How about some perspective on those alarming headlines:
Thanks to Steve Hunter illustrations
We are tying ourselves in knots over 150 year old records (or even less) when:
- These are just short Australian records, not long global ones. Even in the 1800’s Australia recorded heatwaves of 50+ degrees.
- The world was similarly warm 1,000 years ago, definitely warmer 7,000 years ago, and a lot warmer 120,000 years ago.
- The world has been warmer for most of the last 500 million years.
- Satellites are more reliable, have better coverage, and don’t have dubious inexplicable adjustments. They show it was not a record angry summer, nor the hottest year we’ve had.
See also:
- The warmest year antidotes
- Eight reasons the Australian heatwave is not “climate change”
- Australia – was hot and is hot. So what? This is not an unusual heatwave
Posts about Australian temperatures
Post Note: And of course, we spare a thought for those who have lost homes in the fires in the Blue Mountains. So far lives have been saved. We can only hope it stays that way.
We don’t know if September is the hottest on record.
Here’s a dumb question…what is the historical average atmospheric/ground/sea temperatures? When someone of either side can answer that then there is no warming/cooling or whatever because the average has not been ascertained.
I believe there is no way of determining such so until such time…just as logical as debating if there is or not a God.
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There can be no debate about whether there is a God. It is clear James Hansen formerly of GISS is a God. Only a God could change the past and retroactively make temperatures cool down, thus proving all other dated harsh weather descriptions to be merely fake fossils planted in the history archives to test our faith in Him.
240
It has been brought to my attention that the above satire may offend. Apparently it is rude to make a comparison between the climate cult of James Hansen and the fundamentalist Christians because that’s unfair to fundamentalist Christians. heheh. Sorry, don’t hate the player, hate the game.
70
I didn’t find it offensive…. just so long as you understand that we are not all fundamentalists who believe in such nonsense as fake fossils 🙂
40
I did indeed understand that.
20
I also post often on the “Politics of Energy” at SiliconInvestor.com. That thread is far less civil.
In this post I show how I corrected similar claims about August 2013.
http://www.siliconinvestor.com/readmsg.aspx?msgid=29141647
The only valid global temperatures are from Satellites. IMHO…..
One can also due the same simple sort with September. I used uahncdc_lt_5.6.txt (Lower Troposphere) before.
But the updated with this September data is. http://www.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/t2lt/uahncdc_lt_5.6.txt
processed using simple linux commands. one sees that if you use Lower Troposphere September 2013 is the third hottest or fourth in just the last 35 years.
NOTE: 2013 is tied with 2012.
watson@xen1[126]wget http://www.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/t2lt/uahncdc_lt_5.6.txt
watson@xen1[123]head -1 uahncdc_lt_5.6.txt | awk ‘{print $1″ ” $2″ “$3}’ ; grep ” 9 ” uahncdc_lt_5.6.txt | sort -k 3 -n | awk ‘{print $1″ ” $2″ “$3}’
2010 9 0.45
2009 9 0.41
2013 9 0.37
2012 9 0.37
2005 9 0.33
1998 9 0.33
2011 9 0.30
2006 9 0.25
2002 9 0.25
2003 9 0.19
2007 9 0.17
2008 9 0.16
1988 9 0.16
2004 9 0.12
1995 9 0.11
2001 9 0.09
1980 9 0.07
1996 9 0.02
1999 9 0.01
2000 9 0.00
1997 9 -0.03
1991 9 -0.05
1983 9 -0.05
1989 9 -0.06
1994 9 -0.07
1987 9 -0.08
1981 9 -0.10
1979 9 -0.10
1990 9 -0.13
1982 9 -0.27
1985 9 -0.32
1986 9 -0.39
1993 9 -0.41
1992 9 -0.47
1984 9 -0.61
30
Re The God debate:There is no doubt that God exists, where ever you find evidence of humans at any time in history, you find evidence of God (or Gods)
The real question is ‘Would God exist if there were no humans to know that he/she exists?’ (personally don’t think so)
Like wise ‘Would climate change exist, if there were not climate scientist and computer models to know that climate change exists?’
It’s no coincidence that the rise of Green religion mirrors the decline of the old religions.
00
Like Duhhhh! It’s real because that is the information that climate scientists use. All that other stuff is from geologists and what would they know, they ain’t climate scientists!? After all ,didn’t Robert Manne tell us not to trust grumpy old engineers and geologists/ sarc off.
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Hey, I am a grumpy old engineer, and Robert Manne was dead right, I don’t get mad, I get even, and I enjoy it.
180
That’s the geos position as well
The Teev has been showing the water bomber choppers refilling in a large dam near Lithgow
The dam is actually one of two large settling ponds at Clarence Colliery. This also occurred in the 1994 and 2003 fires
But not one Teev report lists where the ponds are or that they are there because of coal mining … golly gee by whiz and so on and so forth. The MSM is really tedious and boring
And as I saw in 1994 and 2003, no Teev program actually puts up useful maps,although TV is the perfect medium for this. I have found quite often over 40 years that most journos simply can’t read even simple maps. Instead we get reporters screaming hysterically into microphones – very helpful 🙂
40
Speaking of bush fires, the UN FCCC exec secretary is now telling us the NSW bush fires are linked to climate change:
Can she point to the science where this link is made?
60
Bulldust–Seems unlikely. Can she even point to science in general?
20
Well first of all BD we should declare that she is not a climate scientist, in fact she is not even a geologist nor indeed a rail way engineer. This of course violates the first programming protocol of the warmbot ergo we should ignore everything she spews forth.
However i will continue, you asked for the evidence well sir it is written in your very own link.
Therefore self acknowledging that all she has just said is a complete and utter lie. She just made that shit up to keep her UN keepers happy remember she did take over from De Boer!!!!!
Oh by the way her hubby has a squillion invested in this scam
http://www.worldmayorsagreement.com/index.php?id=10110
10
Ponds filled by the rains that would never fall again enough to fill dams? Bushfires fueled by growth that came with the end of the drought and the rain following that was never properly dealt with to limit the intensity of potential fires? And fires the police now say were lit by children in two areas of the state of NSW and in the Springwood, Blue Mountains west of Sydney, due to a military explosives accident.
30
Last night i was shown apocolyptic images of Sydney, now i know when the apocolypse is upon us, there will be a little bit of smoke high in the sky.
10
In days of yore when empire was far flung an endeavour equivalent to the moon landing was undertaken. Tides were measured and low tide rocks were marked as dry, temperatures and pressures were measured, all over the world.
The very good brains at the time decided that the average temperature and pressure of the world was 14.7C @ 1013 Mb, surprise surprise the temperature as taken by all the gurus at the moment is 14.7C or very close to it. The rocks are still there and they are still dry at low tide.
It seems the more things change the more they stay the same. What would I know I am a lowly engineer.
431
What was September called before records started ?
120
Dont let facts get in the way of a good climate scare.
140
When you do what BOM has done to the historic record, ….
It could be below zero now and still register as the hottest !!
223
ps.. first GISS had a go at the Aussie temperature records,
then BOM decided that they hadn’t adjusted them enough.. so… http://www.waclimate.net/bomhq-giss-adjust.html
162
Oh dear, oh dear.
Obviously GISS failed to get the memo. What a hoot!
60
Sounds like the BOM is taking the GISS. 😉
70
ps. the actual BOM adjustments are related to the Phil Jones stable of maladjustment.
Its almost as if they had a competition to see who could make the past coldest and still get away with it.
41
They’ve got to stop doing adjustments, the temperature record in these data sets is obviously made up junk.
The concept of averaging temperatures over a wide area is fool’s errand to begin with. If for example I take the Rockhampton region. Yeppoon is by the ocean and is 5 degrees cooler than Rockhampton, which sits behind a large hill shielding it from the ocean breeze. Then you add Emerald in which is usually a good 10 degrees hotter than Rocky. Average those figures and what have you got? A figure representative of nothing.
111
I only live about 5km inland from Newcastle beaches.
Even that is enough to make a significant difference in temperatures.
10
I posted a while back some observations I did on my drive to work, using the empirically accurate in car thermometer on a 2011 Nissan X Trail
Origin – Scottsdale TAS
Destination – Mullesroe Bay, Cape Portland TAS
Measuring points:
1. South Mt Cameron township (noted temp in the same place each morning)
2. Musselroe Bay (upon arrival at work)
Distance between the two points – near as dammit to 32km (travel time usually less than 35 mins, its a dirt road and wildlife can slow you down at 0430)
Max variation recorded … 8c (it was 3c in SMC and 11c at Musselroe) The rough average was a pretty constant difference of 5c give or take. Sunrise was a good hour or more off so no significant issues with one end being after sunrise.
But your spot on AndyG, a small distance can make a huge difference in temps.
10
It is time that the BOM explained exactly what adjustments have been made to the temperature records and why. Perhaps Senator Corrie Bernadi can have another go at getting an answer out of them.
30
Totally OT, but does anyone know what happened to Evgenia Titova, Murray Selby’s PhD student? Dr Selby is giving some seminars in the UK in Nov and it would be useful to know. Thanks in advance.
112
I have just watched the 7:30 report on the ABC (Monday, 21 OCT), and they were making a meal of the Blue Mountains fire, and how it was not yet summer, etc. etc.
No mention that the 1968 fires that were similar started at the end of September.
They even discussed how the media weren’t helping to educate the public on the catastrophic effects of climate because they gave to much attention to sceptics! What a joke! Alarmist warmists outnumber sceptics in the media by 50 to 1 as far as I can see.
Anyway, I decided that I would no longer get hot under collar about this one sided alarmist dialogue on the ABC, I would not even get upset by Adam Bandt or Christine Milne.
Why? Because neither I, or them, or the ABC, or Michael Mann can affect the outcome. The climate will be what it will be, no matter what the King Canutes of the world think.
