Hi Jennifer,
I’m writing a note about a bizarre end of summer storm event that hit drought affected Canberra late Tuesday evening. To some extent the whole thing went right over my head but I recall hastily pulling out internet and power connections then rounding up pets as lightening developed around my place. It passed quickly but next day there was still chaos in our city nearby.
Read about “The Storm of the Decade” here, http://canberra.yourguide.com.au/detail.asp?class=news&subclass=general&story_id=561581&category=General.
For a while I have been most interested in what we now call “supercell” activity and I wrote another note on the Licloa event to a local political advisor on Tuesday afternoon thinking we must get used to a higher frequency of these spectacular but very dangerous events as our seas around Bass Strait warm.
Regards,
Gavin
In Canberra, Australia
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
I hope everybody watched the program “Lightening: Nature strikes back” last night on ABC at 8.30
We’ve had tornados go through our region today hitting a school and killing a lot of people. We’ve always had tornados, but those today must be caused by global warming.
You may be interested in this tidbit. Al Gore claims that he and his mansion are carbon neutral because he buys carbon credits. Guess who receives the money that he pays. Why, it’s Al Gore, himself! How “convenient.”
http://gmroper.mu.nu/archives/217411.php
http://billhobbs.com/2007/02/more_on_gore.html
Gavin,
Have the seas around Bass Strait got warmer? I was not aware of that. Can you tell me by how much, and over what period, and who did the measurements?
Gavin, How come these supercells coming from the warming seas in Bass Strait chose to ignore the
400 kms in between?
chrisl, it’s partly because of all the hot air in canberra.
Luke/Pinxi/STJ,
Have the seas around Bass Strait got warmer?
http://weathersavvy.com/Q-Tornadoes_Wintertime.html
Woody, I guess that it’s a matter of statistics. Tornadoes can happen any time of the year, but they are less likely to happen during the colder time of the year.
While we’re on the lookout for Mrs T – it’s lightning not lightening !
In terms of sea surface temperatures (SSTs) – yep SSTs around Tassy are considerably up – check out last few weeks here http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/PSB/EPS/SST/climo.html
Long term SSTs are also trending up – at the usual place for Aussie trends: http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/silo/reg/cli_chg/trendmaps.cgi Pick the “variable” as SSTs and try various periods. You will notice a signficant warm anomaly off the SE Australian coast that intensifies as the decades progress.
Is this relevant to the said storm in Canberra – dunno – but as you asked.. ..
ALSO Woody would be pleased to note that the IPCC makes no finding on changes on tornadoes and AGW in the latest SPM. i.e there is insufficient evidence to determine whether trends exist .. .. .. in small scale phenomena such as tornadoes, hail, lightning and dust-storms.
Davey Gam – I also followed up on the SW WA papers should you have an ongoing interest.
CSIRO have also said:
Recent
decades have seen a reduction in the numbers of
mid-latitude storms to the south of Australia, but the
intensity of these storms has on average increased.
Climate models also indicate a future decrease in the
number of storm centres over southern Australia but
an increase in their intensity. These changes are likely
to affect the coasts in the south-east of the continent
that are vulnerable to shifts in wave direction and
energy. They will also impact the return periods for
mid-latitude storm surges, landslides, high winds,
coastal erosion and other phenomena.
http://www.cmar.csiro.au/e-print/open/CoastalBroch2002.pdf
Luke, screw the IPCC. There is a “consensus” that tornados are related to global warming, and that’s all that matters–not science. Even Al Gore said so.
“In An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore threw in the 2004 U.S. tornado season in his laundry list of phenomena apparently related to climate change: ‘Also in 2004, the all-time record for tornadoes in the United States was broken.’
“Why would Gore throw in the mention of tornadoes, except to imply some sort of causal connection between the 2004 season and global warming? As I recall the movie, Gore didn’t make any specific causal claim, but again, why else include the topic if not to suggest the existence of one?”
http://scienceblogs.com/intersection/2007/02/global_warming_and_tornadoes.php
Woody I really cannot believe the sheer depth of your bigotry and stupidity.
Did Al Gore say that the science does not matter – exact quote pls or be a f-ing liar.
Consensus on tornadoes – by whom. Quote pls. I know you’re not used to dealing in evidence Woody and just spinning everything but as Jen says “this is an evidence based blog”.
