Whole of NSW coast shrouded in dust and smoke, 47C in Hunter Valley (75 years ago)

This week 75 years ago. Dust storms, bush fires and unbelievable heat across New South Wales. 118 fahrenheit is 47 degrees C, and there were 100+ temperatures in many places. The sun appearred as a “red sky”. A dust storm created a “terror” in Mildura (just like last week in 2019).

In Parkes, it was the worst dry spell on record. People were going without milk because the cows have died. Thanks to Siliggy, Lance Pidgeon. Holy apocalypse!

RAGING DUST FURY INLAND, STRANGE CITY LIGHT GLOW The Sun, November 1944

The air was calm in Sydney today, but diffusion of sunlight through a dense blanket of fine dust bathed the city in a strange orange glow. Practically the whole of the NSW coast this morning lay under a shroud of yellowish-red dust and bushfire smoke blown from inland regions.

Maximum temperature in Sydney today was 98.7 degrees at 2.55 pm. Early reports at the Weather Bureau today indicated that a heatwave, unprecedented in intensity, was raging’ practically everywhere in northern, western and southern NSW.

Temperatures in many centres remained at over 100 degrees throughout the week-end. At Jerry’s Plains, Hunter Valley district, the mercury […]

November 25th, 2019 | Tags: , , , | Category: Fire, Global Warming, History | Print This Post Print This Post | |

‘The Illusion Of Debate’—A History of the Climate Issue: Part 2 (2009 – 2011)

Here’s the long-awaited followup to Part 1: The history of the Climate Debate from 1850 -2008, where history is tragedy reënacted as comedy, adapted for irony and syndicated as sarcasm. By Brad Keyes from Climate Nuremberg (whose motto is Deride And Conquer). — Jo

Guest Post by Brad Keyes 2009 Documents liberated in the so-called Climategate leaks don’t show any impropriety on The Scientists’™ part whatsoever, which is why 19 independent inquiries are held to make sure.* Glaciergate happens Using nothing but schoolboy logic and denier logic, voodoo scientists identify a false prediction in IPCC AR4. Citing something called the scientific method, fundamentalist Feynmanites point out that if the IPCC’s prediction was wrong, its hypothesis must be wrong. Jubilation worldwide as the Intergovernmental Panel decides to hold onto its apocalyptic hypothesis anyway. After a lifetime questioning the claims of pea-thimbling ghost-realtors, evolution-denying WMD-existers, telekinetic psychopaths and telepathic psychokines, James Randi suddenly turns his back on everything Skepticism stands for by questioning The Science™. Skeptic authorities take the 87-year-old legend aside for a quiet chat about CAGW and, 24 hours later, Randi has freely accepted how silly he was to doubt something so rock-solid that no other Skeptic with a capital […]

February 17th, 2018 | Tags: , , | Category: Global Warming | Print This Post Print This Post | |

Australia “invented airconditioning” but can’t keep them running

James Harrison (click to enlarge)

Peter Hartcher points out that the country that invented refrigeration and thus airconditioning can no longer guarantee to keep them working.

In 1854 [James Harrison of Geelong] invented a commercial ice-making machine. He expanded it into a vapour compression refrigeration system, the basis for modern refrigeration.

“That’s right – an Aussie invented the fridge and it’s first real use was making beer,” remarked the US technology website Gizmodo. “You have to love this country.”

And one more big coal generator shuts down soon in Victoria:

In the next few weeks 4 per cent of Australia’s power supply will vanish when Victoria’s big Hazelwood power station shuts down, clapped out after 50 years of turning coal into electricity. It’ll be the ninth coal-fired power station to close in the past five years. New solar and wind plants are being built, but they are intermittent, and that means they are unreliable.

“Taking out Hazelwood is taking out a big buffer,” says Tony Wood, energy program director at the Grattan Institute policy research centre in Melbourne. And, as we’ve just witnessed, Australia’s power system lacks buffers. “Managing intermittency is […]

February 18th, 2017 | Tags: | Category: Renewable, Technology | Print This Post Print This Post | |

Countdown to Brexit — Britain’s Independence Day?

Best wishes to our UK friends on this important day. UPDATE: Polls shut at 10pm on Thursday UK time (7am Friday AEST). Final Tally: “breakfast time” Friday in the UK ( which is 4- 6pm on the East Coast of Australia).

“… it’s the last chance most of us are ever going to get in our lifetime to vote for an outcome which is genuinely in the interest of us the people – the demos – rather than that of the increasingly powerful, ever-more-deeply-entrenched elite.”

— James Delingpole

The British Isles Invented Freedom

“… the people of what is now called Great Britain created something entirely different from the closed and centralized regimes that have been the norm in most of human history. They produced a society where rulers were subject to the law and the law belonged to the people, where collective will did not trump individual right, and where free citizens were permitted to create and keep their own wealth. These principles have transformed the world: “The miracles of the past three and a half centuries—the unprecedented improvements in democracy, in longevity, in freedom, in literacy, in calorie intake, in infant survival […]

June 23rd, 2016 | Tags: , , | Category: Big-Government, Economics, Free markets, Human Rights, Property Rights | Print This Post Print This Post | |

Weather from before coal fired power stations — shock — not perfect?

Australians are spending $77 million a week to try to replicate the stable climate we had with CO2 at 280ppm. So just how ideal was that climate? Newspaper reports of the times were filled with stories of droughts, then floods, bitter cold, and fires that wasted the land. Hmm. Something to aim for then?

And what did the scientists of the day say then? Back before anyone had a hand-calculator or a satellite, the choices were: Orbits, natural cycles, magnetic effects and man’s influence. How times have… not really changed all that much.

Published in 1860 The Sydney Morning Herald.

THE following paper was read at the fortieth monthly meeting of the Australian Horticultural and Agri- cultural Society, on Tuesday evening, by Mr. Robert Meston.

 

If the 60 year PDO cycle is sketched backwards we would expect temps to be cooler in the 1790’s and 1850’s and hotter in the 1820’s and 1890’s.

During the “perfect” climate of the preindustrial era — apparently there were still floods and storms. (?!)

“To begin with British observations. 1697-98-99 were three bad years—years of floods and storms. 1700 proved hot and dry during sum- mer, and 1703 […]

July 4th, 2012 | Tags: , , | Category: Global Warming | Print This Post Print This Post | |

Rare historic weather observatory faces closure

The Library at Collegio Romano

How valuable is empirical evidence and long term data?

The Collegio Romano is one of the few places in the world with multi-centennial meteorological and climate data series (228 years!). Maurizio emailed me to let me know that it’s in danger of being broken up. He’s translated an Italian Petition on his site. I’ve copied parts of it below.

Not many people in the world appreciate how important and rare those long temperature series and historic collections are. It only takes a moment to sign the petition (see below for English instructions).

From Maurizio:

Help Save Five Hundred Years Of Weather Observations

The historical meteorological observatory of the Collegio Romano, in operation for 228 years, has been told to vacate its premises occupied from 1879. To this moment, nobody knows where it will be moved to, and worse, nobody knows what will be the future location of its Library, immense historical Archives and collection of old instruments, a priceless heritage cared for during more than two centuries by many great people with lots of passion.

7.8 out of 10 based on 4 ratings […]

October 23rd, 2010 | Tags: , | Category: Global Warming | Print This Post Print This Post | |