And the Alarmist story is a much better read in the media. People like to think a disaster is around the corner, because basically they live boring, well fed lives, where the excitement otherwise is a footie game or the next episode of Home and Away.
Unless sceptics can come up with a real attention getter (better than Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth) we are not, not, going to win this argument unless temperatures start consistently dropping soon, or 30 more years pass with no more warming.
If I am lucky, I will see the first scenario begin. As for the second scenario, I will not be here to witness it, so I am going to ignore it all.
I feel better already!
363
Well, I’m going down the beach tomorrow morning.
I’m going to ENJOY every bit of warmth while its still here,
and I’m still young enough (sortof) to enjoy it !
150
Indigo, I appreciate your relief at letting go of the b/s and I must admit that I would like to free myself from the insanity of the obvious illogical.
And as much a like your post:
1) It’s not “Home and Away” it’s the latest series of Walking Dead that they interested in (fictional Armageddon), 2) they live not “boring” lives but hypocritical ones, full of aluminium, copper, lithium, polymer, electricity, kerosene, titanium and petrol., 3) Cnut (one needs to be close to irony before tying that word) is apt because be was a hypocritical cnut busy telling everyone about religion while he had two wives and violently treated others.
Old Cnut has some similarities with some of the Green masters.
110
Indeed Cnut DID have a lot in common with the Greens. In fact, just reading his name makes me think of Bandt and Milne…
00
The media have all but completely given themselves over to the mania of the 24 hour news cycle. Any old junk to fill a column/news segment will do, never mind the quality feel the cheap content. It is like a suburb not far from mine where all the usual fast food chains/franchises have clustered in the classic pattern ( about a half dozen of them in a few hundred metres) a veritable Bermuda Triangle of junk food. Out media have done the same as the internet has helped gut their business model and undermine the paradigm that the media is a force for the good. The trashing of some doctors’ reputations by deliberately misleading editing and po faced lies by Channel 9’s A Current Affair is a good peg in the ground as to the amorality of the mass media. The cretinous assertion by Adam bandt and a few fellow travellers, blathered forth to the world by the ABC and Fairfax media, that the current bush fires in NSW are somehow statistically and thermodynamically a material consequence of ‘global warming’ is another marker of how far their sense of reality has slipped.
110
I’ve been following the latest ABC Drum scare story.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-10-21/jotzo-fires-and-climate-change/5035058
Read the replies – the tide is definitely turning. Normally the drum replies are from the rusted on true believers but there’s a different mood in the replies to this story.
60
They must have lifted the ISP numbers banned from ALPBC websites of perceived enemies of the left.
10
I’ve been following the latest ABC Drum scare story.
Climate change action is essential risk management
Read the replies – the tide is definitely turning. Normally the drum replies are from the rusted on true believers but there’s a different mood in the replies to this story.
30
saw that 7.30 report myself, it really is a shocker a little of it here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAqNZdPnYpA
20
Young Indigo… I once felt as you did… hammered by loony lefties who told me my view was worthless because I didn’t have children…. the Labor Green alliance was advancing towards the rational equivalent of Stalingrad (Copenhagen is another metaphor)… and I thought I was the last sane man on the planet…. but there were others who cried “not one step back”….through their leadership Stalingrad was held, and somehow I was still alive…. the loonies were pushed back…. and ultimately defeated at the last election…. Now Tony Abbott is Prime Minister and my first child is on the way… my wife still thinks I’m crazy but I know I’m not alone…. The ABC is their Berlin…. they will congregate there in their last defence of an evil and entirely anti-human idea… but unlike the Nazi’s, they will never admit defeat… Q&A is the Reichstag… but even though they are defeated they will continue to wage a insurgent war against humanity… eternal vigilance is what is required…..But I am filled with hope…. I dream of telling my new son about the Climate Wars…about my personal experience of what it was like…. about the heroes and villains… about the difference between “the science” and the scientific method…. about how a smoker built the Atom Bomb… about how a homosexual cracked the Enigma code… and how a Catholic Priest proposed the Big Band theory… about how the Communists were first in space and how the Saturn V moon rocket was designed by a (former) SS member….. how a brain dead mammalogist got rich… and how a self obsessed politician who failed science won an Academy Award, a Nobel Prize and had an entire episode South Park dedicated to his stupidity….. about the value of humanity… and the evil of individual humans… about the difference between a Scientist and an Activist…..
OK… that was a rant…. but wow…. do I feel better now…. and I’d like to thank all those who made this possible… especially Jo…. and of course Al Gore for inventing the Internet… but also my son to be…. thanks little man….
160
He did not claim to invent it, but rather a more Godlike “created”:
God does not invent, since all things have already been realised.
41
It is sometimes hard to understand omnipotence.
00
Thats a problem, because what sceptics are saying is that everything is fine. Everything is normal. And thats not very exciting.
50
It gets more exciting the older you get – or so I am told 🙂
40
I’ll tell you next time it happens ! 🙁
00
Well here is the question for anyone suggesting that the new Govt’s carbon policy has anything to do with these fires.
If Labour won the election and the carbon pricing policy remained the same, would the fires have happened and would their scope and intensity be different?
70
Absolutely!
Q.E.D.
30
New spot temp records are meaningless unless the global average also changes. The global average is either constant or moves at a snail’s pace, so I ignore new records
30
* after adjustments and homogenization.
50
‘Hottest September Ever in records going back 0.000003% of Earths history!’ yip, that’s the modern records! Who is bothered that a few million/billion years when we went through ‘Hothouse Earth’, it was hotter with tropic like conditions at the poles, because there were no humans habiting the planet. But in this ‘0.000003% of Earths history!’ there are? So it should concern us as the evidence is we are causing it, as OZ (although I haven’t checked it out yet} burns up! Chickens and coming home to roost, comes to mind.
124
But how do you know it’s burning up if you haven’t checked it out?
60
‘But how do you know it’s burning up if you haven’t checked it out?’ because it’ all over the media! Like here:-
Australia fires: Weather forecast
A look at how this week’s weather may affect the battle to stop bushfires across New South Wales, amid fears three blazes could merge.
The state has been badly hit by bushfires after the hottest September on record. It has declared a state of emergency.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-24614555
118
Oh sorry BA, by ‘OZ’ I thought you were referring to the ozone layer and by ‘burning up’ I thought you meant it was receding. Meh. Forget I said anything.
31
He was talking to Dorothy, about somewhere over the rainbow.
61
So how exactly does this particular weather event prove CAGW again?
100
‘So how exactly does this particular weather event prove CAGW again?’ because the record temperatures have left a tinder dry environment, ideal for wild fires! Which is another piece of the jigsaw that goes to make up a picture of AGW!
03
So no proof then, just the opinion of a guy who probably couldn’t point out Australia on a map, let alone have any understanding of how bushfires have ravaged this country for hundreds of years, with or without AGW.
I guess everytime we get a storm, or a warm day or a fire, there will be warmist wan#$rs like you waiting to take opportunity to spread your rhetoric. What a pathetic loser.
21
‘who probably couldn’t point out Australia on a map’ wrong! It’s just right of Switzerland and when the Archie Duke of Ostrich was shot, it started WWI.
‘of how bushfires have ravaged this country for hundreds of years’, so what? Just because they started in one way, that does not mean they can’t have another reason for starting! Hundreds of years ago there weren’t any gas barbecues around so that means they can’t start wildfires now a days! Check mate.
12
Gosh, BAT4: Hope you’re better at something other than chess.
20
Your further rambling mentions some vague reference to gas barbeques, a weird attempt at a joke about Austria and a mumbled line about other ways of starting fires. You still provide no evidence of AGW causation of the current fires west of Sydney.
And you claim checkmate?
Sad really.
You really are starting to struggle with a valid argument on this matter aren’t you. I supose it’s a bit difficult coming up with answers when it isn’t spelt out in a documentary by your boyfriend.
41
Are you saying that hundreds of years ago Australia didn’t have warm weather, dry conditions etc? What exactly is your argument? Are you saying that CO2 causes bushfires??
10
Heywood,
Lets try and apply logic and common sense here, lets assume for a moment Flannery is right and this September was the hottest ever by a whopping 3 degrees C. The fact the globe did not warm over this period (well maybe by 0.01C re spencer) then it must have been really cold somewhere else.
Oh look it was really cold here
http://iceagenow.info/2013/10/ice-hudson-bay-doubling-previous-years/
and here
http://iceagenow.info/2013/10/south-dakota-100000-cattle-dead-massive-blizzard/
So the reality is that the supposed heat of September has allowed other parts of the planet to cool.
I would like to extend an offer to Black adder and his ilk to explain how global warming can cause one part of the globe to warm whilst causing another part to cool and have very little effect on the overall global temps and yet still be called global warming?
If you wish to now start calling it climate change then very well however this term removes the possibility of the globe actually warming only the climate will change.
Take your time to formulate a well reasoned responsed so ensure a high level of intellectual debate.
Regards
Crakar24
10
Record temperatures?????? what the **** are you talking about ??
In Newcastle, near the Port Stephens fires, the hottest day this month was 33.7C, The record for October is 36.7C a couple of decades ago.
Nowhere near the record temperature. Same in the Blue Mountains… nowhere near record temperatures.
No, drongo, its the good rains over the last couple of years followed by normal weather that have caused the current repeat of bushfires.
The fires in the Blue Mountains happen on a regular basis. Its not an area that anyone can do anything about, anyway.
So, you ignorant twit……
This is Australia.. FIRES HAPPEN, always have, always will !!
And no insignificant manipulated temperature change of around 0.7C in a century is going to change that.
11
I would be tempted to say, “Give up while you are ahead”, but you have dug the hole so deep, I can’t even give you that advice.
So just let me explain the problem here: Australia has a lot of unique and very different species. Some of these, are Australian Gum trees. These trees have seeds that are extremely hard. So hard in fact, that they won’t grow if you just plant one. If you want one to grow, you have to cook it first, because it will only grow after it has been cooked. Now there are no recorded cases of kangaroos having ovens or barbecues. So the trees are reliant on fire in order to germinate the next generation of trees. Fire, in the Australian bush is an integral part of nature – it is natural – it is green.
