.

                You DENY that climate has changed naturally for the last millions of years.

                You DENY that there is absolutely NOTHING out of the ordinary happening with the world’s climate.

                These are all proven FACTS.

                There is a “DENIER” here, and not any of us.

                You basically DENY all rational science…

                …. preferring baseless un-supportable junk-science propaganda.

                125

              • #
                AndyG55

                ” The ocean absorbs vast quantities of heat as a result of increased concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere”

                Unprovable NONSENSE.

                The IPCC is a political propaganda unit. Nothing more, nothing less.

                Cloud cover.. WOW , you finally figured out one tiny part of the REAL equation

                Yes we know cloud cover slows the natural lapse rate and slow evaporation because of the balance between ocean vapour and atmospheric vapour

                Nothing to do with CO2.

                105

              • #
                AndyG55

                ” It should be pointed out here, that the amount of change in downward heat radiation from changes in cloud cover in the experiment, are far greater than the gradual change in warming provided by human greenhouse gas emissions”

                OVERWEALMINGLY so in fact.

                You have FINALLY figured out that H2O is the ONLY molecule that can adjust the natural cooling rate, by altering the lapse rate.

                You are only 100 years or so behind real science.. Well done.

                75

              • #
                AndyG55

                See that little red squiggle, pfutz?

                That’s the ocean heat content rise in the last 60 years.

                SCARED???

                In your feeble brain-hosed mind, that only happened because of human CO2, right ? 😉

                Why are you so in DENIAL of NATURAL climate variability ???

                You are nothing but a manic CLIMATE CHANGE DENIER

                66

              • #
                Peter Fitzroy

                What? I’ve never ever made any such denials. What I’m saying is that the rate of change recorded in numerous datasets, the most infamous one being the BEST reanalysis ( back when I first stated following this blog, is faster than what would be expected from previous epochs. As to the climate models my research says that they are very close to reality, around the 95% confidence level anyway

                59

              • #
                AndyG55

                ROFLMAO,

                Again we see your childish inability to accept FACTS.

                BEST is a hodge-podge of urban warming and airport exhausts, smeared over vast inapplicable areas. “Regional expectations” and all.

                One of the most bizarre attempts at data fabrication ever envisaged.

                Climate models comments… ROFLMAO, from that JOKE of an AGW hive.

                You really are digging into the deepest depths of AGW scam now, aren’t you (SNIPPED).

                Note that you are STILL INCAPABLE of producing any empirical evidence of warming by atmospheric CO2..

                So funny watching your bizarre attempts to cover up that inabilioty.

                So funny that you are unable to counter one of the things you DENY.

                You poor little CLIMATE CHANGE DENIER.

                (Remember what I said about not getting carried away with personal statements?) CTS

                22

              • #
                AndyG55

                ” I’ve never ever made any such denials.”

                Ah.. so you accept that every point is TRUE.

                Thank you. 🙂

                Now go back and play in your sandpit !!

                82

              • #
                el gordo

                Peter on the question of Ocean Heat Content (OHC) it might be prudent to suspend belief until further reading.

                Read the post upthread by Judith Curry, also the alarmist klimateers have excelled themselves and Nic Lewis caught them out.

                https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-46046067

                60

            • #
              Serp

              Finally you’ve got through to me Peter Fitzroy; you’re maintaining that there is a single cause and that if it’s not human produced greenhouse gases then you’re stumped, or is it the case that I am continuing to misread you?

              Are you really the same person who has been posting on the earlier recent threads as today you have adopted a near rational persona?

              91

        • #
          Greebo

          models predict

          So, that’s ok then.

          20

    • #
      Bill In Oz

      Ummmmm Fitz, does that mean ( inevitably ) that in a colder global climate there is less evaporation and less rain or snow ?

      Curious !

      That does not fit with the FACTS we know from past.

      When the world was colder during 1440- 1830’s. ( Little Ice Age) the storms were more severe, there was more snow; the rivers iced over in Europe in Winter and the glaciers grew.

      I’m sure you can offer us some spin on this conundrum for the increased humor or all of us here.

      141

      • #
        Peter Fitzroy

        lolz – storms more severe than what exactly? More snow than when? Rivers icing over without steam powered craft acting as ice breaker uppers. Glaciers growing, compared to now? All this in a period of 400 years. Gosh, that’s sciency.

        322

        • #
          Graeme No.3

          The sea-ice crossings of the Baltic took place in 1495, 1577, 1581, 1658, 1809, during the Little Ice Age. A book authored by a prominent Swedish personality (Archbishop Olaus Magnus) and published in 1555 says that warfare on frozen sea areas in winter by the Muscovites (Russians) and Swedes was as common as warfare by ships on the open seas in summer.
          The crossings of 1495, 1577, 1581, involved the Gulf of Finland, that of 1809 the Gulf of Bothnia and the Aaland Islands area of the Baltic, that of 1658 the Danish Belts.
          The 1658 crossing of the frozen-over Danish Belts was accomplished by the Swedish army, forcing the Danes into submission

          Peter Fitzroy:
          Like these?
          Saint Marcellus’ flood or Grote Mandrenke (“Great Drowning of Men”) was a massive southwesterly Atlantic gale which swept across the British Isles, the Netherlands, northern Germany, and Denmark around 16 January 1362, causing at minimum 25,000 deaths.
          This storm tide, along with others of like size in the 13th century and 14th century, played a part in the formation of the Zuiderzee, and was characteristic of the unsettled and changeable weather in northern Europe at the beginning of the Little Ice Age.

          The Great Storm of 1703 was a destructive extratropical cyclone that struck central and southern England on 26 November 1703. High winds caused 2,000 chimney stacks to collapse in London and damaged the New Forest, which lost 4,000 oaks.
          About 8,000 lives lost.

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          • #
            Peter Fitzroy

            Which is my point – a few storms and some 4 ice crossing in 400 years. not exactly everyday events now are they.

            417

            • #
              el gordo

              The point of the argument is that the start of the Little Ice Age was marked by great sea storms in the North Atlantic, the world was entering a cool wet phase starting around 1250 AD. By the time we reached the depths of the LIA conditions became drier in some places and wetter in others, with a temperature drop of two degrees in Europe.

              111

            • #

              Let’s clarify. Graeme listed some very prominent storm events of past centuries. He did not claim or offer to list all storm events. Four prominent ice crossings are mentioned, not all ice crossings.

              Lamb and others ascribe the Great European Famine of 1315, 1316 and 1317 to an increase in storminess and constant damp. Lamb and Gottschalk agree on a marked increase of storm surges after the 1200s and increased variability generally. Evidence of actual and adverse climate change in the 14th century is strong. I might mention the St Mary’s Wind which belted England at the same time as the Grote Mandrenke. But would it help? How much time do we have to spend on people who really don’t want to contemplate actual climate change?

              Incidentally, I’ve translated old records and can vouch that an event has to be very prominent or closely observed because of war etc to be recorded at all.

              On one point you are correct. Major storms and Baltic sea-ice crossings are not everyday events. This helps to distinguish them from tooth-brushing and visits to the bathroom. Thank you for that, at least.

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              • #
                Peter Fitzroy

                LIA and it’s associated disasters. Take the great storm of 1703 and all those chimneys. If you assume that structures were built to withstand normal weather, then the great storm is an outlier and should be discarded as such. Same with the ice crossings. Certainly there were 400 years of slightly cooler climate, with the odd major weather event.