But yes screw Gore – he’s getting too much airplay – who invited him?
The IPCC reviewed the literature (and I’ll bet dollars to doughnuts you have not BOTHERED to read either the TAR or leaked 4AR draft). The IPCC working group would have reviewed the tornado literature and decided (in consensus) that there was not enough or nothing in the theory of AGW and tornadoes. What the hell is wrong with that? Would you like them to make some spin up like you do daily on your blog.
And how actually would you like to be advised by the world’s scientists on climate. The reality you’d like not to be informed and have it all hidden away wouldn’t you Woody? Or have Phillip Morris tell you.
I thought you would have actually noticed that the IPCC have not claimed eveything including the kitchen sink is AGW related. Incidentally you will also notice RealClimate backs off on some issues too and hoses them down. I don’t see you conceding anything Woody or correcting wrong ones among the vast amount of differing crap contrarian views – they can’t all be right mate.
Perhaps you would like the IPCC to be replaced with shills like Ball and Singer?
As for Antarctica – yes science discovers new things and reports them. So ? We know little about the region and the science effort is now starting to inform us. What’s wrong with that? But I do have to say your newspaper article is very scanty – exactly who, what & where not that clear. They could have done better with a few more sentences.
Luke, Al Gore creates public consensus and scientific accomodation with non-scientific claims–such as the one on tornados and gw. Gore suggests a cause and effect, and he gets the gw panic and press that he wants. This is typical:
http://neworleans.indymedia.org/news/2007/02/9693.php
“GW Bush regime’s willfull ignorance of global warming research to protect his financial backers in petroleum corporations led to severe weather disasters Katrina and recent 02/02 tornados in FL..
“from miami imc;
Friday, Feb. 09, 2007 at 4:38 PM
center@biologicaldiversity.org
“Senator John Kerry (D-MA) and Representative Jay Inslee (D-WA) joined conservation groups today, filing an amicus brief in support of a lawsuit against the Bush administration for its failure to issue a legally required National Assessment of climate change impacts on the United States, now two years overdue.
“FL’s tornados linked to global warming
“The recent (02/02/07) severe storms that spawned the tornadoes that demolished trailers and homes in Central Florida’s town of Lady Lake (western Lake Wales Ridge) were likely caused or made worse by global warming’s symptom of climate change. Climate change isn’t limited to gradually warming temps, instead we witness more extreme weather conditions including more severe storms. Greater severity in storms results from extreme temperature differences, and warmer waters over the Gulf of Mexico in collision with a southwards moving cold front in the upper Midwest resulted in severe tornadic activity usually found in Florida during the springtime, not midwinter..
“The Florida (02/02/07) Lady Lake tornadoes were blamed exclusively on El Nino, though the meteorologist ‘professionals’ deliberately ignored the effects of escalating climate change from CO2 emmissions on increasing the polarity extremes of the cyclical El Nino/La Nina events..”
Luke, you want to limit the discussion to what selected scientists say. That’s no longer possible in the current climate–not meaning weather type. Opportunistic politicians, including Gore whom you cannot ignore, and a gullible public have been misled by questionable information from scientists who have made mistakes and overstatements on data that they really cannot be absolutely certain about. The scientists created the Frankenstein and now the townspeople want to come kill it.
Luke, if someone lies to you or misleads you several times, are you going to continue to trust them? Not me. As they say…fool me once, shame on you…fool me twice, shame on me. The “consensus” scientists have lied once too often, so now I demand proof that I can understand myself rather than taking the words of government paid lackeys who talk in probabilties rather than certainties.
P.S. Luke, regarding my “stupidity,” I certainly have no inferiority complex when discussing issues with you. You only exceed me in arrogance.
Sorry to get back on topic, but wouldn’t a warming bass strait cause storms where the prevailing winds blow, i.e. the east, not the north. That is New Zealand, not Canberra.
But this is global warming so anything is possible.
The ACT has suddenly had a series of thunderstorms coming in with what could possibly be the start of drought breaking rains. It’s almost a new experience.
As for the questions about my guess that waters round our southern coastline has something to do with it all again; I reckon to leave it to the experts here to prove me wrong and Bass Strait is not warming over recent summers.