The problem is, that humans, in the guise of Greens (with a capital ‘G’), do not understand nature that much, because a lot of them have never spent time in the bush. You don’t get a lot of bush springing up on Collins Street.
So what real Australians have done for generations, is to keep the natural bush a certain distance from their houses and businesses, and made sure that Firefighters had clear access for when these natural seed germination events occurred. Nature could do its thing, and people avoided the inconvenience of dying.
But now the Greens (with a capital ‘G’) have decided that, if people are too stupid to live in inner-city high-rises, and want to live in the dangerous bush, then they should pay the ultimate price for their stupidity.
Where I live, we have a term for that. It is Negligent Manslaughter, and it attracts a fairly hefty prison term. I don’t know if Australia has a similar concept, or whether Public Servants (with a capital ‘S’) are exempt from such laws (making them state sponsored murderers?), but when people die, because of the negligence of another person, then justice needs to be seen to be done.
But none of this has anything to do with the climate, unless it happens to rain at the appropriate moment, but then, that would just be weather, wouldn’t it?
00
Oh no!
It is funny that a SINGLE fire somehow proves global warming,while ignoring the many bad fires in region in years past that has nothing to do with a hot day.
Actually as usual you and many others ignore past fire history in the region:
Shock News : NSW Fires Have Nothing To Do With Global Warming
LINK
In the link is a number of news paper reports dating back to the 1800’s and a search link to them.
90
As that link clearly shows….
….. the bushfires seem to be about a month or so LATE this year !
82
And quoting BBC reports? seriously..!
If possible they are even more far-left wing than our ABC.
And like our ABC they provide ONLY rank alarmists as their source.
Most of what you get from the BBC or ABC is just a load of propaganda, not based on anything resembling fact.
You seriously need to open up your feeble little mind and let some fresh air in, because it truly is putrid in there. !
62
I thought weather didnt equal climate? Well, thats what warmists are always telling me.
60
Only when convenient for the warmist argument.
60
blackadderthe4th, are you aware that fire is an integral part of the Australian ecological cycle?
Certain species of trees are reliant on the very high temperatures created by bush fires, in order for the next generations seeds to germinate.
I went on a tour of the Hunter Valley wineries, some years ago now, and the bus driver took us through an area that had been devastated by a big bush fire. We stopped by a lake (that was infested with poisonous snakes), and had a look at the “devastation” caused by the fire. There were literally dozens of small saplings growing up through the ashes, for each tree that had died. Not all would survive. But enough would, to form new bush, that would one day be set on fire by a lightning strike, or a careless match.
Apparently, a lot of latte sipping urbanite Australians don’t know that. So they don’t realise that the burning must have been going on for eons to have become part of the ecology.
And yet you, and your ilk, try to blame every bush fire on half a degree of temperature rise per century, or whatever the current scare is this week.
110
“blackadderthe4th, are you aware …..”
No BA4 s NOT aware. !! ever ….. about anything !
72
It was told to me in my early school years that aborigines used fire to flush out the kangaroos and lizards. Thinking about it, they must have used fire often to burn the underbrush. If they used it sparingly, they’d have a full blown bushfire which is more likely to kill them and their tribes.
Banksia need fire to open their seed pods. Fire has been an integral part of Australia for a very long time.
50
Other plants need compounds in smoke to germinate. A lot of research has been done in WA, at King’s Park, on this aspect.
30
And so long as the bush fire is not to fierce, most eucalypts will re-sprout within a few months.
You get these blackened trees with new tufts of foliage all over them.
41
I am obviously cracking up, or the stupidity of BA4 is contagious (perish the thought).
I seem to have pre-repeated myself.
Pre-repeating is a blogging phenomena that I have just identified. It is the act of putting a similar comment ahead of oneself in the blog comments.
I need to think about this. If I corrected what I said in a later comment, by submitting a previous comment that appeared to contradict my previously entered, later comment, would I then be forced to agree with myself that I was wrong in the first place, and how would I do that without causing confusion?
10
RW,
Are you referring to a temporal paradox or schrodingers cat?
00
It is definitely a temporal paradox.
Besides, I don’t want to offend Heywood.
00
BA: We all know, of course, how impartial, unbiased, fair and totally scientific our beloved BBC is.
20
So when it rains wherever you live, do you immediately start preparing for a flood ?
Its SUMMER in AUSTRALIA lol… the only reason people even regard Australian summer heat and bush fires as somehow an anomaly is they have been programmed to do so by a media that has spent 10 years utterly failing to do its most basic job of being inquisitive. The media has spat the left/green line for a decade, so the surprising thing is that ANYONE still remains who thinks this is pretty pedestrian.
20
From Andrew Bolt’s Blog.
The ABC is furiously promoting the NSW fires as “unprecedented” and evidence of the global warming that actually paused 15 years ago.
This morning Fran Kelly, host of ABC Radio National Breakfast, claimed there had never been bushfires in October and implicated global warming.
In fact, of 48 major bushfires in NSW between 1926 and 2006, 11 occurred in October or earlier:
North-Western NSW: Bushfires – 01/09/84 deaths – 4
Western Sydney and Central Coast, NSW: 16/10/91 deaths – 2
Hunter Valley, NSW: 01/09/96
Central Coast/Hunter Valley/south coast. 15/08/96
NW NSW : Bush Fire 30/10/01
Sydney, NSW: Bushfires 09/10/02
Northern NSW: Bushfire 27/09/02
Central Coast, QLD/NSW: Bushfires 27/09/02
Cessnock, NSW: Bushfire 19/10/02 deaths – 1
NSW Bushfires 24/09/06
Bushfires: Sydney and South Coast, NSW 24/09/06
These fires are serious. But the scale of destruction is nothing like the very worst we have faced:
The ‘Black Thursday’ fires of 6 February 1851 in Victoria, burnt the largest area (approximately 5 million ha) in European-recorded history and killed more than one million sheep and thousands of cattle as well as taking the lives of 12 people (CFA 2003a; DSE 2003b). On ‘Red Tuesday’, 1 February 1898 in Victoria 260,000 ha were burnt, 12 people were killed and 2000 buildings were destroyed (DSE 2003b).
Between December 1938 to January 1939, 1.5-2.0 million ha were burnt, 71 people were killed and over 1000 homes destroyed in Victoria (DSE 2003b, 2003c). The most devastation occurred on ‘Black Friday’, 13 January 1939, when strong northerly winds intensified fires burning in almost every part of the state. Townships were destroyed and others badly damaged. So much ash and smoke was generated that ash fell as far away as New Zealand (DSE 2003c). Five years later in 1944, bushfires in Victoria burnt an estimated one million ha, killed between 15 and 20 people and destroyed more than 500 houses (DSE 2003b).
The ‘Ash Wednesday’ fires of 16 February 1983 caused severe damage in Victoria and South Australia. In Victoria, 210,000 ha were burnt, 2,080 houses destroyed, more than 27,000 stock lost and 47 people lost their lives (CFA 2003a; DSE 2003b, 2003d). Property-related damage was estimated at over $200m and more than 16,000 fire fighters, 1,000 police and 500 defence personnel fought the fires in Victoria. In South Australia, 208,000 ha were burnt, 383 houses were destroyed, 28 people were killed and property-related damage was estimated to be more than $200m (DSE 2003d).
Serious bushfires occurred in New South Wales in 1951-52, 1968-69, 1984-85 and 1993-94. In 1968-69 over one million ha were burnt and three people were killed (Linacre & Hobbs 1977; RFS 2003a). In 1984-85, 3.5 million ha were burnt, four lives were lost, 40,000 livestock were killed and $40m damage to property was caused (RFS 2003a). In 1993-94, bushfires burnt 800,000 ha, destroyed 287 residential properties and other premises and killed four people (Year Book Australia 1995 (1301.0)).
UPDATE
Reader Andrew of Randwick:
The ABC’s 7.30 goes in hard that the current NSW bushfires are directly caused by global warming.
One interviewee is a bushfire researcher with facts about bushfires. The others are the usual talking heads (with vested interests) that can be relied upon to blame any event on global warming. Don Henry (Australian Conservation Foundation), Andy Pitman (UNSW – Climate System Science), and John Connor (Climate Institute) were each given their turn to put the affirmative case…. Then finally, almost as an afterthought, David Packham (Bushfire Management Researcher) is given the chance to say the cause is something completely different – it is the lack of fuel reduction in the cooler months that has established the pre-conditions for severe firestorms.
Well, well, well – that certainly opens a whole new can of worms – local/state governments opposing burn-offs and tree removal, local/state governments allowing building in high risk areas without special requirements. I can see a whole program there – but not the ABC. David Packham was only given 69 words (out of ~900 words) to put forward his message. It is so depressing our National Broadcaster has become a mouthpiece for campaigners rather than a source of factual information.
UPDATE
Gerard Henderson:
According to Adam Bandt’s logic, the Greens are responsible for the devastating bushfires sweeping parts of NSW…
Bandt went on to suggest Abbott’s firefighting was a ‘’con’’ because he was ‘’helping start fires that put people’s lives in danger’’. In other words, the Prime Minister is not only a con artist but also an arsonist. Then, as if to prove when muck-racking the muck can go even lower, Bandt tweeted on Thursday, ‘’Tony Abbott’s plan means more bushfires for Australia’’.
Bandt’s attack overlooked two essential facts. First, the Coalition’s policy aim on the reduction of carbon emissions by 2020 is the same as that of the Labor Party (which the Greens were aligned to for most of the past three years).
Second, if the Greens had supported Kevin Rudd’s carbon pollution reduction scheme in 2009 and 2010, Australia would already have a form of an emissions trading scheme in place. Bob Brown, Christine Milne and their Greens colleagues in the Senate opposed Rudd Labor’s reduction scheme and prevented it passing into legislation.
