400mm of water dropped from God’s Water Bomber and puts out Australian fires

 

 

Looks like the dams will still fill. Sydney’s main dam — the Waragamba was only 42% full a few days ago, now it’s 70% full, and most of the fires are out, or will be soon. 16 river systems have flooded, and 13,000 people are being evacuated. Where is that hotter-drier future when you need it?

Sydney rains: Record rainfall brings flooding but puts out mega-blaze

Sydney has been hit by its heaviest rain in 30 years, bringing widespread flooding but also putting out two massive bushfires in New South Wales. Australia’s weather agency said 391.6mm of rain had fallen in the past four days in Sydney, more than three times the average rainfall for February. About 100,000 homes are without power, and officials have warned flash floods could be life-threatening.

 

 

The Australian Bureau of Meteorology predicted average rain just five weeks ago

Jan 2nd 2020:  “February to April has roughly equal chances of being wetter or drier than average for most of Australia.

While outlooks for drier than average conditions have eased compared to those issued for late 2019, several months of above average rainfall are needed to see a recovery from current long-term rainfall deficiencies.”

 

Predictions five weeks away

Predictions for rain in Australia for Feb

 

Two days before summer started the phrase was “hot and dry”.

Summer outlook from Bureau of Meteorology suggests hot, dry times to continue”

Nov 28th 2019

Summer is looking hot for most of the country and dry for the east, according to the Bureau of Meteorology’s summer outlook.

Andrew Watkins, head of long-range forecasts at the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM), said the overall outlook for summer is generally warmer than normal conditions over much of the country, with particularly dry conditions for the east.

“The highest chances of it being drier than normal, unfortunately, are in those drought areas through central New South Wales, southern Queensland and eastern Victoria,” he said.

Imagine if we could actually predict rainfall?

 

9.9 out of 10 based on 109 ratings

167 comments to 400mm of water dropped from God’s Water Bomber and puts out Australian fires

  • #
    Environment Skeptic

    It is somewhat grotesque that there has been little if at all/any celebration and rejoicing in the media. Is this the soft underbelly of climate extremism? The inability to rejoice when the weather is good. I do not think i have ever heard a climate extremist publicly acknowledge good or fantastic weather.

    671

    • #
      OriginalSteve

      I think we should loydly ( after all, the climate worriers do…) proclaim Flimflam to be wrong yet again…..

      According to him, sydneys dams would never fill….

      I had to dig into archive.org to bring back a page the ABC had sent to the memory hole…

      https://web.archive.org/web/20091016052301/https://www.abc.net.au/landline/content/2006/s1844398.htm

      100

      • #
        Destroyer D69

        I think that an interview with Flannery in which he is invited to explain his 100% score on climate warning failures should be demanded of the ABC.

        30

    • #
      Analitik

      The ABC continues to talk up the drought, saying this recent rainfall only provides “some relief” to the drought-stricken farmers

      100

      • #
        Bulldust

        The ABC has also suddenly discovered there were previous bad bush fire years:

        https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-02-10/fires-bushfires-in-australia-history-lessons-for-future/11937652

        Looking back over history, they find the blame for bas wild fires lies fairly and squarely with one group. No prizes for guessing who… spoiler ahead:

        “The carefully managed fire practices used by Indigenous Australians were drastically altered with the arrival of Europeans in 1788 — with disastrous consequences.”

        Bad, bad white people … meddling with those noble indigenous carefully managed fire practices. I trust all you Europeans feel suitably ashamed.

        172

        • #
          Francis

          I saw this also.

          It ends quoting a Professor Pyne:

          “The fire stick is a point of great continuity in Australian history, and I hope Australians can find a way to bring the various fire sticks in their various reincarnations together and find an appropriate way to exercise stewardship over a very fire-prone land,” he says.

          “You’re not going to do it with air tankers and engines, you’re going to have to do it with fire.”

          For background, I am a wayward academic now living modestly on a chunk of land. Autistic they say. My PhD was mathematics, and my degree / honours in physics. As such, like the geologists, I was early into the sceptical boat on CO2.

          Long term lurker at CA and CE. Now I find Jo’s blog my most visited, especially as she has been active on the fires and also coronavirus.

          Have always struggled with some of the tone and vitriol here, but now accept ‘here’ is what it is.

          I want to gently admonish Bulldust’s comment above.

          First, in academic papers (and otherwise) it is often necessary to acknowledge current dogmas. High quality work can be prefaced by or couched within necessary gumph, and the astute reader sees this plainly. Otherwise you end up where I am, or worse. We all know how the ABC is (sadly), so the authors who put these better pieces together deserve respect.

          Second, the connection to Indigenous fire practices is indisputable. It’s burning off the fuel before it becomes a problem, and otherwise sculpting the landscape, as we have manifestly been failing to do. As Jo has written about. This needs to be fixed; the bad old days of ‘environmental’ aversion to burning (and its bureaucratic implementation) need to be put to rest. Similarly with impediments to reasonable clearing of fire breaks and cutting down tress. Why not make the Indigenous connection? Looking back at Royal Commissions past has been illuminating, so let’s look further at what the Indigenous practices were, without getting caught up in the snark on all sides.

          50

          • #

            Welcome Francis. We are cleaning up the tone of threads. I’ve had enough of flame wars too.

            So if you feel someone is sparking battles or baiting with insults please email to let support AT this domain know. Thanks. – Jo

            40

            • #
              Francis

              Thank you Jo and Keith

              Responding to Keiths rejoinder, you raise a difficult subject. I didn’t mean to “advocate” surviving by seeking to work from inside the tent, but I do appreciate and understand that many do.

              I too am dismayed at the establishment position and much of what goes on in our universities and the ABC.

              As Montaigne said long ago:
              “There is in truth no greater silliness, none more enduring, than to be provoked and enraged by the silliness of this world”

              00

          • #
            Kalm Keith

            Hi Francis,

            a good comment on balance, but if I may admonish you gently:

            You are accepting of the idea that it is necessary to work within the current paradigm.

            If I read your comment correctly then you have suffered at the hands of the current system and advocate ways of surviving within this setup.

            Congratulations on coming here and pushing back.

            Many of us here, I suspect, are dismayed that Australia’s peak education and research establishments continue to bow to the paradigm of Man Made Global Warming and associated CO2 Dogma.

            There is something seriously wrong with a society that allows the continuation of the Man Made Global Warming myth in the apex of its scientific and political operation and this is something that needs to be changed: Urgently.

            The decimation of Australian industry over the last few decades has sent our nation off course and we need urgently need a national change of direction.

            Where I live heavy industry has been “offshored” and what little remains is just hanging on precariously in the hope of a return of common sense.

            Even local offices and shops are closing as a result of high electricity costs, it’s that bad!

            Our local business districts are now full of empty shop fronts, many looking for new tenants who will not come. I can only imagine the human pain at seeing your business dreams crushed. What’s going on?
            I hear stories of massive electricity costs ??

            As to the “Vitriol”, that’s another issue associated with the intrusion here of the same forces that enable the current debasement of our governments and education system.

            Misinformation is the modern mode of attack and diversion of focus from a better path.

            KK

            30

            • #
              Betty Luks

              “400mm of water dropped from God’s Water Bomber …”

              Jo,

              Thank you for the headline – so true AND IT WAS FREE!

              Excuse me ‘blowing the trumpet’ of my son but I believe what he and Alan Moran have to say on the

              “Murray Darling Basin Plan & Power Generation”

              along with

              “Australia’s National & Private Debt”

              so relevant to this discussion I couldn’t resist sending it to you.

              I would ask Kalm Keith to use his discipline of Maths to check out what is said by these two men on Australia’s Debt Time Bomb and the Destruction of our Nation.

              TheCross-Roads.org 11/366

              Watch: https://www.brighteon.com/b35daf34-0cd6-4835-9202-bfe554da797f

              20

              • #
                Kalm Keith

                Hi Betty, I watched a quarter of it and didn’t get to the bit about the debt time bomb.

                The behaviour of government in relation to water access for farmers is an obvious point, the word that readily springs to mind is Disgusting!

                How many farmers originally paid a premium in the existing market to gain access to water supply?

                The fact that government has decided to create a new water “market” and ignore the previous system is Disgusting.