                There is very good evidence that both the normal fluctuations of the sun and eccentricities in the orbit of the Earth were major causes for the LIA. Now if those fluctuations and eccentricities were around today I’d be singing a different tune

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              • #

                Weak chimneys. And same with ice crossings. The ice crossings were weak or they had weak chimneys at the ice crossings? Did weak chimneys help form the Zuiderzee? Chimneys fell on the forests and on the merchant and naval fleets in 1703?

                So you’d be singing a different tune if fluctuations of the sun and eccentricities of Earth’s orbit were like back in the LIA. Wouldn’t we all be singing a different tune? What point is being made with that comment?

                Peter, are you just making noise now? Is Fawlty Chimneys some kind of GeeUppy distraction to keep the skeps hitting their keyboards in vain or are you fair dinkum?

                160

              • #
                Peter Fitzroy

                So the LIA started some 300 years before the 1703 storm. In that time chimneys were built but did not fall down in greater than normal numbers. If the frequency of intense storms was high during that period then you would build stronger chimneys. So the storm was a one off event. One data point does not make a trend. As you point out only exceptional events get recorded, but that is just it they are exceptional, and therefore should be excepted from the dataset. Same goes for ice crossings.

                211

              • #

                The LIA has a number of start and pause points, but the first turning was in the early 1300s. Now, in the four hundred years people may or may not have built stronger chimneys in lucky or unlucky spots but the opinion on increased storm/surge/wind events comes from scholars like Lamb, not from a non-existent study of chimney construction and location.

                As for data points and outliers…

                The Christmas Storm of 1717 was described by Lamb as “one of the greatest historically recorded storm disasters on the coasts of the North Sea in terms of loss of life” though the winter gale of 1735 was described by contemporaries as the most violent since the Great Storm.

                Perhaps we should dismiss the storm of 1735 as an outlier because it ripped off so many tiles, and tilers would have tiled better if the storm was not an outlier. Or all the livestock which perished in 1717 proves that the Christmas Storm was an outlier because farmers would have prepared better shedding on higher ground?

                Though far from neat in outline, the LIA is real and the Modern Warming is real. The need to minimise the first while magnifying the second is blatant, political and not a little absurd.

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              • #
                el gordo

                ‘As you point out only exceptional events get recorded …’

                In Europe it was the cool wet summers and freezing winters which caused the most havoc, agricultural prices give us a glimpse of starving people.

                There were still good years and prices fell, but before too long there would be another block of three or four years of bad weather, which stunted population growth. On the available evidence it appears plague killed more people than starvation throughout the LIA.

                50

              • #
                AndyG55

                “As you point out only exceptional events get recorded”

                As opposed to now, when even a warm day, a slight downpour or mild breeze is YELLED from the rooftops as being because of this mythical “climate change”

                113

              • #
                AndyG55

                “normal fluctuations of the sun”

                You mean like these?

                Seems that you are total and wilful DENIAL of the normal fluctuations of the Sun.

                73

              • #
                AndyG55

                In TOTAL DENIAL of the energy and heating power of the SUN.

                yet totally gullible to non-existent CO2 warming

                Only one word for that..

                BRAIN-HOSED..

                (Snippedd)

                (STOP posting mean personal attacks on him!) MOD

                53

            • #
              el gordo

              ‘The scientists also found that the climates in the tropical rain belt and the mid-latitudes are interconnected through the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO). This phenomenon dictates the weather in western and central Europe, and is the result of fluctuations in the difference of atmospheric pressure at sea level between the Icelandic low and the Azores high over the North Atlantic.

              ‘However, the NAO index is negative when both the Icelandic low and Azores high are only weak. The west winds die down and shift sideways. This creates damper weather conditions in the Mediterranean region. Central Europe, on the other hand, is more prone to cold air masses sweeping in from the northeast, which can cause icy winters and dry springs.

              ETH Zurich

              50

        • #
          AndyG55

          “storms more severe than what exactly? More snow than when?”

          Precisely , NONE of it is happening

          Just normal weather variability.

          Absolutely ZERO evidence of any warming by ENHANCED atmospheric CO2.

          104

      • #
        Kinky Keith

        We’re talking “FitzFacts” here.

        Like facts that are only real for the length of the sentence.

        KK

        182

    • #
      Kinky Keith

      I agree.
      Variable rainfall over the full year from 1 Jan to 31 Dec is greater in those months shown to have had previous instances of variability.
      Because rainfall can be shown to be variable on so many timescales, it can be instructive to nominate a timescale that fits the investigation.
      With farming, for instance the long term variability from year to year is important. With the analysis of global warming the timescale isn’t critical because basically you can make the data say anything you want. It is this last point, fluidity of interpretation, that makes Klimate Change such a useful political tool, especially when trying to raise funds from politicians.

      KK

      80

    • #
      Bobl

      However you ignore the energy balance, every kg of water evaporated extracts 2.6 MJ of heat and since global warming supplies just 0.6 J/s per square metre, evaporation on the scale you claim would absorb all the global warming by just a 0.8% increase in evaporation. If the evaporation was that much more (0.8%) there would be no global warming left (to cause the evaporation).

      Work it out yourself if you like.

      70

  • #
    Drapetomania

    The scientists who keep promoting the CAGW scam. However, we the people are responsible for voting in political parties who keep on promoting the fake emissions issue.

    Since both major parties..are playing to the same sort of tune..we have no choice.
    And..in a previous post here..it was pointed out how members of the senate went against the desires of the people that elected them..and help block any form of restraint against $CAGW$.
    Basically..we are doomed..

    170

    • #
      Hanrahan

      Basically..we are doomed..

      “We’ll all be rooned” said Hanrahan
      “before the year is out”.

      50

      • #
        OriginalSteve

        The mug punters in Oz are largely ignorant of science, this includes politicians.

        As such, when the tech outstrips their mental capacity, its like rabbits in the headlights….

        Now imagine what its going to be like as AI starts to replace many jobs in the low and semi skilled space….reckon things are bad now?

        Add social upheaval and scared public to the mix….and anyone offering money will make friends….

        In about 10 years in the USA, most truck drivers will be unemployed. AI will replace long haul drivers.

        20

  • #
    Mark M

    “I used to be with it, until they changed what it was.” Grandpa Simpson youtube.

    60

  • #
    TdeF

    “If only the Germans had built more windmills they could have stopped this.”

    They tried. Most of the world’s 350,000 giant windmills are German built or built by German partnerships or German controlled companies, even the Chinese ones. The Germans are huge in power stations, so feet in all camps. Overall Global Warming has been a great cash cow for the Germans. The French do desalination plants. We owe them many tens of billions for desalination plants which may or may not work when switched on. Climate Change has been fabulous for the EU. Plus the carbon credits they administer. All to save the planet? Who really believes that?

    240

    • #
      theRealUniverse

      Its getting obvious who the scamsters and the reapers are.

      80

    • #
      Bodge it an scarpa

      Would it be reasonable to assume that the wind turbine manufacturing industry in Germany has grown too big to be allowed to fail? Much like the Climate Change iIndustry !

      80

  • #
    Rah

    If your going off-piste in the kind of conditions they have in much of the Alps now you better know what your doing and where your going. And have several in your party. Transponder/receivers or at least avalanche cords and shovels are a must

    100

    • #
      theRealUniverse

      Having mountaineered in the past avalanche awareness is one of your priorities while alpine traveling in any glaciated or neve area.

      80

    • #
      Bodge it an scarpa

      I went off pissed numerous times in my younger wilder years. Thankfully I gave away the demon booze almost 30 years ago 🙂

      70

      • #
        Rah

        I never have given up the booze but gave up on bars/pubs decades ago. Had a couple of Jack Danial’s with a splash of coke last weekend. Since I drive for a living I live by the same rule that airline pilots do. Twelve hours bottle to throttle.

