Flood Marker in Rome 1598, when CO2 levels were extreme-(extremely low). Photo by Anthony M.
After twenty years of drought predictions that turned out to be not worth a rhinestone rune-stone, the acolytes of the scare campaign were keen to find some evidence that they were still “right”. Two new papers came along showing that, golly, warming really “formally” “officially” caused floods after all, and they were just what the PR-doctor ordered. So the BBC, ABC, and the usual suspects rushed out to talk about how it was now “proven” that any flood was now officially man-made with a “robust” study and the “first scientific evidence” of a link. Richard Black even got excited that the study was based on “real world data”, which makes you wonder which studies used the fake sort?
If it’s all so definitively proven and obvious now that it’s a shame they didn’t think to join these dots, say, two years ago, so they could warn the world beforehand. It must be frustrating for them that they always seem to get the forecasts right two years too late. It’s another post hoc “prediction”.
And what are these two (TWO! shouted the believers) papers based on (AND don’t forget they’re from Nature)? The new-found certainty comes from about 50 years of records, interpreted by climate models, with those results then fed into precipitation models (just to magnify the error-margins even further). The handy thing about models is that if you try hard enough you can get nearly any result you want.
The Pall et al, 2011, abstract sums it up:
Here we present a multi-step, physically based ‘probabilistic event attribution’ framework showing that it is very likely that global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions substantially increased the risk of flood occurrence in England and Wales in autumn 2000. Using publicly volunteered distributed computing11, 12, we generate several thousand seasonal-forecast-resolution climate model simulations of autumn 2000 weather, both under realistic conditions, and under conditions as they might have been had these greenhouse gas emissions and the resulting large-scale warming never occurred. Results are fed into a precipitation-runoff model that is used to simulate severe daily river runoff events in England and Wales (proxy indicators of flood events). The precise magnitude of the anthropogenic contribution remains uncertain, but in nine out of ten cases our model results indicate that twentieth-century anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions increased the risk of floods occurring in England and Wales in autumn 2000 by more than 20%, and in two out of three cases by more than 90%.
Note that what we are not seeing here is an empirical study that found a correlation between past high CO2 era’s and more floods. That is difficult to get (and it’s absence doesn’t prove anything) but skeptics can point to those kinds of studies, for example, to show how cold periods kill more people.
We’re also not seeing one particular model which repeatedly has predicted (and in advance too) floods in England with a better-than-average ballpark accuracy — like Piers Corbyn has done with other events for over a decade.
Even the IPCC admits the climate models know not-much when it comes to predicting rainfall on a regional basis.
“The precise magnitude of the anthropogenic contribution remains uncertain” they say. I agree. It could be zero or something more, and it may or may not be related to CO2.
Seung-Ki Min et al 2011, in a similar vein says:
Here we show that human-induced increases in greenhouse gases have contributed to the observed intensification of heavy precipitation events found over approximately two-thirds of data-covered parts of Northern Hemisphere land areas. These results are based on a comparison of observed and multi-model simulated changes in extreme precipitation over the latter half of the twentieth century analysed with an optimal fingerprinting technique. Changes in extreme precipitation projected by models, and thus the impacts of future changes in extreme precipitation, may be underestimated because models seem to underestimate the observed increase in heavy precipitation with warming
Like all unskeptical scientists of the IPCC-ilk, they argue from ignorance:
“We can now say with some confidence that the increased rainfall intensity in the latter half of the twentieth century cannot be explained by our estimates of internal climate variability,” she says.
Nature allows an editorial writer to proffer an opinion that couldn’t possibly ever, in any known universe, be substantiated: “There is no doubt that humans are altering the climate….”
Nature is not too scientific, but it does make a good advertorial newsletter for the eco-industrial-activists.
So the new “flood certainty” is based on the same models that get the upper tropospheric temperature trends wrong, disagree with 28 million weather balloons, 6000 boreholes, 3,000 ARGO floats, have little predictive success, don’t hindcast the medieval warm period, the holocene, or anything else much, and don’t match the empirical evidence, except with post hoc reanalysis. These were the same models that we relied on to build desalination plants we didn’t need; to avoid building levees and dams that we did.
It brings to mind the saying that’s fast becoming a cliche: “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.” (Attributed variously to everyone from Bohr, to Einstein, Sam Goldwyn, Mark Twain, Churchill, Confucius, and also Yogi Berra).