                What is truly disgusting is that the government has onsold the water rights to a new “owner” who now rations and charges a premium for the water.

                Obviously there’s a connection between the new water managers and the government.

                Did I say that I was Disgusted?

                KK

                20

    • #
      Dave

      Any weather is a “sign”.

      10

  • #
    a happy little debunker

    They shamelessly pinned their climate alarmism to a drought (developed out of a positive IOD) that began in Queensland which the BOM neither trended as a climate change consequence or predicted as a weather event.

    Now they will shamelessly pin their climate alarmism to flooding rains that are equally unsupported.

    The only constants are their climate alarmism and their lack of shame.

    590

    • #
      GlenM

      We are so urbanised and out of touch. The agitators who call for a climate emergency for nefarious reasons or are plain brain dead have no measure.

      300

      • #
        GlenM

        When this conversation comes up they declare that “the science is in”, or “listen to the science” – not knowing themselves what the bloody hell they’re talking about.When utterly defeated by reason and fact they cower behind the precautionary principal.

        330

        • #
          Terry

          “When utterly defeated by reason and fact they cower behind the precautionary principal.”

          …as if there were no downside to the “precautionary principle”.

          What do they presume to be the result of denying cheap and reliable energy to the world’s poorest people, due to the “precautionary principle”, if not limiting the poor’s ability to extract themselves from abject poverty?

          What kind of terrible person indulges their medieval superstitions at the expense of the wellbeing of so many, with little or no cost to themselves and without even the slightest self-awareness?

          Ignorant, stupid, nefarious or a combination of the three. I have very limited patience remaining for any of it. These are terrible people and we should not be accepting it.

          A good place to start would be ungluing “protesters” from pedestrian crossings, unblocking the entrances to private property (like mines) and removing those protesters, in chains of our choosing, to a location more convenient and less obtrusive to the society they sponge off (build more institutions if we have to).

          Then we can move on from listening to these noisy fringe-dwellers and demand that the cowards occupying our parliaments start acting in compliance with the will of the people (you know, to try something different for a change). How many “Climate Change™” elections do we need to have before these self-important morons “get it”?

          190

          • #
            Scott

            I agree Terry and wrote the below in response to a lukewarmer suggesting we should just do something.

            xyz,
            the problem with your “solution” is you are assuming there is no negative impact from believing in the seriously bad climate models and lets just believe they are true…..

            This is just another spin on the precautionary principle from one biased view only.

            even if the climate keeps doing what it normally has been then lets look at the consequences of the current policies due to this belief.

            People are dying as a result of the policies now. We have just seen examples here with the fuel loads for bushfires here in Aus. and like Germany we have record numbers of people unable to pay their electricity bills having to choose between heating and cooling & eating. Germany is having the same problems with winter time deaths increasing.

            So your toe the line will just make this worse killing more innocents, placing more money in pockets that don’t deserved it , making the poor poorer, business and home energy unreliable. Money that could have been spent on say building a water pipeline from our northern territory (tropical wet season) down our east coast drought proofing the country, or research into viable baseload power sources.

            Now take the next step. it gets colder and all the countries have turned to unreliable wind and solar and no planning for cold events so millions more stave and bankruptcies go through the roof and of course those unreliable energy sources perform so much better in the cold.

            To me the downside of going ahead is far greater than any upside in giving in and going along with this scam.

            So fight this scam and demand proof in reproducible data and facts before believing anything to do with this absolute f.lth of a cult.

            120

            • #
              John

              Interesting. I am a “lukewarmer” because I disagree that we automatically must do something! I am very wary of do gooders who insist we must do this and that, and these climate zealots seem like the ultimate do gooders.

              00

          • #
            Sapel Mirrup

            Fair comment, Terry, but “the people”, as in “the will of the people” aka “the silent majority” need to stop being silent. SPEAK UP cowards! Loudly. Publicly. To anyone you can. Stop behaving like frightened little rabbits. Politicians monitor the “crowd mood” and listen to the loudest voices. So make it known henceforth that the left are the true minority. Stop relying on a few brave souls to do your work for you!

            30

          • #
            GlenM

            thanks. principle not principal.

            00

          • #
            Wayne Job

            These protesters interfering with businesses mines etc and clogging bits of inner city by gluing themselves to the road should all be treated in the same manner.
            No ifs or buts sentences to two years hard labour, Clearing the forest floors of debris, no chain saws old fashioned crosscut saws and axes.

            Manually dragged into piles and burned. It would do two things clear up the forests and show them what muscles are for, The side effects would be they would be better off for the exercise,and after the two years their brains would be fixed.

            30

  • #

    We used to be able to measure rainfall. Even a tipsy postmaster could get it right most of the time. A lighthouse keeper might fall asleep but he could usually scramble up an accurate reading. Looks like those days are gone. (Alexa and Siri will be able to give wrong readings much quicker once 5G comes on stream. Will that help?)

    As for predictions, those BoM maps are like the Shroud of Turin. You have to turn them to photographic negatives. (Sheesh, does the Bureau have to do everything for you?)

    161

  • #
    AndyG55

    And yet they say they can predict warming some 20-50 years out.

    Probably with the same degree of accuracy. 😉

    360

  • #
    AndyG55

    ” “February to April has roughly equal chances of being wetter or drier….”

    You get the same answer from tossing a coin. !

    330

    • #
      Dennis

      How about an ant farm in a glass tube?

      80

    • #
      R.B.

      Is it wrong, though? Did they say that there was no chance that Noah would make a comeback?

      No!

      The only thing wrong is that they get paid for it. What a job. You can play Twister at the same time.

      170

      • #
        Terry

        I predict there is a greater than 50% chance of the sun “rising” tomorrow.

        Now, where are my taxpayer-funded sinecure and fully-indexed pension? I think I’ve earned it.

        Disclaimer: if I am wrong and the sun doesn’t rise tomorrow, you can keep the pension bit. I know, how honourable of me.

        70

    • #
      GlenM

      The point being AndyG55 that they get the medium term wrong on MOST occasions. Being from the land we invest a lot of time on modelling and real time indicators. Stable weather is easy to get right but when there is a sudden change the Bureau are reactive. To be fair they saw these events over the last month coming- as it was obvious to all that has a weather site or two on their PC. It’s their accuracy over a 3 month period that is a problem. The British meteorological agency has the same issues.

      111

      • #
        Rosco

        “To be fair they saw these events over the last month coming-”

        How hard was it to see that India was having a huge monsoonal event – “From June to September 2019, India received the highest amount of monsoonal rain in the past 25 years.” – and then thinking oh wait perhaps this will happen here after all ?

        And look how stupid NASA was in reporting this – “Unusual Monsoon Season Causes Flooding in India”

        https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/145703/unusual-monsoon-season-causes-flooding-in-india

        If the Indian nation is used to anything at all it is hot dry weather followed by a regular deluge but to report it as something out of the ordinary requires a special kind of cognitive dissonance.

        Seriously – alarmists and their fabricators are stupid beyond belief !

        170

    • #
      toorightmate

      AndyG55,
      That’s what you get these days when you have a PhD in statistics – two bob each way.

      10

  • #
    Dennis

    There was no weather before 1910, not that BoM can accept, so 122 years of colonisation brushed aside because of the technology available.

    But it’s acceptable to place modern technology in and near heat sinks and to read temperatures to suit the warming trend objective.

    The elected representatives of we the people are accepting payment from taxpayers for not looking after our best interests in governance and permitting deception to continue despite being advised about it.

    No wonder the people have lost faith in politicians.

    330

    • #
      toorightmate

      Dennis,
      Einstein and his cohorts were just too bloody dumb to read thermometers properly – and no further correspondence will be entered into.

      00

  • #

    Extremes come from wavy jet stream tracks and when they are wavier the Earth is cloudier, which increases solar energy reflected to space, reduces energy into the oceans and eventually results in global cooling.

    Meanwhile, polar sea ice is back within the normal range:

    https://sunshinehours.net/2020/02/10/sea-ice-extent-global-antarctic-and-arctic-day-40-2020/

    120

  • #
    Drapetomania

    Dennis
    February 11, 2020 at 5:30 am · Reply
    There was no weather before 1910

    There was no weather before the 1990`s.