There is a headline today in Forum, that extra bit in Saturday’s Canberra Times “Under the weather” with two tables, one on “heating up” the other on “gathering storms” Cathy Alexander reports: “Scientists agree that extreme storms experienced in Canberra recently are a taste of what’s to come as global warming advances”
I have been a keen weather watcher, starting long before storm chasing became popular in the media. Glancing at lightening bolts less than 20 meters away a few times has improved my personal understanding of the super cell process. The need was not by chance as I worked around a lot of communication and electrical systems in an ordinary day.
We should note the OLO article “Going cold on climate change” by Mark Lawson who reckons climate models hence the IPCC projections are stuffed up. In modelling my practical environment I used a lot of strategies both academics and journalists never heard of. With a bit of imagination I make my thoughts fit personal observations. I still have ten fingers and ten toes intact after years of trade exposure in heavy industry too.
I hope this next bit is not too long. I wrote most of it while unaware of the true extent of hail damage in this city however I did ask if experts had properly cross sectioned the storm from radar images.
My first big lesson with lightening was a smack in the left side of my face while listening up close to “Jason and the Argo naughts” on mum and dad’s Astor “Mickey” with its long pick up wire stretched out in a thunderstorm. That massive bolt divided above us and struck the ground in three places. The largest plasma ribbon was met by tons of dirt going skywards. Since then I have been too close to several others.
All my other near miss plasma observations occurred in very wet conditions except the last one that hit the power pole in the back yard and shot inside through my computers. It triggered an instant deluge. In one case the arcs danced over all the gutters and down pipes beside my window. We hear the “zip”, see the flash then hear the bang that follows from the cloud base. Believe me, the zip noise comes first as the ground or something else close tears.
As our atmospheric science progresses I too become more certain that our expanding activity has a greater impact on both local and global climate change. The rate of all human consumption is reflected more than ever now in angry clouds forming over our cities with various storm clouds and dense bushfire smoke blankets capable of forming bizarre atmospheric vortex like structures that create continuous lightening.
It seems I missed the pollution connection with lightening in my observations while watching man made clouds develop way back. Even some work on heavy ore separation in a magnetic vortex process failed to connect my scattered thoughts on how we got from snow to large hail stones high up in storm clouds. Compression must be the key as we condense around fine solids.
In our major industries we made a lot of steam in the manufacturing process and smoke during combustion. I normally measured each one way or another at the source. We also played with fuel spirals and vortexes in our general furnace engineering hoping for greater efficiencies.
We could get right into ENTROPY AND THE SECOND LAW then my old bug with possible dust explosions in the chamber or the local atmosphere at the practical level even the creation of life itself from a big spark however…
At one point (early 1960’s) a paint scientist asked me to build a Hilsch tube for a public demonstration of the temperature extremes found from intense air spirals in a confined column. Oil particles in our air stream actually limited the demo giving much less snow and steam than expected from previously published experiments. See this rather non scientific article on the commercial model for industry –
http://www.exair.com/vortextube/vt_frmain.htm
Trying to build the thing in glass first up back then was another failure. Our class blower could not control the dimensions of the “choke”. As it turned out this was a most important part of the device because it determined the ratios of core flows. I reckoned it was the “aperture” in the eye of our violent little storm.
Back to spontaneous combustion for a moment: After working on various reactions contained by very thick steel I prefer to leave the math and physics to academics while I reflect more on our current trade skills.
All our engineering breaks down to the lowest common denominator in the end; electrical engineering is no exception. Finding the impact of surge damage in all manner of circuits and control was another part of my work experience however I depended on industry associates for much of my knowledge in dealing with what’s apparently becoming an increasing hazard. I have good reason to feel these dry thunderstorms that start bushfires are increasing from association with a board range of radio communications technicians.
Luke and Gavin,
Thanks for the info on Bass Strait warming. I will absorb it as soon as I can. Yes, Luke, I am still interested in your views on the SW WA rain papers. We were archived in mid-flight – painful, what, what? Have you tried plotting out the figures I extracted from Pandora Hope’s paper? It’s quite an interesting picture. One picture is, of course, worth a thousand words.
You really are a sold out bald faced liar aren’t you Woody – no substantion of the Gore “science doesn’t count” comment. Just threw it in randomly and ran off like I thought.
