IT has been very hot in southern Australia. I have been waiting to hear someone blame global warming and it came, but only today, and I’ve only heard it from Climate Change Minister Penny Wong: “The scorching weather across southern Australia proved the accuracy of warnings by climate change scientists.” [1]
Of course it’s been hot before in southern Australia. Following is text published on January 1, 1900. [2]
“THE oppressive heat was a major talking point of the vast and drought stricken country of Australia.
“While cyclonic winds have been lashing the coast off Townsville, the temperature today soared to 112 degrees Fahrenheit (44.4 C) in Adelaide and Broken Hill, and 104 (40C) in Melbourne.
“So dry is much of Australia that the riverboats on the Murray have come to a stand still. On a cattle station in central Queensland, it is reported that the kangaroos are too weak to hop and the kookaburras can no longer fly.
“In Western Australia, Victoria and Tasmania, the New Year sees these State’s battling to recover after recent bushfires. But if its not fires it would be floods, and if not floods it would be drought.
“In the north the odd cyclone adds a bit of interest by knocking down a few towns, or sinking the fishing fleet. Australians are used to having nature knock them off their feet every so often.
“The country has battled through the long droughts, and seen the downturn in the bush rush right to the doors of the city banks. But the crashes of the nineties are behind as the New Year [1900] comes near.”
*********************
1. Heatwave shows climate scientists are right, Wong says, January 29, 2009. The Canberra Times. http://www.canberratimes.com.au/news/local/news/general/heatwave-shows-climate-scientists-are-right-wong-says/1419596.aspx
2. Chronicles of Australia, Ed John Ross, Legrand 1993. Above quote via Alan Asbarry – much thanks.
Picture taken by Peter near Longreach, western Queensland, in July 2004.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Any cold weather is a sign of cooling, but any hot weather is not a sign of warming. Gotcha.
Thank goodness for Global Cooling! Imagine how much worse off people in SA and Victoria if Bob Carter hadn’t saved the day by conjuring up global cooling. They are just ungrateful curs!
You’re da man Bob!
You got that one wrong SJT, Any hot weather is not a sign of warming, but any cold weather is a sign of warming.
A couple of places I’m contemplating as alternatives to the current heat wave
http://www.weatherzone.com.au/station.jsp?lt=site&lc=96071&list=ds
Note the most recent anomalies
http://www.metservice.co.nz/default/index.php?alias=christchurch
NB: Mt Cook is freezing above 3500m. The question is what to pack in the short term.
Bill Kinimonth will be able to confirm for you that many to most of the pre-1910 temperatures are not comparable to modern instruments as they were not taken in Stevenson Screens. On hot days the numbers were often 2 or more degrees hotter than the present (and nights cooler). That is why the Bureau does not reference pre 1910 numbers in its discussions of climate change.
Some notable record have been set with the recent event with some very long run sites setting records – such as Geelong, Adelaide, Scoresby, and Tasmania (yesterday we witnessed the first ever 41C south of Victoria with 41.5C at Flinder’s Island which smashes the previous record by near 3C). This becomes the new Tasmanian record high temperature. We run the risk of breaking the Victorian maximum temperature record today (and indeed again tomorrow) and on a couple of days next week. The 45.8C at Avalon yesterday is probably the hottest recorded temperature that far south in Australia and the hottest temperature record in Victoria south of the divide. Also watch for the Victorian record high minimum being broken in the next week and similar for South Australia and NSW.
We will see some many heat duration records likely fall with this event. E.g., 42 today in Melbourne will trigger the first ever run of 3 42C days in a row. Adelaide looks likely to break it record run of 40+ days. The list goes on.
Individual weather events prove nothing but when they form part of global warming the message is clear. The observation of increasingly frequent and severe heatwave on a global scale is very clearly evident in the literature while Australia has experienced an escalation of extreme heat, a decline in extreme cold, and unusually persistent anomalies of the hydrological system.
There’s nothing unusual about the typical Australian summer pattern we’re seeing.
The sub tropical high pressure systems are about where they usually are at this time of year.
In some summers in places like Adelaide the troughs that bring a cool change move through quickly and you only get one or two hot days in a row. Other times the trough sits about where it is now and you get up to a week of hot weather with north easterly winds at the surface. With a moderate pressure gradient causing northerly winds, any sea breeze effect struggles to get onshore. Hence high temperatures at places like Avalon. There will be a few sailplane pilots taking advantage of this weather. Nice and cool at 14000 feet.
I think you’ll find that some of the observing sites have been shifted since 1900 plus lots more UHI. Nothing to see here, just a hot southern Australian summer. Yeah I don’t like the heat much anymore so I moved to Queensland.
You climate tragics need to get a life.
David,
A couple of times you use the phrase “the first ever”
E.g.: “42 today in Melbourne will trigger the first ever run of 3 42C days in a row. ”
It bothers me because it may indicate a mind-set which I believe to be at the root of much climate alarmism. (Please note that I say ‘may’, I do not know whether or not this would actually apply to you)
I refer to a focus on the recent past in much discussion concerning climate change. In this case, judging by what you said about not using pre-1910 measurements, that would be a period of about 99 years.
To take measurements from this period and describe them as the ‘hottest/coldest/warmest….’ EVER is misleading. Such records, whilst inherently interesting, are not records for all time, but only for the period of reference. Here, that is the last 99 years.
This kind of focus on the recent past is, I believe, a major factor in the alarm being expressed in many places (particularly the mainstream media) concerning climate change.
The media are out to sell copies of their papers, journals, wireless broadcasts etc etc – they are fundamentally biased towards alarmism, and not just in relation to climate.
I think we are bound to restrict our own observations so as to prevent misleading interpretations. I believe that this is so regardless of whether one thinks that AGW is a supportable/probable/improbable/insupportable theory or not.
SJT:
“Any cold weather is a sign of cooling, but any hot weather is not a sign of warming. Gotcha.”
I think the point of this line of argument is that mild warming is expected and “normal” because it’s what the climate system has been doing for 100+ years, whether AGW is true or not.
So signs of cooling are mildly more unusual than signs of warming, so draw more attention. However, at the end of the day short-term warming or cooling has more to do with concentrations of warm or cold air related to atmospheric circulation patterns and has nothing directly to do with AGW or any other long term climatological theory.
However, for you to complain about this strikes me as a little hypocritical as I’m sure you’d be the first person to scream, yell and dance if we were hit with a series of heat waves. So try not to make everyone puke when you complain about misinformation — unless you’ve turned over a new leaf and are going to stop continuously engaging in bull shit yourself. Good luck with that.
At the same time the media was reporting that according to Climate Change Minister Penny Wong the scorching weather across southern Australia proved the accuracy of warnings by climate change scientists, they also reported the roof at the Australian Open tennis tournament was controversially closed for the second day in a row.
Clearly this seems a sensible mitigation of a change in the climate, just as putting on warm clothes when it snows on Christmas Day http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,20974071-661,00.html
On 31 Dec 08, Hobart also experienced snow on Mt Wellington. So its worth looking at what the models predict for the middle of winter, for Hobart in 2079.
http://video.google.com.au/videoplay?docid=689524679657683408&ei=JZC_SLP9CZTWqwPI6oiHCQ&q=global+warming+bring+it+on&vt=lf&hl=en (make sure the sound is on)
Kohl “It bothers me because it may indicate a mind-set which I believe to be at the root of much climate alarmism” Mate; you obviously haven’t lived in Melbourne.
In my last post I deliberatly threw in current data for Lake St Clair on the far side of Bass Strait to illustrate the impact of the heat wave affecting the Mainland. Note too, it doesn’t apply to NZ yet.
Yes; it’s also about this time of the year that I refer to SST anomalies through the Strait and the Tasman Sea but they don’t seem to be up to much this time round.
Eyie “There’s nothing unusual about the typical Australian summer pattern we’re seeing”
I’ll take David’s assessment of the issues anytime
The BOM provides temperatures to the media outlets, and in the case of Adelaide the reference site for these reports, is at Kent Town where the BOM has its local HQ.That is what the media outlets tell their viewers is the case.
Now Kent Town is a decidedly a built up area, surrounded as it is with buildings on all sides. Previously the site was on West Tce, on the Adelaide High School corner, and was a much more open site, but woud have still been contaminated by the school and the adjacent roads and the BOM building.
There could surely be no doubt that the Kent Town readings are suffering from a urban heat island, and could not provide a sensible basis for what the real current temp is, nor the long term trend based on that site alone, which is what the media outlets are doing.
I note that the BOM doesnt bother to correct them either.
Will – AGW can have a lot to do with atmospheric circulation patterns e.g. research into decreasing Walker circulation, movement of sub tropical ridge, Antarctic Southern Annular Mode, Indian Ocean Dipole.
However, I’m not saying anything about this particular instance in southern Australia.
Records can be broken in the climate system all the time – but over time if AGW is correct we should expect to see an increase in warm extreme events and a decrease in the frequency of cold events. “over time”. More record hot spells than cold.
And in Australia the northern wheat cropping zone should see a decline in frost frequency.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/08/on-record-high-temperatures/ had an interesting discussion on “records”.
>There could surely be no doubt that the Kent Town readings are suffering from a urban heat island, and could not provide a sensible basis for what the real current temp is, nor the long term trend based on that site alone, which is what the media outlets are doing.
Urban heat Islands are insignificant for maximum temperatures on hot days. In addition aerosol pollution due to emissions from cars etc actually acts to cool things.
A simple example of this is yesterday – Melbourne CBD was significantly cooler than some of the surrounding urban or semi-urban sites.
Jennifer “So hot in 1900,” So what.? As you know and have experienced, extreme temperatures are becoming more frequent. That was what the scientists were warning. true, there is no science of isolated events but a few isolated events are a pattern, and the pattern is consistent with more frequent extremes and that is precisiely what Minister Wong said. If you have evidence that southern Australia is not experiencing more frequent extremes let us share it. How many times is it now that you have flogged this theme. ?
Funny how now that summer has actually arrived in Southern Australia to point out how hot it is. They were very quiet about the relatively cool first half of the season.
There is abosolutely nothing unusual about the weather. It always gets hot for a few days in Melbourne and Adelaide. Doesn’t make it any more pleasant to know that, but it is certainly not unusual and temperature records have not been broken yet.
Does the freezing cold in the US count for anything?
My mum (font of knowledge) said when I was about 1yr old in the summer of ‘58/’59 there was a heat wave of 10days of 108 degF. Probably Jan/Feb ‘59.
It is very hard to get data on this out of BOM in tabular form so I can check if this is true.
All I can get is graphical annomally charts.
Can anyone help with this please?
I have posted this on another blog today, Ithought I may have some luck on this site.
Sorry didn’t mention it was in Melbourne.
Melbourne and Adelaide get heat waves and major fire risk when the prevailing winds come from a dry Lake Eyre. It has been thus for centuries, get used to it.
When Lake Eyre has water in mid summer the pan evaporation rate at nearby Marree drops by almost half because humidity has increased significantly to match the “normal” range found everywhere else. This has a similar impact on a lot of vegetation evapotranspiration rates and moisture demand.
Yet, the research (modelling) of the impact of water in Lake Eyre has focussed on rainfall only. And, as would be expected for a water body in that latitude, very little change was observed. This is not helped by the fact that for most of the summer evaporation season the prevailing winds are to the west where increases in overnight desert dew fall do not appear to be recorded.
When the current monsoonal floods in the Mt Isa region make their way into the lake the incidence of temperature extremes and bushfires will drop. But the major driver will not be the lake itself. Rather, the much larger area of watered desert will be cycling moisture, and reducing evaporation (rates not volume) through higher humidity levels. The total volume of evapotranspiration will increase due to faster moisture cycling over a longer period.
The old timers have observed that this cycling effect can continue for up to five years after the event.