        70

      • #
        Another Ian

        friend with a way with words was known to mention that

        “It seemed a good idea at the time”

        Usually either preceded or followed closely by

        “Full of piss and bad manners”

        20

  • #
    AndyG55

    “which may or may not work when switched on. “

    Warragamba Dam hovering in the 60-62% region.

    IIRC it dropped below 60% a couple of weeks ago, which would have trigger the desal start-up.

    My contact is currently on hols, so I can’t confirm.

    64

    • #
      AndyG55

      That was meant to be a reply to TdeF at post #17.

      33

    • #
      TdeF

      Wouldn’t it have been a lot cheaper to build more dams? Rain is free too.

      142

      • #
        AndyG55

        Undoubtedly it would have been best to build Welcome Reef Dam

        We would have a great supply for Sydney, as well as a good source of hydro power under the right rainfall conditions.

        Same with building the Mitchell River Dam in Victoria. (not sure about its hydro potential)

        63

      • #
        Serp

        A genuine renewable, rain.

        60

      • #
        Greebo

        Don’t start. All that lovely clean, fresh water flowing down the Mitchell into the sea, so we can pay the French IIRC $25 Billion to turn it back into not so lovely de-sal water. When Dan called for the WWE* to be turned on, it didn’t work, which is probably a good thing. Without Hazelwood online half the lights in Melbourne would have gone out if it had.

        Perhaps we should introduce some beavers.

        *Wonthaggi White Elephant.

        01

  • #

    When truth to Nature is not yr aim,
    everything’s distorted. Fact becomes
    fiction, energy is drained. Not making
    but breaking is the game.

    80

  • #
    David Maddison

    Why is Their ABC so concerned about sheep with snow on their backs? Cold environments is what sheep evolved to live in.

    90

    • #
      Another Ian

      David

      Hot too if you look at where they came from in Spain.

      60

    • #
      PeterS

      That’s because the retarded left keep getting things back to front, upside down. They make useful foot soldiers who are expendable for the globalists because there’s almost an endless supply of the retarded left given many people are gullible enough to be conned into believing almost anything the globalists want them to believe. For example, if the globalists wanted to convince the world that the earth is flat for whatever reason (I can’t think of one) they probably could very quickly with the modern ways and means of today.

      61

  • #
    pat

    update: 26 “weather-related deaths” since Sunday, and that is probably a conservative figure, as some people are still missing, etc.

    14 Jan: Weather Channel: Europe Snow: Avalanche Hits Swiss Hotel; Death Toll Rises to 26
    ▪ At least 26 deaths have been linked to the winter storms in Europe
    The latest fatalities include three German skiers who were killed Saturday when an avalanche buried them in in Vorarlberg, Austria’s westernmost province, the Associated Press reports. A fourth person in the group was still missing on Sunday…
    31-PIC GALLERY AT BOTTOM – SOME NEW
    https://weather.com/en-IN/news/news/2019-01-13-europe-snow-in

    14 Jan: Deutsche Welle: Snow chaos hits southern Germany, Austria
    Communities have been cut off, travel disrupted and more avalanches set off as a fresh wave of wintry weather hit southern Germany and Austria. The weight of the snow is a major danger.
    PIC GALLERY:
    #1: ‘Snow chaos’
    For days, the German state of Bavaria has been inundated by massive amounts of snow. Munich police urged drivers to deal with the snow covering their vehicles or face potential fines after tweeting a picture of a car (not this one!) shrouded in ice at a stoplight. German media has dubbed the extreme weather phenomenon “Schneechaos” — or snow chaos.

    #3: Stuck
    For some, the snow kept them from reaching home. Hundreds of drivers had to sleep in their vehicles overnight after being trapped on the highway between Munich and Salzburg. In an editorial, the conservative newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) said climate change may be a contributing factor to the “chaotic amounts of snow” and shows how quickly areas can be changed by its effects

    #7: More warnings
    But Bavaria wasn’t the only place in Germany to be affected by the snowfall. North of Bavaria in the German state of Thuringia, park authorities warned people against entering forests, saying enormous snow loads threatened to bring down numerous trees. Several roads were also closed by deep snow and fallen trees

    #9: Elsewhere in Europe
    While Germany and Austria have received a lot of extreme weather coverage, that doesn’t mean other parts of Europe weren’t inundated by snowfall. As far south as Greece, refugee children took it as an opportunity to enjoy the outdoors with a snowball or two. Switzerland, Slovenia, Italy and Turkey also received their share.

    Some areas remain cut off: 17,000 people were reported to be stranded in the Salzburg region alone.
    While the snow may ease either overnight Monday or early Tuesday, more falls are expected on Thursday, with more snow falling at lower altitudes as well as in the mountains.
    The risk of flooding in lower-lying regions of Germany is also increasing as rivers and streams rise over their banks…

    14:16 The German Weather Service (DWD) said up to one and a half meters of fresh snow were expected in exposed Alpine congested areas until Tuesday evening, and up to 70 centimeters in the Alpine foothills…

    11:13 Extreme weather: global warming or exaggeration? Let us know what you think in our poll.
    ***LIVE POLL: 1,750 VOTES
    Do you think climate change is to blame for the extreme weather?
    https://www.dw.com/en/snow-chaos-hits-southern-germany-austria/a-47070672

    ***as with polls on theirABC, DW readers are CAGW-inclined. wherever you place the slider on the “no” side, you get the same majority saying “CC” is to blame.

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      pat

      like DW, UltraFakeNewsCNN brings “refugees” into the picture, plus they downplay deaths by singling out “avalanche” deaths!
      naturally, “extreme” gets a work-out:

      14 Jan: CNN: Extreme winter weather brings fatal avalanches and cuts off Alpine ski resorts
      By Eliza Mackintosh; CNN’s Stephanie Halasz and Tamara Qiblawi contributed to this report
      At least 16 people have died in avalanche-related accidents in Europe since the start of the year, as severe winter weather grips parts of the continent…
      “There are locations, mainly in Austria and southern Bavaria, where we haven’t seen this level of snowfall ever before, or at least not to that extreme,” Florian Pappenberger, the director of forecasts at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, said. “It is unusual, you don’t get very often people chipping the tops of their houses free of snow.”

      In the first week of the month alone, many parts of Austria have already seen their entire January snow average reached, according to the Austrian meteorological service.
      And no signs of a let-up in the snowfall are expected until Tuesday…

      According to the WMO, the cold wave in eastern Europe will continue for at least another week, with deep snow persisting…
      Last week, Syrian refugees living in Lebanese camps bore the brunt of the unusual winter weather, coping with devastating floods and near-freezing temperatures…
      https://edition.cnn.com/2019/01/14/weather/winter-weather-europe-intl/index.html

      14 Jan: UK Sun: SNOWCATION UK weather – Arctic blast will batter Britain bringing HEAVY snow and freezing -17 temperatures as dramatic forecast map reveals
      Met Office sees frosty showers and a chilling -17C deep freeze for Britain from this Wednesday. Will your area be affected?
      By Felix Allen, Neal Baker and Dan Hall
      The latest weather forecasts show snow falling all over the UK on Wednesday and Thursday as temperatures plunge…
      https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/8194100/uk-weather-forecast-met-office-map-arctic-blast-snow-latest/

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  • #
    theRealUniverse

    More snow may possibly increase the albedo so less melt in summer = increasing snow packs that last longer, hence start the ice age. All brought on by a new GRAND SOLAR MINIMUM.
    BUT
    THEY want to run stop a warmer climate that THEY say brings disaster. Never in history has warming climate brought disaster only increase in civilizations.

