Lots of stories in the Weekend Australian about climate change and related issues… the editorial includes commentary about Graham Lloyd’s reporting on ‘the pause’. 
Also comment by John Ferguson, Victorian Political Editor, that:
“THE consumer bill for the nation’s largest desalination plant is set to rise to more than $2 billion, as heavy rain and soaring dam levels make redundant tremendously expensive facilities across the eastern seaboard.
New figures obtained by The Weekend Australian show the Victorian desalination plant, southeast of Melbourne, will have cost water users $1.2bn by the November 29 state election, rising to $2bn by the end of the next financial year.
The cost has soared, despite no water having been drawn from the facility since its opening in 2012 and dams being more than 80 per cent full.”
Of course another prolonged drought could hit Victoria shortly.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
I don’t see much commentary as yet regarding the shear idiocy of the selfish union owned ALP’s wasted billions on the pretend climate ‘problem’ while the mutating viruses were seemingly other people’s problems! Even Labor’s loose wheel (the Greens) didn’t see any money in it for them & Labor only seemed to deliberately loosen several more green nuts.
‘THE existence of a more than 15-year “pause” in average global surface temperatures has been “settled” but scientists remain split on what it means.’
In a nutshell it proves that CO2 doesn’t cause global warming. Who knew?
Well yes of course another drought will happen in Australia.
It is the land of droughts and flooding rains.
The SA desalination plant is probably the one most needed?
It is strange however that SA has successfully argued for significant amounts of upstream storages to flush fresh water out through the Murray mouth to the sea & also successfully argued to desalinate sea water for their fresh water supplies.
That is ironic isn’t it Debbie?
Or more precisely contradictory, hypercritical and stupid.,
Hello Debbie…How’s it going over your side of town?….a bit dry over here..about as dry as a lizard’s spit, I’d say!…How’s the cropping going?….of course!..you’re on irrigation (mostly)…so no worries..except for having to pay for it…but then, there’s the subsidies (?)…Gonna be a lot of hay around this year over here Deb’….funny…the crops LOOK good..got the height, got the heads…but then you see them cutting it for hay…and I wonder why they aren’t waiting for the grain…strange, that…Why do you think they are doing that Deb’?…you’re the “farmer” on the blog…some might say there is no “guts” in the grain heads…maybe..why would there be no guts in the grain heads?…dammed if’n I know, I’m just a lonely post-hole digger…but it is a tad dry down the bottom of those post-holes at the moment, I notice….and these damn black frosts for a week or so straight…didn’t do my cousin’s crops across the road any good at all…funny that…never seen him lose a crop for a bloody long time from frosts…some might say because it’s a tad dry and cold..but I don’t know….do you , Deb?…do you know why?
http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/climate/change/timeseries.cgi?graph=rranom&area=mdb&season=0112&ave_yr=A
Like you say, Deb.
Not the BOM, Bob!!???..didn’t we all agree here that the BOM. figures are “fraudulant”?…c’mon, Bob…lift your game…stick with the team.
Can’t fudge rainfall yet, can they Deb? (Note the “yet”.) Those are our rainfall figures, yours and mine, so they’d better not.
Yep, droughts and flooding rains.
http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/climate/change/timeseries.cgi?graph=rain&area=seaus&season=0112&ave_yr=A
Wouldn’t you love the readings for that 1837-1841drought?
“Ordinary weather followed till 1837, but 1838 and 1839 saw the champion drought of the century. Stock were all but exterminated. The Murrumbidgee is a great river, 150ft. wide, 60ft. deep, and overflows its banks, like the Nile, when the head snows melt, for five miles on each side to a depth of 3ft. This gives a volume of water equal to a river of 1450 ft. wide and 120 ft. deep, and besides this it fills a group of lakes each from seven to eighteen miles in diameter.
Yet this great river dried up so thoroughly in 1839 that the fish died and putrefied at the bottom of it.”
And – droughts and flooding rains! – this came straight after:
“1841 broke up this drought with the champion flood of Queensland; the Bremer River rose 70ft., and the Brisbane bar not being then dredged, there was no quick “get away” for the water, and it filled the lower story of the commissariat stores…”
Droughts and flooding rains. You’d think some people would have twigged by now, wouldn’t you Deb?
Maybe they’re in the pay of Big Thick.
” Maybe they’re in the pay of Big Thick.”…is that Gina?……Wow!..they sure had a handle on the stats back in those days of 1839…right on top of it, eh…and considering the colony had only been started over there in Sydney Cove in…oh 1788…and i do believe Sth Aust’, being a tad slow off the mark in 1836…geez, Bob..there they are talkin’ about the “flood of the century” when they had only been here fifty years…that’s almost an “Irish joke line”.
By the way, Bob…you DO realise just how vast Australia is , don’t you?…when you talk about “droughts and etc…”…you DO realise the tropics perhaps wasn’t considered when that little rhyme was composed…nor perhaps the arid centre, nor perhaps, the Nullabor Plain, nor perhaps the south-west of Western Aust….you ARE aware just how vast this continent is, aren’t you Bob?….it doesn’t just end on the eastern slopes of the Great Divide…or at the front door of a sad little commission flat in Nowra.
Huh?
This time of year I hang out for spring rain. So far been bad, like 2012, but we got a really good dump in August this year so things aren’t as severe (yet).
When I look back on the records I see that the driest winter was in 1895 (big spring fire year for north) and the driest spring was in 1897.