Will
“I think the point of this line of argument is that mild warming is expected and “normal” because it’s what the climate system has been doing for 100+ years, whether AGW is true or not.”
Why do you think that? We reached a peak of warming out of the last ice age about 6000 years ago, following the Milankovitch Cycles we should expect a long slow cooling.
“As you know and have experienced, extreme temperatures are becoming more frequent”
oh really – could you please point me to the evidence for that statement?
The highest temp recorded in SA was at Oodnadatta in january 1960. 50.7C (123F) Today’s forecast for Oodnadatta is 41C. Not exactly an extreme temp for Oodnadatta.
Luke:
“Records can be broken in the climate system all the time – but over time if AGW is correct we should expect to see an increase in warm extreme events and a decrease in the frequency of cold events. “over time”. More record hot spells than cold.
And in Australia the northern wheat cropping zone should see a decline in frost frequency.”
O.K.
But it is just as accurate (true?) to say “Records can be broken in the climate system all the time – but over time, if there is warming, we should expect to see an increase in warm extreme events and a decrease….etc”.
In other words, evidence of increasing incidence of hot events, is not evidence of anything at all apart from warming.
To establish the rest of the AGW thing, i.e. that it is ‘Anthropogenic’ and ‘Global’ requires a great deal more than simply the breaking of records.
There is serious scientific controversy about all three aspects of AGW,
e.g. whether or not there is warming
whether or not it is global
whether or not it is anthropogenic
It is interesting to see ‘records’ in weather events. But that must be kept in perspective – litterally, “records” refer only to things that have been recorded. By definition then, these ‘records’ of which we now talk are only records with reference to the last 99 years or so. The span of only one (admittedly long) human lifetime seems rather short in the context of all of time.
” Urban heat Islands are insignificant for maximum temperatures on hot days. In addition aerosol pollution due to emissions from cars etc actually acts to cool things. ”
Does this mean that any temperature measures that are not the maximum on hot days are OK then, even when surrounded by buildings and road surfaces.Thats sounds like nonsense.
These people with peer reveiwed work wouldnt agree with it either.
http://www.co2science.org/articles/V6/N23/EDIT.php
Well after seeing Anthony Watts data for surface temp stations in his station survey. Which shows stevenson screens being placed on roofs, alongside airconditioning units, placed near carparks, near buildings, etc…. I wonder how accurate those 40+ temps are…. The UHI effect can be as much as +5degrees celsius… So 42c is really only 37c…. So who knows.
I have no faith in the data gathering sites for surface temps anymore. Basically they are only good for newspapers…. not science.
David said….. “A simple example of this is yesterday – Melbourne CBD was significantly cooler than some of the surrounding urban or semi-urban sites.”
No David, it’s probably got nothing to do with aerosols at all, but rather bad siting of the measuring equipment…..
The thermometer is probably in the shadow of tall buildings for a period of time each day.
You wouldn’t know though, but you would expect that it wasn’t. However Anthony Watts has found that in most cases this expectation is faulty and that most sites do not fulfil the regulations set down for them…. Amazing, but true.
Kohl Piersen makes an insightful comment:
“To take measurements from this period and describe them as the ‘hottest/coldest/warmest….’ EVER is misleading. Such records, whilst inherently interesting, are not records for all time, but only for the period of reference. Here, that is the last 99 years.
This kind of focus on the recent past is, I believe, a major factor in the alarm being expressed in many places (particularly the mainstream media) concerning climate change.”
——–
I am often taken aback by the amnesia of our media and our culture’s utter lack of a sense of the scale of earth’s history. It’s as if we are all trapped in the eternal nowness of the latest current event.
Just as the recent global credit crunch can be largely explained as a failure of institutional memory, the AGW fright is a product of rampant ahistoricism in our culture obsessed with sensationalism and immediate gratification. We are behaving like a tweenager who imagines (s)he is the first person EVER to have a crush, or zits, or peer group humiliations. Everything is the first, the worst, the best EVER. Ohmygod!
How else can one explain David’s reflexive claims of all-time record highs, even though we don’t know exact temperatures in Australia before less a hundred years ago? Or “unusually persistent anomalies of the hydrological system?” Rubbish. How would one know?
“Climate” is defined by James Hansen as being a record with an absolute minimum of 30 years and to see full cycles one requires records much longer still. Go back 200 years and it appears that much of today’s warming is simply an ascent out of the Little Ice Age, go back 1000 years to the Medieval Warm Period and it’s cooler today than then. No dairy farms in Greenland yet. Go back 10,000 years to the early Holocene and the sea levels were much lower than today, the water still locked in receding ice sheets.
Chairman Mao was once asked his opinion of the French Revolution. He replied that we will have to wait and see.
J.Hansford – as per Anthony Watt’s method here are the measuring stations of Adelaide and Melbourne.
http://users.tpg.com.au/johnsay1/Stuff/adelaide.jpg http://users.tpg.com.au/johnsay1/Stuff/adelaide_1.jpg
http://users.tpg.com.au/johnsay1/Stuff/melbourne.jpg
http://users.tpg.com.au/johnsay1/Stuff/melbourne_1.jpg
I’ll leave you to draw your own conclusion 🙂
If South/ South Eastern Australia confirms the accuracy of climate change ‘predictions’ than what does North/ North Eastern Australia temperatures do, confirm their inaccuracy?
http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/silo/temp_maps.cgi?variable=maxanom&area=nat&period=week&time=latest
I’ll also gladly lend my support to a letter I’m sure David, Luke, SJT, etc. will write to Wong that might explain to her in the nicest but clearest terms that she is confusing climate with weather and that the IPCC/ GCMs doesn’t make predictions/ forecasts.
“The thermometer is probably in the shadow of tall buildings for a period of time each day”
What pompous crap!
One shadow is as good as another when it comes to air temp measurements behind a direct sunlight screen
Watts n Wes can keep till after lunch
Kohl
Have a look at the graphs in RC link I posted above. Records can be broken any time in a “stationary climate”. However if there is an underlying trend towards warming or cooling (for whatever reason – natural or anthropogenic) one would expect a greater number of events at the warm/hot end of the current known distribution of temperatures and also hot records. And conversely fewer cool records (not none !) and less events at the cool end of the known temperature distribution (not none !).
You would expect to see this.
There seems to be some evidence for this position.
http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/silo/reg/cli_chg/extreme_trendmaps.cgi
http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadex/HadEX_paper.pdf
http://ams.allenpress.com/archive/1520-0442/9/8/pdf/i1520-0442-9-8-1896.pdf for frost
(Proteus – read what Motty wrote and think about recent events ! – heavy rain – evap?)
A hot spell in the last week of January has the global warming fanatics out preaching. However, any extremely clement, with many very cold days, in December and the first three weeks of January, are ignored. Hot weather is quite normal here at this time of year. The cool seven weeks was the unexpected gift.
proteus – the same chart you posted reads differently if you make it over the month instead of the week. According to the monthly data there is a negative temperature trend. Did the warmers predict that for Penny as well?
Luke,
You have asked me to …
“Have a look at the graphs in RC link I posted above. Records can be broken any time in a “stationary climate”. However if there is an underlying trend towards warming or cooling (for whatever reason – natural or anthropogenic) one would expect a greater number of events at the warm/hot end of the current known distribution of temperatures and also hot records.”
As I said before, O.K.
But that’s not what you said before. You said that “…over time if AGW is correct”… etc.
I have simply pointed out that warming of itself is not evidence for AG warming. This is a logical point and does not require inspection of graphs etc. (although they are interesting).
To show – Anthropogenic – Global – Warming, one must have evidence for all three of these things. Of course, there are many who say that they do have such evidence. But that was not in issue in what I said in the referenced comment.
‘Record’ temperatures in Adelaide or wherever are not evidence for the ‘anthropogenic’ nor the ‘global’ part of AGW, even if it might be evidence for the ‘warming’ part.
I agree record temperatures in Adelaide are not direct proof of AGW but they are consistent with what you’d expect if it were true (surely !!). “not inconsistent with” is usually the phrase.
And you do have good evidence (despite the howls of denialists on here) that greenhouse gases should and do warm the planet. Certainly solar forcing isn’t an explanation of recent decades or warming. Whether the science has the cloud feedbacks and multi-decadal influences all sorted is another matter.
In any case Penny Wong should have phrased her comment more precisely.
Kohl,
Luke and other warmers assume that all warming is anthropocentric. It’s a given that requires only the weakest circumstantial evidence as proof. We’ve been over this many time. But please, have a go at an exposition of how rational methods work. I’d like to see your angle spelled out.
Luke,
“stationary climate” is a rank oxymoron. And you know it. So don’t talk down to people. It’s disingenuous and is evidence that you value a particular agenda above an honest search for a useful hypothesis as to how and why the climate is evolving. If I didn’t know you knew better, I’d think you were dumber than dog dirt for that line.
“stationary climate” LOL. You lose cred, dude.
Luke:
“I agree record temperatures in Adelaide are not direct proof of AGW but they are consistent with what you’d expect if it were true (surely !!). “not inconsistent with” is usually the phrase.”
Yes.
But as I said – evidence of warming is also consistent with any other cause for warming.
In words that a logician might use, warming is a necessary condition for establishing AGW but it is not a sufficient condition.
And so I paraphrased your comments to remove the AGW reference and proposed that the restatement was also consistent with evidence of warming.
I said “… it is just as accurate (true?) to say” and then restated your proposition “Records can be broken in the climate system all the time – but over time, if there is warming, we should expect to see an increase in warm extreme events and a decrease….etc”.
I agree with you re Penny Wong (and anyone else who looks at single events for evidence of climate change).
Not only 1900, but several times since in S E Australia,have there been extreme and extended heatwaves; eg. Sydney and large parts of NSW in 1938, when over 40 people died of the heat, and railway lines in Sydney buckled.
Also for a period of 20 years in the 20’s 30’s and 40’s the MDB system was in almost perpetual drought. With the major streams reduced to waterholes and steamers stranded high and dry for years. With great jubilation my father recorded a flood event in his 1942 diary with the comment..’Flood..The drought’s over!’. However he must have went back and wrote in the margin 4 years later.. ‘No, it still goes on..’
It is a worry that a person in Davids position at the Bom should mix facts with ideology, or a belief system. Temperatures around the world have generally risen in the last 150 years, since the end of the Little Ice Age. However David probably doesn’t believe in the LIA or the MWP, since his friend Mann wiped them out with his bogus ‘Hockey Stick’.
David along with fellow AGW believers seem unable to face the reality of the real world; and to make the statement that there are far more record high max & min temps been set then record low min & max temps cannot be substantiated, even with the help of fudged data. And it would be pointless to go into pages of tit for tat data.
Certainly Adelaide, Melbourne and other areas are experiencing extreme heatwave conditions and records will tumble. However against this countless record low temp records, and depth of snow and ice records are being set in this NH winter. My sister and her husband farm in S Dakota,where they are experiencin g their coldest winter for 2decades. All across US records tumble as devestation caused by ice and snow, and where countless of thousands of trees are coming down due to ice. (Meanwhile the MSM are running reports that “global warming’is responsible for killing trees!)
In Canada three ships and an icebreaker are trapped in thick ice at the entrance of the St Lawrence River. David and Luke recon the arctic sea ice is at record low levels! (and the St Lawrence aint even the arctic!!)
http://www.thestar.com/News/Canada/article/577920
I should have made it much clearer in my above post about the extreme weather in Adelaide and Melbourne, that CO2 forcing has nothing to do with it. The winds have come from a dry Lake Eyre and that mix of hot and extremely dry air has forced most of the native vegetation in between to shut down transpiration. This has substantially reduced the cooling influence of evaporation over all the land concerned and boosted recorded temperatures.
It follows that the duration of this event is solely due to the temporary absence of any other atmospheric system which would shift the airflow back to its normal westerly direction. The temporary absence of such a system, such as a tropical low, is not a function of CO2 or its forcing. It is most likely to be the case that such a system may simply be building strength before it runs amok in Queensland. The delay in its arrival producing a stronger event.