    “…A relative newcomer is the resistance temperature detector (RTD) or temperature probe, which has been used at some Bureau stations since the 1990s….”

    source

    But it gets worse.

    “…Climatic data are usually expressed in terms of an individual calendar month or season and are determined over a period (usually about 30 years) long enough to ensure that representative values for the month or season are obtained….”

    source

    According to their own web site they are talking about a thin time period difference between weather and “climate”.They believe they can only trust the 30 years of temp probes…30 years..weep..

    140

    • #
      Dennis

      What a disgraceful situation, and by taxpayer funded public servants with apparently no questioning by our elected representatives in government.

      130

      • #
        hatband

        If they do question it, the entire Media, not just the ABC, will come down on them like a ton of bricks, and that’s the end of their career.

        Sometimes it’s easier just to go along to get along.

        30

    • #
      John F. Hultquist

      The “30 year” thing came from meetings in the 1930s when weather folks were trying to find a more-or-less common way of presenting data that could be compared to historical weather known by the local reader of newspapers. They chose 30 years and called the averages “Climate Normals.”

      Remember this was before modern computers so recording readings, summaries, and averages was time consuming.

      During the meeting (I think 1935 in Warsaw) the folks settled on a 30 year average with the spans beginning with a year where the last digit of the first year is ‘1’ and the last digit of the ending year is ‘0’.

      We thus have “Climate Normals” for the spans of 1961-1990, 1971-2000, 1981-2010, 1991- 2020… the last appearing in mid-2021.
      https://www.weather.gov/grr/climatenormals

      Much like the 1.5° or 2° choice of a critical rise in temperature, or the 97% consensus, or the 1 M. sq. Kms = “ice free Arctic”, the ’30’ in the notion of defining climate is a just a number.

      Climates (note the ‘s’) are better defined by vegetation boundaries, as was proposed by Wladimir Köppen about 1900.

      180

  • #
    Travis T. Jones

    Why would you listen to climate Cassandra’s who may/may not predict less than half the weather/climate, no matter the time frame?

    A coalition of 23 fire and emergency services leaders from every state and territory and 446 scientists with research expertise across the fields of climate, fire and weather science –

    – not one of them predicted or mentioned the rains/floods that always follow the bushfires in Australia …

    There is no strong, resilient Australia without deep cuts to greenhouse gas emissions

    An open letter on the scientific basis for the links between [global warming] and bushfires in Australia.

    https://australianbushfiresandclimatechange.com

    Ex-fire chiefs accuse government of unofficial gag on [doomsday global warming]

    https://www.sbs.com.au/news/ex-fire-chiefs-accuse-government-of-unofficial-gag-on-climate-change

    >> Imagine them all saying that after the bushfires, the cold changes and rain would come and we must cut emissions for that as well.

    Even the most gullible might ask how carbon (sic) does that and why would you stop the rains & floods (as if you could).

    190

  • #
    JohninCQ

    Great headline! will never see that in the BC or Guardian.

    80

  • #
    TdeF

    A friend recently repeated the absurd statement that “the weather is not the climate”. This allows the pretend meteorologists like Flannery, Gore and the rest to claim they can predict the climate when they know nothing about the weather. Considering that the climate is the sum of all the weather, missing 400mm of rain in a week shows absolutely they can predict neither.

    And as was quietly said yesterday, the bushfire season in NSW is over. Remember last month when it was very early, unprecedented and the result of climate change? Now the fires are out, as usual.

    Can we please get back to using the past to predict the future, not some cloudy crystal ball filled with CO2? If Climate Science was real science, it would be tossed in the bin.

    290

  • #
    JohninCQ

    Oops! ABC

    50

  • #
    AndyG55

    Massive amounts of CO2 emitted by the bushfires.

    Massive amounts of heat emitted by the bushfires.

    Where has all that heat gone?

    Surely the extra CO2 must have “trapped” it! 😉

    Yet summer temperatures are back to “normal”

    200

    • #
      TdeF

      And while the promoters of doom push the idea of CO2 as noxious ’emissions’, they never talk about total CO2, the only thing which matters in the argument. That is because it does not show bushfires in Australia, Brazil, California and Indonesia or even volcanoes . It’s as if the CO2 level is set by some massive forces which ignore our attempts to change CO2.

      But that cannot be true as CO2 levels are controlled entirely by humans according to every climate scientist, including our own CSIRO, BOM and ANSTO. Or to quote one of their leading scientists in response to my email “So, I am happy to tell you the truth – we are into climate change, and it is grossly man made, alas.”

      I am also appalled to hear everyone agree that nuclear power has no ’emissions’. It’s as if they have solved the massive radioactive waste problem when it is only hidden.

      110

      • #
        Terry

        I am also appalled to hear everyone agree that nuclear power has no ‘emissions’.

        “Emissions” is slang for Carbon Dioxide, principally. Nuclear produces energy from decay, not combustion and therefore no direct CO2. To that extent, “no emissions” is perfectly correct.

        You might want to attribute some CO2 to mining fuel, construction of a Nuclear plant, etc (and I am not necessarily against such a method, even though nuclear requires a relatively small amount of fuel) but why single out nuclear and not wind, solar and other “renewables” if that is the approach you want to use. “Renewables” are far less energy-dense and resource-intensive than nuclear.

        In any case, CO2 is pretty harmless and probably beneficial, so “Carbon Accounting” is most likely of very limited utility.

        “It’s as if they have solved the massive radioactive waste problem when it is only hidden.”
        We are perfectly capable of storing spent nuclear fuel quite safely and getting better at it all the time (re-using more of it and producing less of it, all with greater efficiency and even less risk).

        Being “only hidden” in much the same way as we hide refuse in a modern sewer system. No, we don’t want it flowing raw in the streets but we have technology to deal with the problem safely; which makes it one of the marvels of our modern society.

        52

        • #
          TdeF

          CO2 is output by every living organism. In fact by the extra 6Billion people on the planet since 1900. Please tell me about the ‘technology to deal with the (radioactive waste) problem safely’. I would love to know it has been solved and how. And it’s a great relief to read.

          60

      • #
        Geoff Sherrington

        No, TdeF,
        The radioactive spent fuel problem was solved by measurement and thinking in the 1950s.
        If there is a remaining problem, it is education of the ignorant who pontificate against nuclear energy while being without adequate experience or knowledge.
        There is little value in repeating false mantras.
        (I do have the required experience and knowledge to write this. There really are qualified people, many of them.)Geoff S

        81

        • #
          TdeF

          So how is it stored Geoff? Please share your knowledge and experience.

          32

          • #
            Geoff Sherrington

            TdeF,
            It is stored safely by various methods related to plans for re-processing, economics and politics. But, it is noteworthy that no serious problems have arisen to show fault with the basic 1950s science. Geoff S

            20

  • #
    Yalla-Y-Poora Kid

    Just proves once again that the BOM should stick to gathering statistics since they have a terrible record of forecasting either short term or long term.

    Even the statistics they collect should not see adjustment again.

    140

    • #
      TdeF

      They are now defending their predictions and arguing hopefully that the rains will not continue and will not break the drought. You have to wonder whose side they are on. We know who is paying their wages.

      130

    • #
      AndyG55

      “BOM should stick to gathering statistics”

      They have an absolutely horrendous reputation when it comes to that, as well !

      In many large gaps in rainfall and temperature data especially in the last 30-40 year,

      far more than in previous periods.

      For instance, I did a missing data graph for Bourke temperatures by setting “0” for data there and “1” for data missing.

      I guess that means they can “infill/fabricate” what they like. !

      70

  • #
    OriginalSteve

    https://web.archive.org/web/20091016052301/https://www.abc.net.au/landline/content/2006/s1844398.htm

    “SALLY SARA: What will it mean for Australian farmers if the predictions of climate change are correct and little is done to stop it? What will that mean for a farmer?

    “PROFESSOR TIM FLANNERY: We’re already seeing the initial impacts and they include a decline in the winter rainfall zone across southern Australia, which is clearly an impact of climate change, but also a decrease in run-off. Although we’re getting say a 20 per cent decrease in rainfall in some areas of Australia, that’s translating to a 60 per cent decrease in the run-off into the dams and rivers. That’s because the soil is warmer because of global warming and the plants are under more stress and therefore using more moisture. So even the rain that falls isn’t actually going to fill our dams and our river systems, and that’s a real worry for the people in the bush. If that trend continues then I think we’re going to have serious problems, particularly for irrigation.