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    • #
      Another Ian

      TRU

      “Never in history has warming climate brought disaster only increase in civilizations.”

      When you look at what is being palmed off as civilization these days one could claim confirmation of global cooling

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    • #
      Bodge it an scarpa

      I was beginning to feel encouraged by your post to relocate to the Northern Hemisphere, as my Libido abandoned me a few years ago.
      Then I read your comment a second time with my glasses on ! 🙁

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  • #

    They’re expecting 5′ or more at the Sierra ski resorts over the next 5-6 days with relatively low snow levels.

    If it is warming, all the storm clouds and widespread reflectivity from snow will cool the planet. Otherwise, it’s just the planet cooling …

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  • #
    Bodge it an scarpa

    OT. Was participating in a discussion this morning on our Yarra Valley Noticeboard Facebook page, re a planned power outage in this area for today. The discussion turned into a debate after I posted a few inconvenient truths about the Renewable Energy Industry’s contribution in creating the dogs breakfast that our electricity supply is fast becoming, when suddenly the discussion was removed altogether. I put up a protest post questioning why, but so far have received no reply from the Admins of either The Noticeboard Group, or Facebook. Some claim the discussion was ‘pulled’ for legal reasons, but I am going with the censorship angle.

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    • #
      GD

      Unbelievable!

      That’s one more reason to stay away from Facebook. Why give them any information at all? People should move their groups etc to other servers or providers. Facebook and Twitter are the enemy.

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  • #
    pat

    14 Jan: Swissinfo: One dead and highest alert level for avalanche risk in Switzerland
    The Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL) has declared large swathes of eastern Switzerland, including the popular ski resort of Davos, at maximum risk of avalanches…
    Earlier on Monday, WSL had given its highest avalanche risk rating of “level 5” external link for important winter tourism areas like Davos, Klosters, Grindelwald, Engelberg, Andermatt and Disentis…

    Already, some regions like the village of Disentis, in canton Graubünden are no longer accessible by train or road due to an avalanche. Several Rhaetian Railway (RhB) lines are interrupted in the canton due to snow.
    Other railway lines affected include the one between Chur and Arosa, or between Klosters Platz and Davos Platz. The Albula line is also interrupted between Bever and Spinas…
    https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/society/unstable-snow-_highest-alert-level-for-avalanche-risk-in-eastern-switzerland/44678200

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  • #
    pat

    14 Jan: Quartz: Quartz: In an open letter, Emmanuel Macron asks every French citizen to answer 20 big questions
    By Annabelle Timsit
    In an open letter to French people (LINK in French) published in national newspapers today, Macron announced a nationwide consultation that will run until March 15, allowing people to air their grievances online and in local mayors’ offices. To kickstart the debate, he asked fellow citizens 20 big questions—and pledged to listen to their answers…
    The questions, separated into four main categories, apply to any country struggling with economic inequality, austerity, the role of the state, climate change, and democracy…

    Climate change and the environment
    The yellow-vest movement began as a way to oppose the government’s carbon tax increase, which is why the question of how to offset the costs of green policies is central to this and similar movements around the world. In his letter, Macron asks:
    •“How do we finance the ecological transition?”
    •“How do we make concrete solutions, like replacing old boilers or old cars, accessible to all? What are the simplest and most financially sustainable solutions?”
    •“What are the solutions for moving, housing, heating, feeding that should be designed at the local rather than the national level? What concrete proposals would you make to accelerate our environmental transition?”
    •“How do we guarantee scientifically the choices we have to make in this regard? How can we share the burden of these choices with European and international partners, so that our farmers and our industrialists are not penalized compared to their foreign competitors?”…
    https://qz.com/1522564/macrons-open-letter-asks-20-questions-about-yellow-vest-demands/

    BBC still trying to co-opt the yellow vest movement for the left:

    12 Jan: BBC: Who are the UK yellow vest protesters?
    By Joseph Lee & Katharina Schoffmann
    Hundreds of people put on high-visibility jackets in imitation of French protesters as they marched in central London against government cuts.
    Organisers from The People’s Assembly Against Austerity described Saturday’s march as the arrival in the UK of the “yellow vests” movement that rocked France in November 2018.
    They even brought two campaigners from across the Channel to seal the relationship.
    But they are not the only group to claim the spirit of the yellow vests, with pro-Brexit demonstrators outside Parliament also putting on high-vis jackets.
    So why are demonstrators battling over this symbol?…

    How is the movement different from France?
    On Saturday, France put 80,000 police officers on duty to cope with thousands of gilets jaunes demonstrators across the country.
    In London, by contrast, hundreds of people attended the anti-austerity march. BBC home affairs correspondent Daniel Sandford said the pro-Brexit demonstration was smaller and attracted between 200 and 300 people.
    The French protests were a grassroots movement, born online, and initially targeted against fuel taxes…

    And while the French protesters were outside of established political organisations, the British anti-austerity march brought together several trade unions and campaign groups, and was attended by Labour shadow chancellor John McDonnell…
    https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-46851713

    lol.

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    • #
      pat

      for the record. various Yellow Vest individuals have disputed the “official” attendance figure which all MSM report unquestioningly.
      however, MSM is happy to report organisers’ inflated figures for CAGW protests.
      this week 84,000 (up from 50,000 the previous weekend) was the official figure, with ***80,000 police deployed! it’s not hard to imagine there were more protesters than the official figure claimed, given the number of police.
      besides, would there be so many concessions from Macron if the numbers weren’t higher than reported?

      13 Jan: TheLocalFrance: ‘They tell nothing but lies’: France’s ‘yellow vests’ reveal their hatred of the media
      by Evie Burrows-Taylor
      The weekend’s ‘yellow vest’ protests saw more violent attacks and abuse targeting French journalists and some even blocked newspapers from being distributed. Here Gilets Jaunes tell The Local exactly why they detest and distrust the media in France…
      Diat also said she didn’t trust the figures reported on the news, believing that the ‘yellow vest’ crowds have been much larger than the official figures reported by the media…
      https://www-thelocal-fr.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.thelocal.fr/20190113/nothing-but-lies-yellow-vests-reveal-why-they-dont-believe-the-media/amp?usqp=mq331AQECAFYAQ%3D%3D&amp_js_v=0.1#referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&a

      TWEET: MagaGary: Largest yellow Vest protest yet. This is growing and spreading. The French people will not let the globalist government win!
      VIDEO: 2min20sec
      12 Jan 2018
      https://twitter.com/magagary687/status/1084110589713174533

      TWEET: MagaGary: Getting Worse!
      Look at the clashes between government police and the Yellow Vests!
      This is not going away!
      VIDEO: Ruptly 1min46sec
      13 Jan 2018
      https://twitter.com/magagary687/status/1084513771412955137

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      • #
        Bodge it an scarpa

        Let’s hope it does not go away. The French seem to be the only people with the guts to give their
        authorities the middle finger when the situation warrants it ! We here in OZ could do worse than import a few thousand French men and women to make our governments sit up and take notice that our patience is running on empty !

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    • #
      Mark M

      Woe to any future politician who thinks about making financially strapped people pay for his failed elitist doomsday climate fantasy.

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    • #
      RickWill

      It would be hilarious for France to withdraw from Paris but that is exactly what is needed.