So rather than being a portent of doom by way of temperature extreme, the current southern heat wave may simply be an indicator of a generally wetter, cooler year in the north.
It is worth noting that the last time Mt Isa got this much rain (almost its annual mean) in January was 1974, the year Brisbane got very seriously flooded.
Victorians and South Australians would do well to remember that they come from a relatively minor part of the country. When the winds shift we will see another equal or larger part of the country recording the same high temperatures. But no-one will bat an eyelid when it hits 45C again in Oodnadatta, where the highest January max was 50.7C in 1960 and the 9th decile January max is 43.3C.
http://www.bom.gov.au/clim_data/cdio/tables/text/IDCJCM0034_017043.csv
What is this co2 gas that can produce record highs AND record lows.
Magic be thy name.
P.S. Could anyone explain the physics behind INCREASING co2 (Cue steam coming out of power station) producing record low temperatures.
“Luke and other warmers assume that all warming is anthropocentric. It’s a given that requires only the weakest circumstantial evidence as proof. We’ve been over this many time. But please, have a go at an exposition of how rational methods work. I’d like to see your angle spelled out.”
You want to know if we can attribute the warming to rising CO2 gases?
This is the case put forward by the IPCC. http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-chapter9.pdf
“It is a worry that a person in Davids position at the Bom should mix facts with ideology, or a belief system.”
Whoa…Hang on a minute! David? Is this a true statement. Is the commenter who goes by the tag David really a worker for the BoM?
Because if it is, Canberra, we got a problem out here…Only yesterday day a commenter called David posted this Howler: “Mann analysis has been replicated many times over.” Defending Michael Mann’s long discredited work, the so-called “Hockey Stick.” Now formally rejected by the IPCC.
To have this sort of misinformation propagated by a BoM worker is akin an anthropology teacher defending the Piltdown Man.
It’s like having an evangelical creationist working in your genetics lab. Might not be unethical, but it bloody hell has the appearance of a conflict of interest.
What do you say, David?
“You want to know if we can attribute the warming to rising CO2 gases?”
Then the Turing Test (Stj 2.0) tosses a 6mb PDF at ya, which every serious climate wanker has already scoured.
Doesn’t fool me. A real human would have long ago crawled away humiliated.
What we’d really like to see is a real human intelligence logically and rational make a strong argument for the AGW hypotheses, point by point. If it can’t be done in under a thousand words, then it can’t be done in 10,000 either.
Any takers? Luke? I know you’re not a Turing Machine. Too many Freudian undercurrents in your posts.
David is correct. The hockey stick has indeed been replicated many times in other independant studies – see Moberg et al (2005) for example.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/moberg2005/moberg2005.html
Just a quick message from up here in frozen Canada. North America and Europe are suffering through the worst winter we have had in a long time. Looking at the sea surface anomoly map of the world that I published the other day it is pretty obvious why we are suffering extreme cold and you guys heat. The SST around north america and europe is quite cold conversly the SST in the southern hemisphere is very warm and the oceans drive the temperatures.
I have just read a news report that your power companies are overloaded and are shutting off power to domestic users, now this is something your government should be doing something about. Forget the rhetoric and get building some power stations. The alarmist garbage is completly without foundation and does not have to be fixed in 10 years or the planet is doomed. Your power problems do have to be fixed now and the debate on what causes global warming can continue but do not let it hobble you. It is just not that urgent and there is no crisis except in your power supply.
AB
The Co2 science references I provided previously would say something quite different.
Heaps of papers to prove the opposite, namely that the MWP did exist and it was in both hemispheres, and that they show that it was hotter during the MWP.
If you and David are right why did the IPCC take Manns chart out.
That what I like about Peer Review, depends upon which clique one belongs to.
Luke: “(Proteus – read what Motty wrote and think about recent events ! – heavy rain – evap?)”
Yes, I noticed Motty’s post but that simply evades the point. When cooling events occur we look for explanations based on local conditions (no doubt an excellent choice) but when we see a streak of hot weather apparently an explanation based on local conditions is superfluous, climate change is ready to hand. But of course Motty himself provided an excellent reason for this blast of hot weather in the south/ south east based on local conditions – unusually dry conditions in the centre and lazy but strong high pressure system in the Tasman. Now if Wong offered such a sober assessment rather than banging-on about climate change she might have earned our respect.
AB: “The hockey stick has indeed been replicated many times in other independant studies – see Moberg et al (2005) for example.”
Surely you jest. Moberg et al (2005) is not a good example to use as an study that replicates MBH 98 simply, firstly, because the graph does not reproduce a hockey stick and secondly, the abstract itself reports that “According to our reconstruction, high temperatures – similar to those observed in the twentieth century before 1990- occurred around AD 1000 to 1100,…” which contradicts the conclusion of MBH 98 which reported that modern temperatures where “unprecedented”.
The actual studies that ‘replicate’ the results of MBH 98 are hardly independent for two simple reasons, the invariably share (i) co-authors; and (ii) datasets.
Luke:
“AGW can have a lot to do with atmospheric circulation patterns e.g. research into decreasing Walker circulation, movement of sub tropical ridge, Antarctic Southern Annular Mode, Indian Ocean Dipole.”
Of course. I agree with you. Qualify that by adding ‘over the long haul’ though.
“However, I’m not saying anything about this particular instance in southern Australia.”
Excellent…
“Records can be broken in the climate system all the time – but over time if AGW is correct we should expect to see an increase in warm extreme events and a decrease in the frequency of cold events. “over time”. More record hot spells than cold.”
Agreed…
NT:
“I think the point of this line of argument is that mild warming is expected and “normal” because it’s what the climate system has been doing for 100+ years, whether AGW is true or not.”
“Why do you think that? We reached a peak of warming out of the last ice age about 6000 years ago, following the Milankovitch Cycles we should expect a long slow cooling.”
Depends on the time scale you’re referencing. If we’re talking over multiples of thousands of years, then yes, what you say is probably correct. In the shorter term, over hundreds of years, we’ve got reasonable evidence for cold periods and warm ‘cycles’ that last decades or hundreds of years, i.e., MWP, RWP, MM, etc. Since nobody can predict when a particular cycle will end, it’s safest to use the recent past to forecast the near future. (That principle doesn’t work for the stock market but fortunately the climate system seems to be a lot more stable than that.)
Assuming AGW is true, the warm cycles should grow over time and the cool cycles should decrease over time, as Luke explained. That’s one hypothesis anyway.
Luke wrote:
“I agree record temperatures in Adelaide are not direct proof of AGW but they are consistent with what you’d expect if it were true (surely !!)”
Agreed.
However, because Luke was short on time, or his fingers were tired, he forgot to add:
“… however record temperatures in Adelaide are equally consistent with AGW not being true.”
Or in other words, a single, or a small number of record temperatures (hot or cold) *anywhere* is not in itself, evidence of anything in particular.
“however record temperatures in Adelaide are equally consistent with AGW not being true.”
you mean – however record temperatures in Adelaide are not necessarily evidence of AGW.
Barry Moore,
Perhaps the extreme heat here in Australia isn’t as wide spread as the frosty winter in N America.
Melbourne and Adelaide have a climate more like Houston, Texas with the humidity and the heat but more extreme variations and without the abundant water. I’d rather live in Abu Dhabi, at least everywhere is properly air conditioned and their polity didn’t vacillate like a bunch of punctilious brown noses when it came to securing proper water and power strategies. Both Mel and Ade have shameful infrastructure that would compare to the American rust belt cities in age and efficiency. Naturally, the idiots in power blame “climate change” for their political failure and the media is eager to help.
As for the east coast of Oz. I’ve travelled a lot this year up and down between and Sydney and Mackay and a lot of points in between, inland to Goondi and Moree and north to Taroom. Most farmers in these areas say it’s the best year in a long time. Although a little too good for the wheat farmers on the Darling Downs and central QLD where good rains damaged their crop.
On my property the lambs are as fat as eggs and the horses are belching. Ground cover is 100%, knee deep in the paddocks I’m grazing and waist deep in the ones out of rotation. Best year for a while, indeed. Too bad about the price of wool…
Pretty hard to complain when you look at this summer’s rainfall…(I’m sure Luke will sing a whingy tune but I doubt he’s gets out much)
http://www.weatherzone.com.au/climate/recent.jsp?lt=wzcountry&lc=aus&c=rain&p=3mth
forecast ain’t half bad either:
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/ahead/temps_ahead.shtml
“However, for you to complain about this strikes me as a little hypocritical as I’m sure you’d be the first person to scream, yell and dance if we were hit with a series of heat waves. So try not to make everyone puke when you complain about misinformation — unless you’ve turned over a new leaf and are going to stop continuously engaging in bull shit yourself. Good luck with that.”
I’m a hypocrite for something I haven’t done? Gee, standards are getting higher here, I’d better lift my game.
Will – well not so you see – as I would have added it to my BoM site trends and other references above and using some Bayseian fiddle convinced myself it was part of the ongoing trend.
Plus a few other tidbits –
Comparison of observed and multimodeled trends in annual extremes of temperature and precipitation
Kiktev, Dmitry; Caesar, John; Alexander, Lisa V; Shiogama, Hideo; Collier, Mark
Geophysical Research Letters [Geophys. Res. Lett.]. Vol. 34, no. 10, [np]. May 2007
Trends in Australia’s climate means and extremes: a global context
Alexander, LV; Hope, P; Collins, D; Trewin, B; Lynch, A; Nicholls, N
Australian Meteorological Magazine [Aust. Meteorol. Mag.]. Vol. 56, no. 1, pp. 1-18. Mar 2007.
Has the climate become more variable or extreme? Progress 1992-2006
Nicholls, N; Alexander, L
Progress in Physical Geography [Prog. Phys. Geogr.]. Vol. 31, no. 1, pp. 77-87. Feb 2007.
Global observed changes in daily climate extremes of temperature and precipitation
Alexander, LV; Zhang, X; Peterson, TC; Caesar, J; Gleason, B; Tank, AMGKlein; Haylock, M; Collins, D; Trewin, B; Rahimzadeh, F; Tagipour, A; Kumar, KRupa; Revadekar, J; Griffiths, G; Vincent, L; Stephenson, DB; Burn, J; Aguilar, E; Brunet, M; Taylor, M; New, M; Zhai, P; Rusticucci, M; Vazquez-Aguirre, JL
Journal of Geophysical Research. D. Atmospheres [J. Geophys. Res. (D Atmos.)]. Vol. 111, no. D5, [np]. Mar 2006.
The el Nino-Southern Oscillation and daily temperature extremes in east Asia and the west Pacific
Nicholls, N; Baek, H-J; Gosai, A; Chambers, LE; Choi, Y; Collins, D; Della-Marta, PM; Griffiths, GM; Haylock, MR; Iga, N; Lata, R; Maitrepierre, L; Manton, MJ; Nakamigawa, H; Ouprasitwong, N; Solofa, D; Tahani, L; Thuy, DT; Tibig, L; Trewin, B; Vediapan, K; Zhai, P
Geophysical Research Letters [Geophys. Res. Lett.]. Vol. 32, no. 16, [np]. Aug 2005.
And good on you Wes – that’s what we like to see – a bit of spirited abuse. Don’t hold back – feels good doesn’t it.
Anyway back to the “stationary climate” – well that’s why it as in quotes eh matey? But interesting concept – if there was no significant solar variation, anthropogenic injection of CO2, aerosols, major volcanism or land use change – bit of a level bit of the old inter-stadial – would the climate system get into a rhythm (Wes I’m sure an onanist like you understands) – ENSO and anti-ENSOing – cool and warm PDOing away … up and down – backwards and forwards. Rossby and Kelvin waves all slipping and slopping. Would you expect some stationarity or would it drift – wadja reckon Wessy. I know it’s early to be getting all philosophical.