Then you quote some press release by cripes knows who that doesn’t mention Gore (and who cares anyway). So some of your politicians are unconvinced that the issue of storms has not been sufficiently examined by your current administration. Maybe they actually have a really good point.
In terms of government lackies talking in terms of probabilities instead of uncertainties this to me explains why you shouldn’t even bother to be in the debate. You don’t have the mental capacity for it. Do you seriously think that someone is or should give you a “deterministic” answer – i.e. non-probabilistic forecast. “This will happen”. If you actually believe that then you know nothing about the mathematics, physics and meteorology that you’re dealing with. This is why scientists can’t be bothered talking to you.
How exactly have the “consensus” scientist lied to you once to often. Again Woody put up or be a great big liar yourself. How exactly have they systematically and consistently lied to you. And you’re demanding 100% proof now are you. Well smoking doesn’t cause cancer either does it??
Go back to quoting liberty and justice and wrap your in your flag Woody – it’s sickening.
Davey – I will post my comments on those papers back in the archived article we were on rather than further divert this discussion.
After my confession particularly for Luke’s sake; non appreciation re fine pollution as a storm trigger back a few threads, something else I should have guessed with out science, I want to say –
Woody: We each have our own equipment to properly evaluate our local situation both immediately and over time. Go back and have a good look at what’s happening in the USA or anywhere else right under your nose then you too can quote directly from what you have seen rather than depend on some campaign or other.
Luke, if you can’t follow the logic, then you’re not as bright as you act. But, it’s easier for you to call people liars because that takes less brain power, and you have none to spare. Just keep taking your cues from Hollywood and stick your head in the sand about political reality. As a courtesy to Jen, I’m not going to bore people going back and forth with someone such as you.
So Woody declines to substantiate his nonsense. It’s not a courtesy to Jen at all mate – you just don’t have anything, so just keep quoting the propaganda (sorry blatant lies). It’s not a 3 year period and the ecological changes are not “personal” – Woody how do you lay straight in bed? Has your nose grown any of late? It never ceases to amaze me how you guys just keep dropping total falsehoods and never ever clean it up.
Luke, it’s boring to others and a waste of my time to provide information to someone who has no intention of being opened minded, who would deny logical analysis, and who is not altogether there; i.e., you. You want to believe everything that scientists tell you about global warming and hockey sticks and I don’t. Now, please try to direct the discussion back to the subject of the post.
I’m surprised nobody tried to pick me up on the issue of frequency or intensity of super storm cell activity round here Perhaps there are no other keen observers willing to have a go on the subject re climate change or global warming from their own observations or deductions.
Instead we had my theme quickly hijacked by Woody in particular who it seems is hell bent on chasing either Al Gore or promoting some other blog.
Woody: Please note I rarely depend on other people’s stuff including most themes emanating from the USA. That’s possibly because I’ve hardly ever known a US based biz that had my interest at heart after I’ve stated my concern about very narrow pathways of loyalty within an industry. I just don’t buy their rhetoric from anyone.
Others may appreciate this; today I was asked by an Asian lady from an embassy group with one of our largest trading partners for samples of Australian country music on CD, one of the tunes she wanted was “I still call Australia home”. I had to explain that Peter Allen was a US based entertainer and I had just sold his album from the pile of US country music rejected from my own CD collection last week. Who do they think we are I wondered.
Back on theme; my main interest is in the plight of people I know affected by bushfires, cloudbursts and lack of dedicated trades in the clean up operations after various disasters.
In this latest case despite all our dam/ned policy updates and technology improvements for emergencies, the public again had no warning. Our National University had sixty building seriously damaged. There was chaos on roads with vehicles trapped in piles of ice and our central business district was handicapped for days.
I’m certain many household insurance claims still can’t be processed properly anywhere in the eastern states because of the backlog from previous late summer storms.
Jennifer: No one is discussing the practical situation here.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/climate-surprise-over-storms/2005/10/23/1130006005899.html
Blame Sydney’s urban sprawl for some of the summer thunderstorms that lash the city.
The changing landscape is also responsible for increasing the violence of some storms, say two Macquarie University researchers who have spent more than a year using a supercomputer to model the impact that two centuries of clearing Sydney’s vegetation has had on severe weather.
Andy Pitman, a professor at Macquarie’s physical geography department, said he and his student colleague, Anna Gero, were not surprised to find the growth of the city’s sprawl had made some storms more intense.