We’ve had a lot of other dry springs here, 1915, 1926, 1930, 1951, 1958, all worse than 2012. 1915 would have had the worst spring conditions because of drought preceding. 1951 would have been scary with so much regrowth from the Big Wet before.
Btw, our wettest spring was in 1914, middle of the double El Nino. I’d cop El Nino right now if I could get that sort of rain on my ‘boo shoots.
Droughts and flooding rains. Dorothea got that right. Others slower to work it out. Give the poor wooly things time.
Good grief!
I’m sorry that comment unleashed Jaycee.
Did Jaycee not notice that I pointed out that SA is vulnerable?
Jaycee also doesn’t seem to understand that he is just sooking about the Aussie weather?
I’m also absolutely fascinated to know what subsides Jaycee thinks I’m getting?
I think I must’ve missed out on something there?
Dammit!!!!!
As for the last Jaycee comment. . .gotta agree
with Robert. . .HUH?
I think Jaycee just got hoisted on Jaycee’s own petard?
Or maybe Jaycee doesn’t understand that comment actually supports the famous poem?
“I’m just a lonely post-hole digger”
You’re not a very convincing post-hole digger, JC, old chap.
When you’re in the bottom of a dry hole, even you should know what to do.
BTW do you know the measure of a good post-hole digger?
And to think Jennifer did a whole post on asking you all to THINK!!…effort wasted, Jen’…effort wasted….they’re all your now, kiddo !
Think about what Jaycee?
????
Well anyway.
Jaycee did raise one valid observation about the number of crops that have been cut for hay.
It has happened around here as well. . .not because it was too warm, nor because they lacked moisture. . .they were damaged by some heavy frosts.
Interestingly. . .as far as cropping goes. . .a warmer wetter world would probably be much better for cropping and agriculture than a cooler drier climate.
Yes, Debbie, frosts have affected crops around here too but another reason farmers are mowing these crops is that with generally good weather and all the extra CO2, grain is at record levels world wide and unless you have quality stuff you aren’t going to get good prices.
Hope the rice market is treating you kindly.
The rice market is doing OK.
The water boffins aren’t.
We’re very busy sowing rice right now but the acreage for this area will be down and will barely deliver half of the requirements.
Daryl pointed out the absolute confusion we are dealing with here at the last thread.
On the one hand we are looking at opportunities but on the other we are looking at obstruction.
I’m quite sure that the urban environmental elite would feel better if we grew pretty flowers & little niche veggie plots out here (which paradoxically use more water per finished product) but the
markets are wanting more Aussie rice.
The Bolter rips into the alarmists who thought we would have a future of less rainfall and poor dam filling. Among those he lists is the BOM.
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/opinion/we-all-pay-the-price-for-climate-hysteria-as-alarmist-predictions-fail/story-fni0ffxg-1227095312608
Bit of a shame about big HIPPO Gore’s Arctic prediction. The Arctic should be ice free in two months.
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2014/10/19/arctic-sea-ice-in-a-hockey-stick/
From the Bolt column above comes a comment highlighting this extreme CSIRO study from 2007. I’ve highlighted the comment and it has to be read to understand the exaggeration etc involved. Here’s a summary of the report from 2007————-
Climate change to ‘devastate’ Sydney
This story was published: 8 years ago January 31, 2007
SYDNEY is looming as one of the world’s major climate change casualties, with temperatures expected to soar 50 per cent higher than the average rise forecast for the entire planet.
For the first time, Australian scientists have charted in detail, the impacts on the nation’s largest metropolis of man’s insatiable demand for energy and burning of fossil fuels.
The Daily Telegraph today exclusively revealed the landmark CSIRO report commissioned by the State Government which – for the first time – specifically detailed the impact of climate change on NSW.
It painted a picture of a city baking under average temperatures almost 5C higher than now – which will kill 1300 people a year – and one battered by extreme winds and permanent drought.
NSW Premier Morris Iemma said the report’s findings were alarming.
“This might sound like a doomsday scenario, but it is one we must confront,” Mr Iemma said.
And it will put pressure on Prime Minister John Howard to commit to the same tough targets set by NSW – to reduce greenhouse gases 60 per cent by 2050.
Comparing today’s climate, the CSIRO predicted Sydney would resemble the harsh dry conditions of the tiny village of Paterson, 150km northwest of the state capital, in less than 25 years.
By 2070, average temperatures will have soared by 4.8C – compared with 3C forecast for the planet by the International Panel for Climate Change this week.
In summer, maximum temperatures could rise by as much as 7C by 2070. But heat-related deaths will jump from 176 a year – the current annual average – to 1312 by 2050.
Our dams will be drained of water as the city plunges into a virtually permanent dry spell and evaporation rates increase by 24 per cent.
The frequency of droughts now average three every decade. By 2070 there will be only one year out of 10 that is free of drought.
The bleak assessment suggested Sydneysiders would have to reduce water consumption by 54 per cent for the city to remain sustainable within the next 20 years.
Extreme weather events, including 110m storm surges by 2100, will devastate the coastline as well as property.
Bushfire frequency will almost double, with rainfall expected to be reduced by up to 40 per cent.
The report will prompt calls for the creation of a national emissions trading scheme to be put back on the agenda despite Mr Howard’s reluctance to sign up.