References
Pardeep Pall, Tolu Aina, Dáithí A. Stone, Peter A. Stott Toru Nozawa Arno G. J. Hilberts, Dag Lohmann & Myles R. Allen, 2011: Anthropogenic greenhouse gas contribution to flood risk in England and Wales in autumn 2000. Nature vol 470, pp 382–385 DOI:doi:10.1038/nature09762
Seung-Ki Min et al 2011, Xuebin Zhang, Francis W. Zwiers, Gabriele C. Hegerl 2011: Human contribution to more-intense precipitation extremes, Nature, vol 470 , pp 378–381
Makes me wonder when Gillard will start throwing virgins into volcanoes – just to look like she’s taking action..
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Chris McConnelbelieves the recent Brisbane flood was man made.
Luboš Motl, physicist doesn’t give the two Nature studies a lot of credence.
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Wow,
Another Climate model – is there a “fudgeit” function in this one too to “apply artificial correction to hide the decline” in extreme weather events?
No Pressure lads, no pressure.
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Won’t Gillard have to find a volcano first. Or maybe just use a model with virtual virgins.
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There are some crater lakes near Mount Gambier that will do nicely, ought to be quite full too, after the recent rain.
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George Monbiot did a rant and rave witheses papers. Here is a fantastic comment that was given in reply :
Not saying you’re cherry-picking or anything George, but when I learned that the Oxford University Study had used a computer specifically programmed to find global warming caused for all events (the Met Office computer that couldn’t even get the dust clouds correct last year) I had a look for papers by others writing in the field, specifically for those that had done field work. Didn’t take long and found this:
Czymzik, M., Dulski, P., Plessen, B., von Grafenstein, U., Naumann, R. and Brauer, A. 2010. A 450 year record of spring-summer flood layers in annually laminated sediments from Lake Ammersee (southern Germany). Water Resources Research 46: 10.1029/2009WR008360.
Czymzik et al. (2010) write that “assumptions about an increase in extreme flood events due to an intensified hydrological cycle caused by global warming are still under discussion and must be better verified,” while noting that some historical flood records indicate that “flood frequencies were higher during colder periods (Knox, 1993; Glaser and Stangl, 2004), challenging the hypothesis of a correlation between the frequency of extreme floods and a warmer climate.” Thus, they decided to further explore the relationship between level of warmth and degree of flooding as it may have manifested itself in southern Germany over the past 450 years.
Working in Lake Ammersee in southern Germany (48°00’N, 11°07’E), which is fed primarily by the River Ammer, Czymzik et al. retrieved two sediment cores from the deepest part of the lake in June of 2007 that they analyzed via what they describe as “a novel methodological approach that combines microfacies analyses, high-resolution element scanning (µ-XRF), stable isotope data from bulk carbonate samples (δ13Ccarb, δ18Ocarb), and X-ray diffraction (XRD) analyses (Brauer et al., 2009).
Their conclusions:
“an increase in extreme flood events due to an intensified hydrological cycle caused by global warming is simply not correct. In fact, it appears to be 180 degrees out of phase with reality in a substantial majority of the studies that have been conducted to date.”
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Any sort of vague relationship using some model is enough to get into nature as long as it supports AGW. What fanatics to show humans are implicated in all things bad these people are.
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It is “reading week” here in Canada and many students are heading south to enjoy some mild tropical (warm) weather. Meanwhile at home the temperature is dropping and we are in for a severe winter storm. But wait – that doesn’t make any sense, everyone KNOWS that warmer temperatures produce severe weather and by inference cooling should result in milder weather.
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What caused the big floods in 1955 in the Hunter Valley? The prospect of coal mining in the Valley? Obviously nature was getting in first, a warning.
Helen Ridout, a HUGE supporter of the ALP if previous utterances are to be believed, has been speaking on 2GB warning all of the large increases in electricity prices with a $26 per tonne “carbon price”. It would seem more are dubious about the value of saving the world through taxation.
I have noticed an increase in the shrillness of the AGW crowd which almost matches the decrease in the need to do something coming from the politicians. Is it because they have seen the cold NH or are they listening to the predictions of a quiet sun? Either way our wonderful world will have the last say.
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You have to wonder whether the models which give them the very “desirable” results are processed through silicone(semi-conductors) or constructed/enhanced with silicone.
Either way, if hind-casting looks dubious & the forecasting could be wobbly, you would have to wonder about the current health of the models. I suspect anorexia (both a physical & mental disorder)
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“Olaf Koenders” (1),
Let’s throw gillard, flannery, garnaut etc etc into a volcano.
It may not stop the floods, BUT IT WOULD SURE MAKE US ALL FEEL GOOD!!!!