But the discovery that land clearing was to blame for creating some storms was a surprise. “I don’t think anyone expected that,” Professor Pitman said. He estimates land clearing plays a role creating about 5 per cent of Sydney’s thunderstorms.
Ms Gero and Professor Pitman used the supercomputer of the Australian Centre for Advanced Computing and Communications, at the Australian Technology Park, to create two virtual Sydneys: one as it looked before European settlement, the other as it is today.
Luke: We can’t ask Woody, What’s all that black stuff in his updrafts, can we?
My bet is his American and other cronies don’t want to know.
If Jennifer really wanted answers on where all this modern industrial development is leading we would be chasing our own scientists first. However I’m more certain than ever it is up to our average journo to pick up on it.
Jennifer: I want our BoM people to analyze both the recent ACT and Sydney storms, not some foreign geek.
Is it all that unusual to have these storms.
I recall a number of people drowning in the Woden Valley in the mid seventies because of a summer down pour.
And by looking at the size of the flood ways in and around the Tuggeranong Valley these type of events were foreseen by the planners since they built them of that size.
The same design criteria must also apply in NSW as the new flood ways in Cooma worked as advertised in the recent summer storms.
I can also recall in my youth going to Lapstone or Mt Riverview in the Blue Mtns to watch the summer storms that pounded Sydney with hail and lightning. Many a time the railway underpasses along Parramatta Rd have been flooded or blocked by hail after a summer storm.
Must be that Urban Heat Island effect.
I don’t know what type of warning Gavin would like, but I always consider thunder and lightning as a good gauge of bad weather coming, much like a large column of smoke indicates a large fire.
A local farmer with a multi generational connection to a farm in my local area made the comment that longer and deeper the drought, the more violent the change when it comes.
He also said when you see a sequence of troughts on the weather chart connecting our area (SE NSW) to tropical lows in the north, there is a good chance of rain.
As an casual observation, I do believe that weather charts this late summer period have been much more complex than in the past few years.
So tell us all, Luke, what are the annual SST maps comparing anomalies with. The pre-2000 maps make it clear that the lower Tasman area was actually cooler, not warmer. But we need to know what it is being compared to. The BoM dont tell us, can you?
You will note Ian I am politely answering your questions.
NOAA SSTs – read here –
http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/PSB/EPS/SST/methodology.html
BoM SSTs here –
http://www.bom.gov.au/silo/products/cli_chg/sst_trendmaps.shtml
Allan: It seems Luke’s noaa link on SST can give us a particular insight on recent storms in this region. Your farmer who made the comment “that longer and deeper the drought, the more violent the change when it comes” like me was probably thinking backwards to previous experience.
Conditions for super cell storm activity have occurred before through the southern states but not necessarily as often as now nor as predictable if one looks at what happens periodically in Bass Strait in memorable summers.
I reckon actual triggers like dusty updrafts over assets must be studied in this light if we are going to have adequate response. These silly straight jacket stream improvements around the city of Woden must likewise be seen as an aberration in the natural scheme of things.
I write quite a bit about original land cover and log jams these days after considering a few experiences high rainfall areas with raw landscaping around mines, roads, dams and forestry etc.
Sorry Luke, I have already checked both of these links and they don’t tell us the base point of reference. All we have is data in space that tells us that such and such pixel is 2 degrees warmer but there is no indication of “warmer than what year/decade/long term mean”
There is no need for you to take it personally but in my view any representation of anomalies that uses the old Mercator projection is trying to mislead because of the exagerated polar scale. This is especially the case when one is trying to compare the area of warming with the area of cooling.
It is about as useful, and reliable as a Soviet crop report.
NOAA – 1984-1993 !
“a new satellite-only climatology (for 1984-1993) became available and made it possible to generate more accurate SST anomaly products from the operational 50-km daily SST field”
BoM is a trend map not an anomaly. It’s a linear trend for the time specified from the data sets specified.
You may think that using the Mercator is to mislead but it’s simply a popular representation for much of the world. Most people are looking more at changes than absolutes. e.g El Nino
You will notice NOAA also produce polar stereographic map projection products. Actually a bloody enormous range of stuff.
http://www2.ncdc.noaa.gov/docs/podug/html/c5/sec5-0.htm#t50-3