“The Commonwealth can no longer put its head in the sand on this issue. I have repeatedly asked the Prime Minister to show national leadership by convening a climate change summit,” Mr Iemma said.
“I do not want my kids to ask me in 10 years time why I didn’t do more to address the issue of climate change.”
The CSIRO report warned that the city must work out how to adapt quickly, with the impacts of human-caused global warming now apparently inevitable.
“The future climate of Sydney is likely to be warmer and drier,” the report says. “Such trends would also increase evaporation, heat waves, extreme winds and fire risk.
“Nevertheless, despite this trend towards drier conditions, the possibility of increases in extreme rainfall events remain.
“Although average changes in temperature, rainfall and evaporation will have long-term consequences for the catchment, the impacts of climate change are more likely to be felt through extreme weather events.”
Climate change forecasts for the coastal zone put Narrabeen and Collaroy on the hot zone for storm-inspired sea surges of about 22m – which would inundate homes.
Freak surges of 110m would be catastrophic.
“Such increases in storm surge in conjunction with sea level rises, would increase the risk of coastal inundation,” the CSIRO said.
It looks like Steve McIntyre and Jean S are closing in on the cosy relationship between (USA) EPA, Michael Mann and Gavin Schmidt of NASA GISS.
http://climateaudit.org/2014/10/18/gavin-schmidt-and-the-epa-denial-decision/#more-20138
It will be interesting to see what Steyn’s Lawyers will make of these revelations. But mate’s review not peer review was apparently good enough for this cosy arrangement. Steve promises more to come in future posts.
In the subsequent blog after Steve’s post he makes a reference to the infamous “upside down Tiljander” con AGAIN.
This could be very interesting indeed.
Craig Loehle
Posted Oct 18, 2014 at 3:17 PM | Permalink | Reply
For any newbies, Schmidt and Mann are the 2 key players at the RealClimate website and have worked together on this for years. They are as independent as Abbot and Costello, though not as funny.
Steve: Mann’s participation at RealClimate in recent years has much diminished. See list of posts here. In the over four years since the EPA decision on July 29, 2010, Mann has written or been a named coauthor of only five RC posts (three by himself and two as coauthor) – barely more than one per year.
Craig Loehle
Posted Oct 18, 2014 at 3:52 PM | Permalink | Reply
Sure, but what is relevant to Gavin’s independence on the EPA documents was the status of their collaboration BEFORE July 29, 2010.
Steve: yup. thinking back, Gavin must have been pretty annoyed at being hung out to dry by Mann on upside-down Tiljander. Particularly after his involvement with EPA. I’m in the process of writing up these events.
Here is some stuff which actually did happen. Don’t know if the Macarthurs will be deemed reliable by the klimatariat, but in view of the results they achieved I’d tend to believe them. This is James Macarthur writing to John in 1824:
“At present the whole face of the Country is completely parched up by a drought of long continuance more than five months having elapsed since we have had even three hours of rain. Heavy showers have occasionally fallen it is true, but when the soil is dry to the depth of many feet their beneficial effects are felt only for the moment. This is the third successive dry season with which we have been visited and truly we agriculturalists have good reason to complain of their disastrous effects. Many improvements have scarcely proceeded in consequence of them. I do not know a more unpleasing prospect in nature than the appearance of the Country in one of these dry seasons. Every tree every shrub curling up its leaves, the fruit not a quarter its usual size, withering and dropping from the trees utterly unfit for use at the time when we usually enjoy it in perfection. The grass not displaying a vestage of verdure on the open grounds and scarcely any in the Forests. The Earth cracked in every direction with seams one and a half and two inches wide and several feet deep. The streams, the ponds, all shrunk into insignificance and many completely dried up. Such the prospect now presented to us. The severity of such seasons is now particularly felt by the Plants recently introduced…”
No fun for post-hole diggers in 1824!
This is stuff which actually happened related by the most reliable witness one could have, and it is the kind of obvious factual thing we all used to feel free to acknowledge about Australia. Sydney’s rainfall for 1888 is on the books (just 350mm at Botanic Gardens in the first eleven months!), as is the price of a bucket of water in that year, so it should be no surprise that there were many awful drought seasons before that, starting from the 1790s scorcher. We also know how much rain didn’t fall on Perth in its driest years after records began in 1876, namely 1877, 1911, 1914, 1940 (driest), 1969, 1979, 1980.
Now we’re supposed to not know any of this, or not mention it, or not use it for any perspective on current climate. Weird times.
‘And to think Jennifer did a whole post on asking you all to THINK!!…effort wasted, Jen’…effort wasted….they’re all your now, kiddo !’
That particular thread was good value, got me out more, now I spend time in a room full of Marxists and talk to myself.
No wonder there is a deathly silence at C21st, they are Anarchists not Marxists. The decor is a dead giveaway.
Not wishing to be alarmist.
http://www.express.co.uk/news/nature/520672/Winter-weather-2014-UK-forecast-cold-snow-November
Jen,
To think about.
We get Scotch thistle and Mexican poppy (Argemene) here.
Seems to me that they used to show up in autumn and winter.
Now the Mexican poppy has just germinated and I haven’t seen a thistle yet?
???
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/gistemp/
jaycee uses a call to think to make a thoughtless snarky post.
Irony, thy name is jaycee.
Dismantling the climatocracy is going to take awhile, apparently.
According to the Judas gospel JC had a sardonic wit, yet jaycee lacks even that.