AB wrote:
“David is correct. The hockey stick has indeed been replicated many times in other independant studies – see Moberg et al (2005) for example.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/moberg2005/moberg2005.html”
Bull shit.
Excerpted from my Wikipedia comment on this topic:
Why is the temperature reconstruction from Global Warming Art being used? Its intended purpose is to demonstrate that independent temperature reconstructions prove the existence of ‘hockey sticks’ thus nullifying the relevance of the Hockey Stick Controversy. However, of the 10 reconstructions the first 7 are by Mann himself or coauthors or direct collaborators of Mann, as is reconstruction 9. This graph should be labelled ‘Other versions of the hockey stick by Mann and associates’ so as not to mislead.
Reference here: http://www.climate2003.com/blog/hockey_team.htm
Mann’s group’s work surely cannot be used as independent validation of Mann’s work?
The graph is so confused it is almost impossible to read and the 2 probable independent reconstructions cannot be discerned from the Mann related studies because so many lines overlay each other.
Mann is prominently quoted as follows:
“More than a dozen independent research groups have now reconstructed the average temperature of the northern hemisphere in past centuries… The proxy reconstructions, taking into account these uncertainties, indicate that the warming of the northern hemisphere during the late 20th century… is unprecedented over at least the past millennium and it now appears based on peer-reviewed research, probably the past two millennia.”
If this is true, can any evidence for this assertion be located? If the statement is untrue or cannot be verified, should it be given prominence?
Obviously, including the quote implies there is a factual basis for it.
“The statistically significant reconstruction skill in the Mann et al. reconstruction is independently supported in the peer-reviewed literature.[39][40]”
I have reviewed footnote 39 and it defends the Mann reconstruction in part, but a defence of methods is not independent support, i.e., independent research that comes to the same conclusion. Footnote 40 also points to a paper that displays the same circularity problem. 8 of the 10 researchers discussed are Mann or Mann co-authors and collaborators. Nothing wrong with this, except where stating that there exists ‘independently supported’ evidence—when this simple check of the citation shows that this is obviously not the case.
“However, CE is not the only measure of skill; Mann et al. (1998) used the more traditional “RE” score, which, unlike CE, accounts for the fact that time series change their mean value over time. The statistically significant reconstruction skill in the Mann et al. reconstruction is independently supported in the peer-reviewed literature.[39][40]”
Again the defence of this statement are citations 39 and 40, which suffer from the circulatory problem as they primarily discuss Mann’s own research or research done by his coauthors and collaborators.
Question: If there is genuine supporting evidence by independent research groups as to the existence of Hockey Sticks, as asserted multiple times in this article, can links be added to these groups within the article?
Reasonably, an ‘independent research group’ surely cannot include co-authors, collaborators or students of Mann? If this is allowed, what meaning does the word ‘independent’ now have? If there is no independent evidence, perhaps the article should be amended to remove such assertions or point out that such assertions have no factual basis.
While Ive been comparing all this Wes stuff with others and contemplating who actually has a grip on temperature measurements as such I can’t help thinking most haven’t got a clue especially those who resort to quoting Watts over and over. Then we have the UHI brigade, also last but not least the non cooling from Lake Eyre.
Folks: this heat wave is breaking records with a vengance. What we have is good records today of just how far south this thing has penetrated. Ross in Tasmania has no suburban UHI issues and its temp is just a shade less than the Mainland as I suggested previously it could be by following the latest data from Lake St Clair further to the West
Fourty degrees sustained around latitude 40S is bad news for SH bushfire season, power utilities, cities and people. I won’t get onto ice or sea level again in this post but it’s worth mentioning the NH sceptics won’t get a bath here.
Will like Wes is also still going after the messanger and that’s hardly original on these threads. Wong in my opinion at least is seeking ideas for mittigation. The business as usual approach cause everything is “normal” in most likely to wind up as a small minority even in the US
Gavin,
“Will like Wes is also still going after the messanger…”
Shame you used an ad homin rather than address any of the substance of what I wrote. But why is that so typical?
Unfortunately, numbnuts like you and AB that attempt to vigorously defend the indefensible are likely to ultimately cause a backlash. Let’s entertain the notion for the moment that AGW is real, and we’re not likely to see the effects of it significantly for another 20-30 years. That is (sort of) the IPCC position. People will be patient about this (even if many of the posters on this blog are not), provided that models stay reasonably in-line with empirical temperature trends.
Now, there are crap studies done all the time, and some may be pro-AGW, and some anti-AGW. That’s the nature of science. Most of it turns out to be wrong, in the long run. Only a small percentage of studies withstand the test of time.
Unfortunately if certain numbnuts claim that EVERY pro-AGW scientific paper is ‘brilliant, fair, balanced’, etc., up until the very moment of it ugly death, no matter how poorly done or how biased it is, then all you are doing is providing ammunition in the long run for bogus sceptics. And ultimately, as I said, the opposite effect of what is trying to be achieved is the result.
Stick to the truth. Don’t repeat spin. Because you WILL be caught out and that destroy’s your credibility and gives the people you disagree with vast ammunition. Therefore: check your facts and try to get your information from multiple sources, and think about the logic of what you’re being told. Do not defend the indefensible. No scientific theory is exempt from the scientific process.
I’ll agree with you to a certain extent, but everything turns out to be wrong in the long run. Atoms are divisible, Newton didn’t get relativity, Kelvin made a whopper. But over time, as you say, we get close to the truth. AGW research is not old, it’s been going on for over 100 years now. To me, that’s enough time to indicate we are on the right track. Over that 100 years, the basic story is still the same, it gets refined, but it is consistent.
SJT:
“I’ll agree with you to a certain extent, but everything turns out to be wrong in the long run.”
Not true. Maybe a position held by the odd post modern deconstructionist, but such a statement is definitely out there on the extreme fringe. Newton was not proved “wrong”. His work was built on and refined. Many aspects of the mechanics behind evolutionary theory are not currently well understood, but I do not believe the core principles will ever be shown to be wrong. Nobody is going to discover that all that scientific research done into the development of computing technology wasn’t correct after all, and computers don’t really work after all…
There is an element of truth in what you say, but then you exaggerate it and the truth gets distorted into something else.
Gavin says – “Folks: this heat wave is breaking records with a vengance. What we have is good records today of just how far south this thing has penetrated. Ross in Tasmania has no suburban UHI issues and its temp is just a shade less than the Mainland as I suggested previously it could be by following the latest data from Lake St Clair further to the West.”
O.K.
But that says absolutely nothing about AGW does it?
Will: “Stick to the truth. Don’t repeat spin…etc seems like a bit of a sermon in this context.
Please note I seldom quote others on environment matters because I didn’t come down in the last dust storm however I frequently refer to BoM info, CSIRO, various CRC’s and so on.
I don’t know where you are coming from but what gives me the edge is a lot of practical experience in all manner of measurements in a range of environments including temperatures.
Note too I don’t go much for accademic style rhetoric that reaches across boundaries or diciplines without good foundation. Also If I live on in some certainty it’s largely due to those who went before me in some field or other.
Mate: Give respect when it’s due, even to those you don’t know.
Gavin pontificates:
“Note too I don’t go much for accademic style rhetoric that reaches across boundaries or diciplines without good foundation. Also If I live on in some certainty it’s largely due to those who went before me in some field or other.”
Suddenly I see it – the ‘don’t question me I’m an expert’ syndrome, otherwise known as being a wanker.
If you can’t meet the points proposed why not go elsewhere?
Ah…and remember expert (phon. ex spurt) – ex = a has-been and spert = a drip under pressure.
Kohl: I thought we were looking at the current heat wave across S E Aus as potential evidence for “climate change” versuis “more of the same” over the short period of instrument records downunder.
To argue AGW here I reckon we have to establish the accuracy of instruments and the reliability of data before tackling trends etc every time Jen posts a fresh topic regarding warming/cooling.
Personnally I have no problems finding a position and can enjoy a stouch simply because I’m retired and don’t have to justify anything to anyone anymore, like writing reports on some system or piece of gear. Guess what I enjoy most? Not having to fix it either!
Gavin,
You’ve lost me. There are a number of comments above making the point that evidence of heatwave conditions in SE Oz is not evidence of AGW; that to make out a case for AGW one requires evidence of warming, evidence that it is global and evidence that it is anthropogenic.
Heating in SE Oz may indeed be evidence for warming (I don’t think so but it is a logical possibility), but it is not evidence for the other two parts of the AGW thing.
Gavin,
“Mate: Give respect when it’s due, even to those you don’t know.”
If you’re upset that your ideas and statements are going to be criticised, then don’t post them. I’m sure you’re not a baby and can handle it. I thought my academic rambling was certainly no worse than your own ‘down to earth’ rambling.
Wes, your question above to David may go unanswered, I fear. My understanding is that David not only works for the BoM, but may be Dr David Jones who heads their atmospherics division; but maybe he will either confirm or deny this for us.
If so, I think it good that David contributes to a quality blog like Jennifers and adds to the debate. However, what does worry me is that a senior public servant should not go beyond facts into the realms of promoting his own personal beliefs and prophesies.
Perhaps one should not be too hard on him while a Federal Minister of the Crown, Penny Wong, is doing just that!
Not only is David and the BoM still promoting the bogus ‘Hockey Stick’ as fact, but the Australian Greenhouse Office is still promoting it and using it in literature to brain wash school children. And there it is for the kids to see, a shaft representing 1000 years, dead straight with not even a wobble for the MWP and the LIA and at the end of the 20the C, the blade heads due north!
Barry Moore, above, makes a telling point about our power companies. Governments of all persuasions have been wringing their hands in despair for many years on this one; being completely beholden to the green vote, the issue has been continueously shelved. So over the past 25 years or so, there has hardly been one major base load power station, or major storage dam constructed in the country.
The time bomb is about to go off!
It’s gone off Sid – there are all these Vics and SAs grumbling in their sweltering dens swearing at the gov for not increasing power generation so they can run their aircon.
I like Kohl, someone taught the mate how to think rationally at an early age, an anomaly in this day and age. Will take notes. Luke you should get out more. It’s dark now, no one will see you if you’re quiet and wear your rubber Gough Whitlam mask.
Actually, I’m… remembering… now… it was Gavin (wasn’t it?), yeah, Gavin, who last winter made a whole spiel of off topic comments on his, ahem, “tomato” plant in a planter on his back porch. Somehow he hallucinated it was a proxy for global warming – indeed anthropogenic warming at that – because the flower tops, uh, tomatoes that is, were booming bloody early over the last few seasons… Bloody clever plant it was, teleconnected to the whole of Gaia.
Naturally, this year’s regional heat wave is stunning confirmation of the accurate calibration of Gavin’s “tomato” proxy. Gavin has a gift for divining the future of all humanity from the lint in his belly button too. I kid you not. The man’s a prodigy with a ther-mum-meter stuck up his…Hey, maybe that’s why it’s always above average temperature at Gavin’s pad?
Gavin’s bum is teleconnected to Gaia! He’s a walking, talking, living proxy. Whoa. Dude. That’s too heavy.
Re: bogus “independent” confirmations for those interested:
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=499
And a further update on this sorry saga here:
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=4866
Part extracted:
“That the authors are not independent can be seen merely by inspecting the names of the coauthors of the Team studies in the usual spaghetti graph. Briffa et al [2001] with coauthor Jones is obviously not “independent” in authorship from Jones et al [1998] with coauthor Briffa. Jones and Mann [2004] and Mann and Jones [2004] are not independent of Briffa (Jones) et al 2001 or Jones (Briffa) et al (1998). MBH (Mann, Bradley and Hughes [1998, 1999]) is not independent of Bradley and Jones [1993], which in turn is not independent of Hughes and Diaz [1994] or Bradley, Hughes and Diaz [2003], etc etc. To say that these supposedly “independent research groups” are not in fact “independent” in any sense familiar to non-climate scientists”
Note Moberg has co-authored with Jones…
Don’t need to comment on this. The facts speak for themselves.