    50

  • #
    Travis T. Jones

    Australia’s abc promised to be the centre of climate doomsday stupid, attracting climate zombies and loonies. It didn’t disappoint.

    “On a night dedicated to finding solutions to [global warming], Q+A eschewed politicians in favour of sustainability entrepreneurs, renewable energy experts and a business lobby group representative.”

    >> Prepare for perfect weather; Osher Gunsberg rides an electric bike and drives electric car …

    “Mr Gunsberg said having a five-month-old son gave him hope, while small decisions, like driving an electric car and having an electric bike, gave him a sense of agency.

    “Every time there is an extreme weather event it seems to trigger a whirlwind of [doomsday global warming] discussion.
    But how do scientists decide if [global warming] is involved?
    “As someone who has suffered incredible climate anxiety, I had episodes of psychosis that manifested as paranoid delusions,” Mr Gunsberg said.

    >> I’ll see your climate crazy virtue signal and raise it …

    The audience member, Alice Trumble, said her studies in environmental and climate science had shaped her opinion on becoming a mother.
    “I would really like a family but I’m way too scared to do it.”

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-02-11/q&a-climate-change-coal-power-osher-gunsberg/11951766

    >> There is not a climate crisis, but a mental health crisis in Australia.

    280

    • #
      Bill In Oz

      By deliberate policy
      I missed this dumbnut program on the un Australian Brainwashing Corporation
      Why would I waste my time with such trip & rubbish ?

      50

    • #
      PeterS

      There is not a climate crisis, but a mental health crisis in Australia

      Yes and it goes all the way to the top dog, PM Morrison. He is contemplating joining certain other countries and commit to net zero carbon emissions by 2050. Stupid is as stupid does, or stupid contemplates.

      90

    • #
      Terry

      “I’m way too scared to do it” – Alice Trumble

      I think this is best for everyone Alice.

      If humanity is to succeed, we need only the best and brightest genes progressing to our next generations. Alas, your services are not required.

      PS. “studies in environmental and climate science” Yep. Surprises no one.

      100

      • #
        Annie

        Alice Trumble’s environmental research consists of a sociological study at Unimelb on how students demonstrate their commitment to eradicating global warming in their eating patterns.

        20

      • #

        “I’m way too scared to do it” – Alice Trumble…
        probably all fer the best re the gene pool, Alice.

        10

  • #
    Just Thinkin'

    The BOM..

    The Bureau of Mysteries….

    70

  • #
    RickWill

    The dingbats who infest the BoM need to take a long, hard look at their incompetent, even harmful, predictions.

    If these dingbats had any humility and/or professionalism they would be questioning why they change the past records and why they are supportive of catastrophic global warming.

    90

    • #
      Binny Pegler

      I reckon they should be like farmers… And be forced to nominate how much of this years salary, and what percentage of their super they are willing to bet on their forecasts.

      160

    • #
      Terry

      Professionalism would be nice, competence would be better.

      Since they seem incapable of the latter, I am less concerned by any apparent lack of humility and far more concerned that they continue in their roles without any oversight or accountability from our representatives.

      60

      • #
        Bill In Oz

        The BOM staffers seem to behave in the way that
        Church clergy behave when they get things wrong
        Ignore the facts & pray it will all blow over.
        Yet another proof we are dealing with an extremist cult !

        50

  • #

    Starting approx late 1990’s much BoM rain data has deteriorated with more gaps due missing data.

    50

  • #
  • #
  • #
    • #
      neil

      11,000 years ago the Australian continental shelf was many metres above sea level, so the GBR is only about 10,000 years old. So what if it dies the coral will just grow somewhere else. Like it always has.

      30

  • #
    Graeme No.3

    Great cartoon in The Australian today by Spooner, unfortunately paywalled.

    Labelled The Green New Deal it shows someone labelled Brandt (whoever he is) up to his waist in water and holding a shepherd’s crook. 2 kangaroos, 2 emus and assorted koalas (struggling to stay afloat) with one of the kangaroos saying “OK, he’s not Noah, but he says we will have a solar powered ark as soon as the rain stops”.

    180

    • #
      GreatAuntJanet

      Yes – really enjoying Spooner and Leake combo – so great now that Kudelka has wandered off to push his ‘mainstream’ left views somewhere else.

      40

  • #
    RickWill

    I predicted future floods in December last year at the height of the bushfires:
    http://joannenova.com.au/2019/12/weekend-unthreaded-291/#comment-2247083

    With regard to floods, all I can predict with certainty is that there will be floods in Australia in the future; no idea when.

    That prediction followed a question from robert rosicka in response to my forecast that the atmospheric precipitable water would increase by 150Gt during January:

    The surface temperature of the Coral Sea in the western Pacific will increase 0.6C during the month as it is exposed to the full solar intensity. Some 3% of the stored energy will lift an additional 150Gt of water from the ocean surface into the atmosphere; cooling the surface as it transports the ADDITIONAL latent heat into the atmosphere.

    It now appears a little of what went up in January is now coming down over Australia – who woulda thought??

    60

    • #
      Bill In Oz

      What about the Indian Ocean
      Off Australia’s North West coast Rick ?
      Did you predict what would happen there as well ?

      10

      • #
        RickWill

        My prediction was simply based on Dorathea’s My Country that I learnt in primary school and have been aware of for the last 60 years.

        Now, with the aid of satellite data, I can put numbers on the excess of evaporation over precipitation or deficiency of evaporation relative to precipitation.

        In February, the excess evaporation over precipitation begins to rise rapidly due to the sea surface temperature increasing in the Southern Hemisphere. TPW will continue to rise through March and rate of increase will peak in late March or early April. After March, the solar intensity is reducing due to orbital eccentricity and the sun moves north, thereby reducing its view of the great water masses in the Southern Hemisphere. The TPW will continue to rise till June as the land in the northern hemisphere is exposed to increasing insolation. After June the TPW will begin a 6 month decline:
        https://1drv.ms/b/s!Aq1iAj8Yo7jNg1uzA-KKFEvD5BzX

        40

  • #
    Binny Pegler

    It’s hard to tell if journalists are stupid, or they just think everyone else is. But I look at headline shouting the heaviest rainfalls in 20/30 years and think ‘Sorry.. what?’ 2011 was nine years ago.
    Hell even facebook was about then.

    140

    • #
      TdeF

      The old journalists are gone. These are far cheaper teenagers. They do not remember nine years ago. The days of professional journalism are long gone. Journalists are now entertainers and you get their instant opinions and they get theirs from social media.

      210

      • #
        PeterS

        Won’t be long before they start employing children for the next lot of journalists. It would suit their agenda perfectly. Perhaps Greta could be their chief journalist. Even many on Sky News have joined the climate change alarmists.

        90

      • #
        Destroyer D69

        I am reasonably sure that the greatest part of the journalistic education syllabus at present is a requirement to include a maximum count of hyperbolic and epithetic words in any report presented.

        80

  • #

    The present useless crowd at the BOM should be pensioned off and a totally new crew equipped with actual predictive powers should be employed. Either that or they could install an ant farm for future use. Staff selection should rest on predictive powers, not propaganda abilities to promote global warming and climate alarmism. The BOM staff believe they can constant warming for some 30-50 years out. They can do that with the same ability that they have to predict tomorrow’s weather which is zero.

    70

  • #
    TdeF

    It is a riot to read the explanations of the BOM. While the future is driven entirely by tiny CO2 and the 50% CO2 increase over 120 years is entirely man made, the weather is controlled by La Nina, El Nino, the Pacific Dipole, the Indian Dipole, ocean warming or cooling and various other Arctic vortices and random major events, none of which are predictable or short term.

    They are starting to mimic the uttterly science incompetent Flannery with predictions that the rains will not come again, despite the floods. And you can be pretty sure the drought has broken in those places a meter under water and the dams have filled. And what warning did anyone have of these catastropic rains? None.