Dismantling the Klimatariat may take a decade if the hiatus continues, but on the other hand it could all come crashing down this year if the Northern Hemisphere gets a chilling tap on the shoulder.
Indeed Bob Carter should receive an apology from the abusive gutless cowards and group thinkers.
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/warmists_should_apologise_to_bob_carter/
But we mustn’t forget that these cowards and abusive freaks are a world wide movement. Boy how they hate facts and paleo-climate history.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/10/20/slimed-by-naomi-oreskes-in-defense-of-dr-fred-singer/
Now here’s a graph you won’t see from the BOM. OZ raw temp record from 1860 until today.
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2014/10/20/bom-hiding-all-those-inconvenient-years-before-1910/
Thanks for those obs, Robert.
If the lefty academics don’t get that we are a land of droughts and floods they should visit Betoota which has been in the news lately.
It is a ghost town these days on the banks of the Diamantina at the edge of the Sturts Stony Desert but pre-federation it was a thriving community and border customs post.
Most of the time it is a very arid place beside a permanent waterhole however when it floods every 10 or 20 years there is a flowing brown ocean up to 140 klms wide.
The topsoil beneath this ocean is bottomless and is normally deeply cracked but after a flood you get the most amazing growth that will fatten a dying bullock “overnight”.
This land of incredible contrasts makes a bad joke of our debate on 0.7c temp variation.
Goddard deserves a medal, excellent ongoing work from him.
Following on from the alarmist Express story on a freezing UK winter, here is the Met office at its fumbling best.
10 October 2014
…..
What does the current outlook say?
Our latest three-month outlook suggests an increased risk of milder and wetter than average conditions for the period Oct-Nov-Dec based on our seasonal forecasts and those from other leading centres around the world.
However, there are still substantial probabilities that average or opposite (ie cool and/or dry) conditions may occur. This is because there are many competing factors that determine what our weather will be like in the coming months.
The outlook also highlights an increased risk of unsettled weather relative to what is usual for the time of year, but – again – there are still reasonable chances of other scenarios.
The increased risk of more unsettled than average conditions does not mean the late autumn and early winter will necessarily be like that of last year…..
https://metofficenews.wordpress.com/2014/10/05/the-met-offices-outlook-to-the-end-of-2014/
Oct. 21, 2014:
Bureau of Meteorology officials, meanwhile, told Senate estimates on Monday that Australia was on a clear warming path, with temperatures rising between 0.71 and 0.76 degrees since 1960, depending on the methods used.
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/threat-of-air-pollution-to-worsen-along-with-global-warming-warns-climate-council-20141020-118u3k.html
A very good interview of Patrick Moore by Alan Jones this morning. This bloke is about as good on his feet as anyone on either side of the CAGW debate and he knows more than most as well. And his delivery is punchy with no dithering.
http://www.2gb.com/audioplayer/69681#.VEW0qRtxkdc
Handjive:
“Bureau of Meteorology officials, meanwhile, told Senate estimates on Monday that Australia was on a clear warming path, with temperatures rising between 0.71 and 0.76 degrees since 1960, depending on the methods used.”
This is one method they obviously didn’t use:
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2013/11/05/rss-shows-no-warming-in-australia/
Plus, of course, a philosophy they will never use:
https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/doomed-planet/2014/10/physicist-looks-pause/
It would never occur to our ABC that these people need to be acquainted with the real world:
http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/international/radio/program/pacific-beat/climate-warriors-set-to-disrupt-coal-exports/1380107
Even though the luvvies themselves actually did a programme on exactly that:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2010-06-03/pacific-islands-growing-not-sinking/851738
But it would be racist to point out that the problem is really deck space, not freeboard and they couldn’t possibly tell them to stop copulating or at least take precautions.
‘Depends on the method used.’
Here’s another method. BoM use the average temps from 1961-1990 as the base anomaly to compare all years. This is set at an 0C average.
As of 2009, the temp had risen 0.5C against that 30 year average.
In real temps, the average 30 year mean is 21.8C, so as of 2009 it has risen to 22.3C.
The past 4 years since 2009 have had anomaly means of 0.2C, -0.13C, 0.11C and 1.2C, therefore averaging around 0.35C (temps have dropped).
So I can conclude that temps have only risen just under 0.5C since the 30 year average, not +0.7C as the BoM states.
Sounds good.
Again, if you look at the graph on the annual summaries site, you see the 10 year median around 0.15C for 1960. Add that to the 0.5C and the most you can come up with is 0.65C rise since the 1960.
So how does the BoM come up with those figures of +0.7C?
Sources to confirm.
Australian mean temps 1910-2013 (scroll down to mean temp graph)
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/current/annual/aus/
Australian 1961-1990 mean temp
http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/climate/change/timeseries.cgi
Considering the public tongue-lashing you gave “Cate” earlier this year when she dared to try carbon sequestration to get some income for her farm..I take it we will witness a similar condemnation toward this “lovely fellow”?
Hypocrite of the Year Award candidate –
RET Review panel member wants solar subsidies to end, installs own system
One of the key members of the Warburton Review that recommended the end of subsidies under the renewable energy target has just installed a large solar system on a rural property – using the very same subsidy that he wants abolished.