Of course, if Australia had introduced Rudd’s scheme it would have done nothing to stop the bushfires. Australia’s carbon emissions are but a tiny fraction of world output. Moreover, the relationship between climate change and extreme
41
Excellent writeup.
Assuming one believes in the afterlife and punishment for wrongdoing, the warmer place will be filled with journalist and politicians. I frightens me that people who daily lie and destroy society with the lies then express shock when someone goes crazy trying to live in a world of lies and takes out people around himself and then himself. These people thrive on totally destroying all hope in society and then pretend to be upset when it actually works. Their afterlife should be interesting……
00
Of course, warmists chickens come home to roost, too, so I fail to see any significance whatsoever to your last statement.
20
Idiot. !! bushfires are a standard part of the Australian spring and summer.
Always have been, always will be.
The MAIN reason they have been a bit more severe lately has been the build up of fuel due the changes in policy over the last decade or so.
Fire trails have been left go unattended, winter back-burning has been made basically impossible by the green anti-environment agenda. People get fined for clearing land as fire breaks, Its all so stupid in the normal Australian climate
And of course, more people are being silly and choosing to live with bushland all around their homes.
So I suggest you keep your IGNORANT OPINIONS to yourself. Moron. !
As usual, you have commented on something you know NOTHING about… so STFU !!!
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Oh, and in case you missed it, its October now.
In Newcastle (near the Port Stephens fires) the maximum this month has been 33.8C, about 10 days ago.
The record maximum October temp is 36.7, in 1988.. so we are NOWHERE NEAR that maximum temperature.
41
The chickens coming home to roost are the Green extremist variety, the extremists who demand and manage to limit the clearing and burning off of dangerous fuel for bushfires in national parks and on private properties. Mainly from positions of influence in local government, state and federal when Labor is in charge. And these fools also push their political climate change con agenda and claim when fires occur that global warming (that stalled in 1998) is to blame.
40
Fires were often worse, and earlier, when CO2 was much lower, ,. just like your comment and IQ.
11
You make no sense, so what? Of course there have been fires for tens of thousands of years but in Australia the indigenous people minimised the risks by control burning when conditions allowed it.
10
Blackadder, were I to make a parody of what a “leftist stooge” sounds like, my best attempts could not match your ordinary observations
10
2012: Record cold October day across NSW and VIC
2012: Snow falls on coldest October day in 40 years
2013: Canberra wineries hit by coldest October morning ever
If leftists with an obsessive preoccupation with ‘global warming’ – an obsession that is so all-consuming it can only be described as a mental illness – want to cherry-pick weather (not climate, but weather) data, two can play at that game.
230
And in South Africa, ” its October and snow is falling at Tiffindell and at the top of Sani Pass. Crazy.”…..so there is more coming across the water ….might help the bush fires.
For those who don’t know, Tiffindell Resort is located in the Maluti mountains of the Eastern Cape. It is the only ski resort in the South Africa. The resort has a relatively high elevation of 2,810 meters (9,222 feet).
40
how were humans going for most of the 4.5 billion years?
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I can’t speak for you, but I (or rather my ancestors) were little shrew like creatures that lived high up in the lush vegetation, and were well adapted to the heat. As it got colder, over the eons, my ancestors grew bigger, and acquired more fur, and were well adapted to the moderate temperatures. And eventually, my forbears came down from the trees and walked upright on the plains until they developed enough intelligence to invent SUV’s so they didn’t have to walk upright every time they wanted to go to the supermarket.
In short, we are here now, because we have always been here, even though the ice ages. We may have looked very different, at different times, but the DNA thread persists.
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That might have been you Rereke. I sprang fully formed from the mind of Gore… I mean God!
30
Rereke,
We do not need to evolve to cope with higher temperatures. After all, many emigrants from Britain to Australia seem to have adapted quite well to average temperatures 10 degrees or more warmer. Furthermore, every year we British seem to cope very well with the transition from average temperatures of 4 degrees in January to 16 degrees in July. In fact, most people I know prefer the higher temperatures, and do not look forward to the Autumn and Winter.
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Same thing in The Netherlands. Record cold 27th January 1942 (one of the war winters) -27.4°C in Winterwijk The Netherlands. Record warm: 23rd August 1944 in Warnsveld The Netherlands 38.6°C
Average maximum temperature in January 5°C. Average maximum temperature July/August 23°C. Also here a vast majority of the people prefer summer over winter. Funny thing is that in The Netherlands most people who are concerned about climate change are those who like winter. The people who like dead nature over living nature. When I debate with them in fora they have pictures of them. Some look like agoraphobic nerds who are happy it’s winter so that most people stay inside the house so that they can come out.
10
There is a 65°C difference between the coldest temperature and warmest temperature on record in The Netherlands!
20
I got this off a random website. I’d be interested if there is greater
20
Which is more than from the freezing point of water to boiling point of water in °C!
In my region, under not even exremely rare conditions temperatures at day can be higher midwinter than midsummer! 2nd Februari 2002 when our then prince William married prinses Maxima locally it was 20°C. In July it can be lower than 15°C at day. Highest temperature in January at day was in 1947 17°C
00
Thanks Gee Aye, and I hope you don’t mind if I take this opportunity to go a little off topic here.
Wagga Wagga has a temperature range of Minus 6.3C to 45.2C, so that makes a 51.5C spread, nowhere near what you mention, but it did make me think of something related.
While I was stationed there at the Trades School with the RAAF (RAAFSTT) teaching the electrical trade, I was also Coach of the cricket team and we played in a Country division outside of the Wagga Wagga area, a small league with only 8 teams.
The towns we played against were on the line from Marrar to Narranderra, being Coolamon, Ganmain, Matong and Grong Grong.
Now you may notice a similarity in that like Wagga Wagga, Grong Grong also has its name doubled up.
We played Grong Grong twice, once at home and once at Grong Grong. That match at Grong Grong was an enormously hot day, 45C I later found out.
After stumps on that day one, we adjourned to the local, as we did at all those other places, because my intent as coach was to engender friendship with those locals, more than combat on the cricket field, as the RAAF had a fairly average reputation amongst locals in that area, something that had most definitely changed in the three years up until the Cricket League finally dissolved as those small Country towns scratched to raise a team to actually play cricket.
The local at Grong Grong was The Royal Hotel, and surprise surprise, because along that road with those 6 towns the only one whose local is not a Royal Hotel is Matong, where it is The Farmer’s Home.
We all sat together at the Royal on this stinking hot day, and I was sitting with an older guy, we were both 40, (old for cricket) and he was of aboriginal descent, and in fact, fairly senior in that area with the local area’s Wiradjuri people, as I found out.
We were talking about the weather and he asked me if I knew why it was actually called Grong Grong. I think he was astounded that I knew why the doubling of names was common, being that when we, as English speaking people pluralise something, we add the letter S to the word. In the aboriginal language, they do not have this facility so they just say the word twice. There are a few towns in the area where names are doubled up.
Hence Wagga Wagga is place of crow, place of crow, or as we say it, place of crows (or many crows). The same applies for the small village close to Wagga Wagga called Gumly Gumly (or Gumleigh Gumleigh) which is place of frog, place of frog, or as we say it, place of many frogs.
So, this gentleman asked me if I knew what Grong Grong meant. Clueless Tony, no idea.
He told me it stood for two things, often mistaken, but in fact, actually linked. One story has it that it is bad camping ground, bad camping ground, in other words a really bad camping ground, and here, the word camping is the one that we as white people attributed to what the aborigines called it.
The second was actually why it was such a bad camping ground, and that was that the word also meant heat, so Grong Grong also meant place of hot, pace of hot, or a very hot place, hence a bad place to camp, as it was fairly open there.
That was the hottest temperature I have ever been in, and the coldest was in Winter of 1968 camping at the tip of Wilson’s Promontory with the Southerlies blasting directly off Antarctica. Man that was cold. Around 16F and with a wind chill factor that took it a lot lower than that.
I would much rather Grong Grong.
Hey sorry to go off topic a little like this.
Tony.
10
thanks for the story Tony. I’ll just ad some random noise to it.
A lot of inland Australian locales seems to have a range between 50-55C, here in Canberra it is c -10 to 42C (52). I think the random website must be off the mark with this comment though – can so many places really have a range that cluster so close to the record?
For our international friends, as you say, double words means more or a lot of something in a great many languages (not just indigenous Australian). I’ve visited or passed through all the doubles you mentioned but my claim to fame is staying in Gumly Gumly and Gol Gol on sucessive nights.
00
It was reported in the Daily Telegraph recently that human remains 1.8 million years old have been discovered at an ancient burial site in Georgia.
20
According to researchers the Mitochondrial Eve & Adam are the most common ancestor of modern humans:
http://www.sci-news.com/genetics/science-mitochondrial-eve-adam-01282.html
10
According BSG Eve was a hybrid of man and cylon not sure who Adam was he did not get a mention.
10
DT, by definition the “Eve” and “Adam” are only the MRCA of the mitochondrion and the non-recombining portion of the Y respectively. Nothing more.
Also, any report that says that a finding of ancient remains is an “ancestor” of modern humans is also by definition wrong in the sense that an absolute statement cannot be made. At best, the morphology might suggest that the remains are closely related to a reconstruction (ie a model) of a human ancestor.
The Georgian remains predate the coalescence time of the common ancestor of mt and Y by a long long way (like 1.7 million years)
00
Well, for the last 12,000 or so years they have been settled and growing crops and stuff.
Called the Holocene, and its gradually been getting cooler and cooler. !
Thank goodness we are currently in a slightly warmer patch at the moment !!!!!!!!