      Macron’s questions begin with the erred assumption that burning carbon fuels leads to Climate Change. Hopefully a good proportion of the populace will be observing the latest weather reports and make the connection that there is not much Global Warming in the past 40 years.

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    • #
      AndyG55

      You can bet the questions will be based on many suppositions.

      “•“How do we finance the ecological transition?””

      Should be, “Is there any need for ecological transition.”

      Leading questions straight from the start.

      He is trying to SNEAK his agenda passed the people.

      Getting them to accept it without them realising it.

      Surveys can ALWAYS be rigged to give the answer you want.

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  • #
    Hanrahan

    Once melted, how much water is there in 3 M of snow? I guess I’m asking what the equivalent is in rain.

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  • #
    Kinky Keith

    Well the blog has been under attack for a while now and the gathering cloud has made the last few threads unpleasant, intrusive and Clogged up with Rubbish comment.

    They can of course be ignored but there are risks with that approach.

    They like manipulating people, good fun, but as one regular commenter said: Immoral.

    KK

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    • #
      Annie

      It’s the clogging up rubbish that is just a nuisance…I skim past it. I think it’s best to ignore the time and space-wasting trolls who are trying to disrupt this excellent and popular blog.
      Ignore the blog-clog clots!

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      • #
        Serp

        Yes Annie but surely even trolls have minds which can be changed over time and by continually subjecting themselves to views they find loathsome they run the risk of abreacting and turning into tiresomely ardent advocates of that which formerly they despised as used to happen from time to time to the most vociferous interjectors at Wesley’s addresses.

        Live and let live is the go; come one, come all say I.

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    • #
      AndyG55

      “but as one regular commenter said: Immoral.

      And petty , and childish.

      And DESPERATE for attention.

      A small insignificant man trying in vain to make himself feel big.

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      • #
        Kinky Keith

        There’s more than one. Read the comments by I Mc that Jo has responded to: aggressive, disrespectful and timewasting.

        Annie, it might be true that they should be ignored, but if that’s the case there needs to be a way of protecting the blog.
        It isn’t a coincidence that in all of this unpleasantness there was a token visit from a similar blog blocker who was here a few months ago.

        It’s possible that goodwill is being abused.

        KK

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        • #
          AndyG55

          “comments by I Mc”

          Possible an Eng-Lit or journalism student?

          So much yabber.. so little content

          Designed to send you to sleep half way through.

          Aspiring Greens politician, perhaps ??????

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          • #
            OriginalSteve

            Brer tabbit and the tar baby come to mind.

            You have to not engage them, they seem to be on the planet of Denial. But if you do engage them, make them think twice afterwards about wasting your time.

            The Bible says not to argue with a fool, or you will become like them.

            The sad thing is, if they bothered to use thier energy to research rather than troll….wow.

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          • #
            Greebo

            Nothing wrong with studying English Lit. We can’t ALL be scientists, Andy.

            10

  • #
    pat

    another disgraceful anti-coal piece by theirABC. how do they justify this?

    15 Jan: ABC: Queensland coal exports hit record high, Greens claim jobs numbers don’t stack up
    By Tim Swanston and Talissa Siganto
    Queensland’s coal exports have reached a record high and yearly totals are predicted to continue growing, the Queensland Resources Council (QRC) says.
    The peak mining body said 223 million tonnes of coal was shipped from Queensland ports to 30 different countries and territories last year, trumping the previous record set in 2016 by 2 million tonnes…

    QRC chief executive Ian Macfarlane said big players and new entrants to the state’s coal industry had driven billions of dollars in investment.
    “There is a very strong demand out there which is underpinning our economic strength at the moment in Queensland,” he said…
    “We do have those extreme green activists who continually say coal is in decline but these figures clearly show that that is a lie, and the reality is that coal is continuing to grow and continuing to play an important part in our economy,” he said…

    ‘Figures don’t stack up’: Waters
    Despite the increase in exports, Greens senator Larissa Waters said the claims of more jobs for Queenslanders did not “stack up”.
    “It’s been very interesting to see the coal industry in desperate PR overdrive in the last few weeks having a bit of a tantrum about my bill to keep the thermal coal in the Galilee Basin in the ground,” she said.
    “I don’t believe the jobs claims that are being made … many of these companies are laying off workers,” she said.
    Senator Waters said the entire country needed to “catch up” and embrace renewable energy…
    “Rather than be stuck in the past and continue to subsidise these often-overseas, multinational fossil-fuel companies, rather than investing in clean, ***home-grown renewable energy that creates jobs for people in the regions,” she said.

    However, Acting Premier and Minister for Trade, Cameron Dick said all mineral exports in Queensland were smashing records.
    “We’ve just punched through $80 billion in exports for our state, that’s the highest 12-month figure ever recorded,” he said…
    Last year, economists’ had forecast Australia’s thermal coal exports were expected to plummet but Mr Macfarlane said the figures showed otherwise…
    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-01-15/queensland-record-coal-exports/10715628

    Fairfax almost as bad as ABC, but at least they include a lot more detail re number of jobs, Macfarlane saying it would help world economy to grow, etc etc:

    15 Jan: BrisbaneTimes(Fairfax): Queensland exports record amount of coal
    By Felicity Caldwell
    Queensland coal was exported to 30 countries and territories, including Argentina, Brazil, China, England, Finland, India, Japan, Poland, Turkey and Ukraine.
    Queensland Resources Council chief executive Ian Macfarlane said the record could only be achieved through the hard work of 215,000 Queenslanders who worked in or with the coal industry.
    “Countries around the world are using our metallurgical coal to make steel needed for building modern cities and our high-quality thermal coal is delivering tomorrow’s energy needs through high-efficiency, low-emission coal-fired power plants,” he said.
    “Green activists continue to claim the world is turning away from coal but the data proves it’s an essential ingredient for the world economy to grow.”

    But Greens MP Michael Berkman said the world was heading for a cliff edge, with scientists warning of the need to phase out thermal coal.
    “The coal lobby must be feeling the heat after the last month of freak bushfires, drought and the unfolding Murray-Darling River disaster showed just how dangerous their product is,” he said.
    “The coal lobby is living in dreamland if they think Australia can cut ourselves off from the global transition to clean energy.”…

    According to the International Energy Agency, Australia’s net exports of coal were forecast to increase by 20 per cent by 2040…
    According to the International Energy Agency, Australia’s net exports of coal were forecast to increase by 20 per cent by 2040.

    But Mr Berkman said Queensland should be focusing on building publicly owned, 100 per cent clean energy by 2030 to create thousands of steady jobs.
    He has introduced legislation to ban coal mining in the Galilee Basin, the site of the proposed Adani mine…
    https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/politics/queensland/queensland-exports-record-amount-of-coal-20190115-p50rfg.html

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    • #
      Bill In Oz

      Watters wants to tale Qld back to the agrarian medieval period.,.But I think even Labor in Qld knows how it’s bread is buttered – with black coal ! Dopey Watters !

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      • #

        There are just so many of these ‘Pixie Ann Wheatley’ characters in Oz politics and it seems they all gravitate to The Greens Party.

        I seriously wonder what will happen in their futures when they are proved so demonstrably wrong.

        Tony.

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        • #
          Bill In Oz

          tony it is already the case in South Australia. And the voters are so misinformed that they are passive before such complete dopiness.
          Bill

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          • #
            Bill In Oz

            Also I think it important to name such ideological zealots fo what they are : GREENISTS !

            If we all did this it would provide some light on the political situation.