Wes:
“I like Kohl, someone taught the mate how to think rationally at an early age, an anomaly in this day and age. Will take notes.”
That’s a rather cheeky thing to say given the fact that when I called you up on some of the silly things you were writing, you either avoided the questions, or responded with a couple of sentences of vague mumbo jumbo…
Feel free to get back to those questions I asked of you when you feel up to it… 😉
There are lots of comments I could make about contributions to this thread but lets get to this point, I’m not seeking support one way or the on the issue of AGW from blogs or anywhere else for that matter.
Industrial emissions, monitoring and control, evaporation air conditioning, product quality control, lab instruments were my bread and butter for decades. I did installations, calibrations, plant commissioning both sides of Bass Strait on a regular basis before AGW was even thought of. Our standards and references then were often makeshift but I studied with most others in the game, instrument evolution on global basis because many of our customers here expected to use the latest technology as it became available.
I can say; seeking certainty at every step of the way is only a mindset necessary for the beginners. The usual question at the leading edge is, who and what can you trust? In all dynamic situations accurate measurement is not as important as recognizing trends quickly and that’s mostly about establishing rates of change.
From experience, simple systems can’t completely predict the next steady state.
We purchased a couple of used vehicles recently with lots of extra electronic info round the dash. On one long trip we cruised home with the tank near empty so we could reasonably calculate the fuel reserve below the bottom of the gauge.
Checking the facts yourself is a good habit if you can do it. However as with water, gas and electricity, knowing your consumption is hard without those basic instruments.
As I write the chef’s digital on my desk reads 29.1 C and I reckon the one in the other car is about the same but still on the high side as the night air cools down from today’s max of 38. In fact, all my thermometers will come down to about 20C overnight as they did yesterday. BoM data for Belconnen won’t differ much either, but Wes; do we need to worry about that?
BTW Sid; I’m quite happy to wield Mann’s hockey stick anytime based on the rate of likely temp change around 15C as we go on steaming.
For what its worth IMO our “David” speaks with considerable authority on these matters regardless of his position.
The thing that you can rely on about SId is that he’s always wrong – having dammed every inch of the MDB – he’d like some more dry dam space LOLZ.
But what’s this Sidnay – Paradise Dam Qld – November 2005.
http://www.sunwater.com.au/burnettwater_paradisedam.htm
Stanwell Power Station is located near Rockhampton, in Central Queensland, Australia. It is coal powered with four steam turbines with a combined generation capacity of 1,400 MW of electricity.
Stanwell was commissioned in 1993, and became fully operational in 1996.
Tarong North Power Station is a 445 megawatt coal fired power station on the same site as Tarong Power Station in the South Burnett. The Queensland Government commissioned the construction of the power station in November 1999
The 850MW Millmerran Power Station is a coal-fired power station in Queensland. The power station was commissioned in 2002
A 750MW supercritical-steam coal-fired power station is now online at Kogan Creek, near Chinchilla in Queensland, Australia. 2007
Queensland Gas Company (QGC) is building the Condamine Power Station near Miles on the western Darling Downs. The station is 8km east of Miles on the south side of the Warrego Highway. It is the world’s first combined-cycle power station to run entirely on coal seam gas. Austrian Energy and Siemens signed a construction contract for the project; construction began on 19 October 2007
Come to Queensland Siddles – rednecks and good ol’ boys haveb’t been declared illegal yet – although perhaps they should be licensed –
it’s all about the four C’s mate – coal, cows, coral and clearing (land clearing)
No need to visit the outback in Queensland – you can sit on the beach and watch it wash past.
You’d fit right in Sid. They even have a bible bashing belt where you can cuddle right up to one of those big cooling towers. Mate – with a prawn sanger and a couple of ale’s it just doesn’t get any better.
You might even hook a big barra.
Gavin’s gone fishing here on the blog – looks like he’s hooked a few dumb-fish. What bait was that Gav? Throw’em back – they’re full of poop …
Thanks, Will. David and AB as full time taxpayer supported AGW goons are completely aware of that, of course, but other eyes may not be.
Sid, my mates in Canberra and in CSIRO positions only tangentially related to the AGW gestalt met with me for drinks and dinner in our fair capitol and behaved as if we were in Moscow during the cold war when I started to get a bit loud, as you do, after a few drinks on the AGW topic. They were really afraid that someone might overhear our subversive anti-AGW orthodoxy chatter and report them to the Rudd thought police. Canberra is a small town, when you come to think about it. But, really now, I was shocked to find out that simply to leave a climateaudit, wattsupwiththat or jennifermarohasy.com bookmark on your work computer in a .gov or .edu bureaucracy was consider by my mates as a possibly career damaging error…that’s when I got pissed off and decided to get involved.
Toynbee was right, albeit a bit premature, we are witnessing the decline of Western Civilization.
It is possible, applying the statistical criteria used by Mann, to produce a hockey-stick graph from any data;
http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2008/10/11/will-the-real-hockey-stick-please-stand-up/
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=4428#comments
I guess this means the statement that the hockey-stick has been replicated many times is true; in the same sense that a counterfeit $50 bill is replicated.
I too am not surprised that Penny Wong has blamed the current normal summer weather on “Climate Change”. For her the statement reinforces her position as minister and distracts from the main game. We are encouraged to focus on this nonsense rather than the economy and whether or not as a nation we might be broke tomorrow. In Melbourne the transport system is breaking down but it is our fault because we bear the guilt of causing “Climate Change”. We can build reliable transport systems though the centre of Australia. So logic would dictate that there the effects of “Climate Change” are not evident so why not?
The believers of this nonsense seek to convince themselves that they are following the path set down for them by those who they have faith in. It is the believer who has a compulsion to reduce their emissions footprint. I know one who has spent $35000 on just that. He imagines it makes a difference and that any unusual event can be explained by “Climate Change”. The believer is the one who ultimately will be taken advantage of. His purchase is ultimately useless because its effect is not measurable and very simple math shows it goes nowhere near making up for his emissions. A constant lie is that skeptics deny that overall the earth has warmed. In fact most recognise that yes it has but don’t accept it is known why or that we can change it.
So I say to the believers alleviate your guilt go out and buy. You need solar cells, energy saving lights, solar watchs, priuses, wind turbines, green electricity etc the powers that know better than you say you need them.
Wes reveals his inner wanker.
Gavin, Luke,
You blokes are spouting a great deal of self serving rubbish. So as not to add any more hot air to an already warm night and for no good purpose, I propose to leave this thread where it rests.
Hey! Who needs a Toyota …something or other when we have a resident donkey in nearly every corner of the blog just waiting to be harnessed on each pet topic?
Cohenite:
“It is possible, applying the statistical criteria used by Mann, to produce a hockey-stick graph from any data”
My understanding is that the data still has to have certain characteristics, which is why it’s referred to as ‘red noise’ and not ‘white noise’. (White noise is completely random in nature, red noise has certain characteristics, although randomness remains a significant component.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_noise
So your statement that “any data” can produce a hockey stick is not correct…
Your comment?
““It is possible, applying the statistical criteria used by Mann, to produce a hockey-stick graph from any data””
McIntyre claimed that was a bug in their code, not the statistical method, and the bug has been fixed years ago.
“I too am not surprised that Penny Wong has blamed the current normal summer weather on “Climate Change”. ”
It’s not a normal summer, it’s a record heat wave, as in consecutive days of extreme heat.
SJT said,”
“Any cold weather is a sign of cooling, but any hot weather is not a sign of warming. Gotcha.”
What rational climate people are actually saying is that weather is variable and they are annoyed at the AGW promotion industry for asserting that any weather event is *proof* of an impending weather apocalypse.
Hey, Will, how did you know my middle name was cheeky?
Come on, mate. Lighten up. I kicked your semi-literate bum for making a few ill-considered, irrational comments this week. So what? Don’t say you didn’t deserve it. What with your GAWS “generally accepted weak standard” (of the scientific method) and “causality is stupidity”. Karl Popper is a moron, stuff. Shucks, that’s right up there with Luke’s “Stationary Climate” and Gavin’s teleconnected “tomatoes” some of the all time classic guffaws ever posted on this site. LOL. We can still be mates. And you did lift your game since then. No? Just trying to be helpful…
Jennifer should do an all time top 10, no top 20, most stupid posts EVER. Will, you wouldn’t even rank, mate. I reckon Luke’s call for Rudd to declare war on Japan and murder the Jap whalers ranks a close first. STJ is in the running for his claim that some day climatologists will guide the trade winds to the wind mills thus eliminating coal fired power plants is a top ten too. But I’m not sure STJ comments count. (It’s a Turing Test run by a DARPA funded institute.)
Just remember, Will… relax the submit comment trigger finger until you actually reflect upon what you wrote for, say, more than 45 seconds, then depress the mouse key slowly, lightly, that’s it. Works for me. No worries. No cramps. You’ll be all right.
Wes:
” I kicked your semi-literate bum for making a few ill-considered, irrational comments this week.”
Now we’re moving into the “Wes Zone” (similar to the Twilight Zone, except rather than black and white, the colours are fully psychedelic).
Feel free to cut & paste the responses you felt made the most (if any) sense, or the (non-existent) answers to the basic questions I posed.
Interesting that you’re now also “quoting” me as saying things I’ve not written anywhere. Possibly time to review the medication you’ve been taking?
It good that Wessy woo and Willy wonker like beating up on each other. Two massive egos in collision for the biggest wanker award. Really guys I’ve never heard such wallowing tedious pomposity in my life. I suppose you have to fill the science black hole with something.
If you fancy yourselves as players – go and beat up on Motty and see if you survive…
You both know why there are earthquakes don’t you?
Luke:
It’s late, Wes has probably had 6 beers by now (I’m still stuck at work…). You on the other hand, sound perfectly sober, with your head stuck your arse as usual.
Hmmm…. feel free to answer those questions I posed to you days and weeks ago… No running away from them. Interesting when a problem doesn’t fit into your mindset and the answer might cause some dissonance, you just pretend the uncomfortable question was never asked.
Wessy wouldn’t be drinking beer – it would a bottle of feince weine from his personal cellar or a little Scotch he imported recently. The ponce.
What questions were they Will? remind me ….
Luke:
Too late now and the backups are almost done, so I’m out of here. Don’t normally post this much but had to kill the time. I’ll repose the questions when the opportunity seems appropriate.
I beat up on anyone who is sprouting BS or being purposefully disingenuous. Because you manage to do both simultaneously most of the time, you’ve been one of my favourite targets recently. For the record I’m no “climate expert” (if that wasn’t completely obvious), but I like following the arguments and the evolution of the debates. Interesting stuff. I’m following several different fights in several different scientific fields actually. They all get pretty ugly, and everyone seems to have a big ego, it’s not just AGW.
Sorry Will – I hadn’t seen you as a player – just some blow-in dude …
SJT “Any cold weather is a sign of cooling, but any hot weather is not a sign of warming. Gotcha”.
One of your arguments is that local weather phenomena are not global issues. While folks are melting in southern Oz, we’re freezing our butts off with an uncommonly cold winter. How does global warming make southern Oz warmer and western Canada cooler? It obviously doen’t, and the heat wave is a local issue. It also means Penny Wong doesn’t have a clue what she’s on about, but that doesn’t surprise me considering she’s a politician.
I’m reading a book that explains the averaging used in global warming. An average value is defined as a sum of the components divided by the number of components. In light of that, their could be an infinite number of global temperatures that go into arriving at the average. Surface temperatures are calculated by selecting two temperatures at specific times of the day. Which one out of the infinite number of possibilities for temperature do we pick as ‘the’ global temperature?