(just a little bit above the minimum of the last 12,000 or so years and nowhere near the “optimum”, as its called)
http://cdn.zmescience.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/holocene.jpg
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Graphs showing the reconstruction of the global temperature over the life of the Earth show it was mostly much warmer than today. More detailed reconstructions over the past few thousand years show several warm periods [Late Bronze Age, Roman and Mediaeval] all of which were much warmer than today.
This is a problem if you want to suggest Man is the only factor in determining climate via CO2 so you claim the only data which is valid is that collected ‘since records began’. In the UK this was about 1850, but for global records you can push it to 1900.
Okay, so you can ignore 4 billion years of the Earth’s climate history and say the 100+ years of data is completely representative. There is still a problem – even with only a hundred years there ‘was’ distinct warming from 1910 to 1940 and distinct cooling from 1940 to 1970. 1940 is the year that supposedly Man is first able to affect the climate significantly. The solution is to ‘modify’ the data from 1910 to 1970 and flatten it out.
A few years ago the warming from 1910-1940 used to look similar to that from 1970-1998, but the ‘pause’ meant the later warming period looked nothing special. NOW the 1910-1940 warming period hardly shows and the warming period from 1970 to 1998 stands out.
This highly contrived 28 year period of warming is the ONLY support for CAGW. It is even less than the 30 years where a change is considered [by some, when it suits them] to be significant. No science, just propaganda.
The alternative view is the well documented interaction between the Sun and the oceans giving a 60 year cycle of warming and cooling on top of a warming trend from 1800. This gave warming from 1910 to 1940, cooling from 1940 to 1970, warming from 1970 to [about] 2000, and then a cooling trend to 2030. The question now, considering the Sun’s behaviour, is whether the warming trend from 1800 is still intact.
However 15 years after any rational support for CAGW the
GreedGreen lobby still has most Governments in developed countries doing their bidding. The question is whether they turn away from this before or after their economies collapse!The ‘deniers’ are really the warmists who refuse to accept any other influence than CO2. The most zealous are often the young who have had a relatively comfortable life created by the use of fossil fuels. They are helping to create a very unpleasant future for themselves. Rationally EVERYONE would want to disprove CAGW as the ‘solutions’ cause so much hardship. Instead the warmists revel in it, ignoring or rationalising anything to the contrary. A bizarre mentality which WANTS their future to be a disaster!
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Maybe it has something to do with their unconscious self-perception? A crippling sense of low self-esteem, hidden behind mindless bravado, a superficial veneer of gadget driven sophistry bereft of real education? Geen idelogues who achieved little or nothing for themselves, who have had their comfortable mind numbing lives (Home & Away / The Mall & Supermarket) handed to them on a silver platter together with the brainwashing schooling.
50
Meanwhile Britain continues to Freeze. It’s snow joking matter…
http://fenbeagleblog.wordpress.com/
70
Yep – and here in the UK I didn’t have to wait long for the BBC’s Australia correspondent, reporting on the awful bush fires in NSW to connect them to ‘climate change’…
Predictable..? Just a bit….
40
Oh – and re the ‘global warming’ thing – the highest temperature ever recorded in Australia was 53.3C on January 16th, 1889 (Cloncurry, Queensland).
The LOWEST was in 1994..!
80
I bet you didn’t get that from the BOM record !
20
TROVE is far more reliable than the BOM.
20
In 2006 we had this in The Netherlands. Warmest autumn since measuring started in 1705, warmest winter 2006/2007 and then warmest spring 2007. After that cooling came. This year we will have more cooler than average than warmer than average months.
But there is a funny thing going on with those measurements in The Netherlands. In the 18th century they were not done in De Bilt (the current place), but in Zwanenburg which is close to Amsterdam airport Schiphol. That place is known for slightly cooler summers and slightly warmer winters than De Bilt. In those days they measured at 4 meters above the ground, In the 19th century they started to measure on 2 meters above the ground. At the end of the 19th century Zwanenburg was closed and they started in De Bilt (near Utrecht – Central The Netherlands). There they started to measure at 1.5 meters above the ground. So earlier measurements cannot be fairly compared to modern ones: other place and other height of measuring. In the 18th century they measured three times a day. Nowadays they measure each hour.
There are two summer records in The Netherlands. 1826 and 1947. Both have 18.7°C as average summer temperature. The measurements of 1826 were done in Zwanenburg. Zwanenburg is slightly cooler than De Bilt. It is just fair to say that it is most likely that summer 1826 was slightly warmer in De Bilt. This makes summer 1826 the summer record and 1947 second place. Summer 2003 comes in third place.
101
You can’t move the stations all over, drop those you no longer want to include (for whatever reason) and then expect people who actually understand sampling and statistics not cry foul. Yet, for some reason, warmists have no problem trying to sell the technique. Maybe they are just trying to impress the people dumb enough to believe, say, raising the debt ceiling does not increase our debt (an Obama quote). People who can’t do math, science or economics. Speaks well for the science if the only ones you can impress are watching YouTube videos and believing nonsense spouted by the POTUS.
90
One simply makes a few ‘adjustments’?
10
The aging spouse and I are being driven quickly into our dementia by media fools who have slavishly followed the alarmist gibberings of the usual suspects as if there have not been reams of well-sourced and peer-reviewed work calling the doom-sayers into question. Green politician Adam Bandt has cynically blamed Tony Abbott for starting the Blue Mountains and other Sydney-area fires he has been fighting this past weekend. His despicable claims were immediately challenged by more level-headed journalists and others. So, lo and behold, into the fray leaped another “Black Knight” wannabe, the Sydney Morning Herald’s columnist Peter FitzSimons to defend poor Adam’s rights to slime Tony Abbott: http://www.smh.com.au/comment/adam-bandt-has-every-right-to-get-fired-up-20131019-2vt3e.html
Mr FitzSimaons is a prolific author of biographies and popular histories, a frequent contributor to various media and a popular speaker at functions. Back in the day he was a useful Rugby forward who played a number of Tests for the Wallabies. Until relatively recently, he was a witty columnist without any obvious political axe to grind. But a few years ago he decided to adopt a red bandanna as his trademark attire. Since then, his political opinions have been sprayed all over his hitherto amusing columns and he has made utterly ridiculous statements in defence of global warming alarmists that no amount of counter evidence can stem.
As anyone over 60 or so years of age will no doubt recall, the current Blue Mountains fires outside Sydney are serious but, as yet at least, not even close to being the worst that have affected that fire-prone area even within living memory. I went to boarding school in Katoomba for nine years in the 40s and 50s, and lived in the Richmond-Windsor area. I witnessed at close quarters raging infernos that engulfed virtually the entire Megalong-Jamieson valley area and the valleys on eother side of the Bell’s Line of Road years before “global warming” had been “discovered”. Of course, those fires did less property damage and threatened fewer lives because the area was then relatively sparsely populated and people in the district had enough sense to keep the fuel load down around where they lived.
One can only hope that “Useful idiots” like FitzSimons receive the copious derision they deserve when their shonky little house of cards collapses around them.
130
Peter Fitzsimmons, or “Bandana-man” to those who loathe him, is Australia’s divining rod of ignorance. Anything he says is almost diametrically opposed to the truth. He reached his level of competence, however, as a revisionist historian in the vein of a Gavin Menzies.
70
… a dubious skill he shares with lefty darling, Bob Ellis!
60
Tasmanian Greens candidate and advocate for Tasmania becoming a centre for electric car conversions (seriously?) caught drink driving. I won’t risk making some of the more obvious comments.
20
It seems Tasmania must be something to the left of the Soviet Kremlin, beyond a hippie commune, really, to be represented by the likes of Christine Milne.
No explanation for this curious phenomenon
20
I found the SMH interview video with John Willams quite interesting on a range of issues.
On the bush fires, for instance, he’s critical of locking up land in national parks and doing nothing with them, since it allows the fire loads to grow. He had been informed of the specific numbers on it too, as anything over 10 tonnes of fuel per hectare makes fires uncontrollable. By comparison the Black Saturday incident had fuel loads of 150t/ha.
It certainly puts the scale of the problem on solid ground.
When the wood cutters were managing the land earlier in the 20th century they kept fuel loads low, presumably to ensure no huge bushfire could destroy the value of the timber, but now it’s all under government (mis)management and we are seeing the results AGAIN.
Williams’ suggestion that the more open areas of national park should be opened up to cattle grazing to reduce grass loads seems reasonable under the circumstances, but it seems most areas burning in NSW this week would not qualify as open enough for grazing. Certainly it is far too late to make a difference this season.
I tried to imagine designing some sort of robot fleet that could trundle through the bush sucking up leaf litter and chipping logs into a container for transport to the nearest Green buzzword-compliant biofuel factory, but the bush is so vast and fires are very cheap to light. The loads have to be kept down, yes, and the State governments should do more frequent backburns and allow grazing, but fires are still going to happen. It’s not a matter of if but a matter of when.
IMO, even if loads can be lowered, people just have to realise they have only three options in these areas:
• spend their own money to make their home as fireproof as a bomb shelter so it can survive being surrounded by an inferno without cooking the occupants.
• move out to a less fire-prone area.
• accept the possibility they will lose that house one day and may even die from fire burns or smoke inhalation.
You could say much the same about flooding for all the properties in Brisbane built on the Brisbane river floodplain. People, and insurance companies, have taken such a short-sighted view of the natural environment and have forgotten some very old lessons. In the case of bush fires you could say they are lessons as old as the back burning done by Aborigines for tens of thousands of years.
20
Exactly how was this “hottest September” record calculated? September in Perth (and a lot of the rest of the state) was bloody cold……..or don’t they include WA in the calcs?
100
Tony Abbott said we needn’t pay for opinions which Flannery would give away for free.
He’s been proven right.
The ‘Climate Council’ have donated their services for a year for free, and raised a million dollars to continue their exercise. Shame on Julia for not recognising this vast saving to the taxpayer!
And they ARE providing useful information to us. For example, when they point out that this is the Warmest September Ever(TM), at two degrees C above average, they are rounding the number up by 0.25 degrees. Amusingly, the global temperature anomaly over the last thirty years is currently 022 degrees C. (Per UAH figures.)