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Notice Roy Spencer has data showing ocean precipitation has varied by only a small percentage over the last approx 9 years. His take is that if there is high rainfall in one region then, for the same period, there will be less rainfall in another region. If AGW were a worldwide effect (ref average global temperature) causing more overall (worldwide) rainfall then the precipitation data does not show it. Perhaps it is a little unkind to refer to these scientists as delusional but if they do not suffer a personality disorder they certainly are good at ad lib(ing).
“Note that precipitation amounts over the global-average oceans vary by only a few percent. What this means is that when one area gets unusually large amounts of precipitation, another area must get less.” Roy Spencer
http://www.drroyspencer.com/ @ SO WHY ALL THE SNOWSTORMS?
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So This is how 2010 got to be so hot?
“Hansen’s Bogus Extrapolations.
Last month GISS extrapolated the map on the left above (white is missing data) to the map on the right. Their algorithm creates a map showing almost the entire Arctic 2-11 C above normal. Their extrapolated data significantly skews the global temperature reading upwards. Hansen claimed a record in 2010 by only 0.01 degrees, yet he is creating artificial data 1000X larger. No serious scientist would make such a claim.
Now, let’s look at what is really happening in the Arctic, using the NOAA map below. Some parts of the Arctic are above normal, and some parts are below – as much as 10C below normal.
In other words. the GISS extrapolation algorithm is severely skewed, and pushes their calculated temperature numbers upwards by a large amount.”
See the maps at
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2011/02/19/hansens-bogus-extrapolations/
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Hi Colin @ 8
Didn’t you know warming causes cold.
The good news is we can throw out our fridges and just use our ovens. This saves so much time you can have cold beer and hot pies prepared in the same kitchen appliance.
Cool hey (opps I mean warm, ah bugger they are the same anyway)
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Òn the other hand-
Much of the Globe Threatened with Drought
http://planetsave.com/2010/10/20/much-of-the-globe-threatened-with-drought/
More rain, less rain. Isn’t it all the same?
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In the discussion on the Queensland floods someone linked a paper on here , published in 2006, which said future large floods would occur when the PDO and a large La Nina coincided as it did last month. Unfortunately I forgot to save the paper (and I cannot find the comment). If the person who posted could repost it , it would be appreciated.
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this might be it; Jennifer Marohasy has an article on her blog
http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2011/01/is-it-time-to-listen-to-so-called-deniers/?cp=1
and this link was posted by one of the commenters cohenite
Stewart Franks’ paper on IPO is here:
http://www.ag.gov.au/www/emaweb/rwpattach.nsf/VAP/(99292794923AE8E7CBABC6FB71541EE1)~Climate+variability+in+the+land+of+fire+and+flooding+rain.pdf/$file/Climate+variability+in+the+land+of+fire+and+flooding+rain.pdf
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I hope that similar actions as in the USA are going to be taken by people in AU and NZ, people who prefer common sense over all else, people who can stop the madness. See
http://www.nytimes.com/cwire/2011/02/18/18climatewire-house-republicans-fire-white-house-climate-a-41808.html?pagewanted=all
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Some slightly off topic links………..
Dangerous Sea Level Rise due to Climate Change, a Myth that Science easily refutes
http://bit.ly/gOtSAt
Sea Level History Lesson Potential Sea Level Rise Is Only Fraction Of Predictions/models
http://bit.ly/9BJx4j
2010 Sea Level: Largest drop ever recorded?
http://bit.ly/er5B29
Since 2006, Satellite Data Shows 76.2mm/100yr Sea Level Rise, Despite “Warmest Evaaar!” Hysteria
Climate Scientists Clash Over Apocalyptic Sea Level Rise Prediction
http://bit.ly/d9GhVj
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Val @ 17. Thank you. That’s what I was looking for.
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How’s that suburban Brisbane real estate working out for you climate cranks?
LOL …
What’s that? Your Toowoomba SUV got washed away? What a shame.
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watched the abc’s lake ayre program last nite. not a mention of el nino or la nina. the narrator never mentioned the false predictions of flannery and co, and attempted to claim some of the recent weather was “unprecedented” without any poof. thanfully, no connection was made with AGW, but the narration was confusing with its attempts to suggest there’d never been as much water coming down previously.
nonetheless, the scenery was stunning and the locals were ecstatic to have their floods back.
meanwhile, the carbon cowboys are attracting attention again. pity the current affairs programs aren’t interested in exposing these scams:
18 Feb: Reuters: U.S. charges global warming company was a fraud
CO2 Tech Ltd, a publicly traded company that lured investors with claims about products and services to fight global warming, was full of nothing but hot air, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said on Friday.