Dr Brian Fisher confirmed to RenewEconomy on Monday that a solar system had been installed this month at a rural property he owns near Wallaroo, near Canberra. He said it was one of a number of solar systems (both PV and hot water) that he had on his private properties
…………………………………………
Asked if there a danger of a perceived conflict between availing himself of a subsidy (in October) after recommending (in August) that it be ended, Fisher said:
“I have got solar on a number of my properties. I have had so for quite a while. I don’t think the decision to do that is related in any way to the (Warburton) review.”
“I’ve consistently written that subsidies are not necessarily the best way forward in terms of public policy. But as a private individual, if there are incentives around, I respond to them.”
http://reneweconomy.com.au/2014/ret-review-panel-member-calls-solar-subsidies-end-installs-system-14407
@jc
Can’t see the problem here.
Do you have a point?
I agree with him, if the system is there and hundreds of thousands used it before him, what would be the point of an empty gesture? Mere posturing.
If solar can’t stand on its own feet after so many years of subsidies it’s time to call a stop to subsidies.
After all it’s being subsidised by the less well off section of the community who cannot afford to take advantage.
JC, I can perfectly understand how you can’t perfectly understand that man’s decision.
Plenty of sceptics avail themselves of dumb green offers like that to try to get something for their taxes.
I must admit I’ve been tempted myself but so far I have resisted on principle.
Jon’, spang’…I was addressing the organ grinder, not her monkeys!
Interesting that the story of the Balibo 5 should arise today and what is conveniently being ignored is that it was Gough who gave the Indonesians the green light to take over East Timor [which lead to their deaths] instead of much more strongly supporting ET’s right to self-determination.
A bit more about just one of Gough’s skeletons:
http://newsweekly.com.au/article.php?id=340
What a blessed relief, we are saved.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/10/21/new-paper-debunks-acidification-scare-finds-warming-increases-ph/
Egg, don’t tell Ove at the GBRMPA about that or he will be out of a job. Awa having nothing left to live for.
Jen
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2014/10/20/bom-hiding-all-those-inconvenient-years-before-1910/
Did you hear the Climate Council’s report re the increased risk of bushfires today? All attributable to climate change apparently!
The funniest assertion was the ‘drying trend’. I guess no one has explained to them how those fuel loads develop ?
” The year 1850 had been one of exceptional heat and drought. Pastures had withered; creeks had become fissured clay-pans; water-holes had disappeared; sheep and cattle had perished in great numbers, and the sun-burnt plains were strewn with their bleached skeletons; the very leaves upon the trees crackled in the heat, and appeared to be as inflammable as tinder.
As the summer advanced, the temperature became torrid, and on the morning of the 6th of February, 1851, the air which blew down from the north resembled the breath of a furnace. A fierce wind arose, gathering strength and velocity from hour to hour, until about noon it blew with the violence of a tornado.
By some inexplicable means it wrapped the whole country in a sheet of flame —fierce, awful, and irresistible. Men, women and children, sheep and cattle, birds and snakes, fled before the fire in a common panic. The air was darkened by volumes of smoke, relieved by showers of sparks; the forests were ablaze, and, on the ranges, the conflagration transformed their wooded slopes into appalling masses of incandescent columns and arches.”
That was a recollection written in the 1880s. Ordinary punters back then felt an obligation to record and remember Black Thursday. Since it is likely the biggest fire anyone has ever witnessed anywhere…good idea to keep it alive in our minds?
Re “drying trend”: I wonder if members of the climate council can recollect what happened on the southern fringe of Sydney in spring 1980 after all the regrowth of the 1970s.
(I write about this stuff because it actually happened – and because I know it enrages all the right people.)
Thanks for that, Robert.
The temp in Melbourne that day was 47.2C which would have been the highest temp ever recorded for that city except that the ‘authorities’ reduced it by a couple of degrees (based on another thermometer which they believed may have been more accurate).
Almost 25% (5 million hectares) of Victoria was on fire. People in northern Tasmania thought the end of the world was upon them as the skies darkened from the smoke of the fire.
The late winter/spring of 1895 – before the big heat of 1896 – was all the “precedent” needed for the recent Blue Mountains spring fires. The 1895 fires sprang up not just west of Sydney but over various states. In northern NSW conditions were perfect for disaster, with big rain in summer followed by almost total drought for four months. When you recall 1951 and 1980, you have to be amazed that anyone could find major spring fires in NSW “unprecedented”. Do these experts live under rocks? Or do they think the rest of us live under rocks?
The WA fires of 1961 (1.8 million hec?) seem to have brought a saner approach over in the West. Do we need another 1939, 1967, 1983 or 2009 before we learn the lesson in the East?
Droughts and flooding rains. That’s it. That’s what you get. Gotta build dams and do burn-offs. Bad luck, but gotta do it. Better idea? Let us know. But there’s a proviso: it has to be an idea that actually works for stuff that actually happens in the actual world.
Well yes of course we gotta do it!
Bushfires indeed often have an anthropogenic cause. . .but it’s not AGW!
It’s a failure to sensibly manage & a failure to respect the seasonal conditions.
Nick Cater on the pause.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/time-for-cooler-heads-to-prevail/story-e6frg6n6-1227096554835
Sorry about that, you’ll find the story at Watts.