I’d be interested in seeing the mode and median applied to global temperatures to see which set of temperatures would fall into a ‘most’ likely’ category (that is, within a standard deviationy). I’m wondering why the IPCC went for the average, which could be the most misleading of the lot.
Will Nitschke and little Will; about the hockey-stick and the ability to produce a hockey-stick shape from any data using Mann’s methods; have you read the 2 links I provided at 10.36pm yesterday?
“One of your arguments is that local weather phenomena are not global issues. While folks are melting in southern Oz, we’re freezing our butts off with an uncommonly cold winter. How does global warming make southern Oz warmer and western Canada cooler? It obviously doen’t, and the heat wave is a local issue. It also means Penny Wong doesn’t have a clue what she’s on about, but that doesn’t surprise me considering she’s a politician.”
I’m just going by the standards in use here. Cold weather is accepted as proof that AGW is not true, hot weather is not accepted as proof that it is true.
Again, for those not listening, Moberg et al 2005 does not support MBH 98. As the abstract states: “Our reconstruction shows larger multicentennial variability than most previous multi-proxy reconstructions [i.e. MBH 98],…” and “According to our reconstruction, high temperatures – similar to those observed in the twentieth century before 1990- occurred around AD 1000 to 1100 [that is, they indicate the MWP which MBH 98 expunges], and minimum temperatures that are about 0.7K below the average of 1961-90 occurred around AD 1600 [that is, the LIA]. This large natural variability in the past suggests an important role of natural multicentennial variability that is likely to continue.”
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/moberg2005/moberg2005.html
Anyone who thinks Moberg et al 2005 counts as a study that confirms MBH 98 doesn’t know what they’re talking about.
“I’m reading a book that explains the averaging used in global warming. An average value is defined as a sum of the components divided by the number of components. In light of that, their could be an infinite number of global temperatures that go into arriving at the average. Surface temperatures are calculated by selecting two temperatures at specific times of the day. Which one out of the infinite number of possibilities for temperature do we pick as ‘the’ global temperature?”
That’s why they use temperature ‘anomolies’ to track global temperature. Once you arrive at a reasonable definition of global temperature, you just track the changes up or down of that temperature. Problem solved.
The Tasmanian temperature record was smashed yesterday with a 42.2C. In Tasmania this is by far the most extreme heatwave in that state’s history, and indeed the margin by which records have been bettered is probably unique in the Australian history. The 45C at Geelong Ap (which is in a paddock half way to the surf coast) is the furtherest south we have recorded a 45C. Prior to this event we had never seen a 41C temperature south of Victoria. On Thursday Flinders Island saw 41.5C and yesterday Tasmania proper had a 42.2C. This is 1.4C hotter than any previous temperature recorded in that state.
The heat will continue for the foreseeable future over inland parts with many long run record set to fall. We also run the risk of breaking the Australian record high minimum temperature in coming days and the combination of persistent extreme heat and humidity is unprecedented.
The probability of a heatwave this extreme has been substantially increased due to global warming. This is a mathematical fact.
If Luke were to look closely at my last post he would have seen that I used the word ‘hardly”.
Yes, I am aware of the Qld. projects, and thank him for pointing them out, although some of them may not qualify as large base load. Many of these projects were started by former National Governments who had the guts to ignore Green pressure, as also to their credit, did some Qld Labor Gov’ts.
That is with the exception of the ‘Goss floss” who was advised by another bit of floss, who now resides in a higher place!.
But south of the border……….Noooooooooooo! Green power still rules.
As spectacular as the southern heatwave is in its magnitude …. what is more scientifically convincing of a long term trend is the papers references above that show some upward movement in the frequency of upper percentile temperature ranges (globally or decades).
Also the attempt to say that AGW can’t be the reason for the heatwave as it’s an atmospheric circulation issue – as AGW predicts that the resolution of a changed energy balance will be changes in global circulation patterns (some).
AGW also ought to accentuate the effect of heatwaves to more extreme? Should it not? That’s consistent with what’s happening. But the trend is the issue. Time will tell.
And conversely for full balance – Will – should Jen ask Bob Carter how this record breaking heatwave fits into his global cooling prediction?
david; your hyperbole is tiresome; is this some sort of egotism? That is, we [meaning you and the other alarmists] have to have the biggest and the worst; there really is some sort of neuroticism operating here; try and have some sort of balance will you; here are some reports from the Black friday fires of 1939; note the temperature ranges; funny how they don’t appear in the BoM records.
http://www.abc.net.au/blackfriday/newspapers/index_newspaper_c.htm#age
Nature’s whim determines whether the climate cools or warms.
It is foolhardy to think that Man can control weather.
Only nuts believe computer models can peer into the future. Did any
computer model in the financial industry predict the present global financial
meltdown? Wake up, dunderheads.
David seems keen to use record figures to prove ‘global warming’.
Tit for tat figures alone from countless record lows available from the current long standing big freeze in the US.
Grand Forks, ND: New record of 37deg. below beating prev. record by 6 deg. set in 1979.
Flint, Mich: 95 yr record of minus 10 smashed by minus 19!.
Key West, Florida: 47deg. shatters long term low of 52deg. set in 1961.
Now according to David’s reasoning, this sort of extreme and extended coldwave is due to global cooling, and is a mathamatical fact.
And, when is David going to ‘out’ himself?
Sid – I’d have to say that there has been little protest about power station construction in Queensland from my recollection.
Dams are a different matter – the proposed SEQ Wolfdene Dam was defeated by NIMBYism moire than green politics. Similar to Traveston Crossing protests. NIMBYism. NIMBYs may often be National Party farmers. Not to discount issues with special fauna on the Mary River.
You should see the large growth of near-river storages in the upper MDB over recent decades. Greens???
And may we also say – Cohenite – your hyperbole is tiresome; is this some sort of egotism? That is, we [meaning you and the other denialists/pseudo-sceptics] have to have the biggest and the worst; there really is some sort of neuroticism operating here; try and have some sort of balance will you?
Gordon: “Which one out of the infinite number of possibilities for temperature do we pick as ‘the’ global temperature?”
Early today at a reasonable time before breakfast I checked the didital thermometer on my desk again and it was a nice 21.3 C. Outside on the trusty max/min I estimated in my usual way it was truly 18.0 then so I went down to the car in the carport to double check and found that indicator was steady on 19.0C.
When we took our latest wagon out for a spin along Ginninderra Road it fluctuated about 2 C before riising steadily as the sun came up. Yes that’s two whole degrees depending on the breeeze. Now any one who knows this road could expect the temperature to be the same as Belconnen which is often quoted in the media as the official temp for the area but as one poster suggested my place in particular could always be on the high side for argument sake.
When it comes to trends, experience teaches us to take just one thermometer and ignore the rest, given they all work OK.
Experience also teaches me to ignore all those who want to be pedantic about other people’s data sets. One thermometer is good enough to track weather and climate change in a given area. Producing stats on the other hand is the job of professionals and not the domain of mugs on blogs.
If Luke was about, he would appreciate us moving today from jazz to folk with “Gurrumul” after watching on TV a record breaking tennis match in the “Open” overnight.
I must object luke; what hyperbole have I demonstrated? I would have to say that if there was a contest for the least hyperbole I would win it; that would be a world wide contest which would take into account all future events and expressions of non-hyperbole; in short I would predict that my record of non-hyperbole will never be lowered; except possibly by brain-dead or comatose people, but why bring the labour party into it.
Noted. I withdraw – Wes is much worse 🙂
“The probability of a heatwave this extreme has been substantially increased due to global warming. This is a mathematical fact.”
The probability of the pope’s hat blowing off is also substantially increased by fitting a venturi to a 5 legged cow’s backside & concealing said cow in the hat. This is a mathematical fact.
“It is foolhardy to think that Man can control weather.”
No one has said we can control the weather.
An unintended consequence of our burning in a few centuries the accumulated carbon that was stored under the ground over millions of years is that the climate is changing. We are just trying to rectify that unintended consequence.
Sid
This David has a lot of explaining to do as well as outing himself. Somehow his imperious statement that it is mathematical fact, has in the end got to account for the fact that just because there is a high in the Tasman Sea causing air flow over our mainland to be from N=S, doesnt mean that it is AGW sourced and driven, no more so than when the weather changes and the air flow is from the South and bloody cold.
It may indeed be that case that some extra carbon dioxide in the atmosphere may be adding energy to the system, but they have yet to show that it is human derived Co2 that is soley responsible for all the extra. It is as likely as not that the human part is relatively small, has little effect and doesnt hang around for long
BTW I know this because David down at the local told me so– and he pretty smart. I wonder !
Luke,
Joh was prepared to confront and buck the NP nimbys in order to build a much needed bit of infrastructure but in order to win Kev. Lingard’s seat in Beaudesert in ’89, YKW suggested to Goss to scrub the Wolfdene Dam.
Lingard held his seat [and still does] but Goss won power and had to keep his promise.
It was neither nimbyism nor green politics. Just cynical knavery with no consideration for the consequences.
Gavin,
How’re those sea levels goin’ down at the Ille du Mort?
cohenite,
That 45c and 46.6 back in Jan 1939 is interesting. It seemed to last for a few days, too.
gavin “Experience also teaches me to ignore all those who want to be pedantic about other people’s data sets”.
I was trying to understand your use of the term ‘pedantic’. Hopefully, I chose the appropriate phrase from the dictionary, in this case, “unduly emphasizing minutiae in the presentation or use of knowledge”. Hmmm. There are maybe three recognized groups in the world presenting their studies of world temperatures. One of them, NASA GISS, is known to tweak the record and are known activists. A recent supervisor of GISS has accused the leader, James Hansen, of embarrassing NASA. One of the other groups, Hadley, are urging us to ignore the recent cooling because it’s just an anomaly. Both of these groups seem to have a vested interest in the world getting warmer. Why would I not be suspicious of their data sets and the mathematics they used to arrive at their average values?
Currently, people are questioning the ‘averaging’ of world temperatures, and Ross McKitrick, an economist who understand averages, is questioning whether a global average means anything. That’s the question I’m asking but you see it as emphasing minutiae.
In the book ‘Fundamentals of Atmospheric Radiation’ (Bohren & Clothiaux), Bohren makes this statement about global temperature:
“Global mean temperature is another example of a dubious concept and for more than one reason. As we have seen, infinitely many mean temperatures are possible, and each one is different. But more important, a single number for an entire planet cannot possibly capture the consequences of temperature changes to human health, wealth, and happiness. As with shoe sizes, one needs the entire distribution, which in this context means everything related to weather: spatial and temporal distributions of temperature, rainfall amount and distribution in time and space, winds, duration, timing, and strength of storms – the list goes on and on. If you live in Minneapolis and were to choose your clothing every day on the basis of the global mean temperature you’d likely be uncomfortable most of the time (or possibly even perish)”.
Bohren describes several different averaging methods, including the mean, the mode, the median, the root-mean-square, etc. Each average has a different value and a different meaning. What is the meaning of the average we have been handed, that the global average temperature has warmed 0.6 C in a century? Thankfully, people like Steve McIntyre at climateaudit.org and Anthony Watts at wattaupwiththat, have taken on the high priests of global warming and challenged their data. They have exposed flaws in the data, although AGW advocates have attacked them rather than accepting the flaws.
You can see the folly of this if you live in North America. The Arctic has warmed the most, but in winter, at night. There are parts of the United States that have cooled, like Alabama. The southern states have not changed noticably in temperature and other parts have warmed. When we speak of warming, however, we are talking about a few tenths of a degree C.
How significant is such a low level of warming and how much error is built into it? It seems ludicrous to be worrying about catastrophic sea level rises due to ice melting, droughts, severe storms, heat waves, etc., based on such a flimsy level of warming, which means different things in different parts of the world.
