Jolly Odd what: Sydney Observatory record cold spell broken with help from AWOL solar panel?

By Jo Nova

Golly but, that’s a strange spot to leave a solar panel…

Sydney reached the longest cold streak for 140 years, and it looked like it might become the longest ever. But then a few days ago, after 331 days of cool weather, temperatures reached the magic 30.2C* at Observatory Hill Sydney ending the newsworthy cold run.

Back in 1883 Sydney had 339 days in-a-row where the thermometer didn’t make it up to 30C (86F). Since then, five million people arrived, along with the Cahill Expressway, skyscrapers, and 100,000 cars a day, but even that, apparently, wasn’t enough artificial urban warming to reach temperatures of 140 years ago.

But Craig Kelly (former MP) has some footage from that famous site and asks “What’s going on here?”

Climate change causes roaming solar panels?

That’s a strange spot to leave a panel… | CraigKelly

It’s even more suspicious when looked at from above. The solar panel position (marked in red) is exactly due south of the Stevenson screen where the thermometer is kept (marked with an arrow). If, hypothetically, someone wanted to leave a reflective object pointed at the box at midday, that’d be the place to do […]