More extremism from the extreme left and supported and promoted by the IPCC. If they’re not bombing school kids they’re shooting Santa.
http://joannenova.com.au/2014/10/kill-santa-for-the-climate-is-that-isis-or-nobel-peace-scientists/#more-39033
Read the straw-man arguments of the alarmists here on the claims by NASA of record warming:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2014/10/13/nasa_earth_just_experienced_the_warmest_six_month_stretch_ever.html?utm_content=bufferac518&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer&wp_login_redirect=0
Robert and Debbie,
Only a Prof of Bio-science could come up with this:
http://theconversation.com/bushfire-season-in-new-south-wales-grows-longer-and-stronger-33245?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Latest+from+The+Conversation+for+22+October+2014+-+2006&utm_content=Latest+from+The+Conversation+for+22+October+2014+-+2006+CID_6911d028683eaac1a5ca758ea60c026e&utm_source=campaign_monitor&utm_term=Bushfire%20season%20in%20New%20South%20Wales%20grows%20longer%20and%20stronger
With farmers going broke and endless tree-changers going bush we have the incapable increasingly inserting themselves into the jaws of the inevitable. But what is the root cause?
You guessed it, Climate Change!
Dr Patrick Moore debates Irwin Jackson from the Climate Institute last night on Sky News.
Miranda Devine interviews Dr Patrick Moore on her radio program.
Lesley Hughes says we need a survival plan. We have one. Lesley Hughes needs a survival plan.
Now that’s the last time I read the Conversation. I have to fund that tripe, I don’t have to read it.
Dr Roy Spencer explains why 2014 will not be a record warm year and he even calls the land based temp adjustments fictitious. Remember that version 6 of the UAH data set will soon align it more closely with RSS measurements.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2014/10/why-2014-wont-be-the-warmest-year-on-record/
You know “Cate” read it too?…c’mon, “free-speech fighters” you’re gonna have to delete all my posts now!
‘…you’re gonna have to delete all my posts now!’
Not likely, anyway I’m with Wilkes on this.
‘I was addressing the organ grinder, not her monkeys!’
Oh right, from your tone I’m guessing you’re from the pseudo left, nasty piece of work that lot.
I can only take so much sneering, jaycee, & the comment of yours I deleted did not add anything to this blog.
The ABC’s Dr Karl is currently doing the el camino pilgrimage in the footsteps of St James.
Let’s hope he has a St Paul-like Damascene awakening wrt the pause while he is on the trip.
SD, I’m a camino veteran and I loved the whole experience. Mine started in the middle of France and took me to Portugal and back north to Santiago and then the sea. I also walked pilgrim trails in Tuscany, which was what gave me the taste. Some people get a bit deep and meaningful about it all, but I’ve held on to my yobbiness and redneckiness (what, you all noticed?).
Something I learned is that land which has been flogged for millennia is still good even if it’s not (ugh) pristine. The exhausted Roman goldfields in Northern Spain which were flushed out with massive hydro schemes are now world heritage etc. How they grow all that wheat in the eroded semi-desert south of Siena is beyond me – but they do it year after year. Pici noodles just aren’t as good with any other wheat.
Mind you, it was great to get back to Oz and a real forest. Think we need to hold on to our wild spots as wild spots without getting too precious.
I agree, Robert.
The Thundering Herd is better avoided if possible but the history is fascinating.
I currently have mates trekking the well trodden famous trails all around the world but I must confess I tend to tramp the sandhills or the bush.
I know I log a lot more native wildlife than they do ☺.
SD, my next trips (when I’ve worked out the financial side etc) will take in a lot of the other European trails, though if you do the Camino in cold season the crowds aren’t a prob. Think I’ll walk south from the Auvergne and along the south coast of France to the Pyrenees.
I’m no longer able to carry weeks of food on my back and if I tramp in Oz I can’t walk from village to village each day the way one does in Europe. Next Oz expedition might be a canoe trip or just living out of a boat around the Myall lakes for a month. Might take one of these:
http://shop.biolitestove.com/campstove.html#.VEduS4_qcXl
Will eat more wildlife than I log.
Sounds good, Robert.
Back-pack is the way to go. That’s the sort of gear I take even when I’m camping in my no-motor sailing dinghy. Weight is the thing that stops racehorses. Interesting stove. Beats wearing a solar panel for a hat.
I found this hard to read without retching – there is no pause it seems. Desperation from Jericho.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-10-22/jericho-ignore-abbott-we-shouldnt-feel-bound-to-coal/5831720
🙂
. . .the incapable increasingly inserting themselves into the jaws of the inevitable.
Well put SD!
The view of ‘nature’ is so hopelessly romantic and unrealistic. They don’t seem to understand even some simple basics like the eucalypt species loves to burn. . .or that a lush spring growth will dry down when it warms up. . .or that your pet cat/dog needs to be kept away from interfering with others. . .or that it’s a good idea to lock up your chooks at night. . .It’s important to manage weed infestations etc etc. . .
How convenient to be able to blame climate change when the obvious problem is POOR MANAGEMENT!
Even more bizarre is the continuous hand waving that the ‘gummint should do something about it’ which as far as I can tell means that the gummint has to control the weather???????
The latest el nino update from Bob Tisdale.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/10/22/quicky-mid-october-2014-el-nino-update/
Even an IPCC scientist can see some cooling in the Nth Atlantic.
http://notrickszone.com/2014/10/22/ipcc-scientist-mojib-latif-sees-north-atlantic-cooling-over-next-decade-confirms-oceans-play-crucial-role/
I was under the impression that Mojib retired from the fray last year, sort of lapsed IPCC.