I don’t think it’s the minutiae used to attack the AGW theory that bothers you so much as the exposure of the weaknesses of the theory. Just as religious extremist are intolerant of attacks on their religions, AGW advocates are sensitive to any facts that expose their theory for what it is: a house of cards.
David,
I wonder how much hotter than Stevenson Screens those pre-1910 temps would be?
My comparison of differences between verandah thermometers and SS thermometers is generally not much either way and considering the vagueries and variations of modern SSs, it seems a bit unnecessary to do away with them.
Y’know, some of those old thermometers were kept in the bottom of the water bag!
What a rant Gordon – you’re a legend in your own imagination – pity about http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1979/offset:-0.146/mean:12/plot/uah/from:1979/mean:12/plot/rss/from:1979/mean:12/plot/gistemp/from:1979/offset:-0.238/mean:12 averaging seems to work eh?
zzzzzzzzz (next!)
Spanglers – I’ve seen 2C difference mentioned for very hot days.
Gordon Robertson
“What is the meaning of the average”
“when we speak of warming, however, we are talking about a few tenths of a degree C. ”
I wouldn’t expect a meaningful answer to these questions.
I have asked along those lines before and failed to receive a response, now not “being a player” as Luke put it to someone else, I take it, that I’m not worthy of a response, but I suspect that they have no answer to a simple but relevant question.
On the other hand, if you link to some obscure chart from some obscure “scientist”, now there is something they can debate at length to the smallest detail citing pros. and cons. and other references from “peer reviewed” sources.
“This David has a lot of explaining to do as well as outing himself. Somehow his imperious statement that it is mathematical fact, has in the end got to account for the fact that just because there is a high in the Tasman Sea causing air flow over our mainland to be from N=S, doesnt mean that it is AGW sourced and driven, no more so than when the weather changes and the air flow is from the South and bloody cold.”
“AGW sourced” is not the right way to look at it. A high in the Tasman sea is always going to happen. How high the temperatures go due to that high pressure system is what is of interest. Is there a ‘signal’ in there that the record heat wave is being influenced by AGW. Don’t forget, AGW doesn’t drive the climate as such, it is just driving the changes. A few degrees more, as we have seen, over three days, has a serious effect on life. Plants that have coped with years of drought have suddenly shown signs of severe distress.
“Don’t forget, AGW doesn’t drive the climate as such”
????
“Don’t forget, AGW doesn’t drive the climate as such”
Not in the sense that the question was put. “AGW” does not drive a high pressure system, they exist already quite outside any external drivers. AGW is claimed to increase their effect, if they are causing heatwave such as the South has just experienced. However, as Luke has said, once incident does not constitute convincing evidence, there has to be a pattern observed over a length of time for the claim to be considered proven. As an example, IIRC, he said that the number of extreme temperature events is being watched, and seems to indicate there is a pattern emerging.
SD; yes, 116F in the old language; the 39 heatwave began in the first week of january and was washed out on the 21/1/39; somewhere between 2-3 weeks.
luke; you are still peddling that WFT graph showing similar trends; what about this one?
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:2001/offset:-0.146/mean:12/trend/plot/uah/from:2001/mean:12/trend/plot/rss/from:2001/mean:12/trend/plot/gistemp/from:2001/offset:-0.238/mean:12/trend
Let’s face it folks, when Qld gets a good summer with a mild blocking high in the Tasman and a weak low in the Coral Sea and our resulting Easterlies go on for weeks, giving us those fabulous, gentle, sea breezes that blow night and day with just enough gradient to defy the continental effect, keeping us cool at night, not needing a/c and most importantly of all, allowing us to sail up and down the coast with minimum effort, Mel and Ad cop the shit.
That’s fair enough isn’t it?
Nothing to do with AGW!
Yes thanks for playing Cohers – so picking the best satellite RSS and the less controversial HADCRU – the basic trend is similar and the annual variation is similar. Something about populations of large numbers. Is your opinion greatly changed by all this. No. The satellite pretty well mirrors the ups and downs of the HADCRU data. BTW if you disagree never ever talk about long term global warming or cooling here again as you have no basis.
Obviously spanglers – God is a Queenslander – and we have ports, big lunch and Windsor sausage to prove it.
SJT: “Not in the sense that the question was put. “AGW” does not drive a high pressure system, they exist already quite outside any external drivers. AGW is claimed to increase their effect, if they are causing heatwave such as the South has just experienced. However, as Luke has said, once incident does not constitute convincing evidence, there has to be a pattern observed over a length of time for the claim to be considered proven. As an example, IIRC, he said that the number of extreme temperature events is being watched, and seems to indicate there is a pattern emerging.”
Non sequitur.
Or expressed less dimplomatically, the posting of an,,,,,,,,,,
“Non sequitur.”
No, more a case of “If I can’t understand it, you can’t prove it.”
Actually luke, HadCrut and UAH have identical trends; RSS shows the greatest decline and GISS is being dragged kicking and screaming; as usual.
“Let’s face it folks, when Qld gets a good summer with a mild blocking high in the Tasman and a weak low in the Coral Sea and our resulting Easterlies go on for weeks, giving us those fabulous, gentle, sea breezes that blow night and day with just enough gradient to defy the continental effect, keeping us cool at night, not needing a/c and most importantly of all, allowing us to sail up and down the coast with minimum effort, Mel and Ad cop the shit.”
Thank you, spangles, your wisdom gained by living life directly is well worth repeating. That’s exactly the state of things, elegantly explained.
Today on my isolated property on the northwest corner of the New England plateau we had a little thunder storm that blew in from the east. Breezy, from the east all day and all night long. max T 28c, min T 13c. Minimum would have been cooler still but the breeze wouldn’t let the chill settle.
Meanwhile, a mate rang today from Rockhampton and said the weather was unusually cool today, tops 29c! Accompanied by lovely sea breezes too, night and day. Little wonder Victoria is the state on the move.
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
OK Cohers – fair enough – so can we now drop this bullshit argument about global temperature averages – UAH and HADCRU about the same trend and wiggles. It does average out. A sample can be taken. There are not a gazillion possibilities.
GISS will be different attempting a sample estimate of a warming Arctic.
So is that the end of that tedious spurious diversion.
Gordon, the clever North American, observes with a clear head:
“There are maybe three recognized groups in the world presenting their studies of world temperatures. One of them, NASA GISS, is known to tweak the record and are known activists. A recent supervisor of GISS has accused the leader, James Hansen, of embarrassing NASA. One of the other groups, Hadley, are urging us to ignore the recent cooling because it’s just an anomaly. Both of these groups seem to have a vested interest in the world getting warmer. Why would I not be suspicious of their data sets and the mathematics they used to arrive at their average values?”
Gordon goes straight to the unmentionable dark heart of the matter!
Luke and the other choirboys (intellectually neutered to keep their altos fingernail-across-slate excruciatingly shrill) will, of course, sing Ode to the Conspiracy. Yet, the fact is the sacred consensus lying in state is now decaying far too quickly to be considered for canonization into the great hall of useful scientific theory.
“I don’t think it’s the minutiae used to attack the AGW theory that bothers you so much as the exposure of the weaknesses of the theory. Just as religious extremist are intolerant of attacks on their religions, AGW advocates are sensitive to any facts that expose their theory for what it is: a house of cards.”
So true! The choir of AGW castarati enjoy a good obfuscating hyperlink food fight over minutiae. Inquiring scholastics must know how many CO2 molecules can tap dance on the head of pin.
Please! Distract our gaze from the rational, conclusive, step by logical step processes, which could be brought to bear upon the hypothesis this very day. Where is the transparently reproducible causal evidence for the AGW hypothesis? No where, so it seems.
Instead, Gavin presents us with his tomato proxy, and his back porch thermumeter exquisitely calibrated. Luke, the nutless wonder, altos oxymorons spiced with sophomoric ad homs he’s already copipasted palimpsestically a thousand times…. and the newly anointed high priest “David” (funded by your taxes) consecrates our 4-day regional heat wave as a 1 in a 1,000 year event of cosmic significance! Assuredly, a sign from the heavens that we have sinned gravely and will be duly punished before the Holocene begins its slow descent into the next eon.
Oh Jen, deliver unto us an Amphitheatrum Flavium where we can slay these benighted eschatological dogmatists with simple pure swords of rational light.
Yes Wes, we don’t get it to that extent every summer but it has probably always happened and it’s so good that in spite of myself I occasionally feel guilty.
Wes; ”Oh Jen, deliver unto us an Amphitheatrum Flavium where we can slay these benighted eschatological dogmatists with simple pure swords of rational light”
Oh; so here we have another self made man who can’t stand on his own two feet hey
BTW when comparing references; my tomato proxy is as good as anyone here using tree rings and ice cores to justify their theme. Now; being such a clever blogger, did you even wonder how those scientists brought their samples home for calibration? Perhaps they can use a paper bag, a cardboard box even, a tin can to carry their collection.
We don’t here much on certification with this lot and readers should wonder why.
I reckon drilling ice cores in subzero temperatures is the eazy bit after melting all round the edges, just sitting at home in this heatwave. That brings me to say, we don’t see much on humidity measurement either. Due point is a major consideration for those without airconditioning via external heat exchangers.
What we have then is an exclusive club developing around climate change denial. Shooting the messanger is only the first stage.
Lets get back to some real figures. Temperatures from Canberra to Launceston have been nuging 40C for days recently and please note there is a lot of briny inbetween. It serves no usefull purpose to bring up Watts n Co arguments here.
I forgot to mention earlier; when I want metadata analysis I usually go to ABS, BRS csiro and others similar. These blogs are quite irrelivant in forecasting, tasking etc even helpful hints in the main
Tell you what Gavin – do reckon Wes walks around the house out there among the boulders blathering on like he does on here. Very tedious. Probably kills the local wildlife with acoustic torture. I have never heard someone go and on for hours and say absolutely nothing like our Wes.
BTW Wessy-wank – Hansen’s “ex-boss” hasn’t been there for what – errr … ummm … yonks. He’s a geezer like you – a codger…. so off you go now … carefully does it …
I should also point out that Jennifer has completely misrepresented what Penny Wong said in the source she has provided.
Jennifers “quote” from her reference.
What Penny Wong actually said.
No mention of ‘proving’ anything.
Sorry to spoil the fun, janama, but those weather stations aren’t used for climate monitoring.
http://www.bom.gov.au/announcements/media_releases/climate/change/media01.shtml
Sure – the AVERAGE temperatures are calculated from the 127 non-urban stations We are talking about daily temperatures which are from these stations, Essendon Airport is another for Melbourne. How can you compare the temperature of Melbourne to Dandenong if you use a non-urban station?
“Sure – the AVERAGE temperatures are calculated from the 127 non-urban stations We are talking about daily temperatures which are from these stations, Essendon Airport is another for Melbourne. How can you compare the temperature of Melbourne to Dandenong if you use a non-urban station?”
It is the average temperatures that are of interest, they are the ones scientists are using to make claims about AGW. Day to day temperatures are of interest, but if they are not 100% correct are irrelevant to the science of AGW. Watt’s interest in them are a waste of time.
Wow, that some pretty egregious shit Jennifer. You can’t really blame the Canberra Time subbie either, as you claim to have “heard it from Climate Change Minister Penny Wong”.
Whenever you are using direct quotation marks, be really sure who you are quoting and make it clear to your readers who you are quoting – in this case, not the person you claimed to be quoting but some Fairfax hack’s drastic oversimplification.
So let me get this straight. According to the “Bimbo for Climate Change” and assorted “Gavins”, when the wind blows from Lake Eyre towards Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney or Brisbane, it is evidence of climate change and when it blows in every other direction it is not evidence of climate change?
Awesome intellects. So if it blows towards Melbourne a little longer than “usual” then it is part of a gobal trend? Yeah, right. And of course the BoM, a.k.a. “Ministry of Climate Truth”, will confirm this because their selected sites are heavily biased towards the SE Corner of the country. So when a much larger part of NT and WA is not being warmed while Vic/NSW/SA are being warmed this will show up in the national mean as more evidence of global warming.