    The BOM, hindsight science at best. And desperate not to include the Federation drought or any data prior to 1909 because it would mean the world has not warmed after all, at least the part in which we Australians live, the bottom 1/3rd of the planet. So our weather, like our science and CO2 comes apparently from North of the equator, according to their BOM.

    180

  • #
    David Maddison

    But didn’t the highly overpaid “experts” tell us there wouldn’t be enough rain to fill the dams? LoL…

    100

  • #
    Bill In Oz

    Jo that map is very ‘selective’.
    I see that SA got nothing in that week to the 10th.
    Here in Mt Barker
    ( Just 130 meters from the BOM’s official weather station )
    We got 52 mm of rain on the 31 of January.
    Of course this will be r0corded as the 1st of February.
    The Bureau of Misinformation did NOT predict that rain event either.
    Though Weatherzone gave us a heads up 7 days out.
    Weatherzone showed the rain mass moving South
    From Northern Australia, from the Indian ocean
    Days before BOM even knew about it.

    50

  • #
    el gordo

    Risk analysis should take into consideration the storminess of the Little Ice Age.

    https://climatechange.environment.nsw.gov.au/Impacts-of-climate-change/East-Coast-Lows/Future-East-Coast-Lows

    30

    • #
      el gordo

      In terms of risk assessment, coastal living maybe a problem going forward.

      ‘In the context of the past millennium, ECL activity during the 20th century is close to average. The 1600-1900 period saw more decades of significantly higher and more persistent storm activity than the 20th century due to the persistent La Niña-like mean state of the Pacific Ocean coupled to the negative phase (warm north-east Indian Ocean sea surface temperatures) of the Indian Ocean Dipole.

      ‘Understanding the regional ocean-atmosphere circulation patterns conducive to high frequency storm seasons may contribute to improving ECL forecasts.’

      00

  • #
    Maptram

    The BOM can’t always get their forecasts anywhere near accurate even one day ahead or on the same day. I look at Deniliquin records. On 8 Feb the forecast maximum for 9 Feb was 25°C and it was the same on the morning of 9 Feb. The forecast maximum was exceeded by 10:30am when the observed maximum was 25.3°C. The observed maximum for the day was 30.1°C at 4:30pm. The maximum recorded in the Climate Data Online site was 30.3°C.

    20

  • #
    PeterS

    So when is BOM going to apologise for being so recklessly wrong on the forecasts and instead sticking to the catastrophic global warming hoax? Next Century perhaps? BOM, ABC and CSIRO should all be smacked on the head so hard by PM Morrison they would not know what hit them. THe problem though is he is one of them. He’s still talking about reducing our emissions or more that he planned. This nation is run by fools and idiots. Until voters wake up and vote accordingly this will not change a lot much like the real climate. I sometimes wonder if they are the real enemy, not another nation.

    120

  • #
    thingadonta

    When I was at primary school in the 1970s there was the odd rumour of Sydney one day running out of water (the Greens were active even then). Being a keen weather kid I looked it up, and found that Sydney will never run out of water, because we always eventually get these big rain events, East Coast Lows etc, which fill up the dams in a few days.

    If an 8 year old can figure these things out, humanity always has a future.

    71

  • #
    AndyG55

    And of course, they HAVE to stick to the “climate change caused the fires” farce,

    because to ADMIT to the real cause of “lock-up and neglect” National Parks and State Forests….

    …. would put the blame TOTALLY on the greenie agenda and the green oriented laziness or wilful ignorance of insufficiently maintaining winter burns and fire trails..

    90

    • #
      beowulf

      Well at least there is the class action by burnt-out farmers against the NSW government for negligence due to the long term lack of hazard reduction in national parks/flora reserves/state forests.

      I believe there are only 8 farmers involved at present, but watch this space. I’ll bet there’ll be a lot more than 8 by the time it gets to court. Then all they need is a non-activist, impartial judge.

      90

      • #
        Analitik

        They should expand the suit to also include the draconian “environmental protection” legislature that effectively prevents proper clearing and firebreaks on private property.

        60

    • #
      John PAK

      Don’t forget the EPA. They are worried about city smoke levels around their offices.

      00

  • #
    John

    What I’ve found interesting and rather disturbing is how most of them have shifted from “this lack of rain proves climate change” to “this rain proves climate change” without even breaking stride.

    140

  • #
    Brian

    Accurate weather forecasts are extremely important to those on the land with respect to planting, harvesting and making hay. While the BOM has no trouble forecasting for say Sydney they provide a forecast covering huge areas such as the Southern Tablelands with such confusing predictions as 50% chance of 0 to 20mm. hardly a forecast that fills one with confidence.

    50

  • #
    Reed Coray

    In the gambling world, people whose predictions statistically behave contrary to reality are goldmines. Bet the opposite of what they predict and you’ll get rich. I’ll check my mail for a letter from the BOM thanking me for giving them a justification of their existence.

    30

  • #
    Ross

    I am from NZ. Have all the drought affected areas received at least some rain ? ( I am asking given some are questioning the accuracy of the map BOM have produced)

    10

    • #
      BoyfromTottenham

      Good question, Ross. FYI, unlike NZ about 80% of Australia is designated an ‘arid zone’, which I think means less than 20 inches a year rainfall and unsuitable for crops. So it will not be surprising that (a) a lot of drought affected areas are close to or in the arid zone, and (b) the total precipitable water (TPW) shown here: (https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/surface/level/overlay=total_precipitable_water/orthographic=-225.30,-28.85,571/loc=127.015,-30.195) has tended to be much higher (> 30 kg/m2) in an arc from SW WA to southern SA/VIC, with a hole in the centre of Australia (< 30 kg/m2) since before the widespread rain started a couple of weeks ago.
      That being said, I understand that the BOM has decommissioned around half of its weather stations in the past couple of decades, and seems to have trouble getting reliable measurements from many of the rest, probably rendering their rainfall data unreliable. Poor us!

      40

    • #
      beowulf

      Ross, that rainfall map above is on too small a scale to give the full picture. Your question should probably be “have all drought areas received at least some USEFUL rain”, and the answer is no. Most of the coastal strip from QLD to VIC has been drenched, but inland where the deep drought is, the rain has been very patchy. Some needy areas have still only received 25mm or less. Evaporation will wipe that out in a day or two.

      Some farm dams are full, many are not. Even if the rain stimulates pasture growth, you still need stock water. We are still waiting to see the effects on the water supplies of the towns/cities in the worst areas. Many have been trucking in water for months. Individual farms have been forced to use bore water for their household baths and washing, water that you wouldn’t normally let the pigs play in. Some kids could only shower at school because all they had at home was drinking water. Mothers had to drive an hour or two into town just to wash some clothes if they could even afford to.

      Most places west of the Great Dividing Range still need soaking rain now and more follow-up rain after that to rebuild the soil moisture profile. Some farmers have taken a punt and sown a lateish sorghum crop on the strength of a couple of inches of rain. If there is enough further rain to build up subsoil moisture, a lot of farmers will be able to get a crop of wheat in around March/April.

      Maybe farmers will feel that they can stop committing suicide in such great numbers now they have seen that rain does still exist.

      30

      • #
        Ross

        Thanks beowolf and Boyfromtottenham.

        Beowolf –you are quite right, I should have included the word USEFUL because that is what I really meant.

        Fingers crossed those farmers and towns further inland get some good rain soon.

        20

  • #
    Mick

    Climate related deaths are down 99.9 per cent since 1932. The alarmists treat the climate system as if it is stable and safe and something that we humans have made volatile and dangerous. In reality, the climate is naturally volatile and dangerous. We make it livable through development and technology powered by the only form of cheap, scalable and reliable energy that can make the climate livable for 7 billion people.