Yes Debbie, poor management is exactly the problem.
But when they don’t even see what they are looking at.
Every minute of the day.
Let alone discuss the mounting problem with their neighbours.
How can they manage anything?
Of course if there’s one thing that’s saving their ar5e, it’s the basic reduction in bushfires.
Because with the current pop redistribution there should be many times the historical rate of disasters.
Yep SD
They’re stuck between a rock & a hard place.
‘Environmentalism’ & sensible land management practice have become mutually exclusive concepts. . .bushfire risk management being one glaringly obvious example.
So many farmers & producers are just downright confused.
Even some of the tree changers are thoroughly flummoxed.
The argument from entities like the Climate Council that climate change is the root cause of the problem is highly ironic.
Hey Guys,,, It’s goodnews week.
Just finished windrowing the Canola.
Based on 30yrs experience, yields will be up 20-25% on long term, and district av.
Wheat looks the same, nicely watered and maturing under ideal conditions.
My Bee keeper had his biggest year ever on the Canola, lots of Honey, fat Bees.
Just saw in the local paper, a record 19.5T/ha Corn crop nearby.
My Rice mates are having a great time sowing in warm, balmy conditions.Their av yiedls were up 10-15% last season, after an absolutely miserable start. The key difference being a old fashioned January, rather than snow.
Their scratching their heads a bit on why our water allocation 6 weeks ago at planning time, was a mere ~20% when our key storages were at ~84% capacity?
The couple of Dairy mates still in the game,report productiom per cow is up at least 10%., due to the balmy conditions.
Could be a bit more CO2 in the atmosphere is kicking things along.
Who knows, we might just end up with that dirty 6 letter word, PROFIT?
You know, what’s left after we pay our shire rates, input costs ( all of which have a component of gov charges ), our water bill, our industry levies, our truckies, our marketers etc,.I.E., feed the Magic Puddin’.
To all the progressive, subjective thinkers out there;
If you really care about less fortunate people, and truely want to make the World a better place, think about food security.
Climate change ‘may’ take many decades to have any measureable impact on most peoples well-being. Hunger gets people angry and desperate within a few days!!!
Yep, it’s all peachy in the Mid-Murray Valley;
The land of milk and honey, and a heap of other daily essentials.
Cheers, Slowlurnr.
‘If you really care about less fortunate people, and truly want to make the World a better place, think about food security.’
I agree and so does premier Xi and Barnaby, but as always the devil is in the detail.
https://agriculturalcompetitiveness.dpmc.gov.au/
Good to hear about the good yields, D McD.
We’d be stuffed without ya:
Yep Daryl,
We did have good rice yields last season.
The wet Autumn made the harvest a rather mucky affair but it gave the winter cereals a cracking start.
There are a few frost damaged crops around but the expected yields look good here in the Murrumbidgee valley too. We have windrowed our dry area canola too & the irrigated canola will be windrowed very shortly.
Unfortunately, we can’t grow as much rice as we’d like this season and we are also scratching our heads along with all the other summer croppers.
Unfortunately Sunrice will have to source some rice from OS because we won’t be able to supply
all our markets from Aus. ..bit of a shame…as we
are certainly capable of producing it all if we could
get access to our key input in the right timeframe.
One of those situations that the pseudo mob
might call ‘counter-intuative’ or ‘ counter-factual’
maybe?
It is good to hear some sensible talk from Barnaby
et al but I will believe it when there is some sensible walk starting to happen.
The devil will be in the detail.
No idea why the spacing went bonkers at the end of that comment. . .sorry about that.
Debbie,
From some recent comments at other sites it seems more likely to be WordPress than CO2!
Klimatariat Comes Under Attack
http://www.express.co.uk/news/nature/526191/Climate-change-is-a-lie-global-warming-not-real-claims-weather-channel-founder
Another Ian
🙂
So glad it had naught to do with CO2.
🙂
“While we cannot say with certainty that any single editing problem with WordPress is attributable to climate change, and though a direct link has yet to be established, it is consistent with some models that these spacing difficulties will become more frequent and more intense as GHG levels continue to rise.”
NH SST Chill
http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst_anom_new.gif
The ABC constantly revile the Murdoch press for their right-wing views but then suddenly discover a history that shoots them in the foot.
Purely by accident of course as it had to criticise Abbott to be discovered:
http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2014/s4113561.htm
Did anyone notice this yesterday as they sail of into the sunset:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-10-22/scientists-dive-in-antarctic-waters-to-test-ocean-acidification/5832884
Another Antarctic junket but if they had read this paper they could have saved themselves the trouble and us all a bundle:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/10/21/new-paper-debunks-acidification-scare-finds-warming-increases-ph/
But as long as they enjoy themselves…who knows, they might even manage to stumble across some truths.
Egg, not too many El Ninos there.
The drought may break yet ☺
All global warming since 1940 is due to artificial “processing” of data, not found in raw data:
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com.au/2014/10/claim-all-global-warming-since-1940-is.html
It is still getting hotter, drier , wetter, colder, in more places than EVER BEFORE !
http://www.livescience.com/48368-why-four-weather-extremes-are-happening-now.html
It is so much more worserer than we could ever have imagined.
Doomed we’d be, but for Barack and the climertolergists.
Hi Debbie,
Just noticed that Mr Superior intellect Wilkes finds you “hypercritical”, you must be some serious analyst mate.