So when can we expect the climate data collection function to be seperated from the climate reporting function under principles of best practice?
Under this pack of spivs, not any time soon.
Ian, state borders are arbitrarily drawn lines on a map, they have little relevance to weather. WA goes all the way from the top to the bottom of Australia. Victoria is stuck on the tip of the SE. It makes much more sense to talk of regions, eg, the South of Australia, which is typically influenced by the Southern Ocean. That influence seems to be lessening.
Australia’s January 2009 mean temperature anomaly as calculated by BOM has been released.
http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/silo/reg/cli_chg/timeseries.cgi?variable=tmean®ion=aus&season=01
It is +0.36C.
That makes it the 23rd warmest January since 1950 (or the 38th coldest).
The January 2009 maximum temperature anomaly for Australia was +0.14C
That makes it the 33rd warmest January since 1950 or the 28th coldest.
You almost sounded intelligent there SJT but it didn’t fool anyone. State borders may not have a lot to do with weather but they clearly have a lot to do with BoM reference sites which have clear SE and SW corner biases. See http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/change/reference.shtml
Nothern Territory = 6 stations for 135 million ha = 22.5 mha each
South Australia = 11 stations for 98.5 million ha = 8.95 mha each
Victoria = 8 stations for 22.8 million ha = 2.85 mha each
Tasmania = 7 stations for 6.8 million ha = 0.97 mha each
New South Wales = 22 stations for 80.2 million ha = 3.65 mha each
Western Australia = 21 stations for 252.5 million ha = 12.02 mha each
Queensland = 18 stations for 172 million ha = 9.56 mha each
So lets spell out the biases, or perhaps it would be better termed the “Climate Gerrymander”.
Each reference station for the Northern Territory covers an area the size of Victoria, which has 9 reference stations, or 3.3 times the size of Tasmania, which has 7 reference stations.
If every reference station had the same average area as the Tasmanian ones then Western Australia should have 260 reference stations, not 21, The Northern Territory would have 139 stations, not 6 and Queensland would have 177 stations, not 18.
The SE corner of South Australia with 5 stations over 18 mha for 3.6 mha each has a similar station density to the NSW average. But 20 of the 22 NSW stations are in the Eastern half of the state and they have an average area of 2.0 mha each. Furthermore, 9 of the 21 Western Australian stations are in the SW corner, covering only 10% of the state and an average area of 2.78 mha each.
So when BoM provides an Australia wide temperature trend they are talking complete bollocks because 49 (52.7%) of the 93 mainland stations cover less than 15% of the area.
And whenever the hot desert winds blow towards that 15% of the country, represented by 53% of the reference stations, surprise, surprise, they find what they call “evidence” of global warming. Well, just fancy that, folks, more gems from “the Ministry of Climate Truth”.
Ian,
Couldn’t be bothered doing the real numbers … but using your wet-finger-in-the-air logic the preponderence of SE/SW Mainland, Tasmania, and Antartica stations would kinda mean there’s a long term COLD bias in the CRN wouldn’t it ?
Ian,
I presume you understand that the average maximum temperature for Australia is not calculated by just averaging all the reference station data. This data is used to prepare an areal distribution across Australia.
See for example:
http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/watl/temperature/index.jsp?colour=colour&time=latest&steps=0&map=maxanom&period=month&area=nat
Southeastern Australia had maximum temperature anomaly of +2-4C in January 2009 with isolated spots above 5C. If station density had anything to do with it, the anomaly for January would be at least +2 degrees when in fact it was just +0.14C
There are tried methods for converting the data, which resulted in this contour analysis, into an area weighted average. Having 10 or 100 or 1000 quality stations in Victoria won’t make any difference other than leading to a more accurate representation of the anomaly over that area.
In the January anomaly map, Southeastern Australia’s 2-5 degree warm anomaly is cancelled out by an area over NT and Queensland centred near Mt Isa which has a cold anomaly of greater than 6C. By eyeballing the chart you can see why the maximum temperature anomaly for January over Australia was so low at 0.14C
Len, my issue has always been with the accuracy and the potential for error is significant when reference points are used as a surrogate for areas 10 times the size of of other reference point areas.
And it is quite clear from comparing the reference station map http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/change/reference.shtml with the above anomaly map http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/watl/temperature/index.jsp?colour=colour&time=latest&steps=0&map=maxanom&period=month&area=nat that there is a great deal of somewhat arbitrary “smoothing” going on in the anomaly maps.
A good example is the number of temperature hot spots that are entirely within a single stations reference area but do not actually intersect with that station. An example is the hot spot on the Eyre Peninsula in South Australia, with the nearest reference stations being at Ceduna to the West, Woomera to the North and Rayville Park on the Eastern Shore of Spencer Gulf. And one must ask, how would the data from the reference sites lead one to determine the extent of an anomaly in that location?
Another good example is the two hot spots in western NSW and Northern Victoria. Neither of them are anywhere near a reference station so any compilation of anomaly, especially an apparently “anomalous anomaly”, if you will, must be based on something other than reference station data.
There is also a very curious hot spot between Carnarvon and Meekatharra, WA, where something other than the data from the reference stations has informed the line drawings.
But the best one must go to the curious little isthmus that joins up the +2C to+3C portions of WA and SA. Giles station is 200km to the North, Forrest is 500km to the South and Alice Springs and Oodnadatta are 600km to the East. So the shape of these contours, especially the lobe extending into NT and much of the portions to the East and West of this isthmus cannot be informed by the reference station data.
The Minimum Anomaly map shows appears to show even greater resort to creative endeavour, with curious lobes of higher minimum temps extending into locations not covered by reference station data. http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/watl/temperature/index.jsp?colour=colour&time=latest&steps=0&map=minanom&period=month&area=nat
To which one must ask, exactly what DOES the reference station data actually inform? Or does it merely misinform?
hmmmmm …. somebody got done on not realising areal weighting ….. hehehehehehehe LOL !
No Luke, nice try but go back and read the above post again. And then explain to us how one might produce the max and min anomaly maps from reference point data. The mean temperature series is derived from the anomaly maps, that is, temperature x area for each polygon. This is a lot more than a mere weighting variance for each reference point.
Over 600km between source data points and major spatial nuance between them leaves an awful lot of scope for “creative license”, don’t you think?
It is one thing to fill in the gaps between hard data reference points when plotting actual temperature gradients because these gradients can be ground truthed and checked against historical evidence and known influences like altitude changes. But that is not the case with anomaly maps because each anomaly is, by definition, an exception to the norm.
So please make use of your extensive contacts in the spivosphere to explain to us all how one can determine, mathematically, why a particular anomaly level might protrude in a large lobe, or even magically appear, in the vast spaces between a number of source date points.
As Yoda might have said, “hmmn, with baited breath we wait”.
This BOM release is worth a read – putting the heatwave in to some sort of perspective… one heck of a heatwave especially since the climate is cooling (lol). (I got from bravenewclimate).
I’m not arguing climate change… but the stats are astounding. Wow Melbourne’s record shattered by almost a whole degree C, and 3.2 degrees C above the Feb record!!!!! the state’s maximum beaten by 1.6 degrees C!
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/current/statements/scs17c.pdf
quotes highlighted at BNC:
“The January-February 2009 event has now been responsible for seven of the eight highest temperatures on record in Tasmania; a total of eight sites reached 40°C, a mark which had only been reached on 16 previous occasions in the state’s recorded history…
On 7 February (Figure 2), the focus of the most extreme heat, which was accompanied by high winds and very low humidity, was in Victoria. An all-time state record was set at Hopetoun, in the state’s north-west, when the temperature reached 48.8°C, exceeding the old record of 47.2°C, set at Mildura in January 19395 by a considerable margin. Seven other sites, in the Wimmera and in the area immediately west of Melbourne, also exceeded the old record, including Avalon Airport (47.9°C), Horsham (47.6°C), Longerenong (47.6°C) and Laverton (47.5°C). The Hopetoun temperature is also believed to be the highest ever recorded in the world so far south. A total of 14 sites exceeded the previous Victorian February record of 46.7°C…
Many all-time site records were also set in Victoria on 7 February, including Melbourne (154 years of record), where the temperature reached 46.4°C, far exceeding it’s previous all-time record of 45.6°C set on Black Friday (13 January) 1939. It was also a full 3.2°C above the previous February record, set in 1983. Three of Melbourne’s five hottest days have now occurred during this event. Geelong (47.4) and Wilsons Promontory (42.0) were among long-term sites which broke all-time records which had been set only the previous week. In total, of the 31 currently open sites in Victoria with 30 years or more of data which reported on 7 February, 21 set all-time records, five set February records, and only five failed to set records at all. 7 Record high temperatures for February were set over 87% of Victoria…
Both Adelaide and Melbourne set records for the most consecutive days above 43°C. Adelaide’s temperatures were at this level on each of the four days 27-30 January, and Melbourne’s for three days from 28-30 January, breaking the previous records of two at both locations… Adelaide ultimately had nine consecutive days above 35°C; after never having experienced more than eight consecutive days above 35°C before March 2008, it has now happened twice within twelve months…
Melbourne had no measurable rain from 4 January to 7 February, the equal second-longest dry spell on record for the city (35 days). This approaches the record of 40 days set in 1954-55. Melbourne (0.8 mm) had its second-driest January on record, and with only 2.2 mm to 8 February has now experienced its driest start to a year on record…”
What a beat up, MattB. Given the comparatively small area of Tasmania it is hardly surprising that the weather system that produced one record temperature might also produce record temps just down the road. But you could not resist the temptation to put some spin on it, could you? So get a brain, numb nuts, it is not 8 record temperatures, it is 8 different measurement perspectives of the same event. Ditto for Melbourne and Adelaide.
And if you take another look at the temp anomaly maps above you will see that the extreme high temps in the south are matched by, and a direct consequence of, the extreme lows in the monsoonal north. This year they have extended further south and as a consequence the high pressure system that dragged the hot air down to Tasmania was also further south. When that event ends then the extremes in the south will also end.
The vehicle for this will not be some invisible climate hand but, rather, the floods from the north will reach Lake Eyre, in about 65 days, and that whole region will start evaporative cooling again. And when the next breeze blows towards Melbourne it will have much higher humidity and lower temperature.
And if you were a statisticians armpit you would understand that the longer a data sequence continues the more likely it becomes that new records will be set, in both directions.
Hmm sorry Ian… this seems to be a thread about it being hot in south east Australia… and I’ve simply directly quoted the BOM’s press release about the hot event – you can email them your concerns if you like. My entire post does not even MENTION Tasmania??? So what in god’s name are you prattling on about there?
whoops I see the Tassie reference sorry… but still argue with the BOM if you want… but the facts are facts sorry.
No MattB, the issue is with your use of the facts. And the repetition of the Tasmanian data from 8 sites in relatively close proximity does not amount to 8 distinct record temps. They are 8 measurements of the one weather event. You then pulled the same stunt for Victoria in a brazen attempt to hoodwink the gullible into thinking that it was some sort of sequence of records rather than a single event measured at numerous points.
It is a classic example of green use of “the litany”, ie a long list of essentially similar items designed to imply greater significance than it actually deserves. The fact that the BoM (a.k.a. Ministry of Climate Truth) might have stooped to the same stunt does deflect criticism of yourself for repeating it.
Ian – I have directly quoted (cut and pasted) a BOM media release… simple as that.
The fact that you think I’ve “used” facts in a misleading manner is absurd… almost as much as your comments about the BoM.
As for your thoughts it is all just one event… well previously for example the Hobart record was in 1976, and the Launceston Airport record was from WWII.
So it is in fact YOU who is pulling a stunt to try and make this seem like a run of the mill heat event.