It said the U.S. Justice Department had filed criminal fraud charges against six men, including stock promoters and traders, involved in a so-called “pump-and-dump scheme” built around shares of the company, which was purportedly based in London but had no significant assets or operations…
According to an SEC civil complaint, filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, the CO2 Tech scheme generated more than $7 million in illicit profits from sales of CO2 Tech stock, traded in the Pink Sheets, between late 2006 and April 2007.
The scheme was perpetrated through Red Sea Management Ltd, a Costa Rican asset protection and offshore investments company founded and led by Jonathan Curshen, the SEC said…
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/18/us-usa-globalwarming-fraud-idUSTRE71H7Q020110218
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[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by WeatherBalloons, Don Brett-Davies. Don Brett-Davies said: http://joannenova.com.au/2011/02/floods-are-manmade-you-say-now/ […]
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An interesting piece has popped up at The Australian on the ABC’s AGW bias:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/bias-at-the-netional-broadcaster-is-as-easy-as-abc/story-fn59niix-1226009060141
The author could have picked a lot more extremist comments than the one he did, but teh story reads well.
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just remembered i turned on abc radio national when i went to bed last nite and there was that horrendous “new dimensions” program, with the zombie presenter, who was giving a whole hour over to a paul loeb who has written a book called “soul of a citizen”, recently updated. the entire hour was pure AGW propaganda from start to finish. all scientific bodies know it’s true and only a few people funded by exxon and the koch bros say otherwise, he said.
loeb was quoting bill mckibben and the likes and making claims that bushfires in moscow, floods etc were all caused by AGW blah blah. how does abc get away with broadcasting this trash?
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Olaf Koenders @ 1:
You wonder when we will start throwing virgins into volcanoes… if the nutters from the WWF had their way, probably sooner than later, of course they would call it something like climate-considerate population management:
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/earth-could-be-unrecognisable-by-2050-20110221-1b1dl.html
There was a nutter in the Hay Street Mall this Saturday BTW blustering all kinds of garbage on a megaphone. At one point I engaged her in a brief comment or two of conversation (her and her spaced out friend) but she was possessed with a religious fervor. The flouride in the water was causing cancer, Australians are killing brown babies and so on… no doubt she had some choice comments about the climate too.
The Ranger and later the cops came to look after her. Perhaps she got a free ride and room & board courtesy of Her Majesty, but I didn’t hang around to check. She didn’t have a busker’s licence but pulled a bigger crowd than the new age musos and the pianoman. Everyone loves a village idiot I guess…
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PS> I forgot to mention… she pulled out a video camera as well, so the rants may well get onto Youtube at some stage. Kinda sad really…
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Well we are all doooooooomed in WA!
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I like the Roman flood marker – this government action was a lot cheaper and more effective than the current hoo ha.
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Surely these modelers can show us their credentials be creating a model that can forecast the 6 winning numbers from 45 in any future Saturday Lotto.
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21 Feb: Age: Tom Reilly: Don’t blame dam operator, says designer
THE hydrologist who oversaw the design and construction of the Wivenhoe dam has defended its operator from criticism that it caused the Brisbane floods last month.
Neal Ashkanasy made the comments yesterday as SEQWater, which manages the dam, began releasing 25 per cent of the water in Wivenhoe to increase its ability to absorb further heavy rainfalls…
Professor Ashkanasy, a former national president of the Hydrology and Water Resources Institution of Engineers and now a professor of psychology at Queensland University, believes criticism of the dam’s operator stems from a desire to blame uncontrollable events on human intervention and to seek “certainty over uncertainty.”…
http://www.theage.com.au/environment/water-issues/dont-blame-dam-operator-says-designer-20110220-1b13o.html
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Apologies if this is off topic.
Just received last weeks edition of the Land. Two pages dedicated to Combet’s Climate Commission made up of Tim Flannery, Will Steffan (ANU), Leslie Hughes (Macquarie Uni and lead author on AR4),Susannah Eliot, Gerry Hueston ( past president of BP Australasia) and Roger Beale ( Price Waterhouse Coopers).As far as I can see not one recognised sceptic but several dyed in the wool warmist alarmists, particularly the first two. Tim in an interview (same edition) says “he is not here to sell politics”, he wants “better communication of climate science, better informing the public on the status of international climate change negotiations and a meaningful discussion on the mechanisms needed to address climate change”.
“In professor Flannerys view , the measures agreed by both parties to date- a five percent reduction on 2000 level emissions by 2020, and the 20% renewable energy target to be achieved by the same date- are inadequate”.