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        • #
          Rah

          If it’s like we here in the States deal with, nothing will happen to them when their proven wrong. The legacy press will cover for them and that’s good enough for the low information voters.

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    • #
      Hanrahan

      Qld is deeply in debt, over $80 bill I think, and the only thing stopping that from drowning us is coal. It meets the interest bill at least.

      However, Acting Premier and Minister for Trade, Cameron Dick said all mineral exports in Queensland were smashing records.
      “We’ve just punched through $80 billion in exports for our state, that’s the highest 12-month figure ever recorded,” he said…

      But we didn’t get here by chance, it was the pro-mining Premier Joh who set us up. He built power stations and transmission lines to power the drag lines [every time one drags it’s bucket the whole grid takes a deep breath] and gave the new miners royalty holidays to get them started. SA has as much mineral wealth but Don Dunstan, the first of the “new” breed of pollie, would never do that. [To be fair Sir Thomas Playford, a liberal, doesn’t look to have done much either] They have Olympic Dam, Australia’s richest resource, but are too bloody minded to give BHP any incentive to develop it fully.

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      • #
        Graeme No.3

        Hanrahan:

        Playford left office in March, 1965 before the mining boom was heard of. Equally, SA was the least geologically explored State in the Commonwealth, so to blame hime for not foreseeing Olympic Dam is anachronistic.
        Dunstan was a ‘city boy’ and was more interested in spending (and certain récherché night clubs) so was a complete waste of time for South Australia, as was his successors Bannon, Rann and Weatherill. The tradition has been continued by the current Premier, what’s his name, who is a Liberal approved of by Pyne and Birmingham. If you are ever wondering about how SA became a mendicant State wonder no more. SEND MORE GST is their cry.

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        • #
          Hanrahan

          It is said that if you are not a socialist when young, you have no heart. If you are not a conservative when mature you have no brain.

          With that as an excuse I voted for Donny Dunstan. Being a Queenslander I have no idea what Playford did or did not do. 20/20 hindsight says I may have been wrong, but it took more’n me to change government.

          No matter, Joh [who I detested for reasons given above] was the only forward thinking Premier I have known. Qld had genuinely free hospitals long before Whitlam thought it a good idea, and we were a low tax state. Joh resisted pokies and excess tobacco tax as lomg as he could.

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          • #
            Bill In Oz

            South Australia is not quite a mendicant state. In recent decades the state governments has encouraged mining though the local greenist and [snip 18c] money hungry lobbies have held things up.

            The expansion of Roxby was all set to go ahead and approved in 2007-8.But BHP pulled the pin with the slump in demand for metals that happened with GFC…

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    • #
      Graeme No.3

      Let us see; Germany and the UK have cut subsidies for wind turbines drastically. Poland has (basically) banned them while insisting that all existing ones (including the concrete bases) be removed by 2035. Spain is charging larger solar plants for ‘disruption’ and certainly isn’t subsidising renewables.
      China is prepared to install more (unsubsidised) renewables provided that
      1. They deliver electricity cheaper than coal or gas and
      2. Their connection to the grid doesn’t cause any disruption.

      Four Canadian provinces have rejected the cost of renewables. Ontario voted the previous (Green leaning) government out of office so decisively that they cannot claim Opposition Status. And the USA (except California) are moving to less drain on the Treasury, mostly with frakked gas. Even the UK is moving towards frakking. Japan is installing more coal fired plants, as are another 58 countries with plans for over 1,000 new coal fired stations.
      Coal is the source of the cheapest (and reliable) source of electricity, and with HELE status for Australian plants would deliver more reductions in CO2 emissions than wind turbines or Solar, so Greens MP Michael Berkman is living in dreamland if he thinks Australia can cut ourselves off from the global transition to coal.

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  • #
    Bodge it an scarpa

    Geez, what happened ? Half of the previous article re South Aus and Vic’s electricity woes has been removed with no explaination that I can see. Was it due to incorrect information previously given about Vic’s 658MW reserve vs 980 MW required to meet today’s needs ?

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    • #
      Bodge it an scarpa

      All’s good now, full article has reappeared unaltered aside from the updates

      50

      • #
        Graeme No.3

        On the 7 or 9 News tonight was an appeal for South Australians to conserve electricity tomorrow. Set the air conditioner to 24℃, don’t run washing machines or dryers until after 7p.m. etc. I would be more specific if I hadn’t ignored it and switched channels.

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        • #
          AndyG55

          “don’t run washing machines or dryers until after 7p.m”

          Sorry, washing isn’t going to dry. Should not leave it sit until the next day

          Best to do it in the morning so you can hang it out.

          If I run the dryer in the evening, am I using solar or wind power ???

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        • #
          robert rosicka

          By the look of all the juggling the AEMO have to do to keep the lights on it’s just a matter of when not if that an event takes place in QLD that causes power outs to the other states that feed of it .
          Could also be from another state but going by generation versus demand things are tight .

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          • #
            Bill In Oz

            Yesterday I kept track of the situation for power in South Australia – as stated on the AEMO’s data dash board.

            It was interesting as we here in SA, were at times drawing power from the coal fired plants in Qld, at times sending our expensive renewable power back East to Victoria & NSW, and later on drawing power from the Hydro power stations in Tasmania !

            Eight or nine posts about the day posted here :
            https://www.facebook.com/groups/144702239734255/

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  • #
    Roy Hogue

    I see not much has changed since I was away.

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  • #
    WXcycles

    I love the smell of anthrophobia in the morning.

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  • #
    • #
      Matrix Transform

      sorry yr sad.
      Dont read The Guardian and you’ll feel better in no time

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    • #
      Serp

      OMG there goes our PC food supply!

      The ever reliable Grauniad, always ready with a new guilt trip to lay on its readership (among which I am blessedly not numbered).

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    • #
      philthegeek

      Ahh…shoot the messenger and ignore any message. Much surprisiment.

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      • #
        el gordo

        Phil we are aware of the message, its just that there is no link between insect lifestyle and human induced global warming. Scientists everywhere are keenly searching for grants to sustain themselves and they only have to mention climate change to get the desired outcome.

        That is also sad.

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        • #
          philthegeek

          its just that there is no link between insect lifestyle and human induced global warming.

          Interesting thing on that article:

          Since Lister’s first visits to Luquillo, other scientists had predicted that tropical insects, having evolved in a very stable climate, would be much more sensitive to climate warming. “If you go a little bit past the thermal optimum for tropical insects, their fitness just plummets,” he said.

          As the data came in, the predictions were confirmed in startling fashion. “The number of hot spells, temperatures above 29C, have increased tremendously,” he said. “It went from zero in the 1970s up to something like 44% of the days.” Factors important elsewhere in the world, such as destruction of habitat and pesticide use, could not explain the plummeting insect populations in Luquillo, which has long been a protected area.

          Yup, something that certainly needs further research. Hopefully there is nothing to it. Pretty major implications if there is. Dismissing a link between warming / insect populations out of hand is just silly adherence to the denialist groupenthunk dogma. Funny finding that here?? 🙂

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        • #
          Matrix Transform

          Im just wondering how long these disappearing insects have been evolving?
          Wondering too how they made through the Eocene let alone the Eemian.
          And looking at temperature reconstructions over 100’s of millions of years, I’m especially wondering how the got through the whole Holocene thing.

          To be honest Im really starting to question the Guardian

          But I do love Phil’s red thumb

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      • #
        Matrix Transform

        messengers?
        scientific reports … or comments section posts, about journalistic opinion about scientific reports.

        22

        • #
          AndyG55

          Gruniad is NOT a messenger.