Yes, all the Global Warming we’ve had over the last 30 years is less than a negligible rounding error, according to Tim Flannery’s new Private Enterprise Climate Council.
120
That’s how socialism works. Spending our money in the most inefficient way possible only to end up bankrupting the nation. The NBN is another excellent example.
80
Those 50+ C temperatures equate to 122+ F. And I’ve been where it was 122 F one fine August day — Blythe, a city out in the California desert near the Colorado River. And that kind of thing is regular summer fare. No one was complaining about it but I was glad to get back in my car and turn on the air conditioning.
To paraphrase an old hippie saying, “Heat happens. Get used to it.”
Interesting, by the way, that,
51
These record warm temperatures for Australia and the resulting fires sort put a damper on the claim that the “globe is cooling”. Sadly, Australia will continue to experience frequent extreme weather, with more records being shattered over the coming decades. Greenhouse gases never sleep and their affect in the climate never takes a pause, but may only be hidden for certain periods, depending on how hard you actually care to look.
[Gates, what percentage of the Globe is AU? Nice Cherry Pick. How much of the fire problem is because of green policies? I’m sure you sleep well at night knowing that you took propaganda to new lows by suggesting that co2 caused the fires. I suggest you read this post: http://joannenova.com.au/2013/10/hottest-september-ever-in-records-going-back-0-000003-of-earths-history/#comment-1330531 to learn first hand that these fires are not unusual in the history of the area.] ED
15
2013 is on track to be around the 4th or 5th warmest year on record globally. Pretty amazing , considering it is an ENSO neutral year, and the all the years that were warmer than 2013 were El Niño years. This warmth does not seem to indicate any cooling is happening, and it looks very likely that the decade of 2010-2019 will be warmer than 2000-2009.
13
Yes, incredibly the joules in the system have not fallen out, vaporised or disappeared, they are just staying there – who would have thought?.
Co2 levels are rising, the trend is not warming in any significant way, and the models don’t know why.
31
As measured by ARGO floats, JASON, and the GRACE satellites, the joules in the system have in fact increased over the past decade. Sea level rise and the glacial ice mass loss from both Greenland and Antarctica represent substantial increases increases to joules in the system. This on top of the rise in actual heat content of the oceans.
It is absolutely true that tropospheric temperatures have not risen as they did during the 1990’s, but that was a period of more intense El Niño activity, when there would naturally be more energy transfer from ocean to atmosphere. We must also factor in the greater amount of aerosols from increased volcanic activity and the less intense solar activity during the past 10 years. The fact that despite all this, 2013 will likely turn out to be the warmest non El Niño year shows the underlying warming is still very much present. I know skeptics will doubt this conclusion, as well they should, but then they should offer an alternative explanation as to why 2013 will be the warmest ENSO neutral year, despite a sleepy sun and increased aerosols.
[Yes, we agree, the heat content is increasing. Have you missed the fact that we’re debating “how much”? The answer is “not enough” even according to the IPCC figures. See http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/10/21/radiative-forcing-radiative-feedbacks-and-radiative-imbalance-the-2013-wg1-ipcc-report-failed-to-properly-report-on-this-issue/. Their models are wrong. They don’t know the cause of most of climate change. – Jo]
13
Do you not think that both ice mass loss and sea level rise represent increased energy in the system? These are not as direct a measurement as ARGO floats, but they indicate exactly the same thing– the system continued to gain energy over the past 10 years. 2013, as the warmest non-El Nino year would not happen if the system had been losing energy over this period.
—-
R. Gates, try to be numerate. We are talking about numbers. It’s not a yes-no question where all warming or any warming means CO2 did it 100%. You need to keep up with the conversation here, and we are five years ahead at the moment. If you keep posting these childish “any WARMING = IPCC right” we will have to moderate your posts to weed out the ones we’ve already answered. We will start snipping. It’s the amount of warming that matters. – Jo
12
The last time I posted here, being “numerate”, regarding how much heat the system was storing, I gave a link to this excellent quantitative summary of the gains in ocean heat content by Sydney Levitus, one of the leading experts in the field:
http://cicar.ei.columbia.edu/sitefiles/file/Levitus-Lamont-05.pdf
Within the range of error for both measurements, the TOA energy imbalance and the amount of energy being stored in the global ocean are very close to each other– certainly not a magnitude different. Both in the range of 0.5 to 0.8 w/m^2…AGAIN, BOTH IN THE RANGE OF 0.5 TO 0.8 W/M^2.
There are a lot of reasons to be skeptical about the effects of increasing GH gases on the climate, and I actively pursue those everyday, but continuing to look for the “missing heat” isn’t one of them.
(You are completely off topic) CTS
02
See Pielke. No the energy imbalance is not “solved”. Not remotely.
The error bars on deep sea measurements before 2005 are so large as to make his estimate nearly meaningless. They just don’t have the data. Shame Argo data is so short.
20
Of course they don’t, but hey, what’s wrong with making it up on the fly?
The fact is Mr Gates that the “heat” was supposed to be in the troposphere. When they couldn’t find it, even by measuring using wind shear(gawd…. nice try!) some bright spark just said “Hey! We’ll just say its in the deep deep oceans where nobody can find it.”
That’s how it is sonny, live with it.
00
LOL he is laying the ground work for a back door exit by “reminding” us about all that extra volcanic activity.
I wonder if this the bumbling Adam “Oh my God the fires” Bandt, still pissed off that the cats arse out foxed him in his leadership ambitions so is now trying to emulate the great Poo jabber with his coal miners caused the floods head line?
11
“2013 is on track to be around the 4th or 5th warmest year on record globally.”
Since 1979 ! SO WHAT !!!
You don’t seriously still take any credence of the GIZZ and HackedCrud records before that, do you ?
Unfortunately we only have since 1979 as a half decent global temperature record, and the very warm late 40’s and late 1800’s have, to all intent and purpose been frozen out of the record.
11
“but may only be hidden for certain periods”
ROFLMAO.. You guys never give up on the hide and seek angle, do you.
Trenberth has taught you well. 🙂
YOU are the travesty !!!
11
And I see you have taken Cook’s reversal of the meaning of “Skeptical” to heart….
.
. just a bit more original thought, from the brain-washed zombie.
11
R. Gates,
That’s a mighty bold statement considering that such fires have been happening in Australia long before anyone ever heard of global warming. And the reason they’ve now become so much more destructive is clear and obvious — there’s no more brush clearing around buildings, no more controlled burning, no more creating firebreaks to slow or stop the progress of a fire. Bad policy now prevails instead of good judgment.
So if you don’t mind, here’s a little challenge for you. Show me the evidence, any real empirical evidence that CO2 in the atmosphere can actually influence the Earth’s temperature. After all, CO2 is supposed to be the root cause of all this destruction.
Personally I don’t think you can. But I’ll come back and check to see what you have to say about it.
00
While these Latte sippers continue tutt tutting , your first real Prime Minister in a while stands fire duty. Who’se judgement would you rather listen go with ? TG4 the Real Aussies.
80
ES
Compare two mental pictures:-
1.The current PM at the real fires defending real people’s property & livelihoods wearing the gear, sweating as he has for a long time before the TV cameras were controversially/cynically brought to bear.
2. His predecessor, one day sprouting “specificities” the next demanding “a fair suck of the sauce bottle” & all while flying first class round the globe, with entourage, to impress people in other countries with his charm, wit & erudition ( at our expense).
no contest
DON’T YOU LOVE THE ABC!
120
747th. Heaven Kevin or Fire Truck Tony, take your pick.
60
I especially liked this bit:
“Mr Abbott’s brigade captain Trent Dowling has said the PM would not be kept out of harm’s way simply because of his day job.”
50
I don’t see them offering the only solution that’s going to make any difference even if runaway AGW were true, like forcing China to reverse their CO2 emissions. Of course they wouldn’t propose such a ridiculous solution because they are not that stupid, but they might as well be that stupid.
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0.000003% is a bloody big cherry pick, even for warmists.
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Don’t you mean a really, really, really small cherry?
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Nonexistent, within the error of probably age of Earth (at least +/- 0.3E+09 years)
20
Wow. This post leaves me speechless. I doubt I’ve seen a more foolishly anti-science post from the blogosphere. Apparently, we shouldn’t try to do science without first having a complete and entire knowledge of the history of the world and presumably the universe. It’s tantamount to saying: We dont know everything, so we must assume we know nothing.
The utter mindlessness and dumbness of this post is quite astounding. Completely childish and, really, transparently just a propagandist muddying of the waters. The “sceptical” movement has registered some lows recently but this scrapes beneath the barrel. Just dumb.
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Chester, coming from you, this is high praise. Thanks!
(Why did you leave out the words moron, imbecile, and idiot? What were you thinking?)
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“The utter mindlessness and dumbness of this post is quite astounding. Completely childish ……….just dumb”
I agree completely..
Assuming you are talking about your own post, @ #27
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And yes, if you are going to make moronic statements like “hottest September like, 4evva”,
that does not mean you restrict ‘4evva’ to the very short time you have been sentient.
If you do that you truly come across as a totally ignorant nonce. !
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Don’t they teach Burke & Wills in school any more. It was damned hot in 1861 too.
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Here is a question..
If the atmosphere supposedly traps heat.. where does all the heat from the bushfires go ?
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Does it also end up in the deep abysses of the ocean, where no-one can measure it?
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A genuine paleo scientist rips into a paleo con artist and fraudster. He says his recent work was a crock of sh–t.
YUK, YUK a great description of Mann’s work. But the warmists still thinks he’s great. But wonderful to see these fools exposed by experts in the field.