“It may be that tomorrow we discover that the climate shift has gone too far to allow our farming systems to run sustainably.” “It’s a race against time”.
No mention of his 100% failure rate at predictions or of his shareholding in a geothermal company that received $90 million in government grants last year.
I’m confident that Tim and Will Steffen will give unbiased scientific briefings to the wondrous public. If they had Carter and Plimer on the committee it may be of benefit but this is simply IPCC advocacy at its worst.
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Further to Woolfe’s link, it is also in The West:
http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/breaking/8876953/global-warming-equals-less-rain/
We are all going to desicate like dried fruit in WA it seems… perhaps it is “possible” or even “likely.” Yes this is the scientific language countless billions of dollars of research buys you.
I am willing to be contracted to predict climate at this degree of certainty for a paltry couple of million (what I figure would be a suitable amount for a comfortable retirement). I offer the following as an example of my forecasting expertise:
“WA could get wetter in the future, but possibly drier, and it is almost certainly going to rain in the next ten years. At times it is likely to be warmer, but there may possibly be colder periods as well.”
Note: infinitives split for no extra charge.
Where’s my cheque?
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What we are dealing with here is nothing less than the Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds amplified by the conflict of interest that government funded spruikers like the ABC, BoM, CSIRO, IPCC, Flannery, Garnaut and the whole Green party can’t hide.
The CAGW fraud is not only a sinking ship that failed to con the public— it’s now going to take down all those aboard who refuse to abandon ship. Bbbuuuhhh Buyyyy! 😉
I’d like to make a few predictions online for posterity:
1. The average Aussie battler isn’t a bloody idiot with memory of a newt. He/she can think for him or herself and won’t be fooled by the new narrative that all weather, every big wet and big dry, is caused by “carbon”, therefore we should all willingly pony up a new tax on the very air we breathe. Next they’ll want to tax the rain in the garden!
2. The Green Party is at the zenith of its polling popularity and will now tip over and decline as more and more people begin to realize the Greens represent a whole new level of political deception, thievery and thuggery. Google search will prove to be a Greenie’s worst nightmare. The Green Party was nurtured in darkness. The bright light of an informed and aware public will melt their popularity.
3. The Labor/Green coalition won’t force through a tax on “carbon pollution” next year. Just like the Greenies secretly wish massive eco-catastrophes upon us to save their failed CAGW fantasies from the rubbish heap of scientific frauds— I secretly hope for a great big Australian Air Tax to seal the fate of the mob of idiots who support it. But, no. In the end, they’ll slime out of harms way somehow. Suddenly, they’ll about face and announce the great moral imperative of our time is out of our league and blame ignorant redneck America for not leading on a carbon tax.
4. No worries. Remember our ABC is the Ministry of Information for the Labor/Green coalition. Every flip flop, every error, every crime this government makes is forgotten after the next soundbite. But Shyt will happen to the opposition.
5. AGW morphed into vague Climate Change to disguise and expand “fear of weather” as a tool to increase the power of the state at the expense of we, the little people. Today, the ABC’s usage of the Climate Fear narrative is already in decline. Expect the climate change meme to slip quietly to the back burner where it will percolate forever becoming more and more detached from reality, making wilder and wilder claims that appeal to the most base fantasies of the Left…
6. But the mob who promoted Climate Change as a way to leverage the weather as a weapon against individual freedom will never give up. They’ll keep coming back to raise your taxes, expand government “services” and “interventions” to “save the planet.” They’ll keep coming back to limit your rights to free expression, property and privacy always in the name of the latest Great Moral Crisis of Our Age.
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“Dan Saunders” (21),
The only Unhinged Deluded CRANK here is YOU!!
Go and TROLL elsewhere!!
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They’re predicting the past again.
Just once, just one time could we have a prediction for the future that then comes true? Maybe just one tiny itsy-bitsy one?
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Here’s a classic – the Feds want to put solar PV on Parliament House:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/climate/cost-shadow-falls-on-solar-savings-plan-for-federal-parliament/story-e6frg6xf-1226009394260
They want to spend hundreds of thousands on an installation that will only save about $9,500 per year. Yep solar power is certainly competitive…
Here’s a more practical suggestion… a turbine attached to the vents out of the two chambers. There must be enough hot air coming out of the respective rooms to power all of Canberra.