    90

  • #
    bobn

    I see you unlikely people in Aus have been inflicted with the Micheal Mann Conmanvirus. The vius is apparently now a part of the AGW pandemic raging through your media.
    Here’s tony heller on the diagnosis.
    https://youtu.be/HrmW-_7DtNc

    60

  • #
    pat

    Travis T. Jones – comment #15 – posted an insane ABC write-up about last nite’s Q&A program, but here’s the whole damn thing:

    transcript not up yet:

    VIDEO: 1h4m: 10 Feb: ABC: Q&A: Climate Solutions | Live from Melbourne
    Osher Günsberg, TV and radio host
    Jennifer Westacott, Business Council of Australia CEO
    Sophia Hamblin Wang, Sustainability entrepreneur
    Matt Evans, Chef and farmer
    Martijn Wilder, Chair of Australian Renewable Energy Agency
    with a musical performance from Paul Kelly
    Discuss the Questions
    Here are the questions our panel faced this week…

    SCHOOL STRIKE PROTESTS
    Izzy Raj-Seppings (Channel 9: ‘Australia’s Greta Thunberg’ (13-year-old Izzy) has a message for Scott Morrison – 23 Dec 2019) asked: Last year, I didn’t really know much about climate change and the environment. I attended my first school strike for climate rally in September, along with 80,000 other people. At my second rally, outside Kirribilli House, I was threatened with arrest by Riot Police. Since then, my summer holidays have been a crash-course in learning about the impacts of climate exchange, how political decisions are made and how the media works. My question to the panel: Do you think it’s time we saw the school curriculum updated to give us kids more of the skills and knowledge we’ll need to help us deal with the world we are inheriting, with topics such as climate science, media literacy and political engagement?…ETC
    https://www.abc.net.au/qanda/2020-10-02/11933296

    10

  • #
    Dutronc

    The Bureau Of Mediocrity?

    30

  • #
    pat

    btw I haven’t once heard BoM questioned by MSM about their wrong forecast re no significant rain til April or May.

    AUDIO: 3m49s: 11 Feb: ABC AM: Thousands of drought-hit farmers taking up assistance to improve water efficiency
    By Gavin Coote
    Much of eastern Australia is still amidst the worst drought on record despite recent rainfall, and a lack of water has been crippling for many farmers.
    It’s also been a catalyst for thousands of new water efficiency projects, but there are calls for more government assistance for farmers wanting to invest in them.
    Featured:
    Wes Brown, Tamworth dairy farmer
    Brett Abrahams, Tamworth pump shop owner
    https://www.abc.net.au/radio/adelaide/programs/am/drought-hit-farmers-take-up-aid-to-improve-water-efficiency/11952868

    10 Feb: ABC Rural: It’s raining ‘hope and money’ for many drought-stricken farmers following multi-day deluge
    ABC Rural Country Hour reporters
    For one vegetable farmer on the Granite Belt in southern Queensland, the weekend rain may mean he could stop trucking water to his properties south of Stanthorpe…
    “We saw between 50 and 70 millimetres fall across our farms, good soaking rain on top of some wonderful rain about three weeks ago, so it’s just what the doctor ordered,” Mr Carnell said…

    NSW rain won’t break the drought
    Some properties have received over half a metre of rain in recent days…
    On the state’s south coast, the rain has extinguished some of the massive fires that had burned for months (LINK) and should speed the recovery of burnt farmland…
    And there was still a long way to go before NSW would be out of drought.
    “It’s timely rainfall, but we’re still in summer,” Mr Wallace said.
    “There’s still potentially a lot of heat to come, so we start thinking about things like evaporation and how that affects plant growth.”…

    Meanwhile in Western Australia, ex-Tropical Cyclone Damien drenched pastoralists with hundreds of millimetres of rain.
    Karratha Station, on the western side of the city, was considering destocking in 2019, but had now received the station’s average annual rainfall of about 300mm of rain in just two days.
    Station manager, Andrew Cabassi, said after having less than one-fifth of that average in 2019, it was well and truly needed…
    “It was a very severe cyclone,” he said…
    “The winds were phenomenal, they had to be over 200 kilometres per hour.”
    Further west, the Robe River near Pannawonica is said to have reached its highest level in more than a decade, and the Beasley River near Paraburdoo broke its banks for the first time since March 2008.
    https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2020-02-10/weekend-rainfall-brings-hope-and-money-for-farmers/11948822

    10

    • #

      A couple of decades back you might have been treated to farm kids dancing in puddles. Hardly masterpiece stuff, but at least there was some sort of local or domestic instinct in reportage. Mainstream journalism was no great shakes, but it existed, limped along. Who in Oz could resist that feel-good of feel-goods: The Breaking of the Drought? So up to twenty years ago a drought would be allowed to break, if only to sell that grand old yarn again, in song or poem or picture.

      No more. What good is a broken drought? A one-in-a-hundred-year flood on the other hand…

      Now it’s just globo media, journalism-free, for conditioning or distraction. Not an inch of column or a second of air time must be wasted on mere information. What isn’t distraction, conditioning or advertising is messaging. What’s the message? That you should let the worst people run things.

      Yep. That’s the over-advertisement and final message from our media. Let the very worst people run everything. Just because.

      20

      • #
        OriginalSteve

        Heres the thing…when it all collapses…and it will…those of us who actually know “stuff” will be able to put it together again.

        That and we will also likely wind up running the security services ( due to our common sense ) , and will have great delight arresting and trying those who have perpetrated such a massive impost on all concerned.

        Climate Nuremberg Trials will come……

        10

  • #
    pat

    Fran’s on to the next catastrophe – dangerous, dangerous, dangerous:

    AUDIO: 5m7s: 11 Feb: ABC Breafast: Fran Kelly: Two missing in QLD flood waters
    State Emergency Service has received more than 115 calls for help over the past 24 hours.
    ***And police say they now hold serious concerns for two people missing in flood waters in the South Burnett, north of Brisbane after their car was found abandoned.
    Guest: Brian Cox, SES director
    https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/two-missing-in-qld-flood-waters/11952986

    ***9.14am 11 Feb: MyPoliceSouthWestQld: Update: LOCATED Missing man and woman, Nanango
    A man and woman reported missing after they were last seen with a car in flood waters near Nanango last night have been located safe and well…
    Police have since made contact with a man and confirmed he was the only occupant of the vehicle and not accompanied by anyone else.
    https://mypolice.qld.gov.au/southwest/2020/02/11/update-located-missing-man-and-woman-nanango/

    20

  • #
    Graeme Bird

    The flash flood in my town was tremendously exciting. The lady downstairs got out just before all the roads closed and the water came above the bridge. So she didn’t have to stay with me (ha ha ha. No doubt a fate worse then death for some people) and she elected not to have me carry a lot her gear upstairs for dry storage. Not enough time for starters and it was raining cats and dogs. The firemen and other emergency workers, after closing the bridge, dismantled the thick steel side-rails and laid them flat. The shop-keepers almost all were sandbagged up, with plastic before the sandbags.

    What made this exceptionally suspenseful is that we are way above sea level. So the water clears very quickly. But at the same time the town is surrounded by very large steep hills. Not mountains but large hills just the same and more in keeping with the South Island of New Zealand. I decided so that the business owner associated with my building, could be able to relax, until such time that it was no longer time to relax, I gave him an overnight running commentary on the water levels. Those water levels, thanks to this dual nature I talked about earlier, were up and down all night. It would rain hard as the water level was falling and yet the water would rise in a very scary fashion even though it had stopped raining. This business owner must have done some good things when no-one else was looking, because it came down to a hair-trigger situation. Where one of his doors was underwater, and another one had these little waves lapping against the sandbags with a sense of great intimidation.

    I was surprised that almost all the shops pulled through without much damage, unlike four years ago when the same town was very badly damaged. But it was only through preparation. The bridge rails laid flat had accumulated this huge amount of river debris. Had they not been laid flat and had the town not been sand-bagged, and but for a few pauses in the rain at the right time, the whole place would now be a disaster zone, with insurance executives getting out of town or hiding under their desk.

    31

  • #
    Salome

    Just checked out what the BoM had to say on 6 Feb:

    Mostly neutral autumn outlook, but drier than average in parts
    Issued: 6 February 2020

    Rainfall for the fortnight 10 to 23 February is likely to be below average across northern WA, inland NT and northern SA, into western Queensland and western NSW. Northern Cape York Peninsula in Queensland is likely to have a wetter fortnight.
    The chances of a wetter or drier than average autumn (March to May) are roughly equal for large parts of Australia, however, parts of the northern Murray-Darling Basin have a slightly increased chance of being drier than average.
    Recent rainfall has been beneficial for some drought and fire affected areas. However, several months of above average rainfall will be needed to see a recovery from current long-term rainfall deficiencies.