More nails in the coffin for this easily understood super expensive con trick.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/10/21/paleoscientist-manns-recent-work-was-a-crock-of-xxxx/#more-96048
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If you accept that global average temperatures have been rising for at least 150 years, it is not surprising that on any measure of average temperature, there are new record highs occurring. What you would expect is that new record highest maximum average temperatures would be broken quite frequently, especially as (according to global warming theory) weather is meant to becoming more extreme and volatile.
Contrary to this, it would seem that monthly average records are quite infrequent. However, BOM does not let people (without subscription) download the whole data set to test this. For instance, to see if January 7th 2013 was the warmest on record, Joanne had to organize a team of people to download the 721 stations available online.
One quick check is to look at the state climate records. There are only seven states, but if the temperature trend is upwards, then the state highest temperature records should be more recent than the state minimum temperature records. On average the state maximum temperature record was set on 02/05/1978 and the minimum temperature record was set on 01/04/1982. Four years difference and the wrong way round!
NB Where there was a tie for the record, I took the most recent date.
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As I have said here before, I think the southern hemisphere is still warming a little, as compared to the northern hemisphere, because the larger amount of ocean means it takes longer to cool now that the sun has gone quiet. The solar heat lag from the 20th century high solar activity appears now largely over for the northern hemisphere, the southern hemisphere not quite.
So we might have to put up with the alarmist headlines for a few more years here downunder, before the southern hemisphere might well start cooling as well.
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But the ocean around Antarctica already appears to be cooling, if the evidence of the sea ice is anything to go by.
http://joannenova.com.au/2013/10/antarctic-sea-ice-still-at-record-high-where-is-springtime-melt/
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To quote a post in another thread… “So?”
03
Precisely my reaction to everything you post
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Not true! Let me quote you to you, a different reaction from the very recent past.
02
I never claimed to be impressed very greatly by myself.
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“So” So what? GA, another pointless, useless comment. Nice to see you are consistent.
Cheers
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thanks Craker. In regards to your subjective opinion that my comment has no point, I disagree but I concur that it is useless here. Allow me to quote you to you a quote, that in context, is objectively more pointless than my comment.
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Ah yes the mind of a small child is such a fascinating thing to behold, my youngest is now 4.5 years old and has out grown this stage in her young life. Thanks for rekindling those precious memories GA.
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That is, old enough to self-reflect, excepting for pointless “tantrums.”
We eagerly await this stage in GA’s development
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crakar24 & Brian,
I think you’re both wrong, this is a result of Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), and currently the crops are exhibiting high concentrations of this secondary metabolite. With the rising CO2 levels, and great growing conditions, the plants seem to be powering ahead in THC concentrations of between 10% and 15%, nearly 2 to 3 times the levels.
Maybe one of the Queensland crops got through and he didn’t realise he’s overdosing.
High THC’s can cause drastic mental disorders such as schizophrenia, psychosis, depersonalisation disorder, depression and juvenility.
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I never inhaled!
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The worst of these ill effects is that the “delusional” sounds “profound” to the hop-head
30
Most trolls haunt the cherished beginning of a thread. GAy is apparently dyslexic. Otherwise, nearly as vacuous as all the others and even less entertaining. That isn’t easy……….
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hey see the next thread!
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thingadonta says –
“we might have to put up with the alarmist headlines for a few more years”
longer if Nick Hayes’s “stable” takes hold of the MSM!
Andrew McLaren on 4BC (3AW etc) overnight had lengthy interview with Hayes of Media Stable.
Nicholas Hayes – Specialist Media Consultant
Due to potential conflict of interest I have closed down my Public Relations Consultancy to work on http://www.mediastable.com.au
You are welcome to come and have a look and if you are motivated to be a spokesperson for your industry apply online.
http://www.nicholashayes.com/
***”FREE for the Media”:
Media Stable – The Media
A collection of of experts, commentators and spokespeople that can contribute valuable content for any media issue.
Designed to help ease pressure, save time and ensure quality, Media Stable’s pool of Talent is available as a fully searchable catalogue of people who have already been vetted by Media professionals for quality, presentation and authority.
expertise, Media Stable has the Talent. It is fast, simple, user-friendly and FREE for the Media***.
Media Stable also provides an online connection point for conversation between Media and Talent, giving you the opportunity to develop, discover and enhance a concept with the Talent that Media Stable places at your fingertips…
http://www.mediastable.com.au/the-media.html
Hayes says he has 100+ “experts” on his books after 18 months, but hopes to eventually have 2,000! McLaren is impressed. responds as tho Hayes has said he already has 2,000. Hayes says they provide their expertise to the media for free! why? it gives them a higher profile & then they earn more $$$ on the speaking circuit. McLaren asks who is your
favourite “expert”? … no prizes for guessing … TIM FLANNERY. GUSH GUSH GUSH by Hayes. McLaren agrees, & mentions another great “expert” – Barrie Cassidy. and so on and so on.
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Thank Heaven Tim Flannery has no Government post from which to make something of this leftist-inspired “information.”
No mention that other areas S of the Equator reported no such non-event, areas of the Andes for example seeing more snow than usual.
I wish the media would stick to reporting what they are really proficient at, namely sex crimes, celebrity stupidity, etc
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Dodgy Tradesmen
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It has always been the same. Some places have hot climates, some don’t. In my 53 years they ain’t changed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZMUAd7OJc8
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Calls for EU leadership on climate “counterproductive”: Korolec
LONDON, Oct 21 (Reuters Point Carbon) – Efforts by European politicians to put the EU at the forefront of the global fight against climate change are “counterproductive”, according to Poland’s Environment Minister Marcin Korolec, who will host this year’s U.N. climate negotiations…
http://www.pointcarbon.com/news/1.2667500?&ref=searchlist
Trader turned UKIP candidate says EU carbon market should shut
LONDON, Oct 21 (Reuters Point Carbon) – A carbon trader turned UK parliamentary candidate has slammed Europe’s Emissions Trading Scheme, saying it costs British consumers billions and should be “switched off” because the bloc is set to overshoot its CO2 reduction targets…
http://www.pointcarbon.com/news/1.2666596?&ref=searchlist
oh really!
Australian wildfires put heat on climate change skeptic Abbott
Sydney, Oct 21 (Reuters) – A long, hot summer looms for Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott as devastating wildfires near Sydney fuel opposition to his plans to repeal a carbon emissions tax, one of his basic campaign pledges in the election he won a month ago…
http://www.pointcarbon.com/news/reutersnews/1.2664117?&ref=searchlist
Investors shun Aus. offset scheme as political risks linger
BEIJING, Oct 21 (Reuters Point Carbon) – Investment in carbon-cutting schemes in Australia’s forestry, agriculture and waste sectors has failed to take off amid lingering doubts over whether the new government will favour such programmes in its efforts to tackle climate change. ..
http://www.pointcarbon.com/news/1.2663415?&ref=searchlist
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21 Oct: Time Magazine: Bryan Walsh: Why We Don’t Care About Saving Our Grandchildren From Climate Change
A new study shows that human beings are too selfish to endure present pain to avert future climate change. That’s why we need win-win solutions now…
So it shouldn’t be surprising that a new study in Nature Climate Change confirms the fact that the kind of long-term cooperation demanded by effective climate policy is going to be even more challenging than we thought…
American and German researchers led by Jennifer Jacquet of New York University put together a collective-risk group experiment that is centered around climate change. Here’s how it worked. Each subject in groups with six participants was given a $55 operating fund. The experiment went 10 rounds, and during each round, they were allowed to choose one of three options: invest $0, $2.75 or $5.50 into a climate account. The participants were told that the total amount contributed would go to fund an advertisement on climate change in a German newspaper. If at the end of the 10 rounds, the group reached a target of $165 — or about $27 per person — they were considered to have successfully averted climate change, and each participant was given an additional $60 dollars. (If the numbers seem rough, it’s because I’m converting from euros — the currency used in the experiment — and rounding off.) If the group failed to reach the $165 target, there was a 90% probability that they wouldn’t get the additional payout. As a group, members would be better off if they collectively invested enough to reach that $165 target — otherwise they wouldn’t get the payout — but individually, members could benefit by keeping their money to themselves while hoping the rest of the group would pay enough to reach the target. (That’s the so-called free-rider phenomenon, and it’s a major challenge for climate policy.)…
(MORE: The Hard Math of Flood Insurance in a Warming World)…
The Nature Climate Change study also underscores why “win-win” climate policies — like innovation investments that can lead directly to cheap clean energy, rather than policies that make dirty energy more expensive — are likely to be the most effective ones. Barring a species-wide personality change, few of us will be willing to endure present pain so that our grandchildren won’t have to endure an unlivable climate. We’re likely better off tailoring solutions that work with our selfishness and brief attention span, rather than hoping we suddenly become better, more farsighted people…
http://science.time.com/2013/10/21/why-we-dont-care-about-saving-our-grandchildren-from-climate-change/
20 Oct: NoTricksZone: Watershed…Leading German Business Weekly Declares IPCC Science A Failure: “Time For A New Climate Policy”
By P Gosselin
Dieter Dürand and Sven Titz write at Germany’s flagship business weekly Wirtschaftswoche (English: Business Week) that it’s high time for a new climate policy in the wake of the massive IPCC failures…
http://notrickszone.com/2013/10/20/watershed-leading-german-business-weekly-declares-ipcc-science-a-failure-time-for-a-new-climate-policy/
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First, climate change is NOT a certainty, except in models. Second, how in the world can you expect people who care nothing about their children or grandchildren and run up trillions in debt just to get government handouts to care about anything as tenuous as climate change? Not even if we know for certain it was real–you know, a time traveler comes back and tells us or something like that. (Yes, that is sarcasm–there is no way other than sci fi that you can claim certainty in future predictions of such a complex system.) Worldwide, people seem more interested in how much of a handout they can get rather than actually working and producing. You should worry more about that than some model showing the world getting hotter. It’s not the temperatures that will damage your grandchild’s life. It’s the trillions in debt and the utterly narcissistic nature of what we jokingly call “adults” now.