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Pat @ 31 Ashkanasy is not a registered engineer in Qld. From his webpage at UQ he is not now even a member of IEAust. If he makes a comment from his position at UQ, about the dam design or its operation, he could well breach the PE Act Qld by being a) not registered and b) not competent. It is my fervent hope that some people (including government officials) who having giving advice about engineering design, engineering operation and engineering data (including rainfall and run-off) and who are not registered Professional Engineers in Queensland will be taken to court.
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Has Flannery actually predicted anything that’s come true?
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/has_flannery_actually_predicted_anything_thats_come_true/
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My neighbour, a few doors down, owns two cars. One is a new V8 Landcruiser. Beautiful machine. The other is an Audi A6. Ditto.
He also owns a boat, a ship really, that he purpose built an extension to his house to garage. Enormous thing, beautiful cruiser. Fortunately we get on well with them and have spent many pleasant hours cruising the beautiful Coral Sea.
What I don’t understand though are the Green Save the World from CO2 bumper stickers.
We choose not to engage neighbours in discussions about politics or religion, so I’ve never raised it. They’re intelligent people, but I suspect they are like so many to whom the idea of saving the planet is a wonderful concept to pay lip service to, as long as you don’t actually have to do anything!
My suspicion is that much of the support for Green issues is of that variety……..
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Another Greens candidate who fails to drive as she talks:
(ACT) Senate candidate Lin Hatfield Dodds says she’s not environmentally irresponsible for owning a V8 Toyota Landcruiser.
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/news/local/news/general/greens-candidate-defends-4wd-use/1911207.aspx
These GAIA WORSHIPPERS are such HYPOCRITES!!
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Interesting isn’t it, that Top Gear, that dreadful brown motoring program, did some tests on the much praised Prius recently.
With a greenie driving the Prius they did a couple of extended economy runs. One of these included crossing London, an area where the Prius should excel, if the hype is true.
They pitted the thing against a high power BMW sports saloon, the type of thing all greenies love to hate.
In both tests, the Prius could not get within 10 miles to the gallon of the BMW.
It would appear that their spiel on motoring is about as truthful as their claims on global warming.
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I haven’t read it yet, but if Willis is up to his usual form he will have disintegrated the paper on rainfall mentioned above:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/02/20/nature-unleashes-a-flood-of-bad-science/
I will have to give it a read later on.
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Top Gear test.
Electric car (G-WIZ) race against “A Table”..
The Table won !!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-4xE2_CkAg
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The Pall et al 2011 abstract says inter alia:
In scientific papers apparently, not only is it considered unnecessary to spell out the assumed causal link between increased human CO2 emissions and all global warming (even the IPCC only guess that over 50% of the warming since ~1950 is very likely due to human CO2 emissions), but now any geophysical, biological, physiological phenomenon etc. can now be directly attributed to human CO2 emissions omitting embarrassing references to global temperatures (except in passing & which have been in virtual stasis for over a decade).
===============================================================
Everyone knows that overall WA rainfall has increased a lot over the last sixty years and there doesn’t seem to be any pattern to it, whereas in the SW of WA there has been a long term decline dating back to well before human CO2 emissions could have been a significant climate factor (if they ever were).
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manalive@45:
That’s funny, the decline in rainfall in the south west of Western Australia seems to have started in the mid 1970s – which, as I understand it, is not long before CO2 etc etc etc.
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A half-baked cocktail hour thought, while catching up on the news…
Obviously, a wildfire of revolution is spreading across the Arab world. Septuagenarian dictators are toppling like bowling pins in some kind of people-powered chain reaction enabled by the latest in wireless networking technologies plus outrage plus courage.
I can’t say I understand life in the Middle East or life in a military dictatorship, but I do know a bit about history. This is a once in a century event of great geo-political significance. This is what rapid Climate Change really looks like.
Sadly, what we are seeing is more akin to the French Revolution than the American one. The motives are true, but the most brutal hand will prevail. The likely outcomes will be something far less than secular democracy and the implications for global peace are dire… But I digress.
In the US, another kind of revolution has been building since the Tea Parties spontaneous sprouted in the rich soil of the “flyover states.” Now the crux of the matter is coming to a head in what should otherwise be a rather ordinary teacher’s strike in Wisconsin. Another wildfire is about to break containment lines, this time in the world’s largest economy…
The Internet..911, Iraq, Afganistan…Obama’s unilateral ending of Pax Americana…The Tea Partiers…GFC…the crumbling EU union with its multi-culti experiments and collapsing demographics…the failing British welfare state…the failure of our creative elites to address the real challenges of our day…the delusional, ulteriorly motivated climate debate…and now the revolutions begin in the Arab world… it can not all be connected directly in any sort of cause and effect way, but it’s all “teleconnected” in a tangled web of feedback loops that we will only be able to discern fully in retrospect.