          They are like one of those “story tellers/con-men” from ancient lore, where the story just get embellished and embellished until it has zero resemblance to the actual facts of the matter.

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    pat

    Roy Hogue – welcome back. hope you are ok.

    don’t know where this story leads. as this is all I could find.
    behind paywall:

    Solar inverters in the hot seat after failures
    The Australian-14 Jan 2019
    The governments Clean Energy Regulator will review whether changes are needed to the approval process for solar inverters after some failed to adequately…
    The Australian Energy Market Operator — which runs the nation’s electricity grid — raised on Monday the prospect of household rooftop solar…An official investigation found thousands of rooftop solar units did not comply … Energy Market Operator detailed how 15 per cent of sampled solar…

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    pat

    FakeNewsMSM is ready with the official meme:

    14 Jan: Vox: California’s largest utility just declared bankruptcy. Hello, climate change.
    PG&E faces billions of dollars in liability from wildfires exacerbated by rising temperatures and drought.
    By Umair Irfan
    PG&E, the largest utility in California, announced Monday that it will file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection at the end of the month, providing a 15-day advance notice required by law.

    What’s forcing the company into this unsavory position is upward of $30 billion in liability after record-breaking deadly wildfires in 2017 and 2018 torched big swaths of California. Investigators have attributed more than 1,500 fires to PG&E power lines and hardware between June 2014 and December 2017, according to the Wall Street Journal. And PG&E equipment is a major suspect in the Camp Fire, an October blaze that killed 85 people and destroyed almost 14,000 homes, making it the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in state history.

    By Monday morning, the investor-owned utility had lost more than half of its stock value, with its market cap falling to $4.7 billion. The company employs 20,000 workers, serving 4.3 million natural gas customers and 5.4 million electricity customers (whose service will not be interrupted for now)…

    But the fall of a major utility is also a chilling example of how the impacts of climate change can pummel US companies and taxpayers right now. And the risks are only growing.
    Climate change is forcing utilities to change how they do business…READ ALL
    https://www.vox.com/2019/1/14/18182162/pg-e-camp-fire-bankruptcy

    14 Jan: Axios: The cost of climate change for PG&E is a warning to big business
    by Courtenay Brown, Andrew Freedman
    Why it matters: Companies are being forced to deal with the consequences of a changing climate, which is leading to more frequent and destructive wildfires and other types of disasters than ever before. PG&E’s situation is a warning to other power companies and businesses around the country…
    Climate change is lengthening the wildfire season in California, and leading to larger, more severe fires. These trends are expected to continue, according to a comprehensive federal climate assessment released late in 2018…
    •“The devastating impacts of extreme weather is one of the most important issues currently facing the state of California today,” a PG&E spokesperson tells Axios…
    https://www.axios.com/pge-bankruptcy-cost-of-climate-warning-to-big-business-9b409dd2-c97a-4b85-b743-1be469240e53.html

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    pat

    Bloomberg omits almost everything:

    15 Jan: Bloomberg: A PG&E Bankruptcy May Be What California Needs for a Utility Fix
    By Jim Efstathiou Jr and Romy Varghese
    Once the San Francisco-based company has made a Chapter 11 filing — in what’s likely to be one of the largest U.S. utility bankruptcies of all time — California can jump into the case as a party and wield its power as one of the few entities that must sign off on the company’s final plan to emerge. That leaves room for Newsom to still carry heavy weight in the outcome.

    At a press conference Monday, the new Democratic governor began laying out what he wants: safety, reliability and affordability for Californians, even as PG&E takes steps to address its $30 billion in potential wildfire liabilities. In a statement earlier that day, he also keyed in on a top priority: keeping the state on track to “make progress toward our climate goals.”

    The filing, viewed by some as the worst outcome, may actually help California decide what type of utility is right for a state with an ever-increasing risk of multibillion-dollar wildfires, according to Severin Borenstein, an energy economist at the University of California, Berkeley…
    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-14/pg-e-bailout-hopes-crushed-as-california-shows-little-interest

    ***MUST-WATCH VIDEO – Calif has some of the highest electricity prices – going to get much more expensive now, etc; all investment in RE/EV charging/grid infrastructure under threat:

    ***VIDEO: 5min43sec: 15 Jan: Bloomberg: PG&E Bankruptcy Filing Isn’t a Surprise, Stanford’s Wara Says
    Michael Wara, director of Stanford University’s climate and energy policy program, discusses PG&E Corp.’s bankruptcy filing with Bloomberg’s Emily Chang on “Bloomberg Technology.”
    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2019-01-14/pg-e-bankruptcy-filing-isn-t-a-surprise-stanford-s-wara-says-video

    silly big smile from Stanford’s Wara at the end?

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    pat

    to their credit (for now), BBC doesn’t implicate CAGW; BBC doesn’t name the Camp Fire, nor does it mention any of the other fires investigators have attributed to PG&E:

    14 Jan: BBC: US wildfires push energy firm PG&E to bankruptcy protection
    PG&E, which serves 15 million Californians – almost 40% of the population of the state – warned then it could face “significant liability” beyond its insured amount if its equipment was found to have caused the fire…
    On Sunday, PG&E’s chief executive, Geisha Williams, resigned…
    Its debt has already been downgraded to junk status, a rating that indicates investors have little faith their money will be paid back…

    The 150-year-old company said: “We recognise that the devastating and unprecedented Northern California wildfires of 2017 and 2018 have had a profound impact on our customers and their communities.
    “PG&E faces extensive litigation and significant potential liabilities resulting from these wildfires.
    “It is clear that a solution is needed that enables the continued safe delivery of natural gas and electric service to our customers and supports the orderly, fair and expeditious resolution of PG&E’s potential liabilities resulting from the recent wildfires.”…
    https://www.bbc.com/news/business-46861450

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    pat

    in the MSM all over UK:

    Business giants team up to urge climate-change action
    by Tom Eden
    UK Times – 15 Jan 2019

    same group of businesses, including Sky, who come out with these calls for action on a regular basis:

    14 Jan: BelfastTelegraph: Scottish Parliament urged to do more on climate change

    Big businesses have signed a statement calling for more action to tackle emissions.
    Global organisations including Coca-Cola, Tesco and Sky have signed a statement calling for the Scottish Parliament to “renew their position as a climate leader in the Climate Change Bill”…
    It reads: “Scotland, with its proud tradition of innovation, a wealth of natural resources and a track record on climate change, has an opportunity to rise to this challenge and provide the necessary leadership.

    “We hope the Scottish Parliament seizes the chance to renew its position as a climate leader in the Climate Change Bill and look forward to working with government, businesses and people in Scotland to build a climate-safe future for all.”
    The statement comes as a survey ***by WWF Scotland suggests 53% of large Scottish businesses with at least 250 employees believe the response to climate change presents economic opportunities…

    [snip]
    https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/uk/scottish-parliament-urged-to-do-more-on-climate-change-37708816.html

    novel length:

    14 Jan: DeSmogUK: Confidential Archive Documents Reveal UK Government’s Efforts to Cement Image as ‘Climate Leader’ 25 Years Ago
    By Chloe Farand
    But, for the first time, a trove of confidential government documents (LINK) recently made public by the National Archives reveals how the Conservative government of John Major worked internally to cement the image of the UK as a global climate leader.
    The documents focus on the UK’s environmental policy in the years following the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. They reveal the Major government’s desire to be the first to announce climate action and secure the UK’s position as a leader on the issue despite internal concerns that its climate plan was “too bland” and lacked ambition.