00
EU court upholds Spain law to recover windfall CO2 profits
LONDON, Oct 21 (Reuters Point Carbon) – Spain acted lawfully in imposing a tax on its power producers to recoup windfall profits they had earned by passing on to consumers the cost of carbon permits they got for free, an EU court found…
http://www.pointcarbon.com/news/1.2668016?&ref=searchlist
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UNBELIEVABLE! how many absolutes til we get to the fact there’s no evidence?
as for touting the interview with Amanpour, who has been freaking out trying to get the US to attack Syria, & is a major propagandist!
22 Oct: SMH: Judith Ireland: Clear link between climate change and bushfires: UN adviser warns Tony Abbott
Fires linked to climate change? ‘Absolutely’ says UN
Bushfires are becoming more common due to climate change, says the United Nation’s climate change chief Christiana Figueres
A senior United Nations climate change official says there is ”absolutely” a link between climate change and bushfires and has warned that the Coalition government will pay a high political and financial price for its decision to scrap carbon pricing.
In an interview with CNN’s Christine Amanpour on Monday, the head of the UN’s climate change negotiations, Christiana Figueres, said there was a clear link between climate change and bushfires such as those raging in New South Wales.
***She noted that the World Meteorological Organisation had not yet established a direct link between the NSW fires and climate change.
“But what is absolutely clear is the science is telling us that there are increasing heat waves in Asia, Europe, and Australia; that these will continue; that they will continue in their intensity and in their frequency,” Ms Figueres said.
The highly unusual intervention by a senior UN official in a domestic climate policy debate comes three weeks before the next major round of UN-sponsored talks in Warsaw…
(“MAY”) Ms Figueres described the NSW fires as an ”example of what we may be looking at unless we take actually vigorous action”…
(EVIDENCE?)The UN negotiator said the new Abbott government had chosen a more difficult and expensive path to emissions reduction than the previous Gillard government…
The UN adviser said the Abbott government would not only pay a high political price but a ”very high financial price” for stepping away from a price on carbon.
”What we need to do is put a price on carbon so that we don’t have to continue to pay the price of carbon,” she said…
On Monday, Mr Hunt would not be drawn on links between climate change and the NSW fires…
”There are 2000-odd firefighters in the field as we speak, there have been over 200 homes lost and of course a terrible tragedy on the Central Coast,” he told reporters in Canberra.
”No one, no one should be politicising these bushfires.”
Labor leader Bill Shorten said it was not the right time to debate possible links between the bushfires and climate change.
When asked on Monday if climate change made disastrous events such as the NSW fires more likely, NSW Premier Barry O’Farrell replied: ”Well, clearly, I think that’s the science.”
He told the ABC’s 7.30 that his job was to translate science into practical action…
Poll: Do you think there is a link between climate change and bushfires
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/clear-link-between-climate-change-and-bushfires-un-adviser-warns-tony-abbott-20131022-2vxs5.html
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Pat,
This Christiana Figueres is up to her neck in promoting CO2 Tax, coming from Costa Rica, her father was president and also her brother, she was born with a silver spoon in her mouth. Now she jets around the world to her various properties, and criticises anyone who will talk against a CO2 Tax or ETS.
Her bother and sister run many companies involved with renewable energy companies and governments that pay him huge consultancy fees for Climate Change related talks. He is now the
CEOPresident of Richard Bransons Carbon War Room.She has got no idea on Australia or the bushfires. Amazing that Climate Change only causes young boys to start fires in October.
The coverage by SMH, the ABC, The Guardian and the Greens has been dishonest to the point of ridiculous.
20
Climate “expert” Agnes is desperate:
22 Oct: SMH: Agnes Nieuwenhuizen: As NSW burns, it’s time to talk about climate change
(Agnes Nieuwenhuizen is a writer, reviewer and grandparent living in the fire-prone Macedon Ranges in Victoria)
Evidence of climate change is all around us, yet the momentum for action has been lost. It’s time to make our voices heard.
How climate change is linked to Australian bushfires
Even small increases in global average temperatures mean that Australia can expect longer, hotter summers and increased risk of bushfires, explains climate science researcher Dr Sophie Lewis…
When is the right time to raise concerns about climate change? Apparently not during what every firefighter, commentator and journalist I have heard is calling the most sudden, rapidly spreading and ferocious fires they have encountered.
Of course Adam Bandt and others should be making the connection between climate change and these fires. And they should be doing this now when the evidence is before our eyes.
This is not showing disrespect or callousness. It is not making political capital out of people’s misery. It is honouring the loss and pain of all those affected by telling them the truth about climate change and how it affects them now and might in the future…
***While it is impossible to link a specific fire, flood or hurricane directly to how our climate is changing, the evidence points towards the damaging effects of global warming.
It is cruel and dishonest to deny evidence and science or to support those who point to a wet month or cold spell or even a rainy day to say ”see it is not getting hotter/dryer/more dangerous”…
We are told Australians don’t want a carbon tax or its proposed replacement, an emissions trading scheme. But a while back most people favoured strong action on climate change. Then the relentless focus on another ”great big tax” and on ”cost of living pressures” started and the clear, unequivocal message became distorted and diffused…
By pushing notions of balance and opposing views and failing simply to report the increasingly clear scientific evidence for man-made global warming and its effects, politicians, much of the media and those with vested interests, misled and confused the public.
Right now people are being denied clear, hard, scientific information. There is no doubt this is difficult because the material is complex.
The Abbott government has declared it favours providing minimal information on various contentious matters. Keep the poor fools ignorant – and so, happy!
However, among the impressive shadow cabinet members and the Greens are many excellent communicators. Please, please, will as many of you as possible go about and talk plainly and honestly to people about climate change; the value and possibilities of renewable energy projects (weren’t we leading the world in this some time ago?) and the risks of not acting fast!…
Poll: Is the time right to make a link between bushfires and climate change?
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/as-nsw-burns-its-time-to-talk-about-climate-change-20131021-2vwlr.html
00
The UN says its all Tony’s fault
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-10-22/un-climate-chief-warns-of-nsw-27doom-and-gloom27/5036814
Shameless
00
But…But….But…
Tony hasn’t repealed anything yet.
00
this is the carbon trader turned UKIP candidate in UK being referenced by Point Carbon in earlier comment:
20 Oct: UK CityA.M.: Iain McKie: Defective EU carbon trading scheme is adding billions to UK energy costs
YOU MAY never have heard of it, but a European scheme, designed to achieve carbon emissions targets that have already been met, is adding billions to consumer energy bills…
The EUAs are the main “currency” of the European Union Emissions Trading System (EU ETS), borne out of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, and designed to help us monitor and reduce our carbon emissions to hit various targets.
Kyoto converted CO2 into a currency, and allowed countries to buy and sell this new currency to meet emission targets set to a base year of 1990…
The rational power company sold its credits into the open market, and bought back what it needed through its hedging process. The whole cost was passed onto the consumer, and energy firms kept windfall profits from the sale of their credits. Further, at closer inspection, the full allocation of emissions credits to the industrial sector began to look suspiciously like subsidies. Perhaps the EU feared that steel mills, for example, would relocate to China and India if millions of credits – worth billions of dollars – were not freely gifted.
Now here comes the real scandal (if it wasn’t enough to create a system which has been vulnerable to VAT fraud, which has potentially allowed for billions to be siphoned off to pay for “projects” with questionable sustainability credentials, and which offered effort-free profits to power companies and industrials at the cost of the energy consumer).
We have hit our Kyoto targets, and are well on the way to meeting new EU-imposed targets for 2020. Yet the system is not being switched off. The effects of a European recession, the impact of the Large Combustive Plant Directive, the Energy Efficiency Directive, and the massive growth in wind and solar, have meant that we have shot through all our emissions targets. Nevertheless, the system persists.
Lower than expected emission levels have led to a lower carbon price (down from a peak of over €30 to €5 now). And even though the system could be seen to have been a success, the European Commission decided that it wanted a higher price. It never gave a coherent reason for why higher carbon – and therefore higher power prices – in a recession would be a good idea. Nevertheless, it decided to temporarily remove 800m carbon credits (enough for the UK’s needs for four years) to boost prices. Why? It quickly becomes apparent that the EU ETS has nothing to do with curbing climate change. It is about revenue generation for member states…
It gets worse (and more complicated). Under the terms of Britain’s home-grown Carbon Floor Price (at £15.70 a tonne), power companies will have to surrender back to the DECC the same credits they bought for €5 plus another €13 or so, taking an extra €2.5bn out of the pockets of energy customers. Given that this is new money (credits are not “backed” by anything), it will ramp inflation.
Loading the cost of carbon onto consumers may make sense. But there is a final twist to this sorry saga. There is no obligation for the government to use any of this revenue for “green purposes”.
http://www.cityam.com/article/1382324404/defective-eu-carbon-trading-scheme-adding-billions-uk-energy-costs
00
For the last 600,000,000 years temperatures have hovered around 10C about 14% of the time, around 25C about 50% of the time, and somewhere in between 36% of the time. Right now we are at 14.4C, about 29% above the bottom of the historical range. (Ref: Dr. Christopher R. Scotese‘s PALEOMAP Project at http://www.scotese.com/climate.htm). We are no where near any temperature tipping point.
The 0.4C rise in temperature since the Industrial Revolution pales in comparison to the 1.6C increase of the Medieval Warming Period, the 2.5C increase of the Roman WP, and the 3.2C increase of the Minoan WP using the IR as a baseline. The average temperature has been declining for the last 6,000 years of the present 10,500 year Interglacial Warmup. (Alley, R.B. 2000, The Younger Dryas cold interval as viewed from central Greenland, Quaternary Science Reviews, 19:213-226.)
We are at the very end of the present Interglacial Warmup. After this comes about 90,000 years of snow, ice, advancing glaciers and probably the loss of life of billions of people. Enjoy the warmth while you can.
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