Why? Because the “modern” world seems to regularly renew itself through “revolutionary” paradigm shifts. Cyclically.
See 1968…1918…Revolution all over Europe in1848, 1770’s, and the English revolution 1688 and back to the Protestant Reforms (revolutions) which ended in the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648.
Technological (r)evolution has accelerated history. We’re overdue. Who knew? Iran’s nuclear weapon program, the GFC, Climategate, US debt, trade imbalance, devalued dollar, US Nov 2009 elections, now Egypt, they were all symptoms of rapid Climate Change. The real change in climate. A global status quo that is no longer sustainable. A doomed political ecology.
Our political and academic elites-our anointed ones-have cluelessly overextended their reach and tenure, while at the same time losing their monopoly over the distribution of information to the public. A fatal combination.
As usual we here in Australia are behind the times. Gillard fiddles the carbon tax harp as Rome burns.
Rich and growing richer as our economy floats on the commodity bubble we tolerate the excesses of our leaders’ gluttony. But the anointed in China, America, Britain, and the EU must look at the Middle East and quake. Surely, nothing so barbaric, so clear-eyed, so passionate as what occurred in Tahrir Square could come to visit the democracies of the West?
Or could it?
Oh, Yes, it can!
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Woolfe@28 and Bulldust@33
I am just off to Bunnings to buy my wellies.Just mark this for six months down the track when we are having floods.
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John Brookes (46),
I’m not sure what your point is.
The annual rainfall in the extreme SW corner of WA has been in decline for almost a century.
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[…] JoNova 21 February 2011 […]
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In the meantime, it looks like Carlos is set to dump a bucket load onto NW WA. Nothing man-made about that.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/02/21/3144659.htm
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“It is impossible to calculate the moral mischief, if I may so express it, that mental lying has produced in society. When a man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind as to subscribe his professional belief to things he does not believe, he has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime.”
~Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason
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It never rains, but it floods. Here on the boggy Fens, Indiana Bones sets out on a quest to discover ‘the Bark of the lost Covenant’…http://fenbeagleblog.wordpress.com/
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Output from a simulator is not data. It merely reflects the prejudices of the model’s builders.
http://thepointman.wordpress.com/2011/01/21/the-seductiveness-of-models/
Pointman
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There was Tim Flannery on ABC Q&A tonight citing the two papers claiming that CO2 AGW increases precipitation and causes flooding.Funny that, remembering how Flannery used to warn ABC audiences that CO2 AGW was responsible for our recent drought and probable demise of our Murray Darling River system. Not that Tony Jones was disposed to challenge Flannery. Barnaby Joyce did question Flannery’s climate credentials, which seemed something of a surprise to Flannery, unused as he is to public criticism 🙂
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wes george: #47
Well put Wes.
The interconnectedness of everything …
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A family member gave me Flannery’s latest book for Christmas…..poor thing saw Heaven and earth so long at the bedside and concluded that anything about climate would be of interest!
I’ve been thinking about a book burning here in Brisbane. I’ve got the book, a contact in the pinko press, plenty of skeptics and the desire to create a ruckus.
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The following paper apparently says that there has been no detectable increase in extreme weather events.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/qj.776/full
Commentary
Dr. Roger Pielk (senior)
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It is so much safer for the AGW promotion industry to predict things after they happen.
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beth @ 55
I saw Flannery quoting those new studies with glee. He was so excited it was like Mann had produced a new, new Hockey Stick.
These two papers have popped up everywhere since being released. They are clearly backing this particular horse with everything they have, seeing as the forever-drought meme died a death. I hope Steve McIntyre takes a good look at them. From what I understand they use rainfall as a proxy for flooding, and of course, a computer model is involved.
Barnaby did a good job fighting the tide. If only he was better informed he could have really landed some knockout blows on Flannery. Having Anna Bligh and Flannery on the same panel was a golden opportunity to ask how much climate science went into building the white elephant Tugun desalination plant.
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And here I am complaining about the usual summer humidity.
http://notrickszone.com/2011/02/21/moscow-shivering-in-coldest-winter-in-100-years/
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brc
The ABC is very careful not to invite somebody like Bob Carter to this type of program. You’re not hoping for an outbreak of honesty from them, are you?
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Treeman,
As pleasingly naughty as it might be to contemplate burning a Flannery book, it would be failure to adhere to the values of rational inquiry of the sort best left to the Alarmist thugs on the other side of the argument. You see, a free and open debate that entails the examination of all the evidence favors the skeptical position as well as all human progress. There are few fantasies more appealing to the Greenies than the idea of a nice mass book burning! After all, they’re the ones demanding an end to rational inquiry and to let the oppression begin.