Maybe his ‘speel cheque’ let him down , mid speel.
Now I’m being hypercritical .
Ian Thomson.
Rather than finding me ‘hypercritical’, I thought JW meant that SA water policy that sees SA demanding fresh water from upstream storages to flush out to sea while at the same time installing a desalination plant to turn sea water into fresh water is “hypercritical”. . .which was also perhaps a typo error for ‘hypocritical’ ?????
None of that changes the fact that SA is particularly geographically vulnerable in the ‘land of drought and flooding rains’.
Of all the places that installed desalination plants, the one in SA is probably the most necessary and will likely be very useful when the next inevitable drought rears its ugly head.
Maybe they could then also use the desalination plant to flush more fresh water out to sea when the upstream storages will be under drought EC rules and therefore only used for critical supplies????
@ian
I wrote:
“That is ironic isn’t it Debbie?
Or more precisely contradictory, hypercritical and stupid.,”
I thought I was clear and Debbie understood.
Still, I must be clearer in the future.
true it should be “hypocritical” but no need to be nasty about it, but have it your way Ian,
Eric Worrall is quick, this is headlining at Watts.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-10-24/eu-reaches-landmark-climate-change-deal/5839330
egg
Do I detect a ‘get-out’ clause here?
EU Agrees Conditional, Non-Binding Climate Deal Open To Review
Date: 24/10/14 EurActiv
EU leaders Thursday night (23 October) committed by 2030 to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 40%, and increase energy efficiency and renewables by at least 27% [provided there is a legally binding UN climate treaty]
French President François Hollande said the deal would send a clear message to other countries such as China and the US ahead of the talks in Paris next year to agree global legally binding greenhouse gas emissions.
A special “flexibility clause” was added to the final text, making it possible for the Council to return to the targets after the UN summit. But Hollande told reporters that the clause was not dependent on the Paris talks as the Council can revisit the targets anytime.
http://www.thegwpf.com/eu-agrees-conditional-climate-deal-open-to-review/
‘Do I detect a ‘get-out’ clause here?’
Mad if they don’t, if the pause in temperatures continues for another decade they’ll have nowhere to run.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/10/24/friday-funny-youre-a-climate-denier-if/
Debbie, I knew what you meant and I knew what JW meant, was just joking about the fact that he said the opposite, to what he actually meant. Sorry!
Has anybody got the power to stop , almost daily, rises and falls of our rivers, by all the different agencies involved.
Hay weir is empty one day and full the next , people living along the Murrumbidgee tell me the whole river is the same.
That it is wrecking the river and its banks,
The Murray seems to be at permanent flood level , ( I noticed last week, half of one of Tocumwal’s big beaches was flooded), and the Edward is pooping up and down, like the ‘Bidgee, although our weir is a little more consistent than Hay’s.
I assume that this is only the start of the ‘great reclamation ‘ and we are in for a lot more mess to come.
The S Australians on here should be jumping for joy, as NSW and Vic are being washed down there , making SA bigger.
The Bolter will have Dr Patrick Moore as a guest on his TV show tomorrow at 10am and 4pm. This gent from the Catallaxy files has some depressing news to report on the Moore meeting he attended . The list of promoters and religious observers of CAGW is indeed a big and perhaps insurmountable problem.
http://catallaxyfiles.com/2014/10/25/its-not-easy-being-non-green/
The NSW Office of Water (NOW) & State Water Corporation (SWC) and Office of Environment & Heritage (OEH) & Snowy Hydro Ltd (SHL) & Forrestry & BoM & Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder (CEWH) & Ministerial Council (Minco) & the MDBA and the Independant Infrastructure Operators (IIOs) + a few other bureaucratic or quasi bureaucratic entities all have power in this space Ian Thomson.
They are all supposedly ‘independant’ with their own boards and charters and water management agendas.
The management agendas do not agree with each other.
No wonder the rivers are going up and down like yo yos!
Us paying customers are thoroughly confused.
Anytime we try to ask some sensible questions the finger pointing begins in earnest.
The Fed entities blame the state entities and vice versa & then the state entities blame each other.
They all complain about lack of funding.
Meanwhile. . .us producers are unable to get timely access to our key input in order to produce and the rivers run periodic bankers as each different ‘authority’ does their disconnected bit.
The resultant waste of a valuable resource is just gob smacking!
I probably should add in ‘private investors & water traders’ ‘ to that original mix.
“Meanwhile. . .us producers are unable to get timely access to our key input in order to produce and the rivers run periodic bankers as each different ‘authority’ does their disconnected bit.”
That’s unbelievable, Debbie.
It should not be an asylum but when the loonies are running it, it soon becomes one.
It is certainly crazy SD.
Water policy in NSW looks to be suffering from schizophrenia or bi polar disorder.
Much of it seems to be politically driven by the mantra that native flora and fauna can’t possibly co exist with agriculture and that rivers have to be flushed in a similar manner to the way we flush toilets.
It is also being driven by a belief in BoM’s ability to forecast seasonal inflows.
Our water regulatory systems were designed to conserve water in times of excess so that it could be wisely used in the drier seasons.
They were not designed to create artificial floods and ‘over the bank’ flows in the drier seasons!
Putting this up for a chuckle, they are comparing the increase in Antarctic sea ice to Meltwater 1A and 1B.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/13/antarctic-sea-ice_n_5978238.html?cps=gravity