    00

    • #
      Bill In Oz

      Can’t forecast right 5 days into the future !
      BOM is buggered !

      00

      • #
        David-of-Cooyal-in-Oz

        Did you ever trust their forecasts beyond 3 days? ( Except for “hot and dry” in the middle of a drought of course.)
        I’ve seen more rain evaporate within a 7 day forecast than has landed on my place for years.
        Cheers
        Dave B
        Cooyal

        00

  • #
    pat

    Fran uses “projected” to cover the fact there is no winner:

    AUDIO: 9m21s: 11 Feb: ABC Breakfast: Fran Kelly: US Election: The political rise of Pete Buttigieg, a young, openly gay, former mayor
    The Democratic Party has ***projected the millennial, gay, presidential candidate as the winner of last week’s controversial Iowa caucuses.
    ***That means he’s set to receive 14 delegates to the national presidential nominating convention, just two delegates ahead of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders.
    Guest: Elizabeth Bennion, political science professor, Indiana University
    https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/us-election:-the-political-rise-of-pete-buttigieg/11952712

    ***11 Feb: MPR News: AP explains: Why isn’t there a winner of Iowa’s Dem caucuses
    by Associated Press – 10minutes ago
    On the eve of the New Hampshire primary, how can it be there is still no winner of last week’s Iowa caucuses?
    Final results of the Democratic caucus were released late Sunday, after the Iowa Democratic Party made a series of corrections to a tally initially delayed by several days. That’s not the end of the count, however, as Sen. Bernie Sanders and former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg exercised their right Monday to ask the state party to take another look at its reporting of the results.
    Amid those delays in getting the data and after observing irregularities in the results once they did arrive, The Associated Press decided it cannot declare a winner in the first contest to decide the Democratic Party’s nominee to challenge President Trump in November.

    For the AP to decide not to declare a result a week after balloting ended is highly unusual. Here are some answers to questions about the decision, the context in which it was made and what comes next..
    https://www.mprnews.org/story/2020/02/10/why-isnt-there-a-winner-of-iowas-dem-caucuses

    20

  • #
    pat

    at 13m59s: Albanese: the only way to change climate change policy is to change the government and elect a Labor govt. that’s what it needs to change policy…the only way to get action is to remove this govt.
    Fran: Anthony Albanese, thanks for joining us.

    AUDIO: 14m30s: 11 Feb: ABC Breakfast: Fran Kelly: Anthony Albanese: ‘This is an absolute wreck of a government’
    Guest: Anthony Albanese, Labor leader
    https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/anthony-albanese:-this-is-an-absolute-wreck-of-a-government/11952718

    AUDIO: 7m23s: 11 Feb: ABC Breakfast: Fran Kelly: Taking a look into an electrified future on our roads
    Electric cars are expensive but proponents of electric vehicles predict they could cost the same as their equivalent petrol or diesel model in Australia in just a few years.
    That’s despite a relatively slow take-up here and little Government support compared to markets overseas.
    Last week the UK announced it’d ban the sale of new petrol and diesel cars by the middle of next decade.
    Reporter: Julia Holman
    https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/taking-a-look-into-an-electrified-future-on-our-roads/11952724

    21

    • #
      Bill In Oz

      Albo & the Brainwashing Corporation want to turn us all into impoverished serfs again.
      Dopey bloody dumbnuts !
      Ignorant cult believers !

      50

    • #
      PeterS

      Albanese is such am idiot, like the rest of the politicians including those in the LNP, apart form a handful. The only way humans can cause climate change is if the world lets off most of the nukes. Even then earth will eventually recover.

      20

      • #
        Bill In Oz

        That is why the small group of
        Informed & clear sighted Liberal & LNP ‘s are important
        This small group of about a dozen ‘conservative’ MP’s
        Will I hope not support ant government attempts
        To decarbonise the economy further !
        The conservative tail wagging the government
        The reverse of what the Greens did in the labor years !

        11

        • #
          hatband

          Those blokes are just window dressing to keep the show on the road a little longer.
          The Coalition has no intention of supporting Coal, even as export.
          Once that penny drops with their voters, it’s all over.

          00

    • #
      OriginalSteve

      Yeah except the power likely willonly be there during sunshine hours…and even then no gaurantee…so they will be large 4 wheeled paper weights…..or ship balast….

      00

  • #
    DavidGeo

    Kids should learn climate history at school. Current conditions are similar to February 2011 when Victoria was flooded after Cyclone Yasi visited QLD. People were complaining there was too much water in the Murray-Darling system and farm dams weren’t big enough. Time and time again.

    30

  • #
    DavidGeo

    Kids should learn climate history at school. Current conditions are similar to February 2011 when Victoria was flooded after Cyclone Yasi visited QLD. People were complaining there was too much water in the Murray-Darling system and farm dams weren’t big enough. Time and time again.

    20

  • #
    Peter Fitzroy

    Mind you – if you put extra energy into the atmosphere via heat, these are the sort of extremes you could reasonable expect. The past can no longer be considered a good predictor of the future.

    110

    • #
      el gordo

      Hmmm …. we are in a solar slump and the thermosphere is cooling. CO2 does not cause global warming, so we have to look to the past to see the future.

      https://www.researchgate.net/publication/265605340_A_historical_climate_dataset_for_Southeastern_Australia_1788-1859

      70

      • #
        Peter Fitzroy

        el gordo – nice side trip, but…. All I’m saying is that the atmosphere (world wide) has warmed – that is energy available to all sorts of processes. If as you continue to posit, the world is cooling then, and only then can you apply past experience. We are in unmeasured territory, and that worries me.

        /CO2 is not necessary for my point, I’m discussing energy increasing in a chaotic system. As far as I’m concerned all bets are off.

        12

        • #
          AndyG55

          “All I’m saying is that the atmosphere (world wide) has warmed”

          Out of the coldest period in 10,000 years.

          Still well below most of the last 10,000 years.

          Warming, if anything is in the upper latitudes, so the differential is less when it warms

          WEATHER is driven by differentials in pressure, temperature etc.

          There is NO EVIDENCE of any increase in extreme WEATHER events..

          Your comment is scientific nonsense.

          30

        • #
          AndyG55

          “We are in unmeasured territory, and that worries me”

          What an absurd comment !

          You never seem to worry about warming by atmospheric CO2 being totally unmeasured and unobserved.

          You need to grow up and stop worrying about fantasies and fairy-tales.

          Leave your boogie-man where it belongs, in the dark under your bed.

          30

        • #
          el gordo

          ‘We are in unmeasured territory, and that worries me.’

          Don’t worry, humanity has been here before and survived.

          Global warming is a thing of the past, the Medieval, Roman and Minoan warm periods were warmer than present and this recent Modern Climate Optimum is the last cab off the Holocene rank.

          10

    • #
      AndyG55

      Certainly CO2 levels cannot be considered any sort of predictor, because, as you have adequately proven, there is absolutely no warming effect from increasing atmospheric CO2.

      We ARE NOT putting more energy into the atmosphere in the form of anything. The atmosphere gets rid of all aberrant heat straight away. That has now been proven.

      So your statement is total nonsense, as always.

      20

  • #
    Tides of Mudgee

    A great article in Tuesday’s (11th) Daily Telegraph (sorry can’t send link due to paywall) by Alan Jones mainly about fires and climate change and the politics involved, but the opening paragraph should tempt:

    “One of the great freedoms of a democratic society is that people are free to make fools of themselves. Few people, in recent times, have exercised that freedom more thoroughly than Malcolm Turnbull.” ToM

    70

  • #
    pat

    Updated 11 Feb: TheNewDaily: The climate wedge deepens for Scott Morrison as rebels toy with power
    by Paul Bongiorno
    Unlike during the relentless campaigns against the “carbon tax”, there is every indication voters now see the link between fossil-fuel emissions and extreme weather due to climate change in much more stark terms…

    ***Even MPs like Queensland Liberal Andrew Laming, who has been in the sceptics camp, has sniffed the political climate change in his Brisbane seat and has urged his colleagues to be similarly aware…

    (North Sydney Liberal Trent) Zimmerman said he didn’t believe it was the business of the Commonwealth to be building or funding such power stations.
    Trade Minister Simon Birmingham, a leading South Australian moderate, agreed.
    Dave Sharma, in Malcolm Turnbull’s old seat, also backed Mr Zimmerman and said Australia should look to targets beyond 2030 to achieve net zero emissions by 2050…

    Former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, who was in Canberra for the Indonesian president’s visit on Monday, told reporters “those people who are advocating that the government should fund coal-fired power are basically making a case for higher emissions and higher energy prices – and that’s nuts”…
    https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/national/2020/02/10/paul-bongiorno-climate-wedge-scott-morrison-rebels/

    ***Laming was on Community Radio last nite, saying we are wealthy consumers. need to re-think our energy consumption, which is for 70% of our emissions. if you are connected to the grid, you drive a car, or air-conditioning your home, you are part of the problem. if you can reduce that by 26% by 2030, and convince your neighbour to, we will hit our targets in a canter, without any need for additional policies. tell everyone…
    however, he does say we need “renewable baseload alternatives”(?) before we shut down all coal fired plants prematurely:

    AUDIO: 6m38s: 5 Feb: The Wire: LNP’s DIY climate change policy
    Produced By Amanda Copp
    Featured in story: Andrew Laming, LNP member for Bowman in Queensland
    The “climate wars” have broken out in the first Coalition partyroom meeting of the year, with Liberal National MP Andrew Laming taking aim at colleagues who publicly question the science behind global warming. However as he explained to Canberra Wire corrrespondent Amanda Copp, believing in the science doesn’t necessarily mean changing public policy. He recommends emission reduction at the personal level.
    http://thewire.org.au/story/lnps-diy-climate-change-policy/

    wondered why Laming would be talking to Amanda Copp of “The Wire” which attacks the Coalition & pushes CAGW constantly.

    LinkedIn: Amanda Copp, Federal Political Reporter at Community Broadcasting Association of Australia – Oct 2019 – Present·
    Experience:
    Cross Platform Producer
    Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) Australia
    Feb 2018 – Present
    Political Producer
    Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) Australia
    Jan 2019 – Oct 2019
    Cadet
    Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) Australia
    Feb 2017 – Feb 2018
    Associate Producer, Insight
    Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) Australia
    Aug 2016 – Nov 2016
    News Reporter, The Queanbeyan Age
    Fairfax Media
    Apr 2016 – Aug 2016 ETC

    10

    • #
      pat

      5 Feb: ABC: Prime Minister Scott Morrison may face trouble from Nationals MPs over climate change policy direction
      By political reporter Jane Norman and national regional affairs reporter Lucy Barbour
      Nationals MP George Christensen took that opportunity to speak out against climate change policy and talk up the importance of coal, particularly in the context of the Government’s prospects in northern Queensland.
      The ABC understands he was slapped down by moderate Liberals who are frustrated and fed up with the endless debate. Liberal MP Trent Zimmermann said climate change was a big issue in his North Sydney electorate and the party needed to take it seriously…

      In what was described by one MP as a “surprising intervention”, Queensland Liberal ***Andrew Laming told colleagues today that the science was overwhelming, and the Government’s policy was settled. His message? Stop cherry-picking the data and move on…
      You only had to watch the ABC’s Q&A program on Monday to see that. Under questioning, Liberal senator Jim Molan was jeered by the crowd when he declared “I’m not relying on evidence” when he makes up his mind about climate change.

      NSW Liberal Craig Kelly (who some colleagues say spends more time on Sky News than in his electorate) spent the summer blaming arsonists for the bushfires, not the hotter drier climate.
      After interviews with British media, he earned a special mention on a phone hook-up with the Prime Minister who told all backbenchers there was absolutely no reason why they should be agreeing to interviews on international media outlets…

      Mr Morrison has been clear in his language, linking the bushfire crisis to climate change and talking about the need to “transition” away from fossil fuels to energy sources such as gas and renewables.
      Somehow, he has to navigate this toxic issue that has become a leadership death warrant for prime ministers over the past decade.

      ***The question is whether catastrophic bushfires and ongoing, unprecedented drought will force the Coalition to finally reach a consensus.
      https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-02-05/nationals-turmoil-threatens-to-spark-problems-for-scott-morrison/11930096

      00

      • #
        OriginalSteve

        “Overwhelming” science, yet they cant explain why we have had 20 years of no temp growth…..

        Hmmm….one question and it all unravels…..

        20

    • #
      hatband

      wondered why Laming would be talking to Amanda Copp of “The Wire” which attacks the Coalition & pushes CAGW constantly.

      Laming has some very strong Labor Areas in his Seat of Bowman, but he’s never faced a serious challenge from Labor.
      There are a few electorates around Australia like that, where the Member is lacklustre, but the opposition Party never fields a candidate who can win.

      00

  • #
    Greg Cavanagh

    I’m blaming Bobby Schuller from the Hour of Power for the torrential rain and flooding. A couple weeks ago they started with a special prayer for rain breaking droughts in Australia. It sure worked, thanks guys.
    /not seriously upset

    I think it was this one (I’m at work so have no sound).
    https://hourofpower.org/episode/a-heart-like-a-dove/

    20

  • #
    pat

    10 Feb: The Wrap: Greta Thunberg Gets TV Series From BBC Studios
    Series will follow life of teenage environmental activist
    by Margeaux Sippell
    The project was announced at the BBC Showcase trade show on Monday. No network, release date or number of episodes have yet been set.

    Here is the description for the series, which comes from the studio’s ***SCIENCE UNIT…etc

    “Climate change is probably the most important issue of our lives so it feels timely to make an authoritative series that explores the facts and science behind this complex subject,” Rob Liddell, who will produce the series, said in a statement. “To be able to do this with Greta is an extraordinary privilege, getting an inside view on what it’s like being a global icon and one of the most famous faces on the planet.”
    https://www.thewrap.com/greta-thunberg-tv-series-bbc-studios/

    and it’s not a joke!

    10 Feb: BBC Studios’ Science Unit announces series with Greta Thunberg
    BBC Studios’ award winning Science Unit announces a brand new series with Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg at Showcase 2020 event…
    Scientists across the world agree that global temperature rise needs to be limited to 1.5 degrees, to give us the best possible chance of avoiding irreversible chain reactions. Throughout the series a chorus of these experts will lay out the science that lies beneath this unambiguous statement…etc
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/bbcstudios/2020/bbc-studios-science-unit-announces-series-with-greta-thunberg

    10

  • #
    STJOHNOFGRAFTON

    Dear Joanne, with reference to “God’s Water Bomber”. Long overdue! God credited for this rain! God the Father, Son & Holy Spirit. Most of the time the ‘meeja’ and just about everyone else, lamely, with the usual invocation of ‘fingers crossed’, credit Mother Nature, aka Gaia, for natural events. They forget the blessings of their Christian heritage.

    31

    • #
      Fred Streeter

      I red thumbed you because you disclaim “Their” responsibility for earthquakes, eruptions, droughts, floods, plagues, etc., etc. that have killed millions, and will continue to do so.

      Presumably, then, All Bad Gifts Around Us are sent from Mother Nature (or Gaia). Best to address our prayers to Her.

      (BTW crossing one’s fingers was, in most Christian cultures, used to invoke the protection of “The Son”.)

      00

  • #
    Phillip Bratby

    “February to April has roughly equal chances of being wetter or drier than average for most of Australia”. Replace “Australia” with “the UK” and you could be quoting the Met Office. Both organisations are totally useless at forecasting beyond a few days.

    70

  • #
    Fair Dink

    “February to April has roughly equal chances of being wetter or drier than average for most of Australia.”

    BOM + ARC = Pseudo Science. We get what we pay for.

    20

  • #
    Aldabella

    Great comment Steve,
    I note what Flannery said regarding storing carbon in the soil…. “If you’re dealing with a forested situation, the leaf fall and then rots away again stores carbon in the soil.”
    https://www.abc.net.au/landline/content/2006/s1844398.htm
    hmmm. Australia’s answer to Global warming…Fuel

    00

  • #
    Pete B

    When it rains here, we measure it in “Flannerys”

    20

  • #
    Matthew

    I’m surprised that dams fill up in NSW, however under government decree dams are longer to fill according to the current Premier. Maybe Daniel Andrews has divine intervention?

    10