    Speaking to DeSmog UK, Michael Howard, former leader of the Conservative Party and Secretary of State for the Environment from 1992 to 1993, said the UK deserved its leader image.
    “At the time, we did see ourselves in that way and we did speak in those terms,” he said. “If you look at the extent of what we have done over the years, we are entitled to be seen as a world leader on these issues.”…

    Launching the Sustainable Development Strategy, then Environment Secretary John Gummer, now known as Lord Deben and the chair of the Committee on Climate Change, warned in a speech that fundamental changes in lifestyle were vital to respond to the urgency of tackling climate change, adding that “new and difficult choices may have to be made”.
    Using language that still resonates today, Gummer said: “Do we have to wait until disaster overwhelm us before we make the radical changes necessary to protect our world for future generations? If we act now there is much that can be saved which will otherwise disappear forever.”
    Gummer emphasised that the “radical changes” required could still go hand in hand with economic growth.
    “Economic development is just as important a concept as environmental protection, and we must find ways of achieving both,” he said, setting out the government’s intention to “find ways of breaking the link between economic development and increasing emissions of greenhouse gases”…

    For McNamee, of Green Alliance, this reluctance from some government departments to take robust climate action is still relevant today…

    [snip]

    http://desmog.uk/2019/01/14/confidential-archive-documents-uk-government-efforts-image-climate-leader-john-major

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    pat

    that’ll fix it!

    14 Jan: UK Telegraph: Wind turbines could be painted green to ‘blend in with landscape’
    by Telegraph Reporters
    New wind turbines earmarked to be built off the Kent coast should be painted green to “blend in” with the landscape, councillors have said.
    Kent County Council members warned plans by Swedish energy firm Vattenfall to expand Thanet Wind Farm with an additional 34 turbines by 2021 threatened to harm tourism in the area.
    The current structures, thought to be around 100 white turbines standing at 115m tall, have been branded a “monstrosity”.

    Councillors claimed the coastal district is being “degraded” by the structures as they urged Vattenfall to paint any new turbines dark brown or dark green, suggesting it could be added as a condition in future planning applications.
    Cllr Sean Holden said: “It would be nice if the wind towers could be painted any colour but white to help the environment and, quite frankly, tourism.
    “I would like to see them a different colour. Painting them would mean they would not stick out so unnaturally. The quality of the landscape is really important for tourism.
    “If it’s degraded then it puts the local tourism economy at risk and they have degraded it…

    Alan Ridger, chairman of Kent County Council’s economic development committee, also agreed, adding: “I think this is an excellent suggestion. They do stand out, don’t they? They don’t need to and they would blend in better with a bit of paint.”

    Tom O’Reilly, Vattenfall’s project manager for the Thanet Extension, said the company was working to develop ideas put forward by the community but would not say whether it planned to paint new turbines a different colour…
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/01/14/wind-turbines-built-kent-coast-should-painted-green-blend-landscape/

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      AndyG55

      Army camouflage colours.

      Hire a chameleon?

      Use invisible paint..

      Pink with purple dots.

      glitter..

      So many options. 🙂

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      WXcycles

      The blades are typically white because they’re made of carbon fiber and painting carbon fiber a darker color causes them to absorb more sunlight and heats them up much more. This degrades the chemistry of the epoxy binder much faster and weakens the whole material faster. It’s likely the manufacturer and also State regulations forbid them being repainted in darker colors without approval to do so. There are likely to be civil engineering safety regulations which will be breached if the turbines are repainted a darker color.

      Many carbon fiber aircraft are painted white for the same reasons. The aircraft’s mandatory certified flight manual does not permit the owner to repaint the white aircraft a dark color. If they did the aircraft will be in breach of a certified flight manual, and under civil aviation regulations that’s a breach which renders the aircraft not airworthy, until bought back to compliance and inspected (which would be very expensive).

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    pat

    this AP piece and news corp’s accompanying vids/links etc has it all!

    15 Jan: news.com.au: True Polar Shift? Wandering magnetic pole could point to unsettled Earth core
    Earth’s protective magnetic field is acting erratically, throwing the magnetic north pole off-kilter. But the cause could be far worse.
    by Jamie Seidel, AP
    The Arctic’s melting ice may be having a far deeper impact than expected. We’re seeing large, unexpected shifts in the magnetic north pole. And this could be symptomatic of changes deep within the Earth’s core. But could it also throw the entire planet off balance?…

    As this ice retreats, ocean currents are changing course. New shipping lanes are being opened to Canada’s north. The salinity of the surrounding sea is being reduced.

    But it now appears there is more going on.
    Greenland isn’t as heavy as it was.
    This means the pressure it applied to the veins of magma pulsing deep below the Earth’s surface has reduced.
    And this swirling mass of molten iron is shifting.
    Faster.
    In new directions.
    This could account for the highly erratic shift in the position of magnetic north.
    But it also could give the whole planet an unexpected shake-up…

    If these magma blobs are big enough, they can unsettle the planet’s spin. While the Earth’s angle relative to the Sun doesn’t change, the position of the continents does.
    Essentially, centrifugal force pulls this ‘blob’ of magma closer to the equator. From the perspective of the continents, the equator appears to shift.
    The study said the last time this happened about 3.2 million years ago, it moved Greenland and parts of Europe and North America further north.
    “That may have triggered what we call the ice age,” Professor Gordon said…

    Already, Antarctic melting has raised global sea levels more than 1.4 centimetres between 1979 and 2017, a report in this week’s edition of the science journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS)…
    Even more worrying, researchers found that areas that were once considered “stable and immune to change” in East Antarctica, are shedding quite a lot of ice, too, said the study.
    The total amount of ice in the Antarctic, if it all melted, would be enough to raise sea level 57 metres…
    https://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/climate-change/true-polar-shift-wandering-magnetic-pole-could-point-to-unsettled-earth-core/news-story/282db94d50aba6ed1be25df04f383f2f

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      Graeme No.3

      pat:

      I cannot see how floating ice can disrupt the magma hundreds of kilometres below.
      As for “The total amount of ice in the Antarctic, if it all melted, would be enough to raise sea level 57 metres” and “Greenland isn’t as heavy as it was” is total nonsense. We are told that they can retrieve ice cores dating back over 800,000 years from Greenland, so such ice must have lasted through several periods of thousands of years with temperatures higher than the (exaggerated) estimates of global temperature by the end of his century.
      As for Antarctica, scientists don’t know how long the ice cap has been there; estimates range from 25 million to 38 million years. I won’t live long enough to see any difference, nor will all the gullibles who believe all these alarmist waffle.

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    Dave in the States

    All with in the bounds of natural variability. 3 meters of snow in mountains. 0.6 degrees C of warming in 150 years coming out of the LIA. Not quite getting back to similar temps of 80 years ago, after a three decades cooling. Natural Variability is the null hypothesis.

    Human activities to explain the normal misrepresented as abnormal is not the null hypothesis.

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    Here I am in frigid central Alberta, Canada. Minus 5 degrees C outside my window with no wind. Absolutely balmy for this part of the world. Snow cover is close to normal or only a little annoying. Enough to make things slick but hardly worth shoveling
    For those suffering the ravages of winter, I suggest you quit wishing for it to stay cold.
    I think I will go for an afternoon drive and perhaps warm it a bit more with my emissions. Emissions from both my vehicle exhaust and hot air emitted here.
    BTW, I thoroughly enjoy the comments here.

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    Bruce Donaldson Scott

    As Effie would say, ” How embarrassment” for the mendacious warmists.

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