We wouldn’t think of discouraging Flannery’s right to make a fool of himself in print. Nor should we fear exposing any rational citizen to Tim’s semi-conscious ramblings or any other book for that matter.
Personally, I hope to collect all of Tim’s books (as they become available in the oppy shops) for my own rather extensive library. I certainly hope to help preserve’s Flannery’s diatribes for the comic relief they can provide future generations. Much the way I enjoy re-reading my 1970’s edition of the Club of Rome’s “Limit to Growth.” The folly of self-righteous fools in denial of their own ulterior motives is only amplified by the passage of time.
Therefore, we skeptics, always curious, always open-minded, are fierce defenders of free expression in principle and symbol. Let Greenpeace threaten that they “know where you live.” Let 10-10-10 produce eco-snuff porn. Let the Greenshirts hold mass book burnings. That’s simply not our cup of tea, mate.
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cementafriend –
interesting what u had to say about ashkanasy.
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@mark – had to watch Ch 9 news last night due to bad reception on other channels. They had some vox pop for a guy on the beach at Surfers Paradise. ‘The heat gets worse every year’ he moaned.
Someone should have informed said ‘concerned man on the beach’ that this summer has been one of the coolest in a long time. Even the weekend weather in QLD was miles below anything approaching a February record.
‘we’ll all be rooned’ said Hanrahan…. How do people develop such short memories?
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Fear not Wes there are as you say far better ways to discredit Flannery. Suitably chastised for even thinking about fires am I.
Here’s a good place to start for your collection.
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manalive@49:
Here in the south west of WA, we like to get our rain in winter. Its what makes the wheat grow. We also like a little in autumn, because that’s when we plant.
Here’s the graph for winter rainfall in this area:
And here is the graph for autumn rainfall:
Hmmm. Doesn’t look like a century long decline to me.
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OK. I thought I did the imagine thingy right, but nothing is there, so links instead:
Winter rainfall SW WA: http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/climate/change/timeseries.cgi?graph=rain&area=swaus&season=0608&ave_yr=0
Autumn rainfall SW WA: http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/climate/change/timeseries.cgi?graph=rain&area=swaus&season=0305&ave_yr=0
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John Brookes
If you select T on the slider beneath Region, the (since 1900) trend is down for spring (30mm) , autumn (40mm) and winter (60mm) Measurements in brackets are mine from the graph so allow me some leeway. Nonetheless the trend is in fact down for SW WA and in fact for most of west WA. The slight increase in summer rainfall (10mm) does not offset the decreases in other seasons for SW WA.
The above are reflected in this map Sorry JB you’re quite wrong
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Manalive was able to tell me it was Chris Mooney who spoke at the National Press Club aired on ABC last Wednesday. In that talk even he advised never to take the results of just one paper alone.
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Oh ffs Treeman! All I was saying is that it hasn’t been decreasing for the whole century. Up until the 1960s there was hardly any trend, or even an increase. Its only later that the rainfall starts to decline.
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John Brookes
And where, pray tell in the BOM data can you find proof of “hardly any trend until 1960’s?
Autumn actually shows a steady decline from the 1920’s as does winter and spring based on 15 year averages.
First you suggested the seventies, now it’s the sixties but the reality is that since the twenties both autumn and winter have seen substantial declines in rainfall that is in no way compensated by a slight increase in summer and a slight decrease in spring rainfall since 1910. The only increase was in Autumn 15 year running average until late 1920’s Ffs?
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Get a life.
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[…] Jo Nova dissects the notion that after 20 years of claiming global warming causes drought, it also causes floods. […]
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On Q&A ABC TV from Brisbane on 21 Feb, Senator Barnaby Joyce was opposite Tim Flannery. Tony Jones, leftist moderator, threw out a challenge to Joyce along the lines “Will you now bring the the new Commissioner for Climate, Prof Flannery, into your studies?” Joyce asked Flannery what his principal field was. He said he was a palaeontologist. Joyce then said, “We will be happy to bring you in if we have a question on palaeontology.”
It was a bit of a predictable shot, but if you set yourself up as a climate commissioner, you do actually need relevant credentials and a proven track record.
Fail.
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Floods are in fact man made….acording to this report.
How interesting are the times in which we live. Didn’t Bob Brown suggest that the floods were man made? It seems that they were but not in quite the way